In the ebb and flow of the Ukraine crisis over the last three months one issue has continually demanded but not received sufficient attention: political and constitutional relations between Kiev and the country's eastern regions. Having achieved power after former president Viktor Yanukovich fled the country, the parties based mainly in the west of the country have failed to respond to demands that eastern cultural and regional rights be respected. This left the field open to Russian-backed separatists who have ratcheted up their paramilitary pressure.
Talks to address this question that began yesterday in Kiev could help find an alternative path to that of civil war or prolonged destabilisation of Ukraine. The separatist paramilitaries are not included, but other political representatives from the eastern regions are. The talks are supported by Russia and Germany, the two powers pivotal to the international side of this conflict. They have been welcomed too by the European Union, which must find a way back to a more constructive relationship with Russia if a longer-term accommodation is to be reached.
All concerned have need of an initiative like this if they are to step aside from what otherwise looks like an inevitable escalation of military incidents, sanctions and geopolitical confrontation. It has been especially difficult to interpret President Vladimir Putin’s intentions as he played his diplomatic, military and political cards to maintain Russia’s position in relation to Ukraine and other states in Russia’s near abroad. A further escalation into third-level sanctions would inflict heavy damage on its economy and on Germany and other EU members and risk civil war in Ukraine.
Such a bleak scenario should give everyone pause to consider less bellicose alternatives. These talks have promise because they address a key issue in the conflict with apparent goodwill from all sides. Most people in eastern Ukraine would rather remain citizens of that state, according to credible polling evidence. But many are genuinely afraid those now in control of Kiev are quite out of sympathy with their linguistic, cultural and political rights. The line between a more decentralised or federalised state expresses only too clearly Kiev’s fear that deep federalisation would put eastern Ukraine on an irreversible road to secession, while their offers to devolve taxation and local government powers are insufficient to convince easterners they are sincere.
Ukraine’s presidential elections later this month are a crucial stabilising factor for its future. Were all the presidential candidates to commit unreservedly to pursue these talks it would become easier for the Russians to accept this fact too. A bargain swapping a more federal Ukraine for a Russian acceptance of its integrity might then become possible.