The other front in Ukraine

[fridi]

We've all heard of Donbass. The cities of Donetsk and Lugansk in the east of Ukraine. But how many have heard of Transcarpathia and the city of Mukachevo? Not many, I assume. Well, looks like that's going to change soon. Because a couple of weeks ago that town, comfortably located far away from the front-line, in the extreme west of Ukraine and across the Carpathian mountains, became the setting of scenes that are more typical of a crappy mafia movie.

The summary of three days of shooting and fighting and chasing between heavily armed militants of the far-right group Right Sector and the police and military is at least 3 dead, more than 10 wounded, and a few police cars set on fire. And also big worries that a new front is being opened in Ukraine, and the tension is about to pour to the west of the country.

The clashes in the town of 85 thousand inhabitants just 50 km away from the Hungarian and Slovakian border and within 100 km of Romania and Poland, has forced the authorities in the former two to tighten the security measures along their border regions. The actions of this militant group are an open challenge to Poroshenko's authority in Kiev, and a serious signal that the Ukrainian cocktail of raging conflict in the east, illegal armed groups in the west, and a collapsing economy everywhere, is threatening EU's backyard with further instability.

Amateur videos on the Internet show how on July 11, four SUVs were moving across Mukachevo, AK47s hanging nonchalantly from the open windows. The 20+ men in the cars were heavily armed, masked, and wearing the insignia of the Right Sector. They were going to a meeting with MP Mikhail Lano. In front of the sports complex that he owns, the first shootout occurred. Then the fleeing militants shelled the police that gave chase with heavy fire. The action scene continued well through the next two days. The militants barricaded themselves in a nearby village and refused to give up to the police who had encircled them. Two of them managed to escape by taking a 6-year old boy hostage. Meanwhile, in the city of Lviv, two police stations were bombed, with scores injured, and the authorities alleged this incident was also related to the one in Mukachevo.

There are two main scenarios purporting to explain these shootings. One is that the Right Sector had seized the role of law enforcement in the region, and were trying to intercept contraband from some local mafia men. The other is just the opposite, that the militant group was actually participating in this contraband, which it uses to fund its operations - so they came into direct clash with the police that attempted to break up their criminal scheme. Whichever of the two versions is correct, it's all a very worrying sign. If the Right Sector is acting like a vigilante group on behalf of the law, this doesn't speak well of Ukraine's internal security. Same goes if they've allied themselves with the mafia.

Basically, there are two reasons that this should be happening in this particular place. See, Mukachevo is in Transcarpathia, a region that's always been under the control of local warlords. It's a border region, and there's always been huge traffic through there - both legal one and contraband. The problems are old there - they started at the time of Leonid Kuchma and continued through Yanukovych's tenure. In this sense, Mukachevo is a symbol of everything that's wrong with Ukraine, and against which thousands of people protested at the Maidan: the oligarchic clan system and the suffocating corruption. The dysfunctional institutions. The lawlessness and opaqueness. Given the slightest opportunity, all these cracks and flaws in the Ukrainian society were sure to backfire against it at some point.

After these incidents, it has become clear that the situation should be changed, and fast. This no longer looks like a mere struggle for supremacy between two local clans. The problem is that the police, the border control and the politicians are all related to these mafia structures, and are utterly corrupt. Granted, the government did react swiftly: within days, the governor of Transcarpathia was sacked, as well as the regional chief of police and the border customs. And president Poroshenko said (although he came just short of naming the Right Sector directly) that "no political force should and can have armed wings of any kind, nor does any political organization have the right to have criminal groups within their structure". And he then went on to state the obvious, namely that the flow of arms and ammo due to the conflict to the east is increasing the crime risk in the rest of the country.

The Right Sector started gaining popularity around its active role in the protests that brought to Yanukovych's ousting last year. Then the group joined the voluntary militant units fighting the pro-Russian separatists in the east. Those batallions showed up last spring and summer, and they were the factor that made the difference just as the Ukrainian army was in a dire situation and was about to get completely destroyed by the Russian separatists. Back then, these volunteer units played a key role, because they were the force that was able to hold the Russian assault.

Since then, most of these paramilitaries have been either disbanded or brought under the formal command of the ministry of defense and the ministry of the interior. The only exception being the Right Sector, who still have no legal status, and continue to refuse to bring their 10,000 fighters into the ranks of the official structures. And the violence in Mukachevo has shown that this paramilitary group is now turning into a serious problem. This is a very dangerous situation for Ukraine. Given the crumbling economy, growing social instability and the lingering war in the east, the last thing Ukraine needs right now is a second front opening in the western sector.

The concern is that the Right Sector could lead a second revolutionary wave in Ukraine, this time headed by the extremist far-right. There've already been plenty of accusations (mainly from Russia) that the current Ukrainian government has allowed itself to become hostage to an extremist neo-fascist far-right agenda, which is only giving more ammo to Putin's arguments. And it just so happens that this group is providing the perfect case in point. Its leader Dmytro Yarosh is trying to demonstrate power by demanding the resignation of the minister of the interior, and even staging protest marches in Kiev and other cities. These guys are loud and quite skillful on the propaganda front. What they've done in Mukachevo is hurting Ukraine's image hugely, because the city is right at the border with the EU. And it's definitely a welcome gift to Vladimir Putin. But in the meantime, their role shouldn't be overestimated. One of the more tangible risks is that the actions of the Right Sector could be used as an excuse by the oligarchs, who've now been having negotiations of their own with the central government in Kiev within the new "de-oligarchization" program that the latter is promising to start soon.

All of this is happening just as the constitutional changes are being initiated, aiming to decentralize the country, and also as new local elections are coming up in autumn - two of the key conditions for the ceasefire agreement in Minsk. But I'd say that agreement is dead in its tracks, because Russia is obviously completely unwilling to honor its part of the agreement. There's virtually no ceasefire, no withdrawal of heavy arms from East Ukraine, no prisoner exchange, no effective monitoring. In these conditions, doing reform is going to be impossible.

Right now, the internal political climate in Ukraine is very polarized. Most Ukrainians perceive the decentralization as something that's been imposed from outside. They believe it's the West's way of appeasing the Russian beast at the expense of Ukrainian sovereignty. They're angry and disappointed with the lack of real support from outside, despite all assurances. They're mad that Ukraine is being forced to reform itself in the most painful way, and suffer heavily for the sake of getting 17 billion of life-saving euros, while Greece is being given a free pass and granted 7 billion just like that, plus a promise for a further saving package worth 86 billion. Such a climate is very favorable for the radical forces to flourish. If the Ukrainian economy is left to collapse on its own, if there's no debt relief deal and the country is turned into a proving ground for various warring clans, then the consequences will backfire on Europe very badly. And Mukachevo may be the first real warning of that.