Ukraine disintegrates, says Russian expert

An event that changed the course of Ukraine’s history happened a year ago. The Maidan provoked at least two conflicts. The first conflict is between the Kiev government and the so-called “Novorossiya” and the second one is between different groups from the Maidan struggling for power.

Fedor Lukyanov, a member of the Russian Council for International Affairs, the head of the Presidium of the Foreign and Defense Policy Council, believes that Russia, Ukraine and the “militia” have their own stages of national self-identification: “The model of national identification, national revolution, as it was immediately called in January-February this year, became an important element of all events and brings the events beyond the lines of ordinary conflicts.”

According to Lukyanov, “Ukraine went along the Eastern European, Central European line, if we can say so, when elements, starting with lustration (something that has not happened anywhere in the post-Soviet space, except the Baltic states) and ending with the formation of a romantic myth about victims of the fight for independence, something Ukraine has never had because there was no fight for independence. Now they have appeared – “The Heavenly Hundred,” “Blood on the Maidan” and so on. Martyrs and victims appeared on the Eastern side, distancing the sides even more.”

Lukyanov considers Russia’s involvement in the conflict a very important element in the picture. He believes that it is undergoing its own process of national self-identification.

The expert believes that the ideological element is complicating searches for a compromise, much needed for a peaceful resolution of the situation: “In the conflict, where it was initially obvious that the geopolitical keynote is the fleet, NATO, Crimea, they are easily explained in the categories of national security. At some moment, the element of the “Russian world,” the self-identification of Russia, was added there. It has qualitatively changed the situation associated with the East of Ukraine and with the further opportunity of Russia to manoeuvre, because when the problem about concrete guarantees of joining/not joining or deploying/not deploying is one case, while implementation of the national element is a different story. Compromises here are either impossible or they are extremely narrow, because the issues are very emotional.”

 “Conflicts in the post-Soviet space have so far demonstrated that the borders existing before 1991 were conventional, and everything was disintegration according to administrative borders, which did not correlate with the real borders, and suddenly became real. Nonetheless, in the case of Georgia, or better in the case of Armenia and Azerbaijan, there were some conditional grounds, an autonomy or some formation within the allied republics that declared their independence following their republics. It was a matryoshka. In Ukraine, the administrative borders are no longer functioning, because it is disintegrating. What is happening in the East is not a separation of some concrete units, that is already a completely different matter. It complicates the situation. Because there is a certain zone, some limit in the presence of formal yet administrative borders, everything here is absolutely vague. The conflict is many times beyond everything that has happened before, in terms of its scale and most importantly the complexity of the inner uncertainty.

Compromises are impossible where the emotional component is so strongAn event that changed the course of Ukraine’s history happened a year ago. The Maidan provoked at least two conflicts. The first conflict is between the Kiev government and the so-called “Novorossiya” and the second one is between different groups from the Maidan struggling for power.Fedor Lukyanov, a member of the Russian Council for International Affairs, the head of the Presidium of the Foreign and Defense Policy Council, believes that Russia, Ukraine and the “militia” have their own stages of national self-identification: “The model of national identification, national revolution, as it was immediately called in January-February this year, became an important element of all events and brings the events beyond the lines of ordinary conflicts.”According to Lukyanov, “Ukraine went along the Eastern European, Central European line, if we can say so, when elements, starting with lustration (something that has not happened anywhere in the post-Soviet space, except the Baltic states) and ending with the formation of a romantic myth about victims of the fight for independence, something Ukraine has never had because there was no fight for independence. Now they have appeared – “The Heavenly Hundred,” “Blood on the Maidan” and so on. Martyrs and victims appeared on the Eastern side, distancing the sides even more.”Lukyanov considers Russia’s involvement in the conflict a very important element in the picture. He believes that it is undergoing its own process of national self-identification.The expert believes that the ideological element is complicating searches for a compromise, much needed for a peaceful resolution of the situation: “In the conflict, where it was initially obvious that the geopolitical keynote is the fleet, NATO, Crimea, they are easily explained in the categories of national security. At some moment, the element of the “Russian world,” the self-identification of Russia, was added there. It has qualitatively changed the situation associated with the East of Ukraine and with the further opportunity of Russia to manoeuvre, because when the problem about concrete guarantees of joining/not joining or deploying/not deploying is one case, while implementation of the national element is a different story. Compromises here are either impossible or they are extremely narrow, because the issues are very emotional.” “Conflicts in the post-Soviet space have so far demonstrated that the borders existing before 1991 were conventional, and everything was disintegration according to administrative borders, which did not correlate with the real borders, and suddenly became real. Nonetheless, in the case of Georgia, or better in the case of Armenia and Azerbaijan, there were some conditional grounds, an autonomy or some formation within the allied republics that declared their independence following their republics. It was a matryoshka. In Ukraine, the administrative borders are no longer functioning, because it is disintegrating. What is happening in the East is not a separation of some concrete units, that is already a completely different matter. It complicates the situation. Because there is a certain zone, some limit in the presence of formal yet administrative borders, everything here is absolutely vague. The conflict is many times beyond everything that has happened before, in terms of its scale and most importantly the complexity of the inner uncertain