UKRAINE: THE RUSSIA FACTOR IN CRIMEA - UKRAINE'S

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 06 KYIV 004489

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/07/2016
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL RU UP
SUBJECT: UKRAINE: THE RUSSIA FACTOR IN CRIMEA - UKRAINE'S
"SOFT UNDERBELLY"?

REF: A. KIEV 387

B. KYIV 4301

C. KYIV 4021

D. KYIV 4425

Classified By: Charge a.i. Sheila Gwaltney, reason 1.4 (b,d)


1. (C) Summary. Discussions with a wide range of contacts in
Crimea November 20-22 and officials in Kyiv discounted recent
speculation that a return of pro-Russian separatism in
Crimea, which posed a real threat to Ukrainian territorial
integrity in 1994-95, could be in the cards. However, nearly
all contended that pro-Russian forces in Crimea, acting with
funding and direction from Moscow, have systematically
attempted to increase communal tensions in Crimea in the two
years since the Orange Revolution. They have done so by
cynically fanning ethnic Russian chauvinism towards Crimean
Tatars and ethnic Ukrainians, through manipulation of issues
like the status of the Russian language, NATO, and an alleged
Tatar threat to "Slavs," in a deliberate effort to
destabilize Crimea, weaken Ukraine, and prevent Ukraine's
movement west into institutions like NATO and the EU. While
the total number of pro-Russian activists in Crimea is
relatively low, the focus is on shaping public perceptions
and controlling the information space, so far with success.


2. (C) Ukrainian officials acknowledge expert complaints that
the overall degradation of Kyiv's ability to assert central
power and authority in the past two years has provided a
conducive climate for destabilizing efforts, particularly in
Crimea, which several Crimean journalists referred to as
Ukraine's "soft underbelly." The most publicized flashpoints
in 2006 were the May-June Feodosia anti-NATO protests and
July-August fights in Bakhchiserai over a market located on a
Tatar cemetery, with pro-Russian groups figuring prominently
in both. Yushchenko and the National Security and Defense
Council (NSDC) are quietly trying to lay the groundwork for a
more effective assertion of central authority and countering
of pro-Russian agitation in Crimea, with limited success to
date.


3. (SBU) The most active pro-Russian actors highlighted by
our contacts were the Russian Society of Crimea and its
affiliates, the Russian Bloc political party and the Crimean
Cossack Union. The latter's informal links to local Crimean
law enforcement and security service personnel were clearly
evident during the anti-NATO actions in May-June in Feodosia.
Recent radical youth groups like Proryv ("Breakthrough") and
the Eurasian Youth Movement attract more media attention but
are for now mainly small, public relations projects. Natalya
Vitrenko's Bloc, the Communists, and the
Sevastopol-Crimea-Russia National Front also actively pushed
Russian interests, with less impact. Internecine squabbles
and splits among pro-Russian groups in Crimea for Moscow's
attention and money limit their effectiveness.


4. (SBU) The primary mechanisms of Russian influence appear
to be: the Russian Black Sea Fleet, with its extensive
intelligence and press operations; regular visits of Russian
officials/agitators, many of whom, such as Duma deputy
Konstantin Zatulin, are now blacklisted by the GOU as a
result (ref B); biased media/PR efforts such as Modest
Kolerov's New Regions/Regnum projects and
Russian-owned/influenced Ukrainian media; and the
Moscow-Crimea Foundation and the Moscow-Sevastopol
Foundation, allowing Mayor Luzhkov, also blacklisted, to buy
influence. End Summary

What's Going On in Crimea?
--------------


5. (C) Western pundits (Anne Applebaum, Jane's Intelligence
Digest, Taras Kuzio) have written with alarm in 2006 of a
worsening situation in Crimea due to alleged post Orange
Revolution Russian meddling. Some have raised the specter of
a return to the active separatism which threatened Crimea and
Ukraine's territorial integrity in 1994-95 before the threat
was ended by decisive intervention by then President Kuchma
and central Ukrainian authorities. Discussions with two
dozen government officials, journalists, and community
leaders in Crimea November 20-22 and in Kyiv indicate that
fears of revived separatism are misplaced. However, all
argued that interethnic tensions in Crimea had worsened
considerably in the two years since the Orange Revolution,
due to a deliberate Russian campaign aimed at destabilizing
Crimea and, by extension, weakening Ukraine.


6. (C) Starting in January 2006, President Yushchenko
dispatched his then Chief of Staff Oleh Rybachuk and Interior
Minister Lutsenko to Crimea for repeated multi-day visits.
He also appointed as his representative in Crimea respected

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ex-deputy Interior Minister Hennadiy Moskal, who spent years
in Crimea in the late 1990s helping attack organized criminal
structures. Yushchenko also convened NSDC sessions on Crimea
in February and late September which led to published
decrees, the first systematic attempt to address the entire
range of economic, political, interethnic, cultural, and
central power challenges inherent in Crimea, according to
Oleksandr Lytvynenko, NSDC Department Head for Law
Enforcement and Internal Affairs, including Crimea, who also
acknowledged implementation was less than 20%. The
ineffectiveness of central authority was clear during the
height of the anti-NATO protests in Feodosia in May-June,
when Rybachuk and DFM Khandohiy repeatedly made clear to us
that they had limited control over Crimean authorities.

Crimea: built-in fertile grounds for volatility
-------------- ---


7. (SBU) Lytvynenko explained to us the historical, ethnic,
and political reasons why Crimea represented fertile ground
for troublemakers. Up to 70 percent of Crimea's Slavic
inhabitants arrived or were the descendants of those who came
from Russia or Russian-influenced parts of eastern Ukraine
from 1944, when Stalin ordered Crimea's Tatars and several
other much smaller ethnic groups deported to central Asia,
and 1954, when Krushchev transferred autonomous Crimea to
Ukraine's administrative control. Most of the new arrivals
were urban poor or had criminal backgrounds and moved into
homes vacated by deportees; there was no connection or
affiliation to Ukraine proper through 1991, with the possible
exceptQn of the Dynamo Kyiv soccer club. Starting in 1990,
however, this unfocused "Slavic" community of relative
newcomers faced an influx of a dynamic, often well-educated,
politically organized community of Crimean Tatar returnees,
now numbering close to 300,000, or 15 percent of Crimea's
populatioQ


8. (SBU) After Crimea's separatist threat (1994-95) and
organized criminal problem (1997-98) were successfully
addressed, Crimea enjoyed a period of relative calm and tacit
understanding between local ethnically-Russian elites,
Tatars, and Kyiv. Disenchantment in the later Kuchma years
revived due to the overall economic slide in Crimea, even as
some Tatars started achieving economic success. The Russia
factor in the 2004 election cycle in favor of Yanukovych was
felt strongly in Crimea and accelerated in early 2005 after
the Orange Revolution, according to Lytvynenko and nearly
everyone we talked to in Crimea, exploiting such discontent
and traditional Russian stereotypes ("An uninvited guest is
worse than a Tatar" goes an old proverb),as well as the
overall weakening of central authority in Ukraine after the
Orange Revolution.

The Black Sea Fleet: intel and press
--------------


9. (C) While there has always been overwhelmingly pro-Russian
sentiment in Crimea's population, the beginning of
systematic, organized efforts by pro-Russian groups backed by
Russian money is a relatively new phenomenon, most Crimean
observers claimed. Lytvynenko stated that the Russian BSF's
sizable intel unit, part of the GRU (Russian military
intelligence),was active in deliberately fostering
interethnic tensions in Crimea to ensure that a state of
constant simmering tension was maintained. This included
money to local groups carrying out Moscow's wishes,
information campaigns, and occasional logistic support,
including for the May-June anti-NATO protests in Feodosia.
Lytvynenko claimed that, in contrast to the GRU's active
role, the FSB (external intel service) seemingly restricted
its efforts in Crimea to counter-intelligence operations
aimed at western actors/visitors. (Note: Yushchenko's former
chief of staff Oleh Rybachuk told us in January that the FSB
was very active in using/controlling NGOs in Crimea to stir
up trouble (ref A),but he may have mixed up his Russian
intel services).


10. (C) Lytvynenko proudly claimed authorship of paragraph 10
in Presidential decree 822/2006, dated October 9, which came
out of the September 20 NSDC meeting. Paragraph 10 gave the
SBU and Foreign Intel Service two months to analyze the
"efficiency of intel, counter-intel, and operative measures
to identify, prevent, and halt intelligence and other
subversive activities in Crimea by foreign special services,
state and NGO organizations" as well as improve the SBU
personnel and technical capabilities in Crimea. Lytvynenko
claimed it was the first time such efforts to neutralize
activities undermining Ukrainian sovereignty had been
mandated in writing (the decree is on the NSDC's website, in
Ukrainian only).


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11. (C) The BSF intel unit maintains a special relationship
with Sevastopol's BSF-affiliated high school Number 8, the
main base of activists involved in Proryv activities (see
below),Radio Liberty Crimea correspondent Volodymyr Prytula
told us. Sobytiya journalist Lenur Yunusov added that his
sources link BSF intel personnel to the recent emergence of
the Eurasian Youth Union (below) as well. The BSF's
extensive media operations had been maintained since Soviet
times, Myroslav Mamchak of the Ukrainian Fleet's "BRIS" Radio
service told us, adding that the BSF printing house "Flag
Rodina" (The Motherland's Banner) and electronic media
actively churn out "information, disinformation, and
counterinformation" with a strongly pro-Russian, implicitly
anti-Ukrainian and anti-Tatar perspective that heavily
influenced the media/information environment, especially in
Sevastopol but across Crimea as a whole. Several
Simferopol-based journalists reiterated Mamchak's assessment.

"Cossacks," Russian Community of Crimea, Russian Bloc
-------------- --------------


12. (C) Both GOU and journalist contacts consistently
identified the Crimean Cossack Union (Krymskiy Kozachiy Soyuz
- KKS),led by Crimean Rada MP Yuri Cherkashyn, as the single
most dangerous and active pro-Russian actor in Crimea, in
conjunction with two affiliated organizations. The overall
umbrella group with the most overt contacts with Moscow was
the Russian Community of Crimea (known by its Russian acronym
ROK - Russkaya Obshchyna Kryma),led by Serhiy Tsekov. ROK
in turn is closely affiliated with the Russian Bloc political
party led by Oleh Rodyvilov. Prytula likened the intertwined
relationship to that of Sinn Fein and the IRA. Yunusov said
that ROK leaders openly admitted to him that they received
money from Moscow.


13. (C) The paramilitary KKS, which wears the Russian flag on
its uniforms, had a network of several thousand members
located in every district in Ukraine, well-equipped with
communications equipment and weapons thanks to related
security provider businesses that it established in the
1990s, when criminal gangs operated more openly, according to
various journalists. More significantly, many KKS members
were local police and Security Service (SBU) officers, making
it much more difficult for central authorities to rely on
prompt or reliable action when the Cossacks were involved,
such as during the Feodosia and Bakhchiserai events, the
November 4 "Russkiy March," or less publicized illegal
business takeovers (so-called "raiderstvo"). Lytvynenko
noted that the KKS also maintained relations with Kuban and
Don Cossack groups in Russia. At least the latter two drew
on genuine Cossack traditions; Cossacks historically had no
presence in Crimea, "except as prisoners of the Crimean Tatar
khanate," one journalist joked. As a result, the KKS was a
completely artificial construct, primed to promote anti-Tatar
sentiments in law enforcement structures and local Russian
communities.


14. (SBU) Mustafa Jemilev, the long-time Crimean Tatar
community leader (head of the Mejlis informal national
assembly, as well as a Rada MP as part of the Our Ukraine
bloc),highlighted the double standards maintained by the
police and SBU, combined with the role Russian Bloc leader
Rodyvilov had played in sparking the Bakhchiserai incidents
August 12. The anti-Tatar attacks came a day after newly
named PM Yanukovych had visited Crimea and endorsed court
decisions moving an open air market illegally located on an
old Tatar cemetery. Jemilev complained that although Tatars
took extensive video of the incident clearly showing nearly
500 outsiders connected with the Russian Bloc, ROK, and the
Cossacks, many from Sevastopol, initiating the altercation,
the SBU and the police took no action, claiming they could
not identify those involved. Jemilev characterized the
Russian Bloc as the main anti-Tatar force in Crimea currently.


15. (SBU) The Russian Bloc's political influence grew
considerably in early 2006 thanks to Party of Regions'
decision to contest Crimean elections jointly with it under
the "For Yanukovych" banner; no observers gave the Russian
Bloc any chance of making it over the threshold alone. ROK
leader Tsekov now serves as the Crimean Rada's First Deputy
Speaker, and 10-15 of the 44 MPs in the "For Yanukovych"
faction (out of 100 total in the Crimean Rada) come from the
Russian Bloc. Thanks to the alliance, Russian Bloc's
Aleksandr Chernomorov also made it in the national Rada in
Regions' faction.

Zatulin - chief political meddler
--------------


16. (SBU) The Russian politician universally deemed the
biggest meddler in Crimean affairs is Duma MP and head of the

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CIS Institute Konstantin Zatulin. Sobytiya's Yunusov claimed
that, in addition to political and business interests in
Sevastopol, Zatulin had personally brokered the electoral
alliance between Russian Bloc and Regions' Crimean branch,
even negotiating party list placement for favored Russian
Bloc members. Zatulin and his Institute deputy Kirill Frolov
were also seen as the primary Moscow links to the radical
youth group Proryv. Zatulin encouraged the Feodosia protests
in person and was blacklisted as a result (ref B),though the
SBU allowed him to visit Kyiv Dec 4-6 as part of an
interparliamentary exchange.

The PR projects: Modest Kolerov, Proryv, EYU
--------------


17. (C) Kremlin spinmeister Modest Kolerov, brought in by the
Kremlin in March 2005 after the Orange Revolution to manage a
counter-campaign aimed at Russians in the "near abroad," has
focused on Crimea as part of his "CIS-II" project also
involving Transnistria, Abhazia, and South Ossetia, stated
Lytvynenko. He claimed there had also been unsuccessful
efforts to involve Crimean Rada Speaker Anatoliy Grytsenko
(Regions) in the meetings with the "presidents" of the
separatist regions. Kolerov uses his Regnum and Novy Regioni
news agencies to promote biased and misleading "news,"
influencing Crimea's information space (note: the Novy
Regioni website lists its Crimean affiliate along with those
in Russian provinces and separatist "republics," apart from
the Ukraine affiliates). Ukrainian outlets often re-ran Novy
Regioni "manufactured" material without fact checking,
perpetuating a circle of myths according to Maidan-Krym's
Aleksandr Pylypenko.


18. (SBU) Kolerov's Regnum helped launch Moscow's "Evropa"
publishing house in May 2005 with the stated intent of
influencing opinion makers in Russia and the CIS, according
to website mission statements. One of Evropa's 2006
publications, available in Moscow and Kyiv bookstores and,
for a time, at the Ukrainian Rada (where we bought it),is:
"Operation Anti-NATO: the Feodosia Model." The book trumpets
the success of the Feodosia protests as a model for
pro-Russian communities to emulate. It highlights the role
of the Russian Bloc and the Crimean Cossacks in launching the
protests, along with the later participation of Proryv,
Vitrenko's Bloc, and Party of Regions, with glossy pictures
of the latter three groups and quotes from all five, plus
Kirill Frolov


19. (SBU) Proryv, a radical pro-Russian youth group first
registered in Tiraspol (Transnistria),came to Ukraine's
attention January 19 when its Crimea branch dug a trench
along the Yalta-Moscow highway at the neck of the Crimean
peninsula and symbolically created a mock border post between
Crimea and the rest of Ukraine, inviting Russian but not
Ukrainian TV stations to cover the action. Proryv's former
Crimean director Dobychin was expelled in June and
blacklisted by the SBU after active participation in the
Feodosia protests (ref B).


20. (SBU) High media "brand" profile aside, Proryv was
described by most contacts as currently consisting of no more
than several dozen mostly school-age activists tied to the
Russian BSF. Prytula noted that Proryv had been much more
active prior to the March elections; Russia Duma MP Zatulin
and his associate Frolov had been Dobychin/Crimea's main
interlocutors during frequent visits to Sevastopol, with
Frolov the seeming main ideologue. Since then, however, all
three had been blacklisted; the SBU had taken active steps
against Proryv, and it appeared Proryv's money and activities
had dried up, leaving the "brand" and public relations
potential to be tapped in the future. (note: Echoing
Kolerov's efforts to tie Crimea to Russian- affiliated
separatist zones, the current Proryv Crimea coordinator
Natalya Polyakova held a press conference October 9 to
announce the formation of an "International Front Proryv"
uniting the efforts of branches in Crimea, Transnistria,
South Ossetia, and Abhazia).


21. (SBU) As Proryv's profile dipped in late 2006, that of
the Eurasian Youth Union (EYU) project affiliated with
Alexander Dugin has risen, Yunusov told us. He noted that
EYU was particularly active in Bakhchiserai, led by
Konstantin Knyryk and his son (note: when we visited
Bakhchiserai November 22, we saw EYU graffiti on walls near
large apartment blocks on the outskirts of town). EYU also
turned out for the Pokrova marches October 14 in Kyiv and in
Crimea (ref C),as well as the Russkiy March" November 4.

Moscow and Mayor Luzhkov - buying influence/real estate
-------------- --------------


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22. (SBU) The Moscow-Crimea Foundation and Moscow-Sevastopol
Foundation, the latter run out of a self-styled "Embassy of
Moscow" in Sevastopol, gave Mayor Luzhkov vehicles to buy
influence and real estate, even though he personally is on
Ukraine's black list, noted several Crimean journalists. The
Foundations provide money to the ROK for allegedly cultural
projects and purchase large amounts of Russian textbooks,
donating them to Crimean schools as a way of influencing what
the next generation of Crimeans learn. They also purchase
land to build apartment blocks, particularly in Sevastopol,
and sanatoria throughout Crimea. Luzhkov recently appointed
an energetic, young former assistant in September to head the
Moscow-Crimean Foundation with the aim of increasing activity
and cooperation, noted Yunusov. Sevastopol city council
members travel monthly to Moscow, Tymofiy Nikitiuk, head of
Sevastopol's Committee of Voters of Ukraine, told us,
ensuring positive decisions on land allocation for the Moscow
Foundation.

Miscellaneous pro-Russian actors
--------------


23. (C) Presidential representative in Crimea Hennadiy Moskal
suggested to us that "Mother Russia" had been behind the
active participation of the Russian Bloc and Natalya
Vitrenko's Progressive Socialists in the Feodosia protests.
He predicted that the Russian Bloc's support would fall over
time, but that Vitrenko, Crimea's Communists, led by
ex-Crimean premier Leonid Hrach, who had organized a
non-binding anti-NATO referendum in Crimea for December 16,
and the smaller "Soyuz" (Union) party, "all bought" by
Moscow, were ready to continue to agitate active pro-Russian
lines. Yunusov claimed that Hrach and Zatulin had previously
worked closely together but experienced a falling out over
money, with Zatulin redirecting his support to ROK and the
Russian Bloc, and Hrach organizing the anti-NATO referendum
as a way of showing he could deliver as a friend of Moscow
and was still deserving of financial support.


24. (SBU) Ukrainian media controlled by Russians or those
sympathetic to Russia reinforce the biases via their
coverage. Inter, Ukraine's top rated TV channel, has been
controlled by the Russian Yevraz Holding group since the
summer of 2005. Inter's long-time Crimea lead correspondent
Yuri Pershykov has long pushed a strongly anti-Tatar
perspective in his reporting and took active part attacking
Tatars in the Bakhchiserai August riots, according to Crimean
Tatar community activist Nodir Bekir and Yunusov. Bekir, who
tracks hate speech, notes that in September the Crimean state
TV channel broadcast racial hatred comments by Andriy Kuryaev
of the Moscow Russian Orthodox Academy, in which Kuryaev
urged Slavs in Crimea to "knock out Tatars' teeth" to teach
them a lesson. Media Krym's Shchekun concurred that Crimean
TV regularly purveyed pro-Russian propaganda on various
regional issues, including misleading "documentaries" on
Chechnya whose anti-Islamic slant could affect perceptions of
Crimean Tatars locally. Yunusov added that the "Krymskaya
Pravda" newspaper, circulation 50,000, promotes a strongly
anti-Ukrainian, anti-Tatar, pro-Russian line targeted
primarily at Crimea's large pensioner community, which
remains "Soviet" in outlook.


25. (SBU) Some pro-Russian groups in Crimea act
independently. On the one side, there are activists like
Serhiy Shuvainikov of the Congress of Russian Communities in
Crimea, who told us that he focused on improving the rights
of ethnic Russians (russki) in Crimea, rather than promoting
a pro-Russian (rossiski) political agenda or supporting
Putin's recent call for ethnic Russians to relocate to
Russia. Prytula passed us an unsigned copy of an analysis,
which Shuvainikov apparently provided to the SBU, of various
Russian groups in Crimea; the report split them into those
controlled by Moscow and those interested in an independent
local agenda. As word of the analysis leaked, the ROK and
the Russian Bloc denounced Shuvainikov, who did not disavow
authorship to us. On the other side, the small National
Front Sevastopol-Crimea-Russia, which advocates reunification
with Russia, believes that the Kremlin has not been
aggressive enough in Crimea.


26. (SBU) There is frequent quarreling and splintering among
the pro-Russian groups, which often compete with each other
for Moscow's attention and money, according to all Crimean
observers, including pro-Russian group leaders. Most are
unable to generate more than a few hundred attendees for any
particular event (even the Feodosia protesters usually
numbered no more than 100-300 at any time). However,
sympathetic media carefully chooses camera angles and boosts
reported numbers by a factor of ten, with the intent of
influencing perceptions and controlling the information space
in Crimea and beyond, meeting with seeming success.

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What is to be done?
--------------


27. (C) Lytvynenko suggested the three main steps Kyiv needed
to take to address the Crimean situation effectively:
establish an effective land registry; use the SBU to more
aggressively counter intel activities (and rotate out SBU
personnel too closely affiliated with the Cossacks and
Russia); and improve presidential outreach to the Crimean
Tatar community. Then Interior Minister Lutsenko, in a
November 17 discussion with Ambassador, reaffirmed the SBU's
lead role, stressed the limited utility of law enforcement
action against Proryv-style mischief, and focused on a wider
cultural challenge. Ukraine had done nearly nothing to
create a positive Ukrainian alternative to the Russian
propaganda machine of the Black Sea Fleet and pro-Russian
media. Nearly all the journalists we talked to in Crimea
heartily agreed, adding the education system as another tool,
with the need to expand Ukrainian language opportunities
(there is still only one magnet Ukrainian language high
school, and only three overall, in Crimea). Lytvynenko noted
that the internet-based Maidan-Krym and Media-Krym projects
were a modest start in the right direction, particularly with
the younger generation of Crimeans, in the information space
battle, but the challenge remained enormous.


28. (U) Note: Septel will address the purely local issues
which dominate the Crimean scene: land allocation, and a
decline in governance amidst the weakening of central power
and the return of many former "bandits" into local government
after the March elections.


29. (U) Visit Embassy Kyiv's classified website:
www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/kiev.
Gwaltney