Russian Passports as Geopolitical Tool

By Taras Kuzio (Eurasia Daily Monitor)

The official protest by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) on September 11 over the allegedly “unfriendly” attitudes of the Ukrainian authorities to Russia was met by a stern response on the same day by Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry. Russia’s MFA protested about President Viktor Yushchenko’s support for Georgia, including supplying “heavy military hardware”; Ukraine’s drive to join NATO “against the will of the Ukrainian people”; “attempts by the Ukrainian authorities to reconsider our common history in an anti-Russian spirit”; and the standard complaint about official hostility to the Russian language.

Ukraine’s response pointed to Russia’s inability, despite nearly two decades of Ukrainian independence, to accept Ukraine as an “independent state.” Ukraine’s MFA also described Ukraine as “under no circumstances belonging to the so-called ‘privileged interests’ of any country.”

The Russian protest also complained about the “practice of banning Russian deputies and eminent politicians from entering Ukraine.” Russian Duma deputy Viktor Vodolatsky was refused entry into Ukraine to attend a coordinating council meeting of Cossack Hetmans (leaders). [Similarly], Russian political technologist Sergei Markov was refused entry into Ukraine.

Russia has retaliated by creating a long list of Ukrainian politicians and businessmen banned from entering Russia. It includes NUNS leader Vyacheslav Kyrylenko, Petro Yushchenko (the president’s brother and a NUNS deputy), the governors of Kyiv and Kharkiv, BYuT head of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, Ukrspetsexport armaments company heads, and others.

Ukraine’s MFA warned “that attempts by Russia to destabilize the situation in Ukraine through fifth columnists who for some reason position themselves as the ‘healthy political forces of the country’ have no prospects.” The accusations and the very tone of the exchange are at odds with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s assurances that “Crimea is not disputable territory”. Leon Aron of the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute warned in The Wall Street Journal (September 10) that “Russia’s Next Target Could Be Ukraine” and that Russia could take control overnight of the Port of Sevastopol, which may be “impossible to reverse without a large scale war.” Also, Moscow City Council is providing $34 million in support of “compatriots” abroad.

The EU’s unwillingness to deal with Russia’s new assertiveness since August 8 has demonstrated the vacuous nature of its European Common Foreign and Security Policy. If the EU has permitted Russia to get away with de facto annexation of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, why would it react any differently to a Russian annexation of the Crimea?

The September 9 EU-Ukraine summit threw “away a golden opportunity to stabilize [Ukraine’s] eastern frontier and encourage political and economic reform in Kiev” (Financial Times, September 10). The EU “foolishly ducked a chance to throw the country a political and economic lifeline” (The Economist, September 11).

Two arguments why West European states have not supported NATO or EU enlargement to Ukraine and Georgia do not stand up. First, Germany, Italy, and France do not support either NATO or EU enlargement, the former considered likely to “antagonize” Russia. Second, France, Italy, and Germany rely on 26%, 30% and 39%, respectively, of their gas imports from Russia. Poland, Lithuania, Bulgaria, and Slovakia, which support NATO and EU enlargement to Ukraine, import respectively 61%, 84%, 94%, and 100% of their gas from Russia.

Ukrainian authorities have become highly sensitive to the threat of a Russian policy of destabilization since the Kremlin invasion of Georgia. One particular area of concern is the issuing of Russian passports to Ukrainian citizens in light of Russia’s pretext of coming to the “defence” of Russian citizens in the two [Georgian] conflicts where Russia had illegally distributed passports.

Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Volodymyr Ohryzko said that Ukraine’s repeated protests to the Russian Consulate in Simferopol over its distributing of passports continue to be ignored. Ohryzko announced that the Security Service, Prosecutor’s Office, Interior Ministry, and MFA were now investigating the problem.

A week after Ohryzko’s comments, 34 inhabitants of Sevastopol who maintain dual citizenship had their Ukrainian citizenship withdrawn. Further investigations have located 1,595 inhabitants of Sevastopol, primarily serving on the Black Sea Fleet, who have dual citizenship, which is banned by Ukrainian law. Both political forces in the Orange coalition have raised the issue of the distribution of Russian passports as a threat to Ukrainian security.

The problem Ukrainian authorities are faced with is that they do not have concrete data on the number of Russian passports distributed in the Crimea. During Leonid Kuchma’s decade in office from 1994 to 2004, the Ukrainian authorities turned a blind eye to the illegal practice. Estimates of Russian Passport holders in the Crimea range as low as 6,000 up to 100,000.

Consequently, the EU is ignoring the fact that the consequences for European security of Russian destabilization in the Crimea would be far more severe than that of Russia’s invasion of Georgia.