Doubtless they will try, but it will be hard for “realist” commentators to spin the results of Ukraine’s parliamentary elections as another triumph for the bare-chested Machiavellian Vladimir Putin. Three pro-Europe, pro-democracy, and (by necessity) anti-Russian political parties between them won 54 percent of the total vote cast in all of Ukraine minus Crimea and the three eastern provinces controlled by “pro-Russian separatists” (i.e., Russian mercenaries.) Other pro-European parties accounted for about 20 percent of the vote — including Yulia Tymoshenko’s Fatherland party, which scraped into Parliament just above the threshold, with a little over 5 percent of the vote. A pro-Russian opposition bloc, including politicians from the former Regions party headed by President Yanukovych until he fled from office, won less than 8 percent of the vote. Communists won’t be in the next parliament at all. The final results are not yet known, but they are unlikely to differ greatly from those in the BBC chart below.
There is a strong likelihood that this parliamentary arithmetic will provide the basis for a stable democratic government committed to “joining Europe” (i.e., striking a deal with the European Union that falls short of full membership but signals the country’s orientation away from Russia and Putin’s Eurasian Economic Union). President Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arsemy Yatseniuk lead parties that won almost equal vote percentages — almost 22 percent in each case. Their broad policy programs are similar. They have both shown competence and common sense in the turbulent days since the collapse of the Yanukovych regime. And they seem to work together fairly harmoniously — a key point in Ukraine, where the prospects of the Orange Revolution were frittered away in the destructive rivalry between former president Yushchenko and former prime minister Tymoshenko. All these things are more than merely helpful.
A competent government rooted in a stable parliamentary majority will be absolutely necessary in order to deal with the country’s formidable problems. These include a decline in Ukraine’s GDP, a collapsing currency, large fiscal shortages, uncertainty of energy supplies (made worse by the approach of General Winter, Russia’s main ally), and a continuing occupation of eastern Ukraine by Russia. The West has so far fallen short in the various forms of help it has given Ukraine: nonlethal military support, economic aid, and the political support provided by sanctions on Russia. We need to step up economic aid in particular, including energy supplies, in the next few years. America and Europe have a major strategic interest in ensuring that Ukraine recovers and becomes stable and independent. And if a formal reunification of Ukraine is unlikely in the immediate future — and given Poroshenko’s commitment to a negotiated end to the conflict, it is — then it is still more important for Ukraine to flourish economically alongside provinces that, if the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad is any guide, are likely to be sluggish (at best) and costly to their Russian “protector.” Poland has shown that it can be done.
If Poroshenko and Yatseniuk are wise, they will establish the foundations of the political stability they need by bringing most of the pro-European MPs into their coalition — with the exception of one political party to provide a respectable and loyal opposition in the event that things turn sour. Tymoshenko’s party should not be the one outside the tent, and the lady herself should receive either an ornamental government job or, better still, a major ambassadorship to anywhere except Moscow. These elections probably mark the end of her front-line political career — she is now seen as a figure from the better half of a largely discredited and corrupt semi-democratic past — but she is a formidable politician still capable of causing trouble.
Much can go wrong for Ukraine in the next decade, but not enough to transform the country into a victory for Putin. This time last year Putin controlled the whole of Ukraine through Yanukovych. Today he controls Crimea and three conflict-wracked provinces dependent upon Russian military support. His Eurasian Economic Union is faltering, and without Ukraine it is no match for other economic blocs. He has given a modest boost to NATO and now has its troops on Russia’s Baltic borders. Sanctions on Russia are weakening its economy and the interests of his kleptocratic supporters at a time when a falling oil price is independently threatening the revenue he needs to balance Russia’s budget. And the world knows that 3,700 people have died in eastern Ukraine, including the passengers of a commercial airliner, largely as a result of his policy.
His next move is obvious: double the budget of RT — the state-funded satellite and TV channel formerly known as Russia Today — and the rest of his impressive propaganda apparatus.