UKRAINE-RUSSIA: IS MILITARY CONFLICT NO LONGER

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KYIV 001740

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/29/2019
TAGS: PREL PBTS PGOV PNAT UP RS
SUBJECT: UKRAINE-RUSSIA: IS MILITARY CONFLICT NO LONGER
UNTHINKABLE?

REF: A. MOSCOW 2412

B. MOSCOW 2349

C. MOSCOW 2071

D. KYIV 1433

E. KYIV 1728

Classified By: Charge d'Affaires a.i. James Pettit. Reasons: 1.4 (b/d)
.

SUMMARY
--------------


1. (C) Recent Russian actions have spurred a public
discussion within the Ukrainian elite about Russian
intentions toward Ukraine. The most systematic contribution
to the debate has been made by former National Security
Advisor Volodymyr Horbulin, who believes that internal
Russian considerations are pushing Russia toward a
confrontation with Ukraine prior to the expiration of the
Black Sea Fleet basing agreement in 2017. Some of our
contacts have echoed and even amplified Horbulin's sense of
alarm; others have downplayed the risk of armed conflict
while remaining concerned about the general trajectory of
Russian-Ukrainian relations. The overall impression is that
Russian military action against Ukraine, while still
unlikely, is no longer unthinkable. End summary.

SHOTS ACROSS THE BOW?
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2. (U) Russian President Medvedev's August 11 letter to
Ukrainian President Yushchenko (refs c-d),followed by the
September 9 passage by the Russian Duma of the first reading
of a draft amendment to the Law on Defense, expanding
authority for Russian forces to be deployed abroad (ref b),
have generated a high-profile public discussion here about
the parlous state of Russian-Ukrainian relations. The day
after the Duma's action, an open letter by 29 Ukrainian
intellectuals and public figures, including former President
Kravchuk, took Russia to task for allegedly disregarding
Ukrainian sovereignty and trying to interfere in Ukraine's
foreign-policy and security choices. "For the first time in
many years," the authors warned, "there are signs that the
Kremlin is not excluding the use of force from its arsenal of
foreign-policy instruments toward Ukraine."


3. (U) Still more noteworthy were two long articles in
consecutive issues of "Dzerkalo Tyzhnya" ("Weekly Mirror")
September 12 and 19 on Russia and Ukraine co-authored by
Volodymyr Horbulin, currently Director of the Institute of
National Security Issues and formerly National Security
Advisor to President Kuchma. After a lengthy analysis of
Russian politics, Horbulin concluded that various ideological
and domestic factors "are forcing the Kremlin to make the
extraordinarily dangerous and risky wager on Russian
imperialist chauvinism and the fanning of militarist
psychosis." While Moscow is not looking for a new global
competition with the West, he wrote, Russia views the
"taming" of Ukraine as the key task in restoring its regional
domination.


4. (U) Because Russia's "aggressive policies" are driven by
the needs of Russia rather than the actions of Kyiv, argued
Horbulin, even a major change in Ukraine's political course
would not produce any substantial change in Moscow's
approach. Horbulin reckoned that Moscow realizes it has a
relatively short window of opportunity offered by Ukraine's
internal political squabbling and international isolation, so
"the 'assault on Kyiv' will unfold in the nearest future and
will be determined and merciless." Moreover, experience has
convinced the Russians, he maintained, that "pro-Russian"
politicians in Ukraine quickly adopt a
pro-Ukrainian/pro-Western course as soon as they come to
power. While Horbulin believed that Russia has many
non-military levers with which to influence Ukraine (above
all, by stirring up trouble in the Crimea),he did not rule
out the use of military force, especially if Ukraine's new
president proves not to be as pliable as the Kremlin may hope.


5. (C) In a recent meeting with Polcouns, Horbulin
characterized the Medvedev letter as unprecedented in the
brazenness of Moscow's attempt to interfere in Ukraine's
upcoming presidential election, with the message that
"whoever becomes (the next Ukrainian) president must follow
in the wake of Russian policies." Since the 2008 Russian

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invasion of Georgia, Russian military action against Ukraine
is no longer unthinkable. Russian journalists are already
drawing analogies between Georgia and Ukraine, he alleged,
adding that the "psychosis" created by Russian mass media,
especially TV, could easily get out of hand and create a
slide toward armed conflict.


6. (C) Asked about speculation that Ukraine could be divided
into three parts (with the east/south annexed by Russia, a
Russian-controlled central region, and a European-oriented
rump Ukraine in the west),Horbulin dismissed it as largely a
fantasy and part of the "information war" rather than a
serious plan. He said the focus should be on the scheduled
departure of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in 2017, which will
be the main issue for the Ukrainian president(s) elected in
2010 and 2015.


7. (C) Horbulin emphasized that Russia's window of
opportunity will close toward 2015, as a new generation of
Ukrainian politicians comes to the fore ("the most important
idea in my article"). In closing, he said he tells his
Russian friends that Moscow's actions are only widening the
split between Russia and Ukraine.


8. (C) Other Embassy contacts echoed much of Horbulin's
thinking, with several of them recommending his second
article, in particular, as a close reflection of their own
thinking. The gloomiest assessment of Russian plans toward
Ukraine was offered by the Foreign Policy Research
Institute's Hryhoryi Perepelytsya, who had a book on the
Russo-Finnish War of 1939-40 prominently displayed on his
desk ("Ukraine needs a Mannerheim," he solemnly intoned).
Moscow, he insisted, will not be satisfied with anything less
than the incorporation of Ukraine, or most of it, into the
Russian Federation. Perepelytsya and Stepan Havrysh of the
National Security and Defense Council agreed with Russian
analysts who surmised that the draft amendment to the Russian
Law on Defense was undertaken with Ukraine principally in
mind (ref b). Havrysh maintained that "the military threat
(to Ukraine) is real," although he added that Russian
saber-rattling ultimately works to undermine Russia's
position in Ukraine.



THE SKY IS NOT FALLING -- BUT IT MIGHT BE STARTING TO CRACK
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9. (C) Other Ukrainian analysts were less apocalyptic. MP
Andiy Shkil, a Western Ukrainian member of the Yuliya
Tymoshenko Bloc (BYuT) and head of the Ukrainian Rada
delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, was
unconcerned about any near-term outbreak of military
hostilities between Russia and Ukraine, believing that some
Ukrainians feel the need to exaggerate the threat in order to
rouse the country out of its torpor. Nevertheless, a new
element in the equation, he said, is the sense that Ukraine
now stands alone vis-a-vis Russia, with no real guarantees or
protector. Shkil was troubled by what he viewed as a Russian
propaganda campaign against Ukraine, adding that Ukrainians
were shocked to hear how many Russians in public opinion
polling actually labeled Ukraine an enemy of Russia.


10. (C) Oleksandr Potiekhin, a former diplomat and currently
an expert at the Institute of Global Economy and
International Relations, maintained that President Yushchenko
has exaggerated the Russian danger for his own political
purposes. He agreed with Horbulin that Russian policy toward
Ukraine is driven primarily by Russian domestic political
considerations. Unlike Horbulin and Perepelytsya, Potiekhin
argued that Russia seems to lack a strategy, with its
approach to Ukraine driven more by emotion than calculation.
He observed that Ukrainians continue to have warm feelings
toward Russia, and most of them cannot even imagine an armed
clash. Nevertheless, if it came to hostilities, Potiekhin
said the Russians should not imagine that the Ukrainians
would welcome them as liberators.

MISSILE DEFENSE: UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
--------------


11. (C) Horbulin, echoed by others, was chagrined by the
U.S. decision not to deploy missile-defense infrastructure in
Poland and the Czech Republic. Whatever the merits of the
decision, it had emboldened pro-Moscow elements in Ukraine

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and left pro-Western forces feeling even more beleaguered.

COMMENT
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12. (C) As Oleksiy Melnyk of the Razumkov Center observed to
us, recent Russian actions have certainly alarmed a large
percentage of the Ukrainian political and intellectual elite,
but the population as a whole seems untroubled. No one is
digging tank traps around the northern approaches to Kyiv,
nor do people appear to be making arrangements to send their
families abroad, out of harm's way. There is a sense here
that relations with Russia ought to improve after Yushchenko
leaves office a few months from now (more septel on the
Russia factor in the presidential campaign). And yet, there
is also a palpable sense that Russia and Ukraine have moved
psychologically in recent months in an unhealthy direction.
The example of Georgia; the Medvedev letter to Yushchenko
(the tone of which shocked even critics of Yushchenko's
Russia policy); the amendment to Russia's Law on Defense
(coming on the heels of the Medvedev letter); a perception
(rightly or wrongly) that Ukraine is on its own, bereft of
any concrete Western support; the troubling public-opinion
disconnect (with Russians perceiving Ukraine as hostile while
Ukrainians continue to view Russia and Russians positively);
and the sense that even educated Russian friends just "don't
get it" when it comes to Ukraine's independence and national
aspirations -- all these factors have created a sense of
disquiet about the trajectory of Russian-Ukrainian relations,
and a fear that armed conflict, while certainly unlikely, can
no longer be dismissed out of hand.
PETTIT