UNITED STATES SENATE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
Hearing: Tuesday,
March 15, 2016
"Ukrainian Reforms Two Years After the Maidan Revolution and the
Russian Invasion"
Chairman Corker,
Ranking Member Cardin, Members of the Committee, I am honored to participate in
this hearing addressing the progress of reform in Ukraine following the Maidan
Revolution and Russia’s invasion of that country.
Two years ago, the course of
history in Ukraine was transformed by those two events.
The Maidan Revolution, also known as the Revolution of Dignity, was a powerful demonstration of popular demand for governance defined by democracy, transparency, and rule of law. That demand’s articulation also underscored Ukraine’s desire for full integration into the Western community of democracies.
The Maidan Revolution, also known as the Revolution of Dignity, was a powerful demonstration of popular demand for governance defined by democracy, transparency, and rule of law. That demand’s articulation also underscored Ukraine’s desire for full integration into the Western community of democracies.
The second event,
Russia’s unprovoked military invasion of Crimea and eastern Ukraine, stands
among the most dramatic actions in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s sustained
campaign to reestablish Moscow’s control over the space of the former Soviet
Union. A central objective of this campaign has been to reverse Ukraine’s
western orientation and re-subordinate the country to Moscow’s dominion.
We
should have no doubt that this aggression has profound implications for the
security interests of the transatlantic community, including the United States.
President Putin’s seizure and continued occupation of Crimea and eastern
Ukraine violates the principles of sovereignty that have sustained peace in
Europe since World War II. Second, this invasion shattered the 1994 Budapest
Memorandum in which the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia committed
to respect and protect the territorial integrity of Ukraine in return for Kyiv
giving up the significant nuclear arsenal it inherited from the USSR.
Moscow’s
aggression, thus, is a serious blow to the efforts to curb the proliferation of
nuclear weapons via international accords. Third, President Putin has justified
the invasion of Ukraine on his assertion of a unilateral right to redraw
borders to protect ethnic Russians. This reintroduces to Europe the principle
of ethnic sovereignty, a dangerous principle that provoked wars and resulted in
countless deaths in earlier centuries. We had all hoped it had been relegated
to the past.
Fourth, Russia’s incursion into Ukraine is a direct threat to the vision
of an Europe, whole, free, secure and at peace. For the second time in a
decade, Putin has invaded a country simply because it wanted to join the West.
If allowed to succeed, his ambitions will create a new confrontational divide
in Europe between a community defined by self-determination, democracy, and
rule of law and one burdened by authoritarianism, corruption, hegemony and
occupation.
It is in this context that that Ukraine launched its most
aggressive effort at comprehensive economic, political and legal reform since
attaining independence. This undertaking has been made both more challenging
and more urgent by Russia’s military aggression. The invasion of eastern
Ukraine caused over 9,000 Ukrainian deaths, left countless wounded and
traumatized, and generated 1.6 million internally displaced persons. Russia
today occupies some 9% of Ukraine’s territory, including some of the latter’s
most important industrial and tourist zones.
These tragedies, needless to say,
impose significant burdens upon the nation’s struggling economy. In recent
weeks, the military standoff in eastern Ukraine – which despite the Minsk
agreements has one been of sustained low intensity warfare -- has deteriorated.
We are once again seeing an increase in active combat featuring sniper, mortar
and artillery fire and other aggressive Russian operations along the line of
contact. EUCOM Commander General Phillip Breedlove recently testified that that
Russia has moved over 1000 pieces of military equipment into the occupied areas
over the last twelve months.
Since its occupation, Crimea has experienced a
steady and significant buildup of Russian military forces. It is being steadily
transformed into the hub of an anti-area/access denial zone extending deep into
Ukraine-proper and much of the Black Sea region.
Large-scale Russian snap
“exercises” in its Western Military District and the Black Sea remind
Ukrainians that their country remains at risk to deeper aggression. Ukraine’s
reform efforts are not only challenged by these military incursions, they are
undermined by Russia’s decades old campaign of subversion, one that has only
intensified over the last two years.
Moscow has conducted an aggressive
disinformation effort intended to disillusion Ukrainians with their own
government, independence, and their aspirations to become part of the West.
This “full spectrum” campaign includes: energy embargoes and gas price
escalations; economic and trade sanctions; and terrorist and cyber-attacks,
among other elements.
Despite these challenges, Ukraine has made progress in
reform since the Maidan revolution. Its government has taken measures to
improve tax collection, its pension systems and the transparency and fairness
of its procurement systems. New, vetted, and trained police forces have been
introduced in major cities, including Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, and Kharkiv.
Anti-corruption and
public asset
Significant challenges
remain, including systemic corruption, oversized state-owned enterprises,
powerful oligarchs, and a weak judicial system lacking robust prosecutorial
institutions.
Political dysfunction, as evidenced in recent weeks, reflects the
endemic character of these impediments. However, as we assess Ukraine’s
progress it is useful to compare how its situation today differs from that of
Poland, one of Central Europe’s post-Cold War success stories. When Poland
emerged from Soviet domination, it was warmly received by Europe and the United
States. Its aspirations to join NATO and the European Union were robustly
embraced, encouraged, and supported. Its aggressive “big bang” reforms were
undertaken in a geopolitical environment that was by and large benign. It faced
no real force that was capable of actively undercutting its independence and
integration into the West.
Ukraine has faced a different context. Its initial
pursuit of independence generated warnings of caution against national
extremism. After attaining independence in 1991, its expressions of interest in
NATO and the EU membership were largely dismissed. And, it was confronted by a
Russia that refused to recognize Ukraine as an enduring reality.
From day one
of Ukraine’s reemergence as an independent nation, Moscow worked to undermine
its government, its soveriegnty, and its ties to the West. These efforts
increased as Russia’s economy and military became more robust, particularly
over the last decade and a half, the period corresponding with President
Putin’s rule.
The transatlantic community, including the United States, has a
significant stake in assuring Ukraine’s trajectory as a modern, democratic and
prosperous European state. A strategy to assist Ukraine in accomplishing that
objective must integrate a set of immediate and longer term initiatives that
will impose greater economic and geopolitical costs on Russia for its
aggression, enhance Ukraine’s capacity for self-defense, and assist Kyiv’s
efforts to reform its political and economic institutions, and integrate the
nation into the Euro-Atlantic community.
These initiatives should include:
Increased economic sanctions against Russia: Current economic sanctions imposed
on Russia have proven insufficient. For two years, Moscow has refused to
withdraw from Crimea and eastern Ukraine. In fact, it has used that time to consolidate
its control over those regions and has sustained, if not increased, its other
coercive activities against Ukraine and other nations, including Georgia and
Moldova. Today’s sanctions may be hurting the Russian economy in the context of
low oil prices, but if their intended outcome has been to deter Russian
aggression, they have failed by that measure.
Instead of debating whether or not to sustain sanctions against Russia,
the West should move to escalate those measures from targeted sanctions aimed against
specific Russian individuals and firms to broader and more comprehensive
sectoral sanctions against the Russian financial and energy sectors.
One step
in that direction that should be taken is to target Russia’s vulnerable
refinery industry. While Russia is a top producer of oil, its refining
capacities are antiquated, have little spare capacity and are dependent upon
Western, particularly U.S., spare parts.
Former Under Secretary of State for
Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky proposed to this committee that the West impose
an embargo of exports to Russia of such equipment, including pumps,
compressors, and catalytic agents.
Such an embargo would significantly impair
a key sector of the Russian economy from which Moscow derives revenues to
sustain its military operations, including those conducted against Ukraine.
A
more robust NATO posture in Central and Eastern Europe: Today, NATO’s response
– including that of the United States - to Russia’s assertive military actions
across Central and Eastern Europe remains underwhelming. When Moscow invaded
Crimea, it deployed 20-30,000 troops and mobilized over 100,000 on its western
frontier.
Since then Russia has conducted “snap” exercises in Europe involving
50,000 and more personnel. Western counter-deployments to Central Europe have
involved primarily rotational deployments of company level units. Their limited
character been unnerving to our Central European allies and have yielded no
constructive change in the operational conduct of Russian forces.
NATO should
increase its military presence on its eastern frontiers, including through the
establishment of bases in Poland and the Baltic states that feature permanently
positioned brigade and battalion level capacities, respectively. These steps,
some of which may be under consideration for approval at NATO’s upcoming summit
meeting in Warsaw this July, would build a context of greater security and
confidence to Ukraine’s immediate West.
They are reasonable in light of
Russia’s long-term military build-up in the region and the magnitude of its
aggression against Ukraine. They would constitute a geopolitical setback for
Moscow’s regional aspirations, at least those defined by President Putin
Military Assistance to Ukraine: Since the 2014 invasion of Crimea and eastern
Ukraine, the Ukrainian military has evolved into a more effective fighting
force. This has been particularly evident at the tactical or field levels where
Ukrainian units have learned at great human cost how to innovatively and
effectively counter Russian tactics and operations.
Training and equipment provided by the United States and other nations
have clearly been helpful, used effectively by the Ukrainians, and should be
expanded. At the institutional and strategic levels, particular emphasis should
be directed to assisting the Ukrainian defense establishment improve its
personnel structures, logistics systems, medical capacities, intelligence
organizations, and command and control systems.
The time is long overdue for
the United States and others to grant Ukraine the “lethal defensive equipment”
it has requested. Russia’s large-scale “snap” exercises underscore the
challenges the Ukrainian military would face should Putin decide to drive
deeper into Ukraine, a possibility that cannot be discounted in light of
Moscow’s rhetoric and belligerent military posture.
The provision to Kyiv of
anti-tank, anti-aircraft and other weapons would complicate Russian military
planning by adding risk and costs to operations against Ukraine. Moreover, the
failure of Washington to provide such equipment is not only disillusioning to
Ukrainians, it signals a lack of determination by the United States to counter
this Russian aggression – particularly when such equipment is shared with U.S.
state and non-state partners elsewhere in the world.
Reinforced Public
Diplomacy/Information Warfare: A key priority must be to counter Russia’s
significant information campaign aimed to foster dissension, fractionalization,
and turmoil. Russia’s propaganda and disinformation war against Ukraine (and
other nations in Europe) is being waged at levels not seen since the Cold War.
Left
unaddressed, the campaign threatens political unity in Ukraine, including that
necessary to undertake essential and painful economic reforms. There is an
urgent need to expand Ukrainian, U.S., and international dissemination of
accurate, credible information and news in local languages via all forms of
media throughout the country.
Information and public diplomacy operations are
also a matter of presence. The international community should increase its
physical presence throughout Ukraine, particularly in those regions where
Russia’s subversive operations are most active and concentrated.
Toward this
end, the United States should establish consulates in key cities, including
Odesa and Kharkiv. Such a presence would communicate U.S. resolve to support
Ukraine’s sovereignty, would help expand this region’s economic ties to the
West, and provide greater situational awareness in these regions. Ukraine’s
Economic Integration into the West: The US has done well in mobilizing
international financial support needed to mitigate the costs of Russia’s
military and economic aggression against Ukraine and to assist that the latter
undertake challenging and painful economic reforms.
A fundamental objective of this assistance and these reforms should be
to facilitate Ukraine’s full integration into the European economy. Toward this
end, two dimensions of Ukraine’s economy warrant focused attention: the energy
and defense industrial sectors.
Ukraine has made real progress in reducing its
dependency upon Russian energy supplies, particularly gas. Last year, Kyiv
began to import natural gas through Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia via pipelines
that had been reconfigured for “reverse flow.” These imports underscore the
powerful potential of linking Ukraine to an emerging Central European
North-South Corridor of gas and oil pipelines that will traverse the energy
markets that lie between the Baltic, Black and Aegean seas. This network promises
to unify what are still-today divided Central European energy markets and
integrate them into the broader European energy market.
Establishing a more
robust Ukrainian link to the North-South Corridor would further diversify
Ukraine’s energy supplies, facilitate the integration of Ukraine into the
emergent single European energy market, and strengthen Europe’s energy
resiliency by enabling it to leverage Ukraine’s significant gas storage
capacities.
A second important dimension of Ukraine’s economy is its defense
industry. As recently as 2012, Ukraine was the fourth largest arms exporter in
the world with total deals valuing $1.3 billion. Originally built to supply and
sustain the Soviet military, Ukraine’s defense industry remained after
independence heavily focused on the Russian market.
Today, the industry, even
with the loss of the Russian market and manufacturing facilities seized in
eastern Ukraine and Crimea, continues to be a significant element of the
Ukrainian economy. With its sophisticated rocket works and heavy equipment and
aviation design and production centers, Ukraine’s defense industry ranks in the
top ten of global arms exporters.Like the rest of the economy, Ukraine’s
defense industry suffers from cronyism and corruption, aging, megalithic assets
and near total state ownership.
A central objective of Western assistance
should be to help Kyiv design, promulgate and execute a comprehensive national
strategy to restructure that industry so that it becomes more oriented toward
the West and better aligned with Western business practices and market
structures.
Supporting Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic Integration:
Finally, assistance
to Ukraine and it reform efforts must reflect an embrace of Ukraine’s
transatlantic aspirations. Those who protested and sacrificed themselves on the
Maidan were very much motivated by their nation’s aspiration to become a fully
integrated member of Europe and its key institutions. Indeed, it is this
aspiration that Moscow today is trying to crush.
That vision serves as a powerful driver of Ukraine’s reform efforts.
Both NATO and the EU should use their respective summit meetings this Spring
and Summer to underscore their support the eventual integration of Ukraine in
to their respective communities. The Alliance, for example, should use its
Warsaw Summit meeting in July to reiterate its vision that Ukraine and Georgia
“will become members of NATO.”
CONCLUSION
The Maidan was a powerful
demonstration of the Ukrainian peoples’ commitment to democracy and its
sovereignty as a European state. That commitment has been challenged by Russian
aggression, including the occupations of Crimea and portions of Eastern
Ukraine. From this conflict, Ukraine has emerged more unified and more
determined to become a full member of the Western community of democracies.
They deserve our full support. The recommendations outlined above are prudent,
defensive, mutually reinforcing, and consistent with the aspirations of the
Ukrainian people to live in peace, freedom, and under the rule of law and to
see their nation become a fully integrated member of the transatlantic
community. They, thus, also enhance the prospects of peace in Europe.
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