The Donbas War
Ambrose Bierce said that “War is God’s way of teaching geography to Americans.” So, my fellow Americans, here is the Donbas, where we have fomented war. It’s pronounced Don-base, as in basin, the basin of the Donetz river, a very economically important river that starts in Russia, where after 550 miles it flows into the Don, also in Russia, but for most of its length it flows thru eastern Ukraine, thru the Donetz valley.
The Donbas was once the most prosperous region of Ukraine, rich with iron and coal, and manufacturing. It has two of the largest cities in Ukraine, Donetsk and Luhansk, and like most of the rest of Ukraine, rich farmland.
Ukraine used to be referred to as “the Ukraine,” because in both of the country’s languages, Russian and Ukrainian, it means “Borderland,” the borderland. It stretches 800 miles east to west, deep into western Europe, and bordering Russia, on three sides, in the east. About 70% of the people speak Ukrainian, which is similar to Polish and Lithuanian, and the rest Russian.
Elections have often been split evenly between those favoring close ties with Russia and those favoring the EU.
It was part of the Russian Empire, in fact the heart of the Russian Empire for hundreds of years and a federated republic in the Soviet Union for all of its 70 years. It became a separate, independent entity in 1991, for the first time, at the dissolution of the USSR. It is still undergoing growing pains, which included a civil war, not yet solved, in which 14,000 people died.
CAUGHT BETWEEN SYSTEMS
Like the rest of the Soviet Union, it went thru very difficult economic struggles, when they plunged into the free market system, after having had a planned economy. During that period, the people in western Ukraine, the Ukrainian-speakers, cast envious eyes at the freedoms of prosperity in western Europe, especially their youth. The EU wooed them, eager for their resources and their markets.
This led to talks to join NATO, the military alliance, and also, eventually, they hoped, the EU, itself. Unfortunately for this idea, Ukraine was already a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States, a formation constructed by some of the nations of the former Soviet Union. The CIS is a loose political formation, with a strong economic structure.
NATURAL GAS POLITICS
Much of Ukraine’s trade was with the countries of the CIS and especially its import of natural gas. There are several pipelines that supply Russian gas to Ukraine, and also through Ukraine to western Europe. Ukraine, over the years, has had trouble paying for the gas. The contracts were re-negotiated several times. Because of their overall economic relationship with the CIS, Ukraine enjoyed purchase of natural gas at below world market prices.
As the Ukrainian government got closer to a political-economic treaty with the EU, Russia explained that they could not continue to supply gas to them at reduces prices. On top of this, Ukraine has often been unable to pay even the reduced price. More than once, Russia demanded payment, and threatened to cut off supplies. Ukraine’s answer was to tap into the lines which were supplying western Europe, and use the gas themselves. Russia took them to a Swedish court and won a large settlement.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian propagandists and their parrots in the western media claimed that Russia was cutting off their gas for political reasons, in order to stop their movement toward western Europe. Finally, when the EU agreement was almost signed, Russia offered a $15 billion loan, and special arrangements for gas. Then Ukrainian president, Yanukovitch decided to repudiate the EU, and go with the Russian offer, which also included provisions about the long-term lease of Sebastopol.
The Ukrainian-speaking youth of western Ukraine exploded in anger, resulting in the occupation of Maidan Square in Kyiv, a political event called “Euromaidan,”which lasted three months, sating in November, 2013. This was brutally suppressed by the special Ukrainian police. As a result, Yanukovitch was declared “removed” by the Rada, the Ukrainian parliament, (who also nixed the arrangements with Russia) They did not, however, follow the constitutional provisions of drawing up charges and having a trial, nor did they achieve the ¾ majority necessary for conviction. They also hastily passed a law removing Russian as one of the national languages. Yanukovitch fled to Russia, amid turmoil.
REGIME CHANGE AND CIVIL WAR
Russia, and many of the Russian-speakers in the Ukraine refer to Yanukovitch’s removal as a “coup.”
The Donbas, the most Russian of all the regions in Ukraine, began to put out feelers to Russia to annex them. This did not happen, but Russia did annex Crimea, with its crucial warm-water port. (See my paper on Crimea). Short of accession to Russia, the Donbas voted on May 11, 2014, to become independent, forming the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR).
Pro-Russian militants occupied municipal buildings. Ukraine eventually responded with a full military assault that produced years of fighting, eventually killing 14,000 people, more than have been reported so far in the 2022 Russian invasion. Twice, when it appeared that the Ukrainian army was going to roll over the fledgling republics, with great loss of life, Russia responded by moving in troops to drive the Ukrainians back. The point men for the Ukrainian assault were fanatical neo-Nazi formations, most famously the Azov Battalion.
These are the same units fighting the Russian attack in Meriupol today, greatly multiplying loss of life, as they position their weaponry in civilian areas.
Other countries did not recognize the breakaway republics, nor did Russia, until February, 2022. Russia has expressed no interest in annexing them. “We will not, however, let our Russophone neighbors be slaughtered,’ they said repeatedly. They drove back the Ukrainian army, and uneasy, small-scale hostilities continued, until military conditions changed in Ukraine.
NEO-NAZIS DRIVE THE CONFLICT
The regular Ukrainian army did not have much taste for civil war. The neo-Nazis are a different story. They formed a private army, composed of zealots, who, using the same methods as their German forebearers during WWII, used amphetamines to rouse themselves to a murderous frenzy.
(There was a vote in the UN in 2021 about stemming the rise of Nazism world-wide. It was 130-2, with the US and Ukraine the only no votes. Europe abstained.)
Several rounds of peace talks were held in Minsk, Belarus. The first formal agreement, on September 1, 2014, lasted only three months, as the breakaway republics proceeded with political consolidation, in violation of the agreement, leading to another large-scale Ukrainian attack, and a second Russian incursion.
Finally, in February, 2015, after months of fierce fighting, a second cease fire with a political agreement to settle the dispute, took hold, known as Minsk II. An uneasy truce, with continual small-scale violations, held until April, 2019, when a new president Vladymyr Zelenskyy was elected overwhelmingly, on a peace program. The political heart of the Minsk Accords was proposed talks between Ukraine and the Donbas republics, leading to a vote which would re-integrate them into Ukraine, with some form of autonomy.
Determined to live up to the Minsk Accords, Zelenskyy famously visited the front lines in October, and ordered the Nazi irregulars to stand down.
Zelensyy, a few months later attended an historic peace summit in Paris on 12/9/2019, with heads of state Macron, Merkel, and Putin. By March 2020, after a productive meeting in Minsk, attended by Ukraine, Russia, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Zelenskyy had introduced new legislation which called for an “Advisory Council” composed of representatives from Ukraine and the breakaway republics, with observers from France, Germany and Russia.
This proposal was greeted by a storm of violent threats from the neo-Nazi opposition, as well as powerful resistance from Europe and the US. The peace proposal went down in flames, and that was the end of productive efforts to end the Donbas war.
After this, the Ukrainian position has been that the Donbas had to completely disarm and disband their new governments, before an election in the region.
DONBAS DETERIORATES
Meanwhile the economy of the Donbas deteriorated drastically. Retirees had a lot of trouble collecting their pensions from Kyiv. The small republics had not ability to borrow money to carry on commerce. Unemployment skyrocketed. Hundreds of thousands left the region, for western Ukraine, and for Russia. Russia supplied them with passports, and donated $Billions in aid.
The breakaway republics chafed at their isolation and declining economy, causing incidents at the Line of Contact. At the same time Ukraine was receiving increasingly lethal weapons from the west, particularly the US and Turkey, and building their position on the front line to 150,000 soldiers, two-thirds of their army.
It appeared that they were getting ready to sweep over the Donbas, to end the conflict. The west continually floated the idea of a “false flag” operation in Donbas, apparently as a smoke screen for a real attack. Cease fire violations on the frontline increased alarmingly. Scrupulous gathered data was reported daily by OSCE observers.
The last report they submitted, on February 22, 2022, detailed the moving in of heavy weapons, and a massive increase in shelling by the Ukrainian army. Thousands of Donbas people began to flee into Russia.
Russia positioned a large force on the eastern Ukrainian border. Frantic last-minute talks between Russian President Putin and western leaders, notably Macron, failed to move Ukraine to a cooperative position in a last round of talks, which failed. The US was counseling Ukraine to stall.
The Russians grew sick of the stalemate that was draining its resources, and disrupting its border. Nationalist parties in Russia were demanding action. The situation was exacerbated by increasing talk of absorbing Ukraine into NATO. NATO was already equipping and training the Ukrainian army, as if it were a member.
RUSSIA INVADES
At this point, on February 24, 2022, Russia did what it had been threatening. It formally recognized the republics, announced a treaty of mutual military assistance, and brought part of its army into the Donbas, for the third time. Russia also invaded Ukraine at several other points. Their initial demands are now more than autonomy for the Donbas. They were looking for full disarmament of Ukraine, denazification, and a regime change.
Russia, however, still insists it does not favor annexation, and calls for an implementation of the Minsk accords. New heavy western sanctions on Russia, and large-scale military aid to Ukraine, however, complicate the question. Peace talks are again being held in Belarus, with the same agenda they had before the Russian invasion, this time including denazification of the Ukraine.
