Russia uses soft power tools like media, business ties, and cultural influence to pursue three goals in Ukraine: 1) shape Ukraine's political agenda and perceptions of its future, 2) undermine Ukraine's nation-building efforts and modern identity, and 3) manufacture consensus that portrays Ukraine as unstable and of ambiguous future to limit its sovereignty and integration with the West. However, Ukraine could better pursue its own strategic interests if it substantially redefined the bilateral relationship and started acting more rationally and critically rather than operating under Soviet-era assumptions.

1. RUSSIAN SOFT POWER IN
UKRAINE: sources and effects
Summarize the main plans
Explain the long-term course to follow

2. Power?
• “A” getting “B” to do what “A” wants (Robert Dahl
et al.)
• Rational Persuasion, like stop substance abuse
• Manipulative persuasion lying or misleading
• Inducement rewards or punishments (bribery)
• Power severe punishment: jail, deprivation
• Coercion no way out
• Physical force – coercion + physical violence

3. Power?
• Steven Lukes’ three faces of power:
• Decision-making power
• Non-decision –making power (control of the
agendas)
• Ideological power - making people want things
that could be contrary to their interests:
women for patriarchal society

4. soft power cases: visions of future
EU's soft power source lies in its capacity to
expand
The U.S. soft power source lies in its
commitment to support democracy worldwide
China - fast growing political & economic might
The SU – a dream of a society based on
rationality and natural justice

5. Ukraine’s own three ideas of future
• ethnic nationalist – future as the fulfillment of
an independent statehood as historic
aspiration of the Ukrainian people;
• [liberal] democratic – rights, liberties, good
governance
• European – a vision of Ukraine as part of
Europe

6. Ukraine’s Russia-manufactured future
– back to the USSR
Future in the past: a persistent reintegration scheme under a
host names:
• Economic Union (1993)
• Customs Union (1995)
• The Eurasian Economic Community (1996 )
• Unified Economic Space (2003)
• Customs Union (2010)
• Russkiy Mir (2007) – Slavic heartlands + Russophone
populations
• Eurasian Union (2011)

7. Making sense of what Ukraine really
wants: no clue :-(
Может, спустя некоторое время – через век – центр опять
вернется сюда, и Киев снова станет центром нашей
культуры. Сегодня этого никто не может знать. Главное –
сохранить наше единое цивилизационное пространство,
православное пространство, единый русский мир
Maybe, after some time, – perhaps, in a century – the center will come
back again here, and Kyiv will again be the center of our culture. Now
no one can know it. The main thing is to preserve our single
civilizational space, the Orthodox Church space, the single Russian
world
Yevgenii Guzeev, Russian consul in Lviv

8. Russia’s entanglement with Ukraine
• debate over collective values
competition for economic assets
political competition between two successor
states

9. political competition:
two contrasting modes
 authoritarian vs. democratic
Western vs. authentic
 competing modes of integration with the West
 junior partner's role & assimilating Westerns
rules vs. strong claim for global role
 dealing via influence brokers, selling 'realist'
business as usual strategy vs. advancing
democratic change
 significance for domestic politics: local
legitimacy dilemma

10. integration with West
… on Russian terms
• Доказав, что Россия, будучи одним из
геополитических «центров силы» современного
мира, не является при этом его идеологическим
полюсом, мы сможем выйти на принципиально
иные формы взаимодействия с Западом, поставив
финальную точку в холодной войне и окончательно
оформив политическое завершение ХХ века.
Konstantin Kosachov . Foreign Relations Committee
of the State Duma (2010)

11. NATO expansion problem
• NATO-Russia Council Joint Declaration, 20.11.2010: a
new phase in cooperation — a true strategic
partnership
• RF National Security Strategy til 2020: NATO is not a
security threat, paradoxically — Ukraine's and
Georgia's accession are!
• Russian rhetoric is directed against NATO and the
United States, but the newest weaponry routinely go
to the Eastern Russia
• NATO accession of Ukraine threatens Russia's
political primacy (& bargaining capacity) not security

12. Colliding myths and historic narratives
• Kyiv as the mythological cradle of Russian
statehood and religion vs. Hrushevky concept of
Ukraine - Rus
• Tripartite Russian people – from I. Gizel (1674) to
the Polish uprising of 1863 and through
• A tradition of disrespect to Ukrainian nationhood
key values – language – from Vissarion Belinsky to
Joseph Brodsky
• Soviet hierarchy of nations (re-unification myth)

13. Young T. Shevchenko at Karl Briullov's studio
(G.Melikhov, 1947, winner of 3rd
degree Stalin's prize)
Cp. Shevchenko as
the great Fatherly
figure in the Ukrainian
national narrative

14. shared myths and what sustains them
shared historic myths (from the origins of the
Russian statehood to the WWII)
myth of the great Russian language and
culture
modern mass culture
Common schooling: elite dependence on
'best practices', life styles etc.

15. WWII importance
• «За последние 20 лет страны, входившие в СССР,
обрели собственные традиции и праздники, но
остался день, который объединяет всех, - 9 мая”
“For the past 20 years, countries that were part of the
USSR have acquired their own traditions and
holidays, but there remains one day, that had united
us all — May 9”
Zurabov, Russian ambassador to Ukraine

16. Russia's power — Ukraine's weekness
• the conundrum of the nation-state: either nation
without state or a state without nation
• 2010 + : state against the nation, a case of stalled if
not aborted nation building
• Leadership problem, legitimacy problems

17. history as a dominant meta-narrative
 prevalence of identity politics
 fieldwork data: tendency to read the other
through historic narratives formed in the
context of Russian and Soviet Empire (national
liberation narrative vs. imperial narrative)

18. RSP instruments in Ukraine
TV and other media
Russian Orthodox Church
Russian missions
Russian business
Russian political agents inside Ukraine (CPU,
political groups and lobbies )
Russian intelligence agencies
New tools: Rossotrunichestvo

19. RSP and common institutional legacy
institutional memories and cadre continuity:
affinity in decision making cultures,
similar corporate cultures, business networks
uniformed agencies: camaraderie in arms (e.g.
the Day of Chekist), policing methods and inter-
agency cooperation (note Leonid Rozvazhaev
case).

20. business as an area of competing and
shared interests
energy/gas sector,
finance
telecommunications
sea ports
advertisement and public relations
media, particularly TV
mass entertainment

21. Moscow as a global mediator for
Ukraine
Global media picture for Ukraine goes through
Russian filters (Inosmi.ru INION, etc.) and the other
way round – Ukraine as reflected in the global
media is filtered through Russian and Moscow-
based media
Ukraine's 'information security' concerns shows
that the nation is still encapsulated within itself

22. Russia vis-à-vis Ukraine in the
international environment
Russia still the easiest destination & shelter
World around as shaped by the visa policies
Schengen divide
[European perspective issue]
--> “Europe doesn't want us”
post cold war consensus -> Russia 1st
party in
NATO and EC

23. Ideological dimension: Russkiy Mir
Верю, что только сплочённый Русский мир
может стать сильным субъектом глобальной
международной политики, сильнее всяких
политических альянсов.
Patriarch Kirill

24. RSP regional focuses
Crimea and Sevastopol
Odessa
Kyiv
Lviv (note 9 May, 2011 rallies of Russian
nationalist groups from Crimea)
Uzhgorod (Ruthenians)

25. Political investment scheme: Crimea
Local assets:
• A list of pro-Russian groups including local
Communist Party branch, Russian Community of
Crimea, irredentist Sevastopol Crimea Russia …
down to a petty Crimea Tatar opposition group Milli
Firqa
• Friendly media
Goals:
• effect local & national political agenda;
• sustain the image of a pro-Russian region

26. compatriots go bureaucratic
• Coordination Councils of Russian Compatriots
• Since 2006, under the Global Coordination Council
of Russian Compatriots (to 'work out strategies for
member groups and fund activities to implement
them') also coordinated by embassies/consulates
• Federal Agency for CIS, compatriots abroad, and
international humanitarian cooperation
Rossotrudnichestvo (2008)

27. Rationale
• .. Китай воспринимается, как нечто неизменное,
поэтому никто не пытается в чем-то разубеждать
китайское руководство. С Китаем сотрудничают,
не пытаясь его изменить.
• China is perceived as something unchanging,
therefore, no one tries to dissuade the Chinese
leadership from anything. One cooperates with China
without trying to change it.
K. Kosatchev

28. Rossotrudnichestvo: official Russian
Soft Power tool
• Two major venues: memorative politics and
education
• Echoing the Orange revolution: St George Ribbon
'action' + providing traditional institutional support
for GPW (WWII) habitual rituals on May 9
• Actions to commemorate earlier Russian victories –
such as 1737 invasion of Crimea
• Venue where all strands of Russian nationalism
overlap: 2 Dec 2012, school competition Russia is
my Homeland for the prize of the Night Wolves
biker club president (Zaldostanov), Sevastopol

29. re-unification narrative reloaded
Research expedition and conference for youth
'Historical and spiritual aspects of the Slavic unity'
- part of activity plan of Rossotrudnichestvo to
commemorate the 1150-years of the rise of Russian
statehood
http://rs.gov.ru

30. ... a sense of destination
"Пусть Россия и Украина не будут одним
государством, но это будет одна
страна“
Nikita Mikhalkov, film director, reader of
the Kremlin's mind
… almost like Arab World?

31. little tactics and large strategic
impasses
• create loyalty dilemmas
• => political uncertainties with regards to various
constituencies, regions etc.
• reinforce a political environment in Ukraine that
prioritizes short term gains over long term strategies
(environment best suited for Russian elite's economic
interests)
• undermine Ukraine's modern nation building
effort

32. RSP major successes
Undermining the national consensus in Ukraine:
Perception of PRU rule as some sort of Russian
occupation – language legislation, ‘anti-fascist’
themes etc.
Manufacturing anti-Ukrainian consensus
internationally: The Ukraine fatigue: a consensus
with Europe on Ukraine as a chaotic state of
ambivalent future

33. RSP vs. Ukrainian sovereignty
Undermines the Legitimacy of any Ukrainian govt.:
• traditional (continuity);
• charismatic (the Orange leadership);
• rational-legal (respect to law, constitution,
impersonal legal authority)
(Max Weber)

34. Conclusions
Moscow continues to believe that Ukraine is destined to
enter a form of ‘integration’ inspired by the Soviet past
both parties continue to operate on an unspoken
assumption that linguistic borders shape the political ones;
privilege irrational resources and gains
conditions unchanged: tactically Moscow may long
maintain a headstart; strategically both parties’ losses are
greater than gains
a more fair game for Ukraine is possible if only it
substantially redefines the rules and the very culture of the
bilateral relationship – for that Ukraine needs a true
leadership and … thinking critically and acting rationally