Russian Spring fails to draw broad support in southeastern Ukraine

Violence clashes erupted in Kharkiv on March 15 in which two pro-Russian radicals were reportedly killed. Dozens were arrested from both the pro-EU and pro-Russian sides. About 1,000 pro-Russian activists gathered in the city center on March 16 to demand a referendum to federalize the region, granting it more autonomy from the Kyiv government, reported the Ukrayinska Pravda news site. A march afterwards involving up to 3,000 activists attacked and burned a local Ukrainian cultural building, as well as the city’s Polish consulate building. Activists submitted a request to the Russian government to dispatch its soldiers to the region.

The Ukrainian government succeeded this weekend in undermining Russian attempts to launch secessionist movements throughout Ukraine known as “the Russian Spring” campaign, said on March 16 Andriy Parubiy, the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council. As a result, Kremlin political technologists are lost and don’t know how to move forward, he said. “At 12:00 so-called protests were planned along with the declaration of so-called people’s governors and takeover of oblast administrations,” he told the zn.ua news site. “They planned a peaceful march towards Kyiv for March 21.As of today we can say that their plan wasn’t fulfilled and fell through.”

Zenon Zawada: The so-called “Russian Spring” is turning out to be a late winter chill as this weekend’s protests in Kharkiv, Odesa and Donetsk were remarkably weak, considering each city has more than a million residents. The protests resemble street brawls between gangs, and are dominated by pro-Russian radicals that have long been part of the political scene in southeastern Ukraine but have traditionally played a minor role. They have stepped up to the forefront to fill the vacuum created by the devastated Party of Regions, which dominated their local political structures.

The job of the new Ukrainian government is to push the radicals back to the political margins somehow. Working to rehabilitate the Party of Regions might be distasteful but nevertheless effective way to prevent the secessionists from taking advantage of the vacuum.