In an article posted to the website of the American Committee for U.S.-Russia Accord (ACURA), originally published by Krasnos Analysis Dec. 14, former U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union Jack Matlock thoroughly discusses the origins of Ukraine’s current disunity, which has nothing to do with “Russian interference.” He points to the folly of U.S. policy, especially during the 2014 Maidan coup and subsequent years, which, by targeting Russia and, together with NATO, interfering in Ukraine’s civil struggle and taking action that Russia perceives as a threat to its national security, has exacerbated the crisis and “raised the specter of possible conflict between nuclear armed powers.” It is time to understand why Ukraine today is a “state but not yet a nation,” Matlock says, the dangerous situation which interference by the West has produced, and what steps must be taken to remedy a situation that has reached a point that “could easily turn out to be a suicidal course.”
Matlock thoroughly reviews Ukraine’s history since the end of WWII, to explain the source of its disunity, as it was made up of disparate parts of interwar Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Russian-speaking Crimea—people with different historical experiences, languages, and deeply divided along linguistic and cultural lines. No leader has ever appeared able to unite the nation around a “shared concept of Ukrainian identity.” Rather than centralized government, it needs a federal government that could grant a degree of autonomy to regions.
The former ambassador pulls no punches in discussing the Maidan coup, in which, he notes, the U.S. and the EU openly advocated detaching Ukraine from the Russian security sphere and attaching it to the West through EU and NATO memberships. “Never mind that Ukraine was unable at that time to meet the normal requirements for either EU or NATO membership.” He points to the role of “irregular militias” taking over the local offices headed by appointees of then-President Yanukovich and to the fact that many demonstrators were shot by sniper fire. Claims that the government’s security force, the Berkut, was responsible for the shooting were never substantiated in subsequent trials, Matlock points out. When Yanukovich fled the country, the U.S. and EU immediately recognized the successor government, but Russia and many Russian-speaking Ukrainians considered his ouster to be an “illegal coup d’état.” Thus, Russia supported the rebellion in the Eastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk, and provided them with military equipment and irregular forces.
Matlock points out that the events that followed 2015—the non-implementation of the Minsk agreement, economic sanctions against Russia for annexing Crimea, and other things—have only “stimulated hostile emotions rather than encouraged solution of problems. What needs to be understood is that Russia perceives these issues as matters of vital national security.” Just as the U.S. would be and has been, Russia is very sensitive about foreign military activity adjacent to its borders. “It has signaled repeatedly that it will stop at nothing to prevent NATO membership for Ukraine.” Yet since the times of Bush-Cheney, Ukraine membership in NATO “has been an avowed objective of U.S. and NATO policy. “This makes absolutely no sense. It is also dangerous to confront a nuclear-armed power with military threats on its border.”
