KIEV, Ukraine — I’m staying in a suite on one of the top floors of Hotel Ukraine. It’s February 20, four years to the day since dozens of protesters in Independence Square in Kiev were shot dead by snipers hiding in these very rooms. It’s silent as death in the halls and rooms.
The ghosts live down below, in the lobby and breakfast room where the wounded and dead were brought, and where doctors and the hotel staff slipped on the blood on the floor, running to save as many lives as they could.
And they live in the square out front, where between large video screens showing spectacular renovation plans, lost souls approach visitors, asking for money to help the wounded soldiers returning from the war in eastern Ukraine and presenting them with bracelets in Ukraine’s colors. “Slava Ukrayini! Heroyam slava!” Glory to Ukraine. Glory to the heroes.
Kiev remains haunted by the ghosts of Maidan, when young and old rose against the old political culture and briefly shared the intoxicating dream of an open future. That future feels less open now, in part because it is impossible to leave Maidan behind. Its noble promises remain unfulfilled, and the Russian response to the revolution keeps the country in its grip. This month another anniversary looms: March 16, the day of the referendum that paved the way for Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
Small groups and factions have been galvanized by the growing sense of impunity.
Every week, the dead from the war in eastern Ukraine grow more numerous, and the sense in the capital is that the near future is fraught with political danger. What follows is a summary of the scenarios facing Ukraine gathered from my conversations in Kiev with sources inside the security and military establishment.
The country is fragmenting. No one knows who will win the presidential election in 2019, with the main candidates unable to garner a significant percentage of voter support. More immediately, small groups and factions have been galvanized by the growing sense of impunity.
In front of the parliament, during my visit to Kiev, a dwindling band of protesters supporting former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili are still blocking traffic, and three days before the Maidan massacre anniversary a group of nationalists break into a Russian cultural center, burning a flag and covering the walls with graffiti. As someone told me, these groups are tiny, but they are armed and feel increasingly confident and motivated.
The war in the Donbas cannot be won. I know from previous conversations that President Petro Poroshenko‘s administration still entertained the idea two years ago that a propitious occasion could be used to push back the separatists that have taken over parts of eastern Ukraine and the Russian troops that supported them. It is now clear that these ideas were abandoned as soon as the conflict became less intense.
The Kremlin’s reaction to any moves across the conflict line is impossible to predict, and Russia’s military superiority is undeniable. Its Iskander and Kalibr missiles would be sufficient to tilt the balance; 30 Kalibr have been mobilized to the south sector alone.
The peace cannot be won. The main question for Ukrainian decision-makers these days is whether to give the nod to a peacekeeping mission under the auspices of the United Nations. The fact that the Kremlin favors the idea is enough to give them pause, and in fact a peacekeeping mission would be little more than a trap. Casualties might be reduced — something that could probably be done by changing the rules of engagement on the front — but at the expense of a perpetually frozen conflict and sanctions relief for Russia.
Memorial for the people killed on Maidan, to mark the fourth anniversary of the violence | Stepan Franko/EPA
Ukraine has little hope of regaining control over its lost territories. As one of my sources put it, even if Kiev were to miraculously retake the separatist republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, it would be followed by an insurgency campaign supported by the Kremlin. Such a campaign would have to be brutally repressed, destroying relations between Ukraine and the European Union and potentially leading to a civil war — “which Russia would very much enjoy.”
And yet, Kiev is unable to let go of the east. No politician would last a day after suggesting such a course of action, not least because he or she would not be able to convince anyone that they were not in the Kremlin’s pocket.
There’s a least bad option. (But it isn’t very good.) The best idea I heard was that perhaps a deal could be reached with the Kremlin and the separatists that would preserve formal Ukrainian sovereignty over the breakaway regions while cutting economic and political ties with Donetsk and Luhansk for a period of — for example — 30 years.
As opposed to the peacekeeping plan, disarmament would have to follow and the two provinces “would be forced to fly the Ukrainian flag.” In practice, they would be independent and thus have no voice on Ukrainian foreign policy. This would allow Ukraine to focus on its problems until the geopolitical situation changed and the breakaway regions could be fully reincorporated. Politically, the idea is still difficult to defend and implement, but perhaps not impossible.
The fear of a full-scale Russian invasion is still very much alive. As one highly placed security official put it to me: “We do not expect an invasion now, but it is possible in 2020, after the elections.” The logic goes like this: Attacking Ukraine before it holds elections would only rally Ukrainians around Poroshenko, but after the ballots have been counted — following a result that is bound to please no more than a few — divisions will deepen and morale in the country will be very low.
Ukrainian patriotism might be on the wane, and if the likely scenario of a victory by former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko does come to be, one can expect the new president to offer little resistance to a Russian military invasion and quickly settle on frighteningly unfavorable terms.
Ukraine’s ghosts are likely to remain restless for some time yet.
Bruno Maçães, a former Europe minister for Portugal, is a senior adviser at Flint Global in London and a nonresident senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington. His book “The Dawn of Eurasia” was published by Penguin in January.