Viktor Zamiatin, Director, Political and Legal Programmes, Razumkov Centre
Vasyl Yurchyshyn, Director, Economic Programmes, Razumkov Centre
The decade that has passed since the start of the war in Ukraine has brought to light several modern European trends, to which people either preferred to pay very little attention, or even tried to ignore them altogether. Among the most remarkable ones are the failure of the concept of multiculturalism policy, the strengthening of “national egoism” tendencies, the growth of support for openly undemocratic movements that might be disguised under both right-wing and left-wing political spectrums, the real threat of losing understanding by NATO and its member countries of its mission and the meaning of its existence, and the clear unpreparedness of European societies to perceive realities, challenges and threats. In this list, there is also room for an increase in the level of uncertainty of prospects of Europe and therefore for the risk of its further division. After all, Brussels, as the capital of the unified Europe, is not a unique landmark and a centre of attraction for all countries in this part of the world, whilst Beijing is already beginning to actively assert itself among other potential centres of attraction.
The division of the world after the Second World War into socialist and capitalist systems, on the one hand, legitimised the political rivalry of the two camps, and on the other hand, was characterised by the spread of myths about the advantages of the socialist economic system and fraternal internationalism in contrast to the gradual decay of capitalism. But at the same time, in reality, the countries that fell under the influence of the soviet hegemon (or chose it as an excellence model) continued to lose more and more in welfare and civilisational values. Finally, such countries fell far behind their historically closest neighbours: East-West Germany, Hungary-Austria, North-South Korea).
In modern history, there is no demonstrable example at all, when an emerging country, which was previously “looked after” by the soviet union, and in the last decades “taken care of” by russia, achieved any recognised economic and political successes. On the contrary, even the mere “touch” of russia turned once flourishing countries, regions, and cities into depressed economic entities led by political pariahs, whose “independent” status was not recognised by any civilised country (yet accepted only by the same destructive entities).
Another harmful stereotype turned out to be the dualistic myth of the friendship of fraternal socialist countries combined with the belief that the capitalist system itself is the source of confrontations and wars. However, the history of Europe after World War II proves just the opposite — the instigator of aggressive attacks and even wars (including in Europe) has always been precisely the country that claimed the role of “elder brother” (who, in theory, should be bringing a peacekeeping mission):
- suppression by the soviet military machine of democratic movements in the “friendly” countries of the Warsaw Pact (Hungary, Czechoslovakia),
- large-scale wars (largely on an ethnic and regional basis) already in the early 1990s in socialist Yugoslavia,
- capture by russia of parts of the sovereign territories that previously were part of other soviet republics (Abkhazia, Transnistria),
- unleashing by Russia of a full-scale war against “brotherly” Ukraine
It should be admitted that for a long time (a long, completely wasted time,) Ukraine tried to “sit on two chairs” — declaring its European choice, while at the same time plunging deeper and deeper into the friendly and inseparable deadly embrace of the moscow “elder brother". Wasting this time meant that, on the one hand, potentially attractive niches for the Ukrainian economy were occupied by the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. By having determined their priorities, they quickly and efficiently moved to the reorganisation of their economic systems on the market basis. This said, as a rule, the greater the political will of the leadership of the former socialist country was, the higher was the support enjoyed by the leaders of such countries and the initiators of the restructuring processes, and — consequently — the wider and more successful were the fundamental changes in the economy and society.
On the other hand, the domestic political community was increasingly absorbed by russian political parties, which nullified attempts to reform both the socio-economic and socio-political environments. The “creeping” subjugation of russia only fuelled the appetites of the latter. Therefore, it became “natural” to reveal the essence of the moscow regime, as the heir of the soviet doctrines of “strong friendship between fraternal peoples” — i.e. nothing else than the brutal aggression.
To a large extent, the development of events in Ukraine over the last decade — the aggression of the “elder brother” against an independent, internationally recognised democratic state — is reminiscent of the events of more than 30 years ago in the former Yugoslavia, when some socialist federations also announced their intention to build their own independent countries. Instead of support, they received aggression.
Without drawing direct analogies, we note that both in that war and in the current fight of Ukraine against the moscow aggressor, we can see “civilisational” similarities. In particular, the war was started by openly dictatorial regimes (those by Milosevic and putin). We also draw attention to the Orthodox Church, which played a powerful and undisguisedly negative role in these processes. Whilst the “civilised” West watched with concern as the war unfolded, this concern permitted the Western peacekeepers to allow the genocide in Srebrenica. By this time, there should have been enough lessons for humanity…
Are not there enough reasons to proclaim that the international community, both then and now, often delays or even neglects to implement the much-needed measures or actions requested by the countries that are current victims of aggression?
The slowness of decision-making by European countries, as well as the indecision of the world community, stretched the Balkan wars for years, allowing additional cruelty during this time. Such indolence later served as a factor for the invasion of another post-soviet aggressor — while NATO was worried about the attack of russia on Georgia in 2008, Georgia itself had already suffered an internal defeat, the further consequence of which was the pro-russian transformation of the country.
From its side, Croatia finally managed to win the war and start building a new country. It should be noted that the declaration of independence by Croatia, its application to join the NATO and the European Union, its struggle for the right to exist and the development of institutions in conditions of war — these and many other ambitious goals were initially considered unattainable for the country in the medium term. Despite the caveats, Croatia began its explicit path to Europe with the construction of institutions, by paying most attention to the achievement of civilisational criteria.
The history of growth and development of Croatia and Ukraine over the past thirty years has many similar features. This is the war for independence against the eastern “elder brother", and the controversial path to joining the EU (which is de facto controversial on both sides, since not all member states would like to welcome a new candidate), and disappointment in international financial institutions (which fail to acknowledge — and even recognise — the exceptional needs of countries that are building democratic societies in the conditions of countering aggression), etc. The similarity of features does not mean that Ukraine will follow the path of Croatia. Rather, the unfortunate losses and defeats of Croatia may caution Ukraine against repeating its own mistakes of the recent past.
The complexity of such tasks for Ukraine is deepened by their exclusivity: the construction of a new country must take place in conditions of war. The scale of this process is unprecedented for modern Europe, and therefore the risks of global threats are exponentially increasing.
A positive feature of the post-socialist development of Croatia was its unconditional orientation towards the European Union. However, it is worth remembering that the ties were not established from scratch. Although moving in this direction often required controversial or unpopular decisions, there was no significant political force in the country advocating alliances with alternative strategic partners. This undoubtedly meant the presence of clear criteria for determining the correct choice of movement for the country.
Although Ukraine declared independence and built its own democratic country in the same period as Croatia — in the early 1990s, it de facto remained at the crossroads between the EU and russia until the early 2020s. This meant increasing strategic uncertainty, which led to the loss of economic dynamics, as well as the weakening of democratic institutions. Therefore, the attempts of russia to absorb Ukraine to restore the USSR were only a matter of time.
Whilst russia started the war more than 10 years ago, and a wide circle of experts in the field was convinced that the aggression in Donbas and Crimea would not stop, the general underestimation of the threats from russia have been becoming more and more chronic. As a result, the need to expand defence orders and strengthen defence borders was neglected. In such conditions, Ukraine not only worsened its own security environment, but also lost opportunities to support and stimulate industry focused on the production of modern security and defence equipment.
It is important to emphasise that proper consideration of external threats can become an effective factor in economic acceleration. And even more so — for emerging countries: through the production of military products and their sale on foreign arms markets. This is exactly what Croatia is doing today, even if secured by being “under the umbrella” of the NATO.
Without a doubt, russia will remain a threat to Ukraine for many years to come. This leads to the need for “synchronous” significant acceleration of the economy and strengthening of the security sector. The unification of such goals lies in the plane of the defence and military industry, oriented to the production (independently and/or in cooperation with foreign companies) of the widest possible range of weapons. With this range of weapons, it will be possible, on the one hand, to protect the country and strengthen the position of the eastern outpost of the European Union, and on another hand, to occupy worthy export niches in one of the most economically profitable spheres.
Crises of a global scale (pandemic, russian aggression, transformation of economic dependence into weapons, intensification of rivalry between the world's largest countries and unions) highlighted the risks inherent in the excessive dependence (energy, supply chains) of democratic societies on autocratic countries. These risks, in their turn, can make it difficult for countries that are at the crossroads of world processes to determine their own value and civilisational choices.
Ukraine, like the vast majority of emerging countries, cannot intervene in the competitive economic (and therefore political) struggle of the leading countries. However, it can consistently prove by its own example that orientation towards leading democratic countries, their institutional, humanitarian and economic values, institutions and markets creates ample opportunities for accelerated recovery, including thanks to large-scale partner assistance.
At the same time, the fight for independence and freedom of Ukraine has undoubtedly accelerated the country's awareness of its own value and civilisational choices. This undeniably confirms that there are solid grounds to claim that it became an additional incentive for the democratisation of Ukrainian society and its proper integration into the European community.
