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The EU and Russia after Crimea: Is Ukraine the Knot? 21
the ‘Crimea is ours’ move and the interference in Ukrainian affairs
and whether the economic price of such a move was considered.
Yurgens, an influential policy adviser under Medvedev’s
presidency, answered with bitterness: “You asked me about the
calculations? The calculation was as follows: “Pride is more
important than bread”. And so if we take Crimea then we will
forget about the domestic problems, generate an upswing in public
sentiment over the return of Crimea and Sevastopol – lands where
Russian blood was spilled, where Tolstoj became Tolstoj and
where Prince Vladimir was baptized. The calculations? Don’t
worry, we’ll do them later, we have $500 billion in FX and gold
reserves. Ukraine will fall apart. The West won’t attack a nuclear
superpower. We’ll figure it out later” 9 .
With Moscow’s direct intervention in the war in Ukraine, Putin
has managed to ensure that the latter’s future lies, to a large extent,
in his hands. But, by contrast, Russia’s position in Ukraine and its
strategic options in the rest of the post-Soviet space have been
weakened. In Ukraine, the Kremlin seeks strategic control of the
country or, at least, to secure the capacity to block its foreign
policy in the case of an eventual coming together with the EU or
NATO. In this sense, Donbas is just an instrument. The
‘decentralisation’ of Ukraine or the “national inclusive dialogue”
arouses Putin’s interest only because of this goal and not in terms
of Ukrainian domestic policy. The Kremlin’s ability to conceal its
real objectives tends to profoundly distort the debates with and
within the EU. The problem for Ukraine is that, until now, Donbas
has been enough to force Kiev to accept the terms agreed in
Minsk, but not to bend its will on maintaining its full sovereignty
and freedom.
In fact, Moscow seems to be toying with the idea that Kiev’s
possible collapse, allied with Ukrainian disappointment at the lack
of a solid deal with the EU, could end up changing the domestic
political balance, leaving it more favourable to the Kremlin’s
9 I. Yurgens, “Развернуть страну назад невозможно” (It is impossible to turn the
country back), Novaya Gazeta, 14 November 2014, http://www.novayagazeta.ru/
politics/66099.html.