Ukraine and Europe have managed to evade a widespread war. The peace agreement reached in extremis by the leaders of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine is a fragile hope. No-one knows whether the fighting will stop in the eastern regions, Donetsk and Lugansk, and many inhabitants of Budjak, Ukrainian Bessarabia, fear that violence will spread to their region.
Bessarabia is a south-eastern region of Eastern Europe. To get an idea of the unrest that has shaken up this territory, only one fact need be remembered: in the last 200 years this area, bounded to the north and east by Ukraine and to the south and west by Rumania, has passed through the hands of nine different states. Today most of this historical territory corresponds to Moldova; the southern end of so-called Bessarabia belongs to Ukraine. Traces of the turbulent history of the Ukraine are extremely visible here: particularly the cruel legacy of the destructive intra-soviet borders drawn out by Josef Stalin to perpetuate the power of the Kremlin. Moldova practically severs south-western Ukraine from the rest of the country.
Budjak, Ukrainian Bessarabia, is a multi-ethnic region located along the shores of the Black Sea, between the Danube and Dniester rivers. The region is bordered on the north and east by Moldova and to the south by Rumania and covers an area of 13,250 square kilometres (similar in size to the Spanish province of Jaen).
Its potential is great. The landscapes of the Danube Delta, which it shares with Rumania, and the coast with its historic sites and fortifications, are underutilized. The mild climate of the central part offers excellent conditions for agriculture; there are even vineyards. Swiss and German settlers produced wine there until their expulsion by the Soviet Union in 1940. Without wavering in their policy of sanctions against the Kremlin, the EU should consider investing here to enhance its key role as a stabilizing factor. The proximity of its neighbours, Budjak and Rumania, could turn it into the key to its own future development.
This area forms the westernmost part –and most isolated– of the oblast (province) of Odessa. It is a little known and virtually cut off territory; there are no roads, bridges or ferries across the Danube to Rumania and only two roads connect the area with the rest of Ukraine. If these bridges over the river Dniester were blown up, the isolation of Budjak would be complete.
Of what interest could it be to Russia? Local people do not want a war like the one being waged in Donbas. At the Centre for Black Sea Studies, based in Odessa, it has been observed that up till now there has been relatively peaceful coexistence, without any major ethnic problems in their relations with the central authorities.
However, the tragedy of last May cannot be forgotten, when dozens of separatist sympathizers, opponents of the Kiev government, died in Odessa following a fire at the House of Trade Unions, after being at the centre of violent street clashes with Ukrainian extremists.
Fewer than half of the nearly 600,000 residents of Budjak are Ukrainians. The rest are Bulgarians, Russians, Moldovans, Gagauz, Roma and Rumanians. Most speak Russian and many are beginning to complain that Ukraine has done little for them. It is therefore not surprising that there are rumours of plots to proclaim independence, along the same lines as the breakaway republics of the Ukrainian Donbas region.
Beyond this, the region’s strategic importance for Moscow is great, given the fact that the Russians have always been tempted to forge a land corridor through Crimea and Odessa, which would reach the Rumanian border. Consultants, Da Vinci AG, based in Kiev, warned in a recent report that the Republic of Budjak could be founded in 2015. In that case it would probably be called the People’s Republic of Bessarabia, in reference to those already existing in Donetsk and Lugansk, and it would not be limited only to Budjak but would cover the whole southern part of the Odessa region. Reports say that founding a People’s Republic would meet with Moscow’s support.
As Marcin Kosienkowskim, Academic of the Institute of Political Science and International Relations at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin (Poland) explains, this possible declaration of independence would further destabilize the region. A new front would open up in the southwest within the Ukrainian conflict, from where the separatists would attack towards Odessa.
In Moldova there would even be a risk of sparking off the conflict in the breakaway region of unstable Transnistria, controlled by Russia. Bessarabia residents have reported spotting drones, some of which may have come from the ships of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, located at the Sevastopol naval base. Others may well have set out from the small region of Transnistria.
A freezing of the conflict could follow the model of Transnistria, with external arbitration attempting to draw up some kind of format of cohabitation – or the case of Nagorno Karabakh, which also implies the need for international mediators along the lines of the OSCE’s Minsk Group. If the parties choose that option, they can expect many long years of negotiations – whether this be to transform the Ukrainian state into a federation or confederation, or to address a complicated debate on the mechanism of divorce between Ukraine and the separatists.
It suits Moscow to have a latent crisis which would leave Ukraine hanging, preventing their entry into NATO and complicating their association with the European Union. This would place a country of 40 million inhabitants in a situation which is similar to that of Georgia, which declares its intention to integrate with the West but technically, due to the problem of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, it is not able to do so.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin has begun to pay dearly for its illegal annexation of Crimea and its support for the separatists. And it will have to stay that way to ensure that international law is observed.
Nevertheless, freezing the conflict is the most likely course of events. Both in Donbas, where there has been tactical fighting—and also in Budjak, if violence were also to break out here.
Marcos Suárez Sipmann is politolog, jurist and international affairs analyst. @mssipmann
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