Now What

By Volodymyr Kish

As expected, President Yanukovych wasted no time in consolidating his hold on the Ukrainian government.  In a deft series of moves, some of which were a little dubious in terms of their constitutionality, he succeeded in ousting Yulia Tymoshenko as Prime Minister, and putting his own cabinet in place. 

The new Prime Minister is Mykola Azarov, a Russian-born veteran bureaucrat who was Finance Minister when Yanukovich was the Prime Minister in the Kuchma era.  Serhiy Tihipko, who came third in the recent presidential election, becomes Deputy PM responsible for the economy.  The remainder of the cabinet are mostly Kuchma-era retreads and oligarchic cronies of Yanukovych and his chief backer, Ukrainian billionaire Rinat Akhmetov.  No doubt, what we will see will largely be a repeat of what Ukraine experienced under former President Leonid Kuchma.

While some of the more right wing Ukrainian nationalists and “patriots” are already starting to trot out their “sky is falling” routine, loudly proclaiming that Yanukovych is getting ready to turn Ukraine over to Putin and the Russians, I don’t think anything of the sort is on the horizon.  When you consider who the real power is behind Yanukovych, and examine the pre-Orange Revolution history of Ukraine, it is not hard to predict what will happen during the Yanukovych Presidency.

Let us not forget that under President Kuchma, there was plenty of opportunity for him to push Ukraine into Russia’s orbit, but he did not.  Kuchma and the rest of the oligarchs that controlled Ukraine’s economy and thereby its politics, had no great desire then, nor do they now, to come under Putin’s control.  They may be mostly Russians, but to them, power and wealth is of far greater importance than their language or cultural antecedents.  Trust me, Yanukovych, Akhmetov, Azarov, and all the other members of the Donetsk political machine, will do all they can to retain their fortunes and control their own future, something that would be seriously put at risk if they ever came under the thumb of Putin.

Nor are they likely to make any hard-line changes that could inflame the majority of the Ukrainian population.  The main lesson that the Donetsk bosses learned over the past five years, is that, being a minority, they can only attain and maintain political power by keeping the majority of the Ukrainian population politically divided.  It would only make sense then not to do anything that would polarize public opinion and unite the various Ukrainian political parties and factions under a common cause. 

So, what you are likely to see in the next few years are policies that are likely to stabilize the Ukrainian economy and allow the oligarchs to grow and enjoy their vast fortunes.  We should keep in mind that these people are not ideologically motivated – they are very pragmatic robber barons.  They will avoid making any moves that might destabilize the situation and create the potential for them losing control of what is to them a good thing.

Let us not forget that during his Presidency, Kuchma even went to the extent of writing a book titled Ukraine is not Russia to emphasize the fact that though he welcomed good relations with Russia, but the days of Ukraine being part of the Russian Empire were history.  At the time, most people viewed the book as being merely a cynical and self-serving piece of propaganda.  There undoubtedly may have been some truth in that, but I think that at its core, it does reflect the fact that Kuchma and his brethren understood then, as they do now, that an independent Ukraine provides them with far better opportunities than would a Ukraine that reverted back to being a colony or province of Russia.

Undoubtedly, there will be efforts made to make being Russian in Ukraine a more comfortable state of affairs, but I highly doubt that we are in for a sharp turn towards Russification or closer integration with Russia itself.  That would induce unacceptable risk to the comfortable status quo that the current elite now enjoys.

We should also keep in mind that although Yanukovych is the President, he is mostly the front man for a group of very shrewd and smart power brokers who really control things in Ukraine from the shadows.  They will advance their self-serving agendas, but will be careful not to do anything that might inflame passions such as what happened during the Orange Revolution.  They learned far more from that experience than did the Orange “revolutionaries”.  In particular, they learned that they don’t need to cheat (at least not much) to win – they only need to focus their political strategies at keeping the opposition divided.  They can count on the unfortunate fact that the Ukrainian majority opposition has become quite adept at defeating itself.