Ukrainian Pulse #4

Ukrainian thoughts on the future of Ukraine

Hi everyone. As I was preparing last week’s issue of ‘Ukrainian Pulse’ I stumbled upon a Facebook post published by a Ukrainian journalist laying down his views of Ukraine’s future. I later found an op-ed on the same topic, then another post, and yet another op-ed—enough that I decided to compile them into a single issue focused on that one difficult topic: the future of Ukraine.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I could find so many pieces about this topic without really looking for them. The period of the war when very few Ukrainians dared think beyond the horizon of a few weeks or even a few days didn’t last very long, a few months maybe. People still need to find a job, build a career or raise a family, even when those concerns mix up with fears directly linked to the war—airstrikes, the counteroffensive, losses, mobilization. What I think has recently changed is that more and more Ukrainians have quietly accepted that the war might not be over any time soon, triggering discussions about what the future will bring.

That Facebook post I initially stumbled upon was published on August 18 by Ukrainian journalist Petro Shuklinov. It is titled “A nation of the strong. How I see the future of Ukraine” and, as I write this, was shared close to 500 times and gathered more than 300 comments. It’s an unusual text, dark and, frankly, utterly dystopian in places, while also very optimistic in others, the view of a militarized society in perpetual war, divided between the “weak” who fled and the “strong” who stayed, in a country that enjoys “explosive” economic growth and ironclad support from the West. It’s basically an extremely grim view of the so-called “Israeli model”, which has been discussed for several months now (Zelensky said just yesterday he hoped for security guarantees based on that model).

My point of view: war will be eternal. There will be no peace between Ukraine and Russia. Even when the most active phase of fighting is over, there will be shelling, border conflicts that will become the norm even after the liberation of Donbas and Crimea. As long as Russia exists, there will be war. [...] So you build with the war in mind. You teach with the war in mind. English becomes a crucial language, firearms skills are taught at school. [...] Ukraine’s economy will change completely, built on ties with the West [...] This will mean explosive growth. [...] The weak will leave forever. This must be accepted. As soon as the border is opened, hundreds of thousands of people will leave in search of a better life, never to return. 

Another journalist, Pavlo Kazarin, doesn’t see an eternal war coming but envisions two possible paths for Ukraine. In an August 25 op-ed titled “The first day after the war” the journalist argues that the threat of Ukraine losing its sovereignty or “going back to its colonial status” has already passed (a point that Petro Shuklinov also makes). Rather, he says, the future of Ukraine will be determined by the outcome of the war: “if we win, a moment of national triumph awaits us. [...] Ukraine will become a country that has proved, to itself and to the world, the ineffectiveness of dictatorships and the superiority of democracies. It will become a showcase of the achievements of Western civilization. A clear demonstration that rights and freedoms are directly related to the ability to win on the battlefield.”

“But if we lose”, Kazarin continues, “everything will be different”. “We might still be invited to join the European Union. They may help us rebuild what was destroyed. They may inject investment and ensure economic growth. But the trauma of national humiliation will not go away. This means that Europe runs the risk of finding on its borders a country that does not trust it. A country in which anti-Russian sentiment rhymes with anti-Western sentiment. A country that will lose faith in ideals and preach diplomatic cynicism.”

The fear of a nationalist and authoritarian turn in case of defeat (“defeat” isn’t explicitly defined here) is a common concern. Fear of mass exodus is another one, as the end of hostilities (whether this comes from victory or defeat) could lead millions of men to join their families who have settled abroad. Political scientist Serhiy Taran sees 5 ways of preventing this that almost all boil down to supporting the economy: “After the war, all freedoms suspended during martial law must be immediately restored”; “Freedom of entrepreneurship should become the country's hallmark [...] Business liberalization and tax cuts are therefore an absolutely realistic plan”; “A professional army with very high salaries is a powerful way to demonstrate confidence in Ukraine's future”; “If liberalization is needed in economic matters, then we need to nurture our own national identity continuously, as is done in the vast majority of successful countries”; “In Ukraine, public investment in the intellectual sphere has never been a priority, and salaries in science and education are simply disgraceful. This must change once and for all.”

What I find interesting in this apparently fairly lukewarm take is the mix of a very liberal economic strategy and much more conservative cultural policy advocated here by Serhiy Taran. It is also very popular among Ukraine’s elites and has actually been partially implemented even as the war rages on (to the point where representatives of the International Monetary Fund have been repeatedly telling the government to stop trying to cut taxes).

There are other views, however. In a Facebook post lauding a recent Ukrainian translation of “Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism” by South Korean economist Ha-Joon Chang, politician and activist Volodymyr Viatrovych sees another possible path for Ukraine’s economic future: protectionism. The former head of the “Ukrainian Institute of National Memory”, a state institution that took a decisive nationalist turn under his leadership, Vyatrovych isn’t an economist. But he is an influential voice in nationalist circles and this post, I think, is an interesting illustration of competing narratives when it comes to Ukraine’s future.

Ukraine needs nationalism. Today, it is needed to win the war, because it is the best antidote to the poison of Russian imperialism [...] But Ukraine will also need nationalism to rebuild after the war [...] This thesis seems to be obvious, but, for decades, our domestic, foreign, cultural, and economic policies have ignored it. To this day, it sometimes seems that the basis of Ukrainian diplomacy is the "everybody owes us" approach. The author of this book, Ha-Joon Chang, is a Cambridge professor of economics of Korean descent and talks about the roots of the Korean economic miracle. It is based on nationalism—protecting your economy even against the recommendations or insistence of the powers that be. [...] I think this book is therefore very relevant for Ukrainians, so that they can start growing up.

What about politics? Ukrainian political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko recently published a two-part series on the past and future of Ukrainian politics, in which he tries to identify the driving forces of post-war Ukraine. The invasion, he notes, “led to the virtual freezing of domestic politics in Ukraine. The state bureaucracy began to play a key role in the development and implementation of state policy, at the level of the central government (the Office of the President of Ukraine, individual ministries) and at the local level with the the military administrations. The authority of the country's military leadership has also grown dramatically, though that leadership is still only focused on the war effort and has distanced itself from the political process.” In today’s Ukraine, Fesenko sees a sharp decrease of the influence of politicians, and a sharp increase of the influence of civil society, particularly of volunteer movements.

The end of the war could, however, see a “thawing” of Ukrainian politics and a renewed influence of the political class. That class will, however, change, becoming filled with military veterans and members of civil society, coming in particular from volunteer movements. When it comes to oligarchs, Fesenko isn’t sure—they could keep losing influence, as they have since the beginning of the invasion. Then again, “it’s also possible that large neo-oligarchic and medium-sized businesses will enter an alliance with certain political forces and part of civil society in order to influence the economic policy of the state”.

What Fesenko doesn’t believe in is the idea of a “party of veterans” or “military party”. Rather, he predicts, all political parties will try and co-opt veterans and war heroes. But Fesenko ends his analysis with a crucial caveat, one that should be kept in mind whenever there’s a discussion about the future of Ukraine: “The future of Ukrainian politics will be determined by the way the war with Russia ends, as well as the domestic and international situation”.