What to do about whoppers

The Russian Foreign Ministry tweeted this today:

#Lavrov: Active Russian involvement in European affairs has always brought long periods of peace and growth to all European countries.

He must have lived through a different Cold War than the one I experienced, along with millions of Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians.  Not to mention Ukrainians.  In another whopper, he denies that there are Russian agents in southeast Ukraine.

NATO today gave the lie to Moscow’s claims that it has not built up military forces on the Ukrainian border by publishing satellite photos.  Moscow appears to be hesitating to use them, because it knows as well as any Ukrainian that invasion (and its aftermath) will not be a cakewalk.  Instead it is bargaining for a federal Ukraine, one that affords the eastern and southern provinces a wide degree of autonomy. That is not the worst idea I’ve heard, but Kiev will have to be careful to ensure that the result is not a kind of stealth independence.  Americans may have forgotten where and what Republika Srpska is, but the Russians know and no doubt see it has an attractive model.  They are even offering it hundreds of millions in euro loans.

But Ukraine is different from Bosnia.  Residents of eastern Ukraine identify as Ukrainians even if relatively few say it is easier for them to speak Ukrainian than Russian.  A pre-crisis Bertelsmann Foundation study of language, identity and politics in Ukraine found:

Nothwithstanding any linguistic, political, or cultural differences, the vast majority of Ukrainians consider Ukraine their motherland.  Even in the south of the country, 88% believe that Ukraine is their home country.  This conviction is even more popular among residents of the allegedly pro-Russian east–93% share this belief, in comparison to the traditionally patriotic west and centre (99%).

Nor is there much difference between Russian and Ukrainian speakers in Ukraine on the importance of democracy (both rank it close to 8 on a 10-point scale) or satisfaction with how democracy has performed in Ukraine (4.6 on a 10-point scale).  Crimea was “poles apart” from the rest of the country on whether Ukraine should favor a Russian or European orientation.

The question is what can be done to prevent a Russian invasion and to make one unsuccessful if prevention fails.  Moscow is working hard to polarize opinion in eastern and southern Ukraine, trying to ween Ukrainians from their Ukrainian identity and promote the Russian alternative.  Kiev has to be careful not to make that task easier.  This means caution in dealing with Russia-supporting protesters, who are occupying government buildings in several eastern cities.  It also means avoiding legislation or other moves that would infringe on existing rights to speak and use Russian.  The right posture if Ukraine wants to avoid invasion is one that is welcoming and friendly to Russian speakers, ensuring as much as possible that they retain their Ukrainian identities.

But invasion may not be avoidable.  Some have talked of an armed insurgency against any Russian takeover in the east or south.  The trouble with that idea is that insurgencies take a long time and are far less often effective than nonviolent struggles, as Maria Stephan and Marciej Bartkowski discuss this morning.  Nonviolent resistance succeeds quicker, better and more often, regardless of the character of the regime against which it is used.  Violence would compel Russian speakers in Ukraine to make a choice between speaking Russian and being Ukrainian.  That’s what Moscow wants.  Kiev, as well as Brussels and Washington, should not.

Lavrov’s whoppers are advantageous.  The more he says things that can be readily and definitively disproved, the less appealing the Russian alternative will be.  If Moscow invades, presumably claiming to protect Russian speakers from alleged abuse, the West and Kiev will need enormous self-control to avoid making things worse.  Washington should be supporting pro-Western civil society groups in eastern and southern Ukraine even now.  They will be the nucleus of any nonviolent resistance that emerges later.