Ukraine's Orange Blues

Boy, the Ukrainian diaspora must’ve really gotten under Viktor Yanukovych’s skin.

It all began about a year ago, when Ukraine’s president wrote an open letter offering to meet with a Ukrainian-American umbrella organization. Since he was obviously grandstanding—how else can you explain the open letter?—they turned him down. Rumor has it that Yanukovych felt dissed, but he should’ve known better than to extend a very public peace offering to a diaspora that hates his authoritarian, anti-Ukrainian, and anti-democratic policies. A serious offer would have been made in private.

What is one to make of President Viktor Yanukovych’s recent entry into the ranks of the English-language commentariat? First he shocks the world with the announcement on August 16th that his book, Opportunity Ukraine, will be published by Vienna’s Mandelbaum Verlag on the twentieth anniversary of Ukraine’s independence, August 24th. Then, while we’re all still reeling, he goes ahead and publishes a piece called “Ukraine’s Future Is With the European Union” in the August 25th Wall Street Journal. What’s next? An appearance on Leno?

It’s become part of the conventional wisdom about Ukrainian politics that, for all the dissatisfaction with President Viktor Yanukovych, there is no alternative. He may be a disaster, so the thinking goes, but who else could possibly be elected president? Faute de mieux, vote for our man Viktor in 2015, right?

Naturally, Yanukovych and his Regionnaire pals don’t believe this rosy scenario for a second. If they did, they wouldn’t risk everything—including their power—by trying Yulia Tymoshenko in a kangaroo court. Only desperate self-doubters would be willing to alienate the world and provoke social disturbances at home in order to keep the lady who almost beat Yanukovych in 2010 from running four years from now.

Independent Ukraine turns 20 on August 24th. Some Ukrainians are celebrating, some are demonstrating. Most are too busy making ends meet, going on vacation, tending to their private plots, or worrying about the price of buckwheat to care too much.

Polls show that only about half the population would vote for independence today. About a third wouldn’t. And the rest don’t know. That looks worse than it is. Compared to such highly nationalistic populations as the Poles and French, Ukrainians look confused. Compared to everybody else, Ukrainians are probably par for the course. Actually, more worrisome than the large number of opponents of independence is that their percentage has remained stable over the last 20 years and that they are concentrated in the Russian-speaking south and east of the country.

Some of Ukraine’s most prominent intellectuals have recently weighed in on the scandalous Tymoshenko show trial. In an open letter addressed to Ukrainian society, they condemn the trial and call on Ukrainians not to be indifferent to the injustice being perpetrated by the Yanukovych regime: “We still have the chance to stop all this! We dare not be silent!”

The signatories read like a Who’s Who and include a diverse group of 28 writers, scholars, and commentators, ranging from former Soviet dissidents Ivan Dzyuba, Bohdan Horyn, and Levko Lukyanenko to former Soviet Ukrainian writers Roman Ivanychuk, Dmytro Pavlychko, and Yuri Mushketyk to the liberal philosopher Myroslav Popovych to the hottest current writers Yuri Andrukhovych, Larysa Denysenko, Serhii Zhadan, Vasyl Shklyar, and Iren Rozdobudko to the excellent political commentators Mykola Ryabchuk and Serhii Hrabovsky.

Here’s a finding that may surprise you. According to a recently published multi-author study, Ukraine’s culture is the “loosest” of 33 countries examined by an international team of psychologists, including the Psychology Department of Odessa National University. Loose cultures have weak “social norms” and evince “tolerance of deviant behavior.” In contrast, tight cultures have strong social norms and are intolerant of deviance. If the study is to be believed, a few extant stereotypes about Ukraine may have to be revised. So, too, will some expectations by the Yanukovych regime.

A friend of mine in Kyiv who studies discourses thinks common sense is a “social construction.” I think it’s what you don’t find enough of in Ukraine.

Take the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv, located off the Black Sea coast, with a population of about half a million. Reliant on a moribund ship-building industry, it’s economically depressed and sorely in need of smart leadership and tons of investment. How likely is that to happen? Not very, if the below two examples are indicative of Mykolaiv’s mind-set.

Are the sixties finally coming to Ukraine? The appearance of a New Left movement suggests that the answer may very well be yes. It’s still small and centered in Kyiv, but there’s every reason to think that it could grow and encompass large swathes of the country and its youth. If nothing else, the stultifying nature of the Yanukovych regime—far more dull and authoritarian than anything young Americans, French, or Germans experienced in the 1950s—almost begs for a social movement that rejects the “establishment” and looks for social, cultural, and political alternatives.

One year from now, the UEFA soccer championship will come to Ukraine—in particular, to Lviv, Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Donetsk. Whether or not Ukraine will be ready to host more than 700,000 visitors is the question that most concerns the Union of European Football Associations. No less important, however, is the impact that a sudden influx of so many foreigners will have on the country and the Yanukovych regime.

A recent expert assessment of each city’s preparedness for the games assigned the following scores (on a five-point scale) for several categories of importance to tourists:

After months of ignoring journalists asking to see his estate outside Kyiv, President Viktor Yanukovych finally broke down in late June and took six select representatives on a tour of his house and gardens. Afterward, the seven sipped tea on a veranda and chatted about Ukraine.

Forgive the blunt question, but are the Regionnaires really that dumb? Evidently, yes. The latest bit of evidence for their serial stupidity is the trial of Yulia Tymoshenko. If you haven’t heard, the former Orange prime minister has been charged with “abuse of office,” something that supposedly transpired when she negotiated a gas deal with Russia a few years ago. That deal was apparently bad for Ukraine and, since it was bad, Tymoshenko must be guilty. Of something—well, of anything, actually. And abuse of office will do: it has the ring of substance, while at the same time being so broad as to be meaningless.

A distinguished group of Ukrainian and Western analysts has recently argued that Europe should make Ukraine’s integration into European institutions conditional on the Yanukovych regime’s adherence to democratic standards.

Thus, they argue: “The EU should advance free trade and political agreements only if the Yanukovych administration demonstrates its clear commitment to European values.” In other words, no democracy in Ukraine, no integration with Europe.

Just how deep is the hole President Viktor Yanukovych is in? Take a look at Luhansk Province, Ukraine’s easternmost. With a mostly Russian-speaking population of about 2.5 million (54 percent Ukrainian, 42 percent Russian) and an economy highly dependent on a decaying coal-mining industry, the province has been a bastion of pro-Soviet, pro-Russian, and pro-Regionnaire sentiment since 1991, consistently producing huge majorities for parties and candidates opposed to national-democratic ideals. Luhansk, like its neighbor, Donetsk Province, is to Yanukovych and the Regionnaires as Texas was to George W. Bush and the Republicans.

How can you explain the jaw-dropping incoherence of the Yanukovych regime? They blithely give away the store to the Russians in the April 2010 Kharkiv Accords, but they’re skittish about joining the Russian-led Customs Union. They pursue integration with the European Union, but crudely violate European legal standards by persecuting their political opponents. They declare an anticorruption drive, but retain fantastic villas and shamelessly fix tenders. They pass a law on freedom of information, but constrict freedom of the press. With this kind of record, can anyone be certain that the Parliament’s recently passed endorsement of a free-trade zone with the EU represents an irreversible turn toward Europe?

There are three possible explanations of this incoherence. Let’s look at them, in order of increasing likeliness.