By Hugo Spaulding
Key Take-away: Far-right groups launched a violent riot on August 31 outside Ukraine’s parliament during its review of controversial constitutional amendments that would acknowledge the special status of separatist-held southeastern Ukraine. The riots demonstrate the growing challenge to stability that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko faces from the far-right, a threat that could present new vulnerabilities that the Kremlin may exploit.
A
riot erupted outside Ukraine’s parliament building in Kyiv on August 31. The
riot was perpetrated by far-right demonstrators opposed to constitutional
amendments that would reference the special status of the separatist-held
regions of southeastern Ukraine, put forth for an initial parliamentary vote on
August 31. Demonstrators clashed with Ukrainian police and national guardsmen
outside the parliamentary building. Protestors hurled flashbangs, smoke bombs, and at
least one grenade into the lines of Ukrainian security forces protecting the
building. At least three Ukrainian national guardsmen were killed in a grenade blast, and around 125
members of the security forces were injured in the riot. The suspect behind
the grenade attack was on leave from the government’s “Anti-Terrorist
Operation” (ATO) in the southeast, where he served as member of a volunteer special
police battalion. Both the suspect and the battalion have links to the ultranationalist
“Svoboda” (“Freedom”) party, whose flags were widespread among the protestors.
Camouflaged members of the ultranationalist “Pravyi Sektor” (“Right Sector”)
paramilitary group, another unit fighting alongside government forces in
southeast Ukraine, also blockaded
a road leading to the parliamentary building.
Ukraine’s
interior minister placed the blame for the riot on “Svoboda”
party head Oleh Tyahnybok, who was seen among the protestors along with a
former party MP. Tyahnybok and his party blamed the Ukrainian government for provoking
the riot both by supporting the constitutional amendments
and, according to their account, by initiating the violence. Ukrainian
President Petro Poroshenko called the riot a “stab in the back.”
Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk called the demonstrators “worse” than
the Russian-backed separatists in the southeast, suggesting that they were
trying to open a “second front” in Ukraine’s war “under the guise of
patriotism.” Even the leader of “Pravyi Sektor,” who called for a nationwide
vote-of-no-confidence against the government during a July demonstration on
Kyiv’s central square, acknowledged that the violence played into
the hands of Ukraine’s enemies.
The
amendments put forward by President Poroshenko would not grant the separatists
in the southeastern Donbas region greater autonomy. Instead, the amendments on “decentralization”
would grant greater fiscal powers to all
local governments below the oblast (province) level. Poroshenko has described the amendments as a “vaccine”
against the federalization that Russia has supported and that could grant oblasts the power to veto major
domestic and foreign policy decisions made in Kyiv. The amendments would
introduce a reference to the “peculiarities” of local governance in the
separatist-held regions into the temporary “transitional provisions” of the constitution.
They would state that the peculiarities of governance in occupied Donbas are
determined by a separate special status law, which has already been passed,
without defining them inside the constitution.
This
special status law was passed in September 2014 in the wake of
the first “Minsk” ceasefire agreement but was altered in March 2015 to prevent it from
coming into effect before the withdrawal of “illegal armed groups” and the
completion of internationally monitored elections in occupied Donbas.
Accordingly, the amendments would not substantively alter Kyiv’s current relationship
with separatist-held Donbas since the special status law is unlikely to come into
effect in its current form. The amendments would however largely fulfill the
clause of the February “Minsk II” ceasefire agreement, which mandates constitutional reform on the
basis “decentralization.” That clause of the “Minsk II” agreement requires Kyiv
to agree on the specifics of autonomy with the separatist leadership, a step
Poroshenko’s government has so far avoided. The proposed “decentralization”
amendments thus fulfill the primary requirement of the ceasefire clause while
skirting the prerequisite that the separatists approve of the reforms.
Poroshenko’s partial implementation of the clause reflects competing pressures
from his Western backers that support
the ceasefire deal, domestic factions that oppose aspects of the agreement, as
well as Russia and the separatists, which use the deal as a platform to pursue
political concessions through military escalation.
Several
parties in parliament have construed the amendments as a major concession
toward Russia and the separatists despite the absence of specific autonomy provisions
in the legislation. From the ruling five-party parliamentary coalition only the
factions backing President Poroshenko and Prime Minister Yatsenyuk supported the amendments. The three junior
coalition parties and members of marginal factions including the
ultranationalist “Svoboda” party voted against the legislation, while
the pro-Russian opposition supported the amendments. Oleh Lyashko, the populist
leader of the coalition’s “Radical Party” described the amendments as pro-Putin and
traitorous and called for the removal of the reference to the special status
law. Lyashko’s party attempted to block off the speaker’s podium and brought
sirens and loudspeakers into parliament in an effort to disrupt the passage of
the legislation. “Radical Party” flags among the protestors suggested it also had a hand in organizing
the riot along with “Svoboda.” The other
two junior coalition factions, including the “Batkivshchyna” (“Fatherland”) party
of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, also opposed the amendments because of the
reference to the special status law; however, the parties did not exclude the possibility that they would
support revised “decentralization” amendments. On September 1, Oleh Lyashko announced that the “Radical Party” was
leaving the coalition and accused the pro-Poroshenko and pro-Yatsenyuk factions
of forming a new de-facto coalition with the pro-Russian opposition. While
Lyashko’s defection does not threaten the coalition’s majority, it does take
away the coalition’s ability to unilaterally amend the constitution and could
be followed by the departure of the other two dissenting coalition members.
Even
without the broad support of the ruling coalition, the amendments successfully passed through parliament with the
backing of 265 out of 368 MPs present. A second and final reading in December 2015
will require 300 votes before the
constitution can be amended. Following the clashes outside parliament, Poroshenko
announced that the passage of the amendments
in December 2015 will be determined by Russia’s demonstrated willingness to
fulfill the “Minsk II” agreement. The head of the pro-Poroshenko bloc in
parliament suggested that changes could be introduced
into the text of the amendments if Russia and the separatists did not take
steps to implement the ceasefire agreement. These statements suggest that
Poroshenko is giving himself room to alter the amendments in order to receive
broader support within parliament.
In
the meantime, Poroshenko faces an increasingly real threat to stability posed
by far-right groups that oppose any compromise with Russia and the separatists.
Given that Poroshenko’s international backers, namely the U.S., Germany and
France, insist on his fulfillment of the “Minsk II” ceasefire agreement, the
president has little choice but to make political concessions to Moscow and its
proxies. The riot outside Ukraine’s parliament demonstrated that far-right
factions are willing to resort to violence even in the context of a minor
political decision such as a preliminary vote over symbolic concessions, which
neither Russia nor the separatists view as conciliatory. The threshold for
triggering political violence from Ukraine’s far-right is low, recently
demonstrated by a July shootout in Western Ukraine over an
apparent smuggling turf dispute with a Ukrainian MP and an August clash over a pro-Russian party’s
registration in the northeastern city of Kharkiv, both incidents involving
members of “Pravyi Sektor.” Like the Russian-backed separatists in Donbas,
Ukraine’s far-right is likely to continue to use violent escalation as a means
to pursue political ends. While it is difficult to predict when Poroshenko will
face another “stab in the back” or what form it will take, it is clear that a
polarizing political climate in Kyiv and the rise of a potential far-right
spoiler to “Minsk II” creates new fissures for his Russian counterpart to
exploit.
