“Why developments in Ukraine are receiving such strange coverage in the Kremlin’s agitprop”

Let this begin ning surprise nobody. Explanations will follow.

A war unleashed by Mao and Stalin resulted in the establishment of two states in Korea. As far as Asia is concerned, there is no use reasoning on the basis of contradictions between capitalism and socialism, democracy and totalitarianism, nor is it worthwhile to compare the two Koreas with the two Germanys. South Korean chaebols are far from free market ideals, and democracy in the Republic of Korea is as relative as it is in Japan, not to mention Taiwan and political regimes in the South East Asian countries that have impressed the world with burgeoning development.

The cause of this development is that these countries have renounced isolation and found a place in the global division of labor. Paradoxically, this has only reinforced their national sovereignty and national identity. The tragedy of the divided Korean nation is that its northern part is run by the people who are mostly concerned about being irreplaceable in power and the family-based continuity of the latter. It is only for this purpose that they invented Juche, an ideology of absolute isolation for a country which has the nuclear bomb and the means of its delivery but still uses steam-traction trains – not to mention such a “trifle” as starvation and poverty.

Of course, Ukraine is not Russia, and a divided nation is only a fantasy of the Russian ruling elite and its agitprop. But the barbed wire ditch dug the other day on the border between the two countries has already been dubbed Berlin Wall II. There are many points in what is going on today that may be interpreted as absurdity but, nevertheless, must be rationally explained. At least because Putin and his inner circle have repeatedly shown that they are rather calculating and, in a way, rational in their actions. The main thing is to understand what “in a way” means.

Yet we will have to begin with the irrational. Let me remind you that Putin really thinks that there is no such thing as Ukrainian nation and the two states relate to each other almost as the two Koreas do. But the Russian ruling elite becomes unusually judicious, calculating and cunning whenever it feels a threat to its power. In the jargon of underworld subculture, to which it is so much related, it has a strong “nose for it.” And it is no problem that they do not know how to spell out their fears correctly. Others will do this instead.

So let’s do it.

In all the periods of Russian history, the demonstrative effect, the example of foreigners, has always been the root cause of all civilization-related changes. It had all begun well before Peter I and his German Quarter: Patriarch Nikon’s reforms were patterned, to a large extent, on Ukrainian church rite practices, which were much closer to the Greek ones than the Muscovite rites were. But not only the elite was imitative. From the era of Enlightenment onwards, the fear of a foreign virus was caused by the events in Europe, which could be equally called bourgeois revolutions, modernization crises, and erratic nation genesis. Russian xenophobia ranged from everyday life occurrences to the absolute level, as was the case during the Crimean War.

What represented the gravest danger was the demonstrational effect of ethnic movements inside the empire. And Putin, a mental heir to Russian autocrats, views the national renaissance of Ukraine as intra-imperial phenomenon, i.e., one that is dangerous to his regime in Russia itself. But this also restricts the freedom of his pressure on Ukraine.

A rather essential detail: Ukraine is debating whether the European Union will sign the Association Agreement, and Russia – whether Ukraine will. At first sight, the Kremlin’s agitprop is supposed to hit at the weakest spot and try, by all means, to take advantage of European politicians’ hesitations. But Russia does not know much about their doubts for two reasons.

The first is that sufficient information destroys the infernal image of the European Union which is allegedly weaving a plot against the centuries-old unity of fraternal nations. And the Ukrainian ruling elite stops falling victim to European villains who are taking advantage of its immaturity and drawing it into the whirlpool of European debauchery (the most widespread cliches of the Kremlin’s agitprop are “European Sodom” and “Gayrope” which have upstaged Ukraine (“country of jailbirds”). This elite also needs to be guarded – not by the Europeans who devour babies but by the Kremlin men who kiss babies in the tummy.

Yet, by all accounts, Ukraine itself harbors no illusions. It confesses that, for Viktor Yanukovych, association with the EU means protection from Moscow’s pretensions to the role of his guardian. Likewise, it is openly said that the president of Ukraine views Yulia Tymoshenko’s imprisonment as guarantee against the aspirations of a dangerous political rival. This actually brought the Ukrainian head of state into a difficult and contradictory situation.

And here we can see the second reason why the developments in Ukraine are receiving such strange coverage in the Kremlin’s agitprop. It is common knowledge in Ukraine that the destiny of Tymoshenko is the main stumbling-block in the negotiations. Poland’s Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski is already saying that signing the agreement with Ukraine may be put off until 2014. Now just imagine what Putin may be feeling when he sees that the European Union can successfully demand that political prisoners be freed, making it an object of political bargaining and a precondition for singing agreements and treaties. For Putin holds more than one political adversary in prison – not millions so far but already more than a few. Add to this the return of punitive psychiatry. This could create a high-profile precedent… The precedent has in fact been created – the liberation of Yurii Lutsenko. Not to mention, of course, the other EU conditions and fulfillment of them by Ukraine. For, otherwise, the foundation of Putin’s agitprop structure – sovereignty as opposed to development – will be called into question. This opposition is an openly-debatable point now.

However, there is and there can be no absolute sovereignty in the world of today – the signing of any treaty binds the state to resolve the conflict between its content and the domestic law in favor of international commitments. Nowadays, there may be absolute sovereignty in perhaps North Korea, but even in this case it is limited by the Kims’ accounts in foreign banks.

This brings up again a comparison between North Korea and South Korea – of course, relative and limited but still admissible.

The North Korean-style integration of Russia into the surrounding world would be ideal for the Russian ruling elite, as would be the Soviet pattern, when access to foreign contacts were an indicator of high status and belonging to the highest class. Negotiating the visa problem with the European Union, the Russian side demands that privileges be granted to bearers of international passports. European institutions are being drawn into the institutionalization of classes and class privileges in modern Russia.

It is easy to do so, for a mere 17 percent of Russian citizens have international passports. Therefore, Sergei Lavrov’s threat about traveling from Ukraine to Russia and the other way round on the basis of international passports is meant not so much for Ukrainians as for Russians. This innovation will drastically limit the possibility of reciprocal contacts. Besides, even though Russia has canceled exit visas, it keeps intact the Interior Ministry’s section formerly in charge of them, the system of coordination with the FSB, and the system of denying individuals who have access to state secrets the right to travel abroad.

Integration, Russian style, means corrupting the European elites, penetrating into and seizing the banking and financial system, and gradually relocating the Russian elites to the West by way of buying off real estate and businesses and sending their children to study abroad so that they eventually integrate and socialize outside Russia.

This is why Russia is looking down its nose at integration – Ukrainian style – by means of labor migration. The information about the latter is well known from both Ukrainian and European surveys. Ukrainians are the most numerous ethnic group on Europe’s legal labor market, and money remittances from there three times exceed those from Russia. These earnings are of paramount economic importance. Polls show that Ukrainians prefer the legal European labor market rather than the gray schemes that exist in Russia. The Ukrainian wave of labor migration is going to be European in terms of lifestyle and system of values.

It is an altogether different type of integration with Europe – grassroots-based, democratic, profound, and promising. Tellingly, the authorities of China, the world’s second largest economy, are not ashamed of labor migration, for they view it as a most important economic and political instrument.

Joining the European Union thus becomes the most important economic factor and social stabilizer for Ukraine. The ruling elite is interested in a new, European, legitimacy, the oppositional elite would not mind sitting in the European Parliament, and the socially frustrated part of the population is prepared to go to Europe in search of a job. This is why the Kremlin’s agitprop is raising hell not much to the point: instead of speaking about real political contradictions in Ukraine and between Ukraine and the EU, it is scaring the Russians, not the Ukrainians, with European horrors.

As for the Gazprom pressure, expert opinion in both countries creates an impression that this pressure is restrained and its potential is limited. If we do not go into some essential, but somewhat inappropriate here, details, we can draw the following strategic conclusion: the interdependence of Ukraine and Russia makes it impossible for Gazprom to radicalize its demands, for it cannot afford to cut short gas supplies to Europe. There is also a political, not only a commercial, point here: European institutions would regard these reductions as another argument in favor of rapprochement with Ukraine. It is no secret that Moscow’s threats to Kyiv are prodding the Europeans to sign the Association Agreement.

The ongoing conflict has already produced an undeniably positive result. The Kremlin’s agitprop has coined the term “geopolitical betrayal.” In all probability, thus will be called disagreement of any country with Russia no matter what it is all about.