Hi everyone,
Hope you’re doing well. Ukraine’s been on my mind, along with how the geopolitical situation post-Crimea has affected their COVID-19 vaccine response. I’ll write about that next week. However, before we can understand the present, let’s go back to the past and analyze Ukraine’s history after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Russia and Ukraine: How Energy Exports Became a Method of Control
Ukraine is located at the edge of Europe, bordering the EU (Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland) and former Soviet Union (FSU), including Russia, Belarus, and Moldova. Like its geography, their political alliances prior to 2014 also straddled both Western and Russian spheres.
Ukraine’s ambitions to join the EU date back to 1994, though they remained wholly dependent on Russia for fossil fuel exports (at a subsidized price). In 2004, Viktor Yushchenko became President after the Orange Revolution and wanted to break away from the Russian sphere of influence and reorient alliances towards the West. After a dispute over gas prices (in which Ukraine wanted to keep heavily subsided prices, while Russia’s state-owned Gazprom wanted to drastically increase prices).
Gazprom cut off flows of gas supplies to Ukraine in 2006 and 2009. This affected not only energy consumption in Ukraine but also the EU, as oil exports from Russia flow through Ukraine into Europe. Like Ukraine, the EU is also dependent on Russia’s fossil fuel exports and receives 80 percent of its gas from Russia via Ukraine. Interestingly, Russia blamed Ukraine for the incident and claimed that Ukraine was stealing gas meant for the 18 European countries, while Ukraine claimed that this was Russia’s method of forcing Ukraine to accept higher energy prices.
By 2013, Yanukovych made concessions, as the President signed new energy agreements with Russia a few weeks after backing out of a free trade agreement with the EU. One couldn’t have occurred without the other. Signing a deal with the EU would have enraged Putin and would have compromised an energy deal, though in the long run, would have weaned Ukraine from its energy dependency on Russia
However, this was the beginning of the end, because this sparked the Euromaidan revolution that ousted Yanukovych out of office. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, and once again, shut off its gas supplies in June after fighting escalated between Ukrainian troops and Russian-backed rebels in the conflict zones.
Ukraine After the 2014 Invasion: From Crimea to COVID-19
Seven years after the Russian invasion, Ukraine is no longer straddling the middle in terms of political alliances, but now firmly oriented towards the West. Although Ukraine is not yet a member of the EU, it signed the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) in 2014 (and applied in 2016) committing to economic, financial, and legal reforms in Ukraine which would make standards more on par with that of the EU. The EU is now Ukraine’s largest trade partner and main source of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). In terms of relations with Russia, Russia has not been punished for its transgressions beyond economic sanctions, while Russia still has control of Crimea, which is now Russian territory. Currently, Ukrainian President Zelensky is struggling to contain COVID-19 in Ukraine and is facing pressure from the opposition party to purchase Russia’s Spudnik V vaccine.
And for next post: how does this relate to the present, and Ukraine’s COVID-19 response?
Concept 1: Shift of Dependency- If Ukraine is now allied with the EU/West, how responsive should they be regarding Ukraine’s issues dealing with the pandemic? Should they still responsible for Ukraine’s capacity building, seven years after the war?
Ukraine has allied with the west at the expense of its economic and political stability. It could have aligned back with Russia after the Crimean invasion, but didn’t, and left the Russosphere.
Concept 2: Ukraine has limited options regarding the COVID-19 vaccine stockpiles, especially as wealthy western nations are prioritizing their own countries first ( ‘vaccine nationalism’). With Trump’s export ban on American manufactured vaccines, uncertainty from the EU in securing vaccines, neighbouring Russia is exporting its vaccine, called ‘Spudnik V.’ Another option is waiting for vaccines to be distributed through COVAX, a platform aiming for equitable vaccine distribution to middle and lower-income nations.
Concept 3: Will history repeat? Would Russia wield control over Ukraine with Spudnik V vaccine exports as it did with oil and gas exports?
Thanks for reading,
Guest
