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4 No.1 JANUARY 16, 2018 TOPIC OF THE DAY WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA By Ivan KAPSAMUN, Valentyn TORBA, The Day Russia’s hybrid war against Ukraine has several dimensions. The aggressor is making use of not only weapons, but also humanitarian issues, such as, mainly, political and historical memory. Accordingly, a timely reaction and right accents are of great importance. Den/The Day has been writing about this for many years, in fact substituting the government in pursuing this humanitarian policy. We have always emphasized that Ukrainian statehood has ancient roots. Kyivan Rus’, the Principality of Galicia-Volhynia, the Lithuanian-Ruthenian State, the Cossack Hetmanate, the 18th-19thcentury national liberation movement, the 1917-21 Ukrainian Revolution, and the dissident movement in the USSR were milestones in the making of and the struggle for an independent Ukrainian state. Volodymyr Viatrovych, director of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, highlighted some key points the other day. The historian emphasized in a 5th Channel program: “It is important for us to say that the Ukrainian state is not something that happened accidentally in 1991. The Ukrainian state is the result of quite a long struggle of the Ukrainians for their independence. It is a major informational effort, and it needs to be reinforced. This will make it clear that presentday Ukraine is the UNR’s successor and explain what the Soviet period was really about. Politicians are more and more often making the statements that have long been heard from historians. I mean Soviet occupation, the establishment of a Bolshevik and then a communist occupation regime…” Viatrovych also pointed out that the 1991 Act of Declaration of Ukraine’s Independence does not need to be revised, but it would be better to speak of the restoration, not declaration, of Ukrainian independence. Moscow reacted immediately. “Speaking of this seriously, not only Crimea but a half of Ukraine should be returned to Russia because Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and the Donbas were not part of Ukraine before the establishment of the Soviet Union,” said Leonid Kalashnikov, Chairman of the State Duma Committee for the CIS, Eurasian Integration, and Links with Compatriots (ria.ru). The Russian leadership always interprets history in its own, warped, way. Indeed, a number of territories, including Western Ukraine, Bessarabia, and Crimea, were made part of the Ukrainian SSR in the Soviet era, but Russian politicians forget, for some reason, that all these territories used to be part of the Ukrainian National Republic, the Western Ukrainian People’s Republic, Carpathian Ukraine, and Skoropadsky’s Ukrainian State, not to mention the earlier periods. Moreover, Ukraine once included some territories of today’s Russia, such as Kuban and western parts of Belgorod and Voronezh oblasts. Therefore, these Russian claims, particularly about Kharkiv, Dnipro or the Donbas, a part of which Russia occupied in the present day, are groundless. Who was the occupier, pational in respect of our primordial Russian lands,” Aleksey Shiropaev wrote on his FB page. What do some well-known historians, lawyers, and politicians think of this? ● “I THINK THERE REALLY WERE SOME ELEMENTS OF OCCUPATION IN SOVIET UKRAINE” Leonid KRAVCHUK, first President of Ukraine: “It is a very difficult question whose successor Ukraine is. But in purely legal terms, there are signs of Ukraine’s occupation. We searched – painstakingly but in vain – for a document on the establishment of the USSR in 1922. No one knows who adopted and signed it. This means that no legal procedures were observed when the USSR was being formed. Secondly, no announced and signed documents were available in international organizations, including the League of Nations. In other words, the norms of international law were not observed either. So we But all the Russians are not the same. “Recognizing the whole period of Ukraine’s stay in the USSR as occupation is a very important, crucial step on the road of present-day Ukrainian nation formation. We, Russians proper, must accept and welcome this attitude unless, of course, we want to identify ourselves with the imperial Bolshevik power – all the more so that Red power was also occucannot say that the world community recognized the formation of the USSR to any extent. Putting all this together, we will arrive at the conclusion that there are no juridical grounds to claim that Ukraine, as a state that had existed for a long time, legitimately and voluntarily joined the USSR. As for the current independence of Ukraine, there are all the relevant documents that provide a legal basis for considering Ukraine a state. I think there really were some elements of occupation in the Soviet-era Ukraine. “Let me turn to my own life experience. When still a child, I saw several occupations. The first occupation was carried out by Poland, when Pilsudski gave some Ukrainian lands to his favorites. We called them ‘osadniks’ (‘settlers’). Then there was a Soviet occupation. The third occupation was German. The fourth occupation is what we can see now – the occupation of Crimea and a part of the Donbas. Let us be frank: if foreign troops come to our land and set up their order, this is called occupation. “As for whose legal successor Ukraine is, it is rather a difficult question to me. The independent Ukrainian state was established in 1991. We sometimes hear some historians speak of the restoration of or On our political legacy again Ukrainian statehood. This immediately raises a question – restoration of which state? Which period should we refer to? If we ‘dig deep,’ we will see that our political subjectness spans for much more than 25 or 100 years. Then we should begin from the period of Kyivan Rus’. It would be a good idea to find this truth. But when we speak of the restoration of statehood, we should be clearly aware of what is to be restored. Even if this state was not within the present limits, it was a subject.” ● “WHENEVER WE SPEAK OF RESTORING STATEHOOD, WE MUST REFER TO THE UKRAINIAN NATIONAL REPUBLIC” Stanislav KULCHYTSKYI, Doctor of Sciences (History); professor; department head, Institute of the History of Ukraine, National Academy of Sciences, Ukraine: “Whenever we speak of restoring statehood, we must refer to the Ukrainian National Republic. Soviet quasi-statehood was not genuine statehood, although we seemed to have a constitution. But that constitution did not reflect [communist] party dictatorship. Soviet power was two-tiered – it was the rule of the party on the one hand and of the Soviets (councils) on the other. Dictatorship played the main role at the time. Gorbachev broke the link between the party committees and the Soviets. The Soviets thus gained sovereignty. Before that, party committees had been nominating candidates to the Soviets, although there was an outward imitation of free elections. The grassroots also gained sovereignty. Earlier, the grassroots had gained sovereignty after the downfall of autocracy, but they quickly lost it after the Bolshevik October 1917 coup, only to regain it in 1989, when the first free elections were held. The year 1990 saw the first free elections to the constituent republics’ Soviets. This triggered the collapse of the Soviet Union. ❷ What about the borders? Suppose the UNR borders are an alternament thus legalized the occupation. I fully accept this term. Soviet power finally took root in the early 1930s during the Holodomor. The liberation movement ground to a halt, only to revive when dissidents emerged. Therefore, governmental structures were nationalized, and it would be wrong to speak of occupation in the pure sense of the word in this case. As for Western Ukraine, the occupied status existed there until 1991. Western Ukraine is particular in that it lived under Soviet power one generation less than the other regions of Ukraine. This also had an impact on the 1991elections, when western Ukrainians in fact formed an anticommunist government.” ● “SEVENTY YEARS OF SOVIET UKRAINE WAS NOT AN EMPTY VACUUM” Viktor MUSIIAKA, Professor, Kyiv Mohyla Academy; Member of Parliament, 2nd and 4th convocations: “The question of referring our statehood to the UNR or any other historical period is important in a histo- “There is one more point here. In the first years, Soviet power was totally occupational. Then there came some complicated and interesting processes, such as Ukrainization, when the Kremlin was trying to instill its authority in Ukraine. Those processes began to strip Ukraine of the signs of occupation. The governrical and political context. But we should not consider the existence of the Ukrainian SSR as a historical hole that allegedly does not exist. Otherwise, we may in fact get lost in a maze without a way out. In 1991, when Ukrainians voted for their independence, they did not begin from scratch. There had been a long period of our formation. Seventy years of Soviet Ukraine was not an empty vacuum. The Constitution of the Ukrainian SSR was renamed as Constitution of Ukraine with a number of changes. Approaches to ownership were radically changed, but we must remember that the legal basis remained the same. When the current Constitution of Ukraine was being adopted in 1996, MPs were guided by the provisions of the previous constitution which says that a new constitution and amendments to it are to be passed by the Verkhovna Rada. In other words, we did not carry out a revolution but used what had been achieved before. “As for the UNR, we should take into account how long it existed and how it was being established. There were a lot of controversial points there. From the very beginning, the socialists who formed the UNR were not for the full independence of Ukraine. Its first decrees spoke of autonomy within the Russian Empire and then the Russian Federation. Independence was mentioned in the last decree. So, when we refer to that period, we should also take public opinion into account. I don’t think Ukrainian society is taking an unequivocal attitude to this question. Even the Venice Commission affirms that the Soviet period of our history should be taken into account in legal terms.” ● “WE SHOULD FIRST ANSWER TO OURSELVES SOME FUNDAMENTAL, BASIC, QUESTIONS” Ihor SIUNDIUKOV, editor, “History and I” section, newspaper Den: “Before accepting or rejecting the statement that 1920-91 were years of occupation in the history of Ukraine and, accordingly, such a quasi-state as the Ukrainian SSR was ‘occupational,’ we should answer to ourselves some fundamental, basic, questions: ❶ Do we take into account all the states or quasi-state formations that existed on the territory of Ukraine (Kyivan Rus’, the Kingdom of Rus’, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Cossack Hetmanate State, the UNR, Pavlo Skoropadsky’s Hetmanate, and the Ukrainian SSR (a crucial point!)), using and drawing the best of each of these institutions and learning their sometimes horrible experience, or do we let only politically ‘suitable’ pages into history? tive to the era of occupation – but they do not coincide at all with the borders of the current Ukrainian state. They are essentially more modest. Should we return this ‘difference’ to Russia, the successor of the empire? In the long run, the borders of Skoropadsky’s Hetmanate are incomparably more legitimate. (Incidentally, the hetman used to take effective measures to make Crimea and Kuban part of Ukraine.) This is an extremely difficult, delicate, and ticklish issue which must in no case be ignored. ❸ If there was occupation, there inevitably were collaborationists (‘quislings’). Who was among them? Mykola Skrypnyk, Mykola Khvyliovy, Yurii Kotsiubynsky, or the ‘activists’ who would take the last food from their Ukrainian brothers in 1933, or Petro Shelest, Maksym Rylsky, Oleksandr Dovzhenko, Mykola Bazhan, who had to be loyal, at least outwardly, to the regime in certain (sometimes long) periods? And Mykola Amosov, Oleh Antonov, Viktor Nekrasov, and other prominent ethnic Russians – were they ‘occupiers’? And what is more, would the occupation have been possible without support from at least a part of Ukrainian society?”
WWW.DAY.KIEV.UA TOPIC OF THE DAY No.1 JANUARY 16, 2018 5 VALENTYN BADRAK By Ivan KAPSAMUN, The Day Having decided to provide arms to Ukraine, the US is worried about the possibility of US military technology falling into Russian soldiers’ hands. This is stated in the article “U.S., Ukraine Try to Ensure Weapons Don’t Fall to Enemy,” which appeared in The Wall Street Journal. The publication notes that for that reason, the Javelin anti-tank missiles (ATMs) are supposed to be kept at the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF)’s depots in permanent bases located far back from the frontlines. Also, American soldiers, who are now training Ukrainian servicemen at the Yavoriv Combat Training Center, could soon move to training centers in Central Ukraine as well, to regularly check and count these arms. So, how substantiated are the fears of Americans? Are there reasons for this? We discussed it with Valentyn Badrak, who serves as director of the Center for Army Research, Conversion and Disarmament. ● “THE U.S. GOVERNMENT DOES NOT ACCEPT THE PUTINIST KREMLIN’S ATTEMPTS TO IMPOSE A REVISION OF THE SECURITY SYSTEM” “Yes, the reasons do exist. For the US, Ukraine remains a country that did not seize a historic opportunity, although it had every reason to become a political and economic regional leader after the collapse of the USSR. We did not seize it ‘because of the human factor.’ Leonid Kuchma’s multivector approach turned out to be a case of spinelessness that transformed into unstable foreign policy of his pupils and made the situation into a confirmation of Samuel Huntington’s conception of civilizational fault lines. As you know, Huntington drew one of them between Western and Eastern Ukraine. Therefore, the US leadership, by and large, does not trust our government and is not convinced that Ukraine has become an asset to it. Not in the sense of ‘distrusting Petro Poroshenko,’ but in the sense of being uncertain whether a significant disappointment among Ukrainians in the current government might not lead to a pro-Russian politician’s taking lead. Of course, with support from Russia, whose political representation in Ukraine remains strong. “The US is well aware of the position of the Ukrainian authorities and develops its own position accordingly. President Poroshenko opted for a strategy of palliative action in the struggle against the enemy, and the US is also implementing a half-hearted action strategy. The US, and maybe Canada, are the only Western nations who are really interested in making Ukraine into a strong buffer between the West and Russia. All other NATO countries, except Poland and the Baltic States, will do nothing for the real strengthening of Ukraine. Not just Javelins Valentyn BADRAK: “It is important for Ukraine to build on the American anti-tank missiles deliveries and become an ally of the US” “Therefore, deliveries of Javelin ATMs are a symbolic step. They offer psychological support to Ukraine and serve as a signal for Russia that the US government does not accept the Putinist Kremlin’s attempts to impose a revision of the security system. More so given that these weapon systems cannot strategically influence the course of the war, it is just that the word ‘Javelin’ has become a mantra that everyone repeats and everyone listens to. It is important for Ukraine to build on this situation and become an ally of the US, similar to, say, Israel or Poland.” ● “THE U.S. IS WELL- INFORMED ABOUT NUANCES OF UKRAINE’S PERSONNEL POLICY IN THE FIELD OF SECURITY AND DEFENSE” Also, WSJ writes that American weapons falling into enemy hands “is not a theoretical problem.” It notes that, after the US delivered shortrange counter-battery radars to Ukrainian military in 2014, some components at least of one of these radars were captured by combined Russian and separatist forces during fierce fighting near Debaltseve. What do you know about this? “This is more a ‘technical’ issue, which depends on many factors. But it is also a legitimate question. Since the Ilovaisk debacle, the Ukrainian army has become stronger by an order of magnitude, and this is true. But it happened because our people ceased to be pacifists and learned to respond quickly to bombardments and sudden offensive actions of the enemy. At the same time, the US government is well-informed about the nuances of Ukraine’s personnel policy in the field of security and defense. Speaking of the UAF, experienced and talented fighters have been given brigade-level commands, and in individual cases combat arm-level commands. Under conditions where the automated command and control system has not been fully created, to say the least, and Russia has already completed its cycle of preparations for a largescale war, no one is immune from Vladimir Putin embarking on another military adventure after the presidential election. Of course, if he succeeds in maintaining control of the situation. Were Putin not in the Kremlin, but in Bankova Street, he would have ceased to be the head of state a long time ago, but unfortunately, Russians have an Asianlevel store of patience. So, we see that a ‘technical’ scenario is possible as well. Meanwhile, the US government would justly regard Javelin systems falling into the hands of Russian terrorists as a defeat in its symbolic clash with the Krem- lin in a ‘disputed’ area. However, the US government needs to supply such weapons to Ukraine as much as Ukraine needs to obtain them. Financial expenditures are small, but they may have an oversized effect if they strengthen the anti-Russian sentiments of Ukrainian society, improve the morale of the military and eventually turn Ukraine into a powerful and well-protected player in the Western camp. In addition, the likely technological loss on the US’ part in the event of the FGM-148 Javelin falling into the hands of Russian troops in the Donbas is significantly exaggerated, as this is a late 1980s design, although a powerful one. US troops have been receiving these anti-tank systems since the late 1990s.” ● “TALENTED DESIGNER OLEH KOROSTELIOV HAS CREATED A SCHOOL OF PRECISION WEAPONS DESIGN RIGHT BEFORE OUR EYES” It is known that this year, the Ukrainian army introduced the Korsar light man-portable missile system, which, according to experts, is little inferior to the American Javelin. I would like to hear your comparative assessment of these missiles. If the experts are right, were the Ukrainian military-political leadership’s steady requests for the American side to provide the aforementioned anti-tank weapons really justified? “Despite the fact that many consider Javelin ATMs to be more technologically advanced and even say that the Javelin and the Korsar ATM belong to different generations, I do not think so. Technologically, the Korsar is a highprecision weapon capable of killing any tank or self-propelled gun with one shot at a distance of 2.5 km (although it is really difficult to find such a long line of sight, and in most real combat cases, it is sufficient to hit the target from a distance of one and a half kilometers). By the way, the Javelin has the same range – up to 2.5 km. It should be understood that the key point of the modern battle REUTERS photo is the training of soldiers and the willingness of the government to saturate the combat zone with domestic ATMs, which are also not that cheap. In fact, the media should have started promoting and broadcasting cases of hostile weapon platforms being hit by these missiles long ago. The fact that Javelin systems are capable of hitting vehicles from the upper hemisphere is a clear technological advantage. For guiding and firing missiles, the Javelin uses an infrared fire-andforget homing system, while the Korsar uses semi-automatic laser beam guidance (that is, after the shot, the operator needs to keep the target in the crosshairs for 8 to 12 seconds). One of the technological advantages of the Javelin ATM is the availability of a ‘soft’ launch, which allows a shot to be made even from closed and confined premises. As an obvious disadvantage, experts list the fact that the missile’s homing system needs to be pre-cooled for not less than 25 to 30 seconds. In addition, experts insist that the effective use of Javelin systems is possible only for personnel who have been through a training course for ATM operators. But in general, both ATM types can be seen as comparable, and looking at the price, the domestic design costs just a fraction of its counterpart. The cost of one American ATM can be as high as 50,000 dollars, and the export price of one launcher with missile complement can be as high as 170,000 dollars, while other sources cite ‘more than 200,000 dollars,’ while the price of a complete Korsar is estimated at about 130,000 dollars, and a missile costs just 20,000 dollars. In addition, it is important to take into account a number of factors, of which the most important is domestic arms self-sufficiency. When we buy the Korsar, which was introduced in August 2017, we invest in the development of domestic precision weapons. In fact, talented designer Oleh Korosteliov has created this school of design before our eyes; he is the general designer and general director of the Luch State Design Bureau in Kyiv. The support for this school is directly related to the creation of a cruise missile, a new powerful multiple rocket launcher and even a domestic midrange surface-to-air missile system. It should be added that the Korsar ATM can be used as part of combat modules, that is to say, it can be installed on all types of armored vehicles operated by the UAF. So, the importance of the present moment is in combining American assistance, technology, support with Ukrainian consistency in the development of weapons. Therefore, in fact, the Javelin and the Korsar systems ideologically and technologically complement each other in the UAF. “I would like to raise another point to create a full panorama of shortrange precision weapons being developed in Ukraine. Besides the Korsar, Ukraine has other guided ATMs – the Skif and the Stuhna-P (they have essentially the same characteristics, but the Skif uses the PN-S control system which is produced by the Belarusian Peleng JSC). So, this ATM is capable of ‘killing’ enemy targets from a distance of five kilometers, and remote control is available as well. By the way, Skifs are used by a number of states (thanks to Ukraine’s strong exports), and in 2017, the Luch Design Bureau continued to supply Stuhna- P missile systems, delivering about 300 RK-2 missiles ahead of schedule ‘with the number of launchers specified by the customer,’ as noted in the media. Both the Korsar and the Skif can be used to defeat low-heat targets as well, that is, pillboxes and other engineering structures, while the Javelin cannot do it.” ● “RUSSIA HAS NO ATMS OF THE JAVELIN’S TECHNOLOGICAL LEVEL, THEIR VERSIONS OF THE KORNET SYSTEM ARE EQUAL TO OUR SKIF” Speaking of the American Javelin or the Ukrainian Korsar, can Russia counteract them in any way? What weapons do they have now with regard to light man-portable missile systems? “Russia has no ATMs of the Javelin’s technological level, their versions of the Kornet system are equal to our Skif. The Kornet missile is also a laser beam rider and is more versatile, but it still belongs to the generation 2+, while the Javelin is a third-generation system. But I want to emphasize once again: in the current war, everything depends on the training of firing teams, the mobility, the ability of the state to provide troops with comprehensive logistics, rather than an individual element.” After it became known that the US would deliver lethal weapons to Ukraine, after all, the Kremlin offered predictably sharp criticism, threatening bloodshed in the Donbas. In your opinion, what can Russia do, after all, as we remember the Kremlin’s earlier statements on this issue? “All sides have long been accustomed to the Kremlin treating Ukraine as a battlefield in its rivalry with the West and a testing laboratory for its military machine. We know the limits of Putin’s actions. He has long crossed multiple ‘red lines’ and been working to destroy the independent state of Ukraine. Therefore, the only way left open for us is to be unafraid and get stronger, to be prepared as much as possible to repel the enemy. For any other approach amounts to surrender.”
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