Ukraine imposes emergency situations regime on Donbas region

Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers decided on Jan. 26 to impose an emergency situations regime on the territory of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, reported the Interfax-Ukrayina news agency. The decision will enable the full coordination of all government organs to ensure public safety and civil protection, said Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. “Our decision is only aimed at one thing – everyone is supposed to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” he said, stressing that it’s not a state of emergency or martial law. The emergency situations regime requires certain rules of behavior, safety and actions on local residents, as well as enterprises.

The Cabinet also created a state emergency situations commission led by Yatsenyuk and two deputies, vice prime minister Hennadiy Zubko and Serhiy Bochkovskiy, the head of the state emergencies service. It also created regional emergency situations coordinating centers in each Ukrainian region to create inventories of sites of civil protection and required supplies, including medicine and food. “Today’s decision means that a single system of defending citizens has been created,” Yatsenyuk said, as reported by the Ukrayinska Pravda news site.

The emergency situations regime is primarily aimed at renewing infrastructure and doesn’t restrict the rights and freedoms of local residents, said on Jan. 26 Donetsk Region Governor Oleksandr Kikhtenko, reported his press-service. It grants local state bodies greater authority and funds from the state reserves – and other resources – to renew infrastructure ruined by the weekend’s deadly terrorist attacks, he said.

It’s not worth imposing martial law on the Donetsk region, Kikhtenko told Hromadske TV on Jan. 27. “Before reaching such a decision, what needs to be determined is whether there are enough forces to fight and ensure a martial law regime,” he said. “It could be imposed, overstrained and unfulfilled.” Instead, the local government is pursuing a strategy of planning, arresting and disarming threats to the population, he said.

Imposing martial law nationally will restrict the right of citizens – such as free speech and assembly – and interfere with the state’s economic development, Yuriy Biriukov, an adviser to the president, told the 1+1 television network on Jan. 26. “Martial law is transferring the rails of the entire economy of the entire country strictly towards war,” he said. Moreover, no international financing institution (IFI) will offer a loan to Ukraine, he said. The pro-Russian separatists don’t have enough forces to launch an invasion of Ukraine beyond the Donbas region, he said. Thousands of Ukrainian separatists and Russian mercenaries were killed in January alone, he said.

Zenon Zawada: The Ukrainian government had to take some widescale measure in response to the Mariupol terrorist attack on Jan. 24, so imposing the emergency situations regime made the most sense. It creates a heightened sense of alert with increased restrictions without straining the state’s limited resources.

A state of emergency may be necessary if this regime fails to prevent future terrorist attacks on the civilian population on such a large scale as in Mariupol. Importantly, we don’t expect such measures in the Ukrainian mainland, where the population remains quite resilient and tolerant of the government’s restraint in declaring war. This patience will wear thin, however, if the government fails in its reforms, continues to mismanage the economy and doesn’t deal with corruption.