With Russian hawks circling, the west would be wise not to ignore this week’s elections in Ukraine

The upcoming presidential elections in Ukraine attract fairly modest attention in the west. Perhaps there’s nothing strange in that because everybody is focused either on Brexit, or on the gilets jaunes protests in France, or the fallout from the release of the Mueller report in the United States.

But however important all these issues might be, the future of Ukraine is not less crucial for Europe and for the world.

The elections of 2019 – both the presidential polls in March and April and the parliamentary elections scheduled for October – may be the first since 2010 that signal that Ukraine is losing its pro-European momentum and might turn back to some sort of “reconciliation” with Russia.

However, there are no openly pro-Russian candidates likely to squeeze into the presidential run-off, and Russian propaganda is officially banned in Ukraine – but the Kremlin is betting on different tactics, and may be winning.

There are some issues in particular that we should take note of in this context: more than 48 per cent of Ukrainians express positive or mostly positive attitudes towards Russia; the issue of regaining the control over Crimea ranks 16th on the list on their major concerns; and the leaders of several political parties are openly calling for the “autonomisation” of eastern Ukraine (while possessing businesses in Russia and even Crimea).

President Putin ultimately believes Ukraine to be part of “historical Russia”, with the Russians and the Ukrainians constituting a single people. He – and many others in Russia – desperately wishes to get revenge for the “humiliations” of 2004 and 2014. This time, new tactics are in play.

First, the Kremlin now wants not so much to impose its own puppet as Ukraine’s president, but to dethrone the current one, Petro Poroshenko. Poroshenko firmly opposed Russian aggression in his country’s east and has contributed quite significantly to the revival of Ukraine’s economy.

He has also, very notably, lobbied western governments both for aid to Ukraine and for sanctions against Russia. He has even succeeded in restoring the authority of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, independent from the Russian one.

The first pick as a potential rival was Yulia Tymoshenko, the former prime minister famous for orchestrating a 2009 deal with Vladimir Putin (who at the time was Russia’s prime minister). Under this deal, Ukraine started to pay a price for Russian gas 30 per cent higher than Germany did in on average during 2009. Tymoshenko never said a bad word about Putin, and she voted neither against the renewal of the Treaty of Friendship between Ukraine and Russia after the nations had been at war for five years, nor for a constitutional amendment declaring integration into Nato and EU to be Ukraine’s goal.

Now, with Tymoshenko a firm third in the polls, Russia relies on her mostly as the leader of a strong party that will form one of the largest factions in the Ukrainian parliament (Rada) after the October elections. For a more likely contender, Moscow silently favours Vladimir Zelensky, backed by an oligarch, Ihor Kolomoïsky, who lives in Israel.

The second part of Moscow’s plan is to back many second-line candidates and their parties in the hope they will infiltrate the new parliament and form a majority that opposes Poroshenko in the event that he retains the presidency.

This would turn Ukraine into a dysfunctional polity unable to address the most vital issues the nation is facing. What the Kremlin wants, I would argue, is to restore the “oligarchic” nature of Ukrainian politics. Every candidate who now calls for “negotiations” with Moscow or sees “concessions” to Russia as a necessary prerequisite for a lasting peace is backed by industrial and financial magnates, even though, during Poroshenko's tenure, the influence of big business on political life decreased significantly.

The presidential campaign is seen by many secondary candidates only as a means to become more noticeable in the wake of the parliamentary polls. By using the connections of Putin’s most loyal ally in Ukraine, Viktor Medvedchuk, the Kremlin securing control over the Rada.

Mr Medvedchuk openly relies on the Kremlin’s support. So much so that he recently escorted opposition presidential candidate Yuriy Boyko to Moscow, where they met Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Gazprom’s chef Alexei Miller to debate the lowering of gas prices – as if they were already in power.

As things stand, Ukraine is these days a parliamentary-presidential republic. And the powers of the president might be reduced even further if the Rada is controlled by the opposition.

The third element in the Kremlin strategy sees Moscow continuing to support the main opposition candidates. In some cases this is done openly, as with Medvedchuk, who is the owner of oil fields in Russia. These provide him with money to support his political activities in Ukraine. In other instances it is more covert, with Russia using technology to spread fake news and mobilising “internet bots” in support of the candidates it prefers.

Tymoshenko, who led the Ukrainian political community in terms of social media followers, was found to be a beneficiary of non-human fans when YouTube concluded that 44 per cent of her subscribers were fakes (they were suspended as a consequence).

open image in gallery

Moscow also does what it can to discredit the incumbent president, continuously publishing false news about him and his campaign and depicting him as a “puppet” in the hands of the western powers. Even though the Russian media is now much less influential in Ukraine than it was in past years, the Kremlin disperses anti-Poroshenko information through its allies, notably via smaller parties who get access to the local and national media via radio and television stations controlled by Medvedchuk and by the oligarchs supporting Tymoshenko.

The most crucial factor about all the major opposition candidates these days is that in one form or another they have made clear they will engage in talks with Vladimir Putin to strike a deal with Russia on the future of the eastern Ukrainian territories now under control of the Russia-backed separatists.

Both Tymoshenko and Zelensky have put this issue very firmly in the centre of their policy pledges. By stark contrast, Poroshenko is trying to convince his compatriots he will be able to regain both the Donbass and Crimea “quite soon”.

Of course, it is easy to cast doubt on whether that is possible, but I would suggest that any “peace” talks with Russia have the potential to put Ukrainian sovereignty under real strain. Moscow will press hard for huge concessions to be made if Kiev wants the occupied territories back. Those who openly call for such talks seem to be ready to offer them for Putin to turn to his advantage.

The Russian administration still considers that it “lost” Ukraine (politically) both in 2004 and 2014 after it tried to use all the power at its disposal – in the first case “soft” power, and in the second “hard” – to prevent the country from becoming more European.

Now the Kremlin is seeking to stop a further drift towards Ukraine’s Europeanisation by acting almost invisibly – using the virtues of a rather free and democratic society to bring Ukraine back to an authoritarian and oligarchic past.

Poroshenko is not perhaps the best president his country has had or could have. Under his rule, progress in fighting corruption has slowed dramatically, and he is rightly criticised for numerous missed opportunities.

Nevertheless, the west should recognise that Ukrainian politics is an important game. And they must take part in it, because either Russia or Europe (but probably not both) can gain.

If pro-European voices in Ukraine are ultimately drowned out and Russian imperial aspirations are revived, Europe will face much greater challenges than either Brexit or gilets jaunes could create.