On the Release of Nadiya Savchenko

Nadiya Savchenko, while at a Moscow court trial in 2015. After nearly two years in detention in Russia, she has finally been released.

This past week, the Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko, who has become iconic as the Joan of Arc of Ukraine, was finally returned to Kiev in a prisoner swap between Ukraine and Russia. Savchenko, who had earlier this year been sentenced to 22 years in prison by a Russian federal court, was released by Russian authorities in exchange for two Russian servicemen who had been captured in Eastern Ukraine, whom Russia claims were volunteers in Donbass but not active servicemen when they were captured. The Russian government has, of course, not admitted that they have actually been present in Eastern Ukraine or that they have supported the rebels in any way beyond moral support. So while the Russian servicemen’s release was less reported about in Russia outside of coverage on them reuniting with their families, Savchenko came back to Ukraine in a big way.

Nadiya Savchenko returned to Kiev in a blaze of glory. After remaining in Russian custody for nearly two years, she had grown to be quite the public figure in the country. While on the tarmac after landing, she was greeted by a host of media outlets, and then quickly went to a meeting with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, where she was declared as a “Hero of Ukraine” for her perseverance. In immediate statements upon landing back in Ukraine, she showed appreciation to the Ukrainian public for her release and said that she was “ready to once again give my life” for her country.

Savchenko has been in detention for nearly two years, after being captured in Eastern Ukraine and then being transferred to Russia by pro-Russian separatists. There, she was accused of illegally crossing into Russia and killing two Russian state reporters who were in Eastern Ukraine, even though phone data showed that the reporters were killed an hour after Savchenko was captured. Her deteriorating health, poor prison conditions, and unfair trial and detention were all cited as reasons for international governments’ criticism of Russia for her imprisonment. However, it was her defiance in the face of her detention that won her the support of the Ukrainian public. Throughout her detainment and subsequent trial, she remained brave and defiant, wearing a shirt with a prominent Ukrainian state symbol on it, going on a hunger strike, disrupting her trial by singing a nationalist Ukrainian song, and even giving her judge the middle finger at one point. Her determination and her story have won over the hearts and minds of many Ukrainians, and she is seen in the country as a national figure and a symbol of resistance against Russian aggression.

Petro Poroshenko has, over the past two years, consistently condemned Russia for Savchenko’s detention and called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to release her. And now, with the help of Western powers and multiple negotiations, this has finally happened. If looking merely at outward appearance, this would seem like a triumphant moment for Poroshenko. He even took it as a chance to proclaim that he would take back Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. However, what should be a triumphant moment for Poroshenko could quickly prove to be a burden politically. Very quickly after returning home, Savchenko told journalists that, if the Ukrainian people wished, she would run for the presidency.

This comment should not be taken lightly. Nadiya Savchenko has become not only a major public figure in Ukraine, but an icon and symbol of resistance of the Ukrainian people. She is revered by most of the population and abroad. The public opinion on President Poroshenko, however, is a different matter entirely. The Ukrainian President, who has been in power since 2014, has become increasingly unpopular over his time in office due to the slow pace of reform in the country and accusations of corruption against him. The allegations of corruption were reinforced earlier last month with the release of the Panama Papers, which listed Poroshenko as one of many government officials around the world that had offshore shell companies, but one of the few official heads of state mentioned in the documents. However, to most Ukrainians, this came as no surprise. They see their government as corrupt to the core, because, for the most part, it is. And Petro Poroshenko, as head of that government, is the face of that corruption.

Previous posts on this blog have heavily criticized President Poroshenko, and rightfully so. He has stalled on reforms and has shown to be a very corrupt individual, and instead of attempting to heal the country he has only built a clout around him made up of those loyal to him. If he had any sense of dignity or responsibility for his post, then he would step down. But that does not make any other alternative to Poroshenko ideal for the country. Nadiya Savchenko becoming president of Ukraine is certainly an idea many Ukrainians would like to entertain, particularly because of her recent comments, but it’s important to remember exactly who she is. She is not a politician, she is a pilot in the Ukrainian military. Although it would be optimistic to hope for outsiders of the Ukrainian political system to enter the government, it would be hard to expect that Savchenko would have any knowledge on how to govern.

Furthermore, as shown by her behavior during her detention and trial, she is very nationalistic. During a time when delicacy and diplomacy is needed to set Ukraine back on course, nationalism is most certainly not needed, particularly of Savchenko’s strain. Not only that, but the Russian news media has made her a very unpopular and divisive figure in Russia. If talks are to continue with Russia to end fighting in Eastern Ukraine, then having Savchenko at the forefront of those talks would likely not lead to any progress. Of course, this does not mean that she should not be commended for her perseverance during her incarceration. Savchenko was detained unjustly and unlawfully, and her defiance in the face of injustice is very inspirational. But that does not mean that she should become president.

Land Reforms in Kazakhstan Prompt Protests

The border between the Central Asian nation of Kazakhstan and China, connected by a railway station.

Hundreds of anti-government protesters in Kazakhstan have been detained by police forces over rallies against land reforms that are proposed by the Kazakh government, Al Jazeera reports. The proposals, which would liberalize the sale and rental of areas of farmland in Kazakhstan to foreign investors, are feared to potentially lead to Chinese farmers controlling large swaths of agricultural land, which remains a deeply unpopular notion in the Central Asian nation with the largest land area in the region. This comes at a delicate time for Kazakh society, with low oil prices and a poor performance from the Russian economy, both of which Kazakhstan’s economy relies on heavily, sowing social discontent and putting authorities in the country on edge.

The Republic of Kazakhstan is the ninth largest country in the world by area, and the largest landlocked country on Earth; however, with a population of only a little over 17 million, there is a lot of open land that could be used for agriculture. And although Russia has traditionally been the predominant power in Central Asia, since independence in 1991 the former Soviet republics of the region have increased economic ties with their next closest giant neighbor, China. And many residents in Central Asia see Chinese investors as potentially taking their land and using it for their own agricultural purposes.

This notion has always made land policies, particularly among farmers, very controversial and unpopular in Kazakhstan. Land privatization policies in the 1990’s still can draw a bitter reaction from many Kazakhs. And the recent proposals, which would give private, foreign investors, such as Chinese farmers, control over large swaths of agricultural land in Kazakhstan, have led to some of the largest protests in the country in years. Anti-government rallies were held in big cities across Kazakhstan, such as Almaty, Astana, and Karaganda. Human Rights Watch estimates that hundreds of opposition activists were arrested as a result, in addition to multiple journalists and human rights observers who were monitoring the situation being harassed and arrested by law authorities.

Kazakh police defended their actions as simply their efforts to uphold the law. In Kazakhstan, all groups that wish to put on demonstrations of any kind must get a permit from the government; however, if their demonstration do not toe the government line, then they will often not be permitted. The demonstrations that took place over the weekend across the country’s major cities, therefore, were unauthorized, and so the arrests and crackdowns were in order to maintain order. However, the government of Kazakhstan is walking a dangerous line when it refuses to listen to its people, particularly during this time of political and social upheaval in the country.

Despite China’s growing presence in the region and increased role in the country’s economy, Kazakhstan largely depends on its neighbor to the north, Russia, for its economic and political well-being. Kazakhstan was one of the founding members and architects of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union, an economic alliance between five of the former Soviet states. However, over the past few years, the Russian economy has been hit hard by Western sanctions and a stagnant economy. And when the Russian economy does poorly, the countries around it tend to do poorly as well, and Kazakhstan, despite having the largest economy in Central Asia, is no exception. Kazakhstan, in addition to Russia, has also been hit hard by low oil prices, as crude oil makes up most of the Kazakh economy. As a result, the Kazakh tenge’s value has fallen by around half after a trading corridor with the US dollar was abandoned, inflation has increased, and incomes of average citizens have decreased.

Many Kazakh officials have become worried that this unsettling situation could increase social discontent. The natural responses of authoritarian governments to confront such worries are, historically, to restrict the movements of the citizenry even further to attempt to ensure the survival of the regime. However, if anything, the best way for Kazakhstan to respond to the growing uneasiness in Kazakh society is to address the people’s concerns, instead of ignoring them. From this story, there are already some promising signs. Earlier this month, citing that “doubts had arisen in society,” Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev halted this specific land liberalization proposal. This is a positive development; the mass arrests reported by human rights groups, however, is not. If the government of Kazakhstan claims to be representing the better interests of the people, then perhaps it would be in the government’s better interests to actually give its people a voice, instead of locking up any speech that is critical of its policies. Even if it may keep leaders in power in the short term, in the long run, it will only lead to more problems and more discontent in Kazakhstan as a whole.

The US’s New Romanian Base: Not Threatening, But Not Helpful

US Navy Ship launching an SM-3 missile, used in the NATO missile shield program to protect NATO members from enemy missiles.

This past week, American, NATO, and Romanian officials opened up a new state-of-the-art military base in Deveselu, southern Romania, which will act as a defensive missile shield system. According to NATO and American personnel, the missile shield is aimed to combat potential threats from the Middle East, particularly from Iran, which has been developing a worrying ballistic missile program. The Iranian SEJIL-2 missile’s range could potentially reach multiple NATO members. In response to this, the base has the capabilities to track hostile missiles and intercept and destroy them in the air. Of course, although Iran might be part of the reason for the base’s construction, no one is fooled by the true reason for its creation.

Ever since Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, relations between the military alliance and the largest country in the world have been frosty. Nearly all cooperation between Russia and NATO has been suspended, and close mid-air encounters between NATO and Russian aircraft as well as airspace violations have increased. In recent updates to the country’s military doctrine, Russia now considers the alliance as a whole as a major security threat and sees NATO’s continued eastward expansion, with talks of offering membership to the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine, as a danger. Even the membership of the small Balkan nation of Montenegro, which was invited to join the alliance late last year, is a very controversial issue in Russia. With the increasing hostile nature Russia has shown to the alliance, and many of the Eastern European members of NATO encouraging other members of the alliance for increased readiness in the face of a Russian threat, there is no doubt that the Romanian military base is just for threats contained in the Middle East. In addition to the opening of this site, another event that occurred this week was the groundbreaking ceremony for another missile defense base in Poland, which borders the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. This base is said to operational by 2018.

From comments by Russian officials, we can assume that they are not a fan of the new base. In a recent statement, Russian President Vladimir Putin decried the supposed defense system and described it as “a part of a US nuclear strategic potential brought onto a periphery.” Expanding on this description, he warned Romania that before hosting this base, it had been in the “periphery. Those people [living in peripheries] taking such decisions must know that until know they have lived calm, fairly well-off and in safety. Now, as these elements of ballistic missile defense are deployed, we are forced to think how to neutralize the emerging threats to the Russian Federation.”

Now, it is easy to get swept up in the Russian propaganda in regards to this base, but under closer scrutiny, the claims that the Romanian base is a direct threat to Russia are unfounded. The military base in Deveselu is only a part of a larger NATO missile shield program which consists of US and other NATO members’ warships that discovers and tracks enemy missiles, and then sends out interceptor missiles to destroy it before the missile hits its designated target, presumably somewhere on NATO soil. The military base here, as well as the military base being developed in Poland, will not have any offensive capabilities. Unless the situation changes in the near future, there is no way this base could feasibly attack Russia.

However, just because the military base does not pose a direct threat to Russia as President Putin’s comments would have you to believe, that doesn’t mean that it is necessarily helpful. Ever since NATO’s increased eastward expansion in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, much of the 28-member alliance is made up of former members of the Warsaw Pact, the Cold War military alliance that rivaled NATO which included the Soviet Union and other countries of communist Eastern Europe. Many of the newer members formerly under the Russian sphere of influence, such as Poland, the Baltic states, and Romania for that matter, have called for increased vigilance of Western members in response to Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula. US and NATO military drills in the Baltic sea as land exercises in the Baltic states and Poland have increased. The inclusion of this missile defense system in Romania are likely in response to Romania’s calls for an increased military presence.

But although NATO may have been able to calm the group’s Eastern members in other ways, with this base they should have easily expected a hostile Russian reaction. Even during the Cold War, Russian military policy has always been defensive. After the country was victorious but left in ruins in World War II, the Soviet Union established a slew of communist satellite states in Eastern Europe for that very reason, and when that bloc on the Russian periphery came under threat of dissolution, such as the 1953 East German Uprising, the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, and the Prague Spring of 1968, Soviet troops were always sent in to maintain that bloc. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc as a whole, Russia lost this periphery to NATO, with even some former members of the USSR, such as the Baltic states, joining the alliance, and others, such as Georgia and Ukraine, having very close relations with them. Russia has lost its key areas of defense. So despite the application and uses of the Deveselu base, the fact that a NATO military base, and an American one nonetheless, is operational deep in former Warsaw Pact territory can easily be seen from the Russian perspective as a threat to its security.

This comes at a complicated time for Russian-American relations, when the two are desperately trying to cooperate on a ceasefire agreement in Syria between the Assad government and the rebels. Although peace may still seem a far way off, with both government and rebel forces breaking the cessation of hostilities agreement made in February, there have been some positive developments, such as Russian and American attempts to monitor violations on both sides. Due to the hostile relationship between Assad and Western powers, Russian cooperation is vital for true peace in Syria to be realized. There is a lot more work to do and the current situation is far from ideal, but the fact that Russia and America are actively engaging each other diplomatically on Syria is promising. And although cooperation in Syria does not and should not bleed into other matters in Russia’s relations with the West, the opening of this military base in Romania does not occur at the most ideal timing. It is not threatening, but it is certainly not helping the situation.