BY
In the US
Congress, Bill
5094 has been submitted, entitled
Stability and Democracy for Ukraine – or STAND for Ukraine Act as a reader may
prefer. It has cross-party support, the charge through Congress to be
headed by Messrs Engel (Democrat) and Kinzinger (Republican).
The core of
the proposed legislation seeks to reaffirm several issues –
clarifying existing U.S. policy toward Ukraine and unambiguously
acknowledging the Ukrainian right to self-defense. It seeks to robustly
link sanctions relief for Russia to timely, complete, and verifiable
implementation of the Minsk framework. It ergo addresses the occupied
Donbas issue.
It further
cements U.S. Crimean policy in the same foundation as the doctrine of
non-recognition set by the US for the duration of the USSR’s 50 year occupation
of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
It seeks to
further tighten existing US sanctions on Russia by creating a seemingly
stricter sanctions-evasion framework and demands a regular report on foreign
financial institutions that are illicitly controlling Ukraine state-owned
assets in Crimea.
Of particular
importance is the imposition of an Arms Export Control Act founded upon a
presumption of denial standard upon any NATO member that transfers certain
defense equipment or services containing US technology and/or components to
Russia while Russia is forcibly occupying the territory of Ukraine (or any NATO
member – read Baltic reassurances). A reader may ponder just how much of
NATO allies defence equipment and/or services employ absolutely zero US technology
– even if it contains no US components.
The Bill
seeks to extend the reach of the Magnitsky Act to any and all territories
occupied or otherwise controlled by Russia – presumably Abkhazia, Crimea, South
Ossetia, and Transnistria where Russian military are physically present, rather
than those areas that Russia de facto controls by other means.
Interestingly,
the Bill also directs the US Administration to liaise with Kyiv in order to
create an international consortium to drive private investment in Ukraine by
minimizing and pooling political risk to would-be private investors.
An
oblique reference to some form of international insurance scheme backed by
States to guarantee entry into Ukraine for international corporations perhaps?
Regarding the
wider Ukrainian neighbourhood, the Bill requires the Secretary of State to
develop and implement a strategy to respond to the Kremlin disinformation and
propaganda efforts aimed at the Russian-speaking areas in countries bordering
Russia. This is perhaps a somewhat narrow view, for Kremlin
disinformation, agitprop and propaganda is aimed at a far broader audience than
its diaspora and ethnic Russians in its immediate neighbourhood. Much of
it is aimed at the being fly-paper for the swivel-eyed in nations beyond its
immediate boarders.
All important
considerations.
However,
perhaps the most important of all with a new US President upon the immediate
electoral horizon, is that from a legislative stance the Bill places into
statute the existing Executive Order sanctions imposed on Russia for the
forcible and illegal occupation of Crimea. It is easier for a sitting US
President to cancel a pre-existing Executive Order than it is to repeal
existing legislation passed by Congress and the Senate.
The Bill
would require that a US President, prior to lifting Ukraine-related sanctions,
submit official certification to Congress that Ukraine has restored its
sovereignty over Crimea, or that alternatively the peninsula’s status has been
resolved to the satisfaction of a sitting and democratically elected government
in Kyiv.
In short,
Crimean sanctions, via this Bill, will stay in place for a very long time – as
they should if the reasons they were imposed are to be honoured (namely a tome
of international instruments and agreements completely disregarded by The
Kremlin).
There is
perhaps one concern, albeit currently certainly not an issue regarding Crimea
now.
As there is
no way The Kremlin will leave Crimea whilst Mr Putin is alive, and there is no
reason to believe any successor will undo the annexation either (living
President’s/former President’s legacies etc), a reader may ponder just how many
years it will be before certain western capitals would begin to pressure Kyiv
to reach that “alternatively the peninsula’s status has been resolved to the
satisfaction of….” status.
A reader may
imagine in a truly wild flight of fancy, that Minsk is actually implemented,
(which it will not be, and those that “negotiated” Ukraine into Minsk should
perhaps if unable to “negotiate” it out, then at the very least be
“negotiating” its continued stalling), how many years would it be before the
sanctions on Crimea became simply irksome to them and sustained pressure was
then put upon Kyiv to “accept reality” and strike a deal to “its” satisfaction
(or more to the point, its dissatisfaction)?
After all,
this Bill, is part of a policy toolkit no differently than sanctions are – but
neither are actual policy. Perhaps, “the West” will actually arrive at a
policy – but to do that, it must first decide what it wants in the face of a
protagonist that has for many years unambiguously stated it does not want to be
like, nor part of, “the West”.
Nevertheless,
the most important issue here and now, on the presumption it becomes law, is
perhaps the transferring of an existing Executive Order into the US statue book
prior to US presidential electoral outcomes.
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