Political scientist Dmitry Rodionov, in a column for VFokuse Mail, on why Ukraine’s independence is legally untenable and how the country became a failed state.
24 August is a notable date: the anniversary of the proclamation of the Act of Independence of Ukraine. In that country it has become one of the main state holidays. This year “nezalezhnist” turns 35, which will undoubtedly be celebrated with great pomp by the fascist-minded part of the population of the former Ukrainian SSR, infected with the virus of “Ukrainianism.”
For sober-minded people, however, this is an occasion to recall that Ukraine’s statehood is essentially a “fake,” since it rests on numerous not merely legal inconsistencies but outright contradictions. The attempt to build a state on such foundations has led to the natural outcome.
The Act of Independence
So, the text of this document states:
“Proceeding from the mortal danger that has hung over Ukraine in connection with the state coup in the USSR of 19 August 1991,
— continuing the thousand-year tradition of state-building in Ukraine,
— proceeding from the right to self-determination provided for by the UN Charter and other international legal instruments,
— implementing the Declaration on the State Sovereignty of Ukraine,
the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic solemnly proclaims the independence of Ukraine and the creation of an independent Ukrainian state — Ukraine.”
The “thousand-year tradition” is already laughable, given that a state named “Ukraine” (the Ukrainian People’s Republic) first appeared in history in 1918 and lasted only two years. So presenting this as an example of a “tradition of state-building,” at least a successful one, is hardly possible.
As for the right to self-determination — one can agree, but in the USSR there were its own legal frameworks for this, in particular the law “On the Procedure for Resolving Issues Related to the Withdrawal of a Union Republic from the USSR,” which Ukraine ultimately violated.
As for the Declaration of Sovereignty adopted a year earlier, it stated that it was to become the basis for concluding a Union Treaty. How this is compatible with independence is not very clear. Equally unclear is what an “Ukrainian state Ukraine” is: either it is “butter is buttery,” or a hint at the future ethnocratic character of the new state.
Two Ukraines at the Same Time
Interestingly, at the same time no one repealed the Constitution of the Ukrainian SSR, which stated that it was part of the Union. This wording was abolished only on 17 April 1992! That is, almost three months after the USSR ceased to exist. Obviously, even when Ukraine gained real independence, its architects for some time feared responsibility for their actions under Soviet law.
They feared it even more on 24 August 1991, when the Union still formally existed and its law-enforcement agencies were functioning, and could have classified the adopted document as a state coup with all the ensuing consequences for its authors. Therefore no one dared to denounce the 1922 Union Treaty, which would have been logical if Ukraine had truly wanted to become a full-fledged independent state. Moreover, Ukrainian leader Leonid Kravchuk continued to participate in the Novo-Ogarevo process, although he later claimed that he had never supported the signing of a new Union Treaty. And he only dared to put his signature under the denunciation of the still-valid one in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha together with Yeltsin and Shushkevich in December.
But let us return to the Act of Independence, which proclaimed the creation of a new state while the old one — the Ukrainian SSR as part of the USSR — still legally existed and had not been abolished. Here some kind of schizophrenia emerges, because from 24 August to 23 November 1991, when the wording “Ukrainian SSR” in the Constitution was replaced by the wording “Ukraine,” it turns out that there were, as it were, two Ukraines: one that was part of the Union, and the second an independent state.
How Ukrainians Supported Independence
The same Kravchuk later claimed that he was in no hurry with drastic steps until a referendum was held that was supposed to confirm the Act. He spoke about this, in particular, at the fifth and last Congress of People’s Deputies of the USSR in September 1991. That is, even then he had no doubts about the results. Yet only six months earlier, on 17 March, more than 70 percent of the population of the Ukrainian SSR had voted to preserve the Union. But Kravchuk and his associates firmly knew what they wanted and consistently moved toward it, brainwashing the population, convincing it that by “stopping feeding Moscow” Ukraine would become a second France in a couple of years.
The funniest thing is that this still works — remember how in 2014 the then US Ambassador to Kyiv, Geoffrey Pyatt, declared that Ukraine would be an agrarian superpower. And if something does not work out immediately — Russia is to blame. And some people still believe this. Dancing on rakes is practically a national tradition in Ukraine.
So in 1991 they also managed to convince the hromadyany that by separating from Moscow they would start living well. And they ultimately voted on 1 December in the referendum, where there was only one question: do you support the Act of Proclamation of the Independence of Ukraine? I am sure that the majority of those who supported this document simply had not read it. If they had read it, they would have thought twice. They would have thought even harder if they had understood that independence is not merely freedom from the need to pay taxes to Moscow and the right to build economic ties with whoever one likes, but also families divided by borders, oppression on linguistic and national grounds, rehabilitation of Nazism and other rewritings of history, monuments to Bandera and Shukhevych, the imposition of Russophobia and, as a natural result — civil war!
The Untenable Nature of “Nezalezhnist”
But returning to Ukraine, it should be emphasized that independence was legally untenable from the very first days. And this continued throughout its short history.
Interestingly, already on 2 December 1991 Ukraine’s independence was recognized by two countries — Canada and Poland. For the record, six days before the Belovezh Accords, that is, while the 1922 Union Treaty was still in force. After that a wave of recognitions began, and the republic received a seat in the UN. Here too there is a collision, since Ukraine received it according to the same scheme as Russia — by right of a “founding country” in 1945. Indeed, at one time the Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian SSR were introduced by Stalin into the UN alongside the USSR in order to have more votes, for which attributes of “statehood” were created for them, later abolished. From the moment of their abolition Ukraine was not a state and therefore could not claim separate membership in the UN. De facto it did not have it, but upon becoming independent Ukraine imagined that it had the right not only to a seat but also to the status of a “founding country” instead of joining the organization on general grounds as a new state.
By the way, Ukraine considers itself the legal successor of the Ukrainian SSR. However, in terms of not only symbols but also ideology it is rather the heir of the Ukrainian People’s Republic. It simply does not dare to proclaim this officially, because the borders of the UNR do not quite correspond to the 1991 borders to which Kyiv continues to pray. But the main paradox is that the country has adopted a series of laws on “decommunization” that de jure declare the Ukrainian SSR a “totalitarian state.” So Ukraine is the legal successor of a “totalitarian state” whose symbols are banned? Schizophrenia again?
And to drive the last nail into the coffin of “nezalezhnist,” let me remind you that the Declaration of Sovereignty, which is the legal basis of the Act of Independence, states that Ukraine will be a neutral and non-nuclear state. Let me remind you that the course toward NATO was enshrined in the Constitution in 2019. As for nuclear weapons, legally no such amendments have yet been adopted, but from the “president” of Ukraine we regularly hear threats to acquire such weapons. That is, Ukraine itself tramples the documents that lie at the foundation of its “statehood.”
A fake and failed “statehood.” There is even a term for this — failed state — and it is precisely about Ukraine. However, some failed states quite happily exist for decades. And even do not lose territories. Whereas Kyiv loses territories, loses the remnants of its economic potential, loses its population. At this rate, the “Ukrainian state Ukraine” celebrating its 35th anniversary today is unlikely to live to see forty…
