The Donbas Conflict in Ukraine

Elites, Protest, and Partition

Daria Platonova

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000453263
• Subtopic: Regional Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This book examines why, when the conflict in eastern Ukraine began in 2014, fighting broke out in the Donets'k region, whereas it did not in Kharkiv city, despite the city, like the Donets'k region, being geographically proximate to Russia and similar in ethnic and linguistic make up. Based on extensive original research, the book argues that a key factor was the nature and behaviour of local elites, with those in Kharkiv having diffuse ties to the centre and therefore being more capable of adapting to sudden, profound regime change at the centre, whereas the elites in the Donets'k region had much more concentrated ties to the centre, were dependent on one network, and therefore were much less able to cope with change. The book thereby demonstrates how crucial for Ukraine are patronal politics, patronage networks, and informal centre-region relations, and that it was these local political circumstances, rather than Russia, which brought about the conflict.

1 Explaining the Donbas conflict

DOI: 10.4324/9781003213710-1

Introduction

Given the long-standing Western security interests in Ukraine and the disputed role of Russia in the Donbas conflict, media and scholarly attention to the conflict has been intense. Journalists and academics present opposing views of its origins and nature. The explanations of the Donbas conflict have gone through several stages, from simpler (or monocausal) to more complex (or multi-causal). Earlier accounts are concerned with the comparative extent of the involvement of the locals, Russian citizens and Russia as a state in the conflict. The Ukrainian government, media and, to a large extent, their Western counterparts describe the conflict as having been “initiated, directed, supported and organized” (Umland, 2014) by Russian military intelligence operatives (GRU) and, later, regular Russian military units. Ukrayinska Pravda, the major online newspaper in Ukraine, portrayed the early protests in the south-east in spring 2014 as being led by Russian “tourists,” that is people bussed into Ukraine from over the border (A. Wilson, 2014, 128).¹ This makes the insurgency appear as lacking popular support (Katchanovski, 2016, 2). The Russian government and media, by contrast, present the conflict in the Donbas as a civil war that was sparked by the Ukrainian government’s attempt to suppress the Russian language and the popular uprising of the Donbas’ residents (Katchanovski, 2016, 4).

Scholarly works show similar differences in defining the origin of the Donbas conflict. A few scholars depict the conflict as a Russian invasion, from the start led by Russian military intelligence agents and ideological “volunteers” (Czuperski et al., 2015; Mitrokhin, 2014; Sutyagin, 2015). By contrast, in his book “Frontline Ukraine,” Richard Sakwa adopts a more cautious approach and argues that the provenance of the insurgents in Donets’k region was unclear, “but they were certainly not the ‘little green men’ who had operated so effectively and clinically in taking over the Crimea” (Sakwa, 2015, 155). He consequently characterises the conflict as local, with “genuine ‘popular support’” (Sakwa, 2015, 149). The exchange among Serhiy Kudelia, Andreas Umland and Yuriy Matsiyevsky in 2014 develops along similar lines, with Kudelia arguing that the conflict had primarily domestic sources, while Umland and Matsiyevsky depict it as Russia-led (Kudelia, 2014a; Kudelia, 2014b; Kudelia, 2014c; Matsiyevsky, 2014; Umland, 2014). Ivan Katchanovski (2016, 9) examines various live broadcasts, videos and media reports, which show that the leaders of the insurgency and members of their armed units were mostly residents of the Donbas and other regions of Ukraine (a similar argument is also made by Anna Matveeva (Matveeva, 2016)). Katchanovski cites the Uppsala Conflict Data Program statement on the conflict, which characterises it as intrastate, having started primarily because of domestic factors (Katchanovski, 2016, 4). Katchanovski thus characterises the conflict as “a civil war with both direct and indirect military intervention of a foreign state” (Katchanovski, 2016, 11), that is Russia, as do Dominique Arel and Jesse Driscoll,² and Lucan Way.³

In the scholarly literature, a great multitude of approaches have been taken to explain the conflict in the Donbas. Each assigns the primary importance to a different factor or a combination of factors. The approaches fall under several broad explanatory paradigms:⁴ the role of identity and history (Charap et al., 2017; Giuliano, 2015a; Giuliano, 2015b; Kuromiya, 2016; Loshkarev and Sushentsov, 2016; Matveeva, 2016; Matveeva, 2018; Sakwa, 2015; A. Wilson, 2016; A. Wilson, 2014); the role of the local political and business elites (Buckholz, 2019; Carroll, 2014; Hattori, 2014; Kazanskiy, 2014; Matsuzato, 2017; A. Wilson, 2016); the role of the regional socio-economic problems (Zhukov, 2016); and the role of Russia (Bowen, 2019; Davies, 2016; Kashin, 2014; Kuzio, T.,2015; Kuzio, 2017; Robinson, 2016; Shkandrij, 2014; A. Wilson, 2016; A. Wilson, 2014). Because of its exceptionally well-documented nature and the relatively easy access to the area before the start of the serious hostilities in summer 2014, it seems that the origins and nature of the Donbas conflict have been explained, and no questions remain.

Yet, certain questions are still unanswered, or they are answered intuitively by academics and journalists. The most pertinent of these questions is why, given their similar structural conditions, such as shared history, proximity to Russia, broad Anti-Maidan and pro-Russian popular preferences and the decade-long domination of one political party (the Party of Regions), did the city and region of Kharkiv and the region of Donets’k take such starkly different trajectories? Having looked closely at the history of the general political protest and the Euromaidan and “Russian Spring” protest waves in the city of Kharkiv and Donets’k region, I continue to posit this question. The strong argument offered in the academic literature and journalists’ accounts is that the appearance of Igor Strelkov in Slov’’ians’k, Donets’k region, on 12 April 2014, and the Ukrainian government’s decision to launch the Anti-Terrorist Operation on 13 April 2014 to remove Strelkov and his squad, explains why there is war in one region and no war in the other. According to my interview with a (former) Ukrainian journalist (Journalist 1), this decision was guided by high politics and, more specifically, the Ukrainian government’s view that the events in the Crimea and the Donbas were part of “one Russian scenario” (Interview 19.07.2019). However, this answer clouds our understanding of the pre-war dynamics and processes (Shesterinina, 2014), which might have figured in the mind of this external actor when choosing where to start the insurgency (Prokhanov and Strelkov, 2014). It effectively conflates the micro-level and macro-level processes leading to war (Kalyvas, 2006; Shesterinina, 2014). By micro-level processes, I understand the decisions made on the ground by the local elites and activists and the extent of popular mobilisation. Macro-level processes involve the decisions made at the state level and by external actors. More concretely, Strelkov’s appearance was highly contingent. This external actor might have well appeared in any other region in south-eastern Ukraine (for example, in Izium or Kupiansk in Kharkiv region) (Interview with Journalist 2 15.08.2018) (Prokhanov and Strelkov, 2014).⁵ I demonstrate in the empirical chapters that the reasons why Strelkov appeared in Donets’k region rather than in Kharkiv were connected to the decisions made by the local elites and activists in both regions. In effect, I provide an explanation of why Strelkov appeared in one region and not in the other.

In this chapter, I offer a discussion of the major approaches to the Donbas conflict,⁶ focusing especially on the history and identity approach and the “role of foreign actors” approach. I position the approaches within the larger literature, including the literature on civil wars⁷ and emotions and politics, and the literature on the role of elites in conflict. I introduce the city of Kharkiv as the comparative case that serves to underline the complexity of the Donbas conflict’s origins.

Drawing on the literature on the political opportunity for protest, I argue that to explain the different trajectories taken by the two structurally similar regions, we need to focus on the behaviour of the local elites and activists in the period before the arrival of external agents and the macro-process of escalation to war in one region. That is, we need to focus on the pre-war period when outcomes were by no means certain (Tarrow, 2007).⁸ In my argument, the phenomenon of the “Russian Spring” emerges out of the local Anti-Maidan contention in both regions.

In contrast with the history and identity approach, which – implicitly or explicitly – argues for the primacy of history, local ordinary people and their identities and emotions, I offer my own approach, which focuses squarely on the two groups of actors – the local elites and activists – and their rational action and interaction. In my story both display a comparatively similar propensity to protest and violence, with Kharkiv city being more prone to protest violence as demonstrated through protest cataloguing and process tracing.

What contrast the two regions are the starkly different stances taken by the local elites towards the local protest and changes in Kyiv, and how pro-federal and pro-Russian activists used political opportunities for protest. In my story, the local elites created political opportunities for these activists. I explain that in Kharkiv city they did so in response to the Euromaidan protest that aimed to unseat them while in the Donets’k region the elites opened political opportunities for the Anti-Maidan because they wanted to stay loyal to Yanukovych’s government course.

Following the radical changes of the “informal governing network” in the centre, it is the exogenous shock of this change that informs the local elites’ subsequent behaviour. I adapt conceptual insights from the literature on patronage, clientelism and, more specifically, Henry Hale’s book Patronal Politics to explain the divergent behaviour of the local elites following the change in the governing network. I distinguish the city of Kharkiv and Donets’k region by the type of patronage that applies to their elites. I argue that in the city of Kharkiv, moderate pro-federal protest developed because the regional elites were functioning under a diffused patronage system. By contrast, in Donets’k, a region with a concentrated patronage system, pro-Russian radicals took centre stage from the start. The result of these pre-war processes is that in one region, political opportunities for the intervention of foreign actors are closed off, whereas in the other they remain open. Therefore, an external actor might start an insurgency in one region only after exploring options in all the regions susceptible to conflict (Protest Organiser in Kharkiv 1, Interview 24.09.2018; Protest Organiser in Kharkiv 2, Interview 28.09.2018; Yudaev, 2015; Strelkov’s interview (Prokhanov and Strelkov, 2014)).

History and identity approaches

The scholars who seek to explain the Donbas conflict from the history and identity point of view argue that the people in the Donbas mobilised to defend their regional identity, their linguistic rights,⁹ and in response to the relative deprivation¹⁰ they felt after the change of government in Kyiv (Giuliano, 2015a; Kudelia, 2014a; Loshkarev and Sushentsov, 2016; Nicoara and White, 2016; Sakwa, 2015; A. Wilson, 2016; A. Wilson, 2014). Andrew Wilson (A. Wilson, 2016; A. Wilson, 2014) views this identity within the historical context and accounts for what gave rise to the peculiar political beliefs held by the residents of the Donbas. Anna Matveeva characterises the conflict as a conflict of identities in that “different sections of Ukraine’s population developed conflicting perspectives of the past, the role of Russia in Ukraine’s history, and of how relations with the West should evolve. These differences laid the foundations for what became polarised identities and mutually exclusive ideologies” (Matveeva, 2016, 25). These scholars cite numerous sociological surveys conducted both prior to the “Russian Spring” protests and as the protests were underway,¹¹ which demonstrate a higher propensity of the Donbas’ residents to separatism. They also discuss the various facets of this identity, such as localism conditioned by the poor integration of the Donbas into the rest of Ukraine, post-Soviet nostalgia and the fear of fascism, that might have contributed significantly to the anti-government feeling in the Donbas and, subsequently, to the onset of war (Giuliano, 2015a; A. Wilso...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• List of Figures and Tables
• Note on transliteration
• Maps
• Introduction
• 1 Explaining the Donbas conflict
• 2 Tools of the trade: The methodology
• 3 Protest and violence in Kharkiv and Donets’k, 2002–2014
• 4 Elites and regional patronage
• 5 Elites and protest in Kharkiv and Donets’k, 2013–2014
• Conclusion
• Appendix 1: Codebook
• Appendix II
• Bibliography
• Index