In Ukraine, fascists, oligarchs and western expans

In Ukraine, fascists, oligarchs and
western expansion are at the heart
of the crisis

We've been here before. For the past couple of months street
protests in Ukraine have been played out through the western
media according to a well-rehearsed script. Pro-democracy
campaigners are battling an authoritarian government. The
demonstrators are demanding the right to be part of the European
Union. But Russia's president Vladimir Putin has vetoed their
chance of freedom and prosperity.
It's a story we've heard in one form or another again and again –
not least in Ukraine's western-backed Orange revolution a decade
ago. But it bears only the sketchiest relationship to reality. EU
membership has never been – and very likely never will be – on
offer to Ukraine. As in Egypt last year, the president that the
protesters want to force out was elected in a poll judged fair by
international observers. And many of those on the streets aren't
very keen on democracy at all.
You'd never know from most of the reporting that far-right
nationalists and fascists have been at the heart of the protests and
attacks on government buildings. One of the three main
opposition parties heading the campaign is the hard-right
antisemitic Svoboda , whose leader Oleh Tyahnybok claims that a
"Moscow-Jewish mafia" controls Ukraine. But US senator John
McCain was happy to share a platform with him in Kiev last
month. The party, now running the city of Lviv, led a 15,000-
strong torchlit march earlier this month in memory of the
Ukrainian fascist leader Stepan Bandera, whose forces fought with
the Nazis in the second world war and took part in massacres of
Jews.
So in the week that the liberation of Auschwitz by the Red Army
was commemorated as Holocaust Memorial Day, supporters of
those who helped carry out the genocide are hailed by western
politicians on the streets of Ukraine. But Svoboda has now been
outflanked in the protests by even more extreme groups, such as
"Right Sector", who demand a "national revolution" and threaten
"prolonged guerrilla warfare" .
Not that they have much time for the EU, which has been pushing
Ukraine to sign an association agreement , offering loans for
austerity, as part of a German-led drive to open up Ukraine for
western companies. It was Viktor Yanukovych's abandonment of
the EU option – after which Putin offered a $15bn bailout – that
triggered the protests.
But Ukrainians are deeply divided about both European
integration and the protests – largely along an axis between the
largely Russian-speaking east and south (where the Communist
party still commands significant support), and traditionally
nationalist western Ukraine. Industry in the east is dependent on
Russian markets, and would be crushed by EU competition.
It's that historic faultline at the heart of Ukraine that the west has
been trying to exploit to roll back Russian influence since the
1990s, including a concerted attempt to draw Ukraine into Nato.
The Orange revolution leaders were encouraged to send Ukrainian
troops into Iraq and Afghanistan as a sweetener.
Nato's eastward expansion was halted by the Georgian war of
2008 and Yanukovych's later election on a platform of non-
alignment. But any doubt that the EU's effort to woo Ukraine is
closely connected with western military strategy was dispelled
today by Nato's secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who
declared that the abortive pact with Ukraine would have been "a
major boost to Euro-Atlantic security ".
Which helps to explain why politicians like John Kerry and
William Hague have been so fierce in their condemnation of
Ukrainian police violence – which has already left several dead –
while maintaining such studied restraint over the killing of
thousands of protesters in Egypt since last year's coup.
Not that Yanukovych could be mistaken for any kind of
progressive. He has been backed to the hilt by billionaire
oligarchs who seized control of resources and privatised
companies after the collapse of the Soviet Union – and fund
opposition politicians and protesters at the same time. Indeed,
one interpretation of the Ukrainian president's problems is that
the established oligarchs have had enough of favours granted to
an upstart group known as "the family" .
It's anger at this grotesque corruption and inequality, Ukraine's
economic stagnation and poverty that has brought many ordinary
Ukrainians to join the protests – as well as outrage at police
brutality. Like Russia, Ukraine was beggared by the neoliberal
shock therapy and mass privatisation of the post-Soviet years.
More than half the country's national income was lost in five
years and it has yet fully to recover.
But nor do the main opposition and protest leaders offer any kind
of genuine alternative, let alone a challenge to the oligarchy that
has Ukraine in its grip. Yanukovych has now made sweeping
concessions to the protesters: sacking the prime minister, inviting
opposition leaders to join the government and ditching anti-
protest laws passed earlier this month .
Whether that calms or feeds the unrest will be clear soon enough.
But the risk of the conflict spreading – leading political figures
have warned of civil war – is serious. There are other steps that
could help defuse the crisis: the creation of a broad coalition
government, a referendum on EU relations, a shift from a
presidential to a parliamentary system and greater regional
autonomy.
The breakup of Ukraine would not be a purely Ukrainian affair.
Along with China's emerging challenge to US domination of east
Asia, the Ukrainian faultine has the potential to draw in outside
powers and lead to a strategic clash. Only Ukrainians can
overcome this crisis. Continuing outside interference is both
provocative and dangerous.

Twitter: @SeumasMilne