Letters from Vienna #151
Letter to an Austrian Friend #1
Ukraine and the Rule of Law I
Dear K
In the light of our heated yet civilized coffee house discussion on the question of the legal rights and wrongs of the current conflict in the Ukraine I considered it best to put pen to paper and articulate my thoughts, which, hardly surprising given the late hour and my state of inebriation, were undoubtedly garbled and inchoate in the manner of their presentation at the time.
The object of the exercise is to clarify both of our points of view. This is not a question of one-upmanship, competition or to prove who is the cleverer (I needn’t mention who I think this happens to be!) but rather serves the purpose of setting out, in the best, clearest and fairest possible manner the pros and cons of the case.
On the face of it you are perfectly right: parts or regions of countries can’t simply declare themselves to be independent. If that were to happen there’d simply be chaos (I’m wont to use the term: “anarchy” because it’s so often been (deliberately) used and abused.). Geo-political, social and economic instability would be the inevitable consequence.
Nevertheless, an individual state isn’t an inviolable monolith and if one studies history (especially the history of Africa, India and Pakistan or the Middle East) it becomes abundantly clear that imperially imposed demarcation lines have all too often proven wholly arbitrary.
On the other hand: the individual state remains our best defense against the encroachments of malignant, quasi-Fascist “Globalist”, “Deep State” entities such as NATO, the EU and the UN, which threaten our very existence; it is those entities (the visible manifestations of the Global Deep State in pursuit of a “One World Government” agenda), which are the root causes of the ongoing “Genocide by Jab”.
Yet in the case of the Ukraine, I’d argue, the line of argument you follow: that a central government or individual state can do whatever it pleases and remains, regardless of circumstances, inviolate, has dire consequences and could even, at its most extreme, be used to justify the Holocaust. Having said that I by no means support the R2P (Responsibility to Protect) philosophy, which has simply been used and abused to further the hegemony of the Anglo-American Empire and the Globalist agenda. The Westphalian system of international law, whereby each and every state has exclusive sovereignty over its own territory, remains, despite the best efforts of the nefarious Globalists, in effect.
The first problem we’re confronted with is the question of in what manner the Ukraine conforms to abstract concepts such as “independent” or “democratic”, “state”.
It is traditional to trace the origins of the Ukraine back to the Kiev Rus but, as Orlando Figes points out: “it is absurd to claim that Kievan Rus was the birthplace of the modern Russian or Ukrainian state.”[1]
An alternative, considerably more useful, starting point might well be the creation of the Uniate (Greek Catholic or Ukrainian Catholic) church in the 16th century or 1667 when “Russia and Poland divided the Ukrainian lands…Poland retained the territories west of the Dnipro, and Muscovy controlled Kyiv and the lands east of the Dnipro.”[2] At the same time it must be born in mind that a specifically “Ukrainian identity” is a relatively recent phenomenon and “the ethnic designation of Ukrainians originated only in the nineteenth century”[3].
As you’ll doubtlessly recall: Gogol considered himself to be Russian (see letter #67[4]), Chekhov referred to those living in the Ukraine as “Little Russians” and the language they spoke as “Little Russian” (see letter #88[5]) while Joseph Conrad’s father (see letter #57[6]) was, above all else, concerned with conserving a distinctive, Polish rather than Ukrainian cultural identity.
More pertinent is the argument that the modern form of the Ukraine is essentially the creation of the German General Staff in 1918 (see letter #32).[7]
When the Ukraine “voted for independence” in 1991 it came to many, including myself, as something of a surprise. All the interviews I watched were uniform in their message: that the Russians and Ukrainians were “brothers”, “one people” and that a separation was “unthinkable” (as I recall the opinion polls told much the same story). Furthermore, in March 1991, a vote seemed to favor unity:
“The 1991 Soviet Union referendum remains the only example of actual democracy in the history of the USSR. The ballot was set for March 17, 1991. Citizens had to answer “Yes” or “No” to the question: “Do you consider it necessary to preserve the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a renewed federation of equal sovereign republics, where human rights and freedoms will be guaranteed to all nationalities?””
“A lot of criticism was voiced regarding the vague wording, which allowed the results to be interpreted very broadly. But for most Soviet citizens, the question presented a simple choice between the two options: they had to say whether they are for or against the existence of the Soviet Union. In the course of the preparation for the referendum, it became clear that the USSR as it was no longer existed, as Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Georgia, Moldova and Armenia had declared they would not hold an all-out referendum on their territory. There, votes were held in some designated areas: polling stations worked in a number of organizations, enterprises and military bases.”
“Some of those republics that agreed to run the referendum made changes. In the Ukrainian SSR, a supplemental question was added to the main one: “Do you agree that Ukraine should be part of the Union of Soviet Sovereign States on the basis of Ukraine’s Sovereignty Declaration?” The republic’s population was en masse not bothered by the inherent conflict within the wording, between the preservation of the USSR and the republic becoming its part as a “sovereign state” based on the 1990 Sovereignty Declaration. That can be easily explained by the fact that nothing really changed after sovereignty was enacted, except some attempts to introduce a new currency.”[8]
Yet, paradoxically, in December 1991 when asked: ““Do you support the Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine?” (Foreign Affairs Minister Anatoliy) Zlenko reported to the press that the referendum had officially passed with an overwhelming 90.3 percent of the vote in favor of independence. The over turnout was also remarkable, with 84.1 percent of eligible voters taking part in the election. Every oblast of Ukraine, as well as all Crimea, voted in favor of independence from the Soviet Union.”[9]
It’s impossible, with hindsight, to know with any degree of certainty, whether either (or both) referenda were rigged. However, it must be born in mind that the territory has long been a central pawn in the “Great Game” (see letter #53[10]), can essentially be characterized as a “Kleptocracy” and the US has invested vast sums in it.[11]
Similarly, there is a discrepancy between identity and language. While the majority of people identify as Ukrainians a sizeable portion speak Russian as a first language[12].
In short: the Ukraine is a complex patchwork of many languages and ethnicities and it would be foolish to treat it as a monolith.
“As seen from Ukraine,” Serhy Yekelchyk tells us “the Soviet collapse in 1991 was no revolution with clear-cut victors and obvious regime change. The republic obtained independence peacefully when the Soviet Union disintegrated, and the same politicians and industrial managers who for decades had built socialism became founding fathers…of the independent Ukrainian state.”[13]
Indeed: “Instead of launching privatization, the government of Vitold Fokin subsidized unprofitable state factories to prevent mass unemployment, but the credits it issued were still in rubles, as Ukraine had not fully separated its financial system from that of Russia. By the fall of 1992, Russia’s Central Bank realized that this Ukrainian policy fueled hyperinflation in Russia and stopped honoring ruble credits issued by the Ukrainian National Bank.”[14]
Yet at the same time as they tried to exploit Mother Russia “Ukraine’s post-Soviet elites emerged from the collapse of Communism with an ideology borrowed from the nationalists to justify their power. Thus, (Leonid) Kravchuk substantiated his rift with Russia by embracing a nationalistic concept of Ukrainian history as a long struggle against Russian oppression.”
Nationalism was simply a means of hiding the sins of the Kleptocracy and its “crony capitalism” as well as a means of excusing plummeting living standards. Instead of being fed food the people were fed lies.
“During his first term, Kuchma went through four prime ministers, but it was the third one, Pavlo Lazarenko (May 1994-July 1997), who best embodied the spirit of “crony capitalism” then under construction in Ukraine. A collective farm chairman and minor Communist Party functionary in Soviet times, after independence Lazarenko (b.1953) grew to political prominence in his home province of Dniprotetrovsk. Through various shady business schemes, he also accumulated a considerable fortune. While he was prime minister, he moved into energy and communications businesses on a large scale (with his companies registered under other people’s names) and was also accused of extortion and ordering contract killings of rival businessmen. During his short term at the helm of government, Lazarenko allegedly stashed hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S., Swiss, and Antiguan banks.”[15]
I fear that this letter is much too long and I’m boring you; I’ll continue in the next one. I hope however, that I’ve helped show that the Ukraine has long been, sadly, a “failed state” and has long been neither “independent” nor “democratic”.
[1] p.33 The Story of Russia, Orlando Figes
[2] p.29 Ukraine, Serhy Yekelchyk
[3] p.24 Ibid
[4] https://lettersfromvienna.substack.com/p/was-gogol-russian-or-ukrainian
[5] https://lettersfromvienna.substack.com/p/chekhov-and-the-ukraine
[6] https://lettersfromvienna.substack.com/p/joseph-conrad-and-the-ukraine
https://lettersfromvienna.substack.com/p/why-are-there-nazis-in-the-ukraine
[8] https://www.azerbaycan24.com/en/how-ukrainians-voted-for-the-preservation-of-the-soviet-union-in-1991-but-still-ended-up-in-an-independent-state-later-that-year/
[9] https://subscription.ukrweekly.com/2021/12/recalling-the-national-referendum-on-ukrainian-independence-of-december-1-1991-3/
[10] https://lettersfromvienna.substack.com/p/sucking-the-life-out-of-ukrainians
[12] https://www.indexmundi.com/ukraine/demographics_profile.html
https://theconversation.com/why-many-ukrainians-speak-russian-as-their-first-language-190856
[13] p.193 Ukraine, Serhy Yekelchyk
[14] pp.197-198 Ibid
[15] pp.203-204