ISSUE 30

22 - 28. 05. 2023

• Security situation update
• The labor market in wartime
• Russian abduction of Ukrainian children
  
• Peace Formula Summit: Relevance and prospects
• Talks about the elections are ongoing but how will they take shape? 
• Ukraine is preparing for the de-occupation of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant

You can find a PDF version of this issue suitable for printing at the bottom of the newsletter.

Russia has increased efforts to identify and exhaust Ukraine’s air defense capabilities. During the night of 29 May, Russia conducted one of its largest attacks on Ukraine. Ukrainian air defense systems downed 36 Russian missiles and 30 Shahed drones near Kyiv. However, Russian missiles hit a military airfield in Ukraine’s Khmelnytskyi region, likely damaging five aircraft and the runway. Following the night of the 29 May attacks, Russia fired missiles at Kyiv again at around 11 am in the morning. An air alert was announced over almost all of Ukraine, and around 11:20 am explosions were heard in Kyiv. This was the 16th attack on the capital since the beginning of the month. In the Obolonskyi and Podilskyi districts of Kyiv city, rocket fragments fell on roadways, Kyiv’s mayor Vitaliy Klychko wrote in his Telegram channel. The Mayor also reported that explosions over the Desnianskyi district were due to air defense work. One person was wounded. According to the reports of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), Russia launched 11 ballistic Iskander missiles during the noon attack on Kyiv, all of which were downed by Ukrainian air defense. 

Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba has called on the international community to avoid becoming inured to large-scale Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities and to continue strengthening Ukraine’s air defense capabilities. 

Military experts consider the intensified Russian attacks to be an attempt to disrupt the preparations for the long-awaited counter-offensive. Ukraine’s Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) Oleksiy Danilov dismissed earlier reports that the counteroffensive had already begun but said that Ukraine is ready to launch it at any time. Danilov stressed that the Ukrainian Army would start the counter-offensive when commanders will believe that it "can have the best result at that point of the war." 

Meanwhile, Ukrainian troops continue to defend positions around Bakhmut, but despite repeated attempts to approach the town have had no visible success. However, Ukrainians have intensified their strikes on the Russian rear, especially near occupied Mariupol and Berdiansk, using Storm Shadow missiles, HIMARS, and drones as part of the preparation for the counter-offensive. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov specifically praised the effectiveness of the British-supplied long-range Storm Shadow missiles, saying on May 28 that all launches of those had been accurate. 

ANALYSIS

Russia aims at delaying or disrupting Ukraine’s counteroffensive preparations, which, according to the Ukrainian officials are already ongoing. Despite earlier reports, the Russian military-industrial complex has not yet exhausted its potential, and weapons production has continued despite sanctions, therefore Russia has the capacity to increase the number of missile attacks at both Ukrainian civilian and military infrastructure. Data from the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine indicates that throughout the first year of the full-scale war, the Russians were able to build more than 500 cruise missiles despite being under sanctions, and even increased production in the first half of 2023, due to the supplies of Western semiconductors through “grey” schemes running through third countries. Many European companies continue to support the Russian military industry directly, bypassing the sanctions. And, contrary to what is now advocated by several mediating powers, including Brazil, China, the South African Republic, and even the Vatican, Russia is not open to any compromises and peace talks. Russia’s latest demands of the Ukrainian leadership to recognize the annexation of the occupied territories, reject the Euro-Atlantic agenda, and introduce Russian as the second state language in Ukraine, demonstrates that Russia continues to pursue its strategic objective of the war: establishing full control over Ukraine through destruction of its sovereignty and political identity. Agreeing to such terms will inevitably prompt Russian ambitions to create another Belarus-type statehood, bringing instability and deploying Russian military capabilities in the closest possible proximity to NATO’s eastern flank.  

After the start of Russia's full-scale war, Ukraine’s labor market suffered significantly. The number of vacancies decreased by almost ten times. 53% of Ukrainians who had a job before February 24 had lost it as of March 2022. This happened due to the loss of assets, uncertainty about the future, urgent evacuation of people and businesses, and other extenuating circumstances related to the war. However, a gradual recovery of the labor market has been ongoing. In the spring of 2023, the rate of new job vacancies returned to almost 80% of the 2021 average. The official unemployment rate is about 20%.

ANALYSIS

The actual unemployment rate could, in fact, be far higher. Not all those unemployed are officially registered for various reasons, for example, because employment services often transfer information to military commissariats. In addition, those unemployed in the temporarily occupied territories cannot be calculated. The recovery of the labor market is asymmetrical and is not occurring at the same pace for the whole country. Most vacancies are in large cities away from the frontline, or in the West of Ukraine. In the Zakarpattia region (in the West of Ukraine) there are currently one and a half times more vacancies than in 2021. In the East, the return of vacancies is either very gradual or non-existent. This has happened because of the relocation of both enterprises and people to safer regions. According to the Ministry of Reintegration, about 800 enterprises had been relocated by April 2023 (15% of them moved to Zakarpattia region). This situation coupled with the risks of shelling or occupation has resulted in a shortage of vacancies in these areas. The longer companies stay in the West of Ukraine, the better they will adjust their work there. This may contribute to their unwillingness to return to the East. However, in the eastern part of Ukraine, there is an increase in activity in retail trade and a slight increase in vacancies in this field. Most likely, this situation has occurred due to a large number of military personnel and volunteers in these regions who have the purchasing power and need for various goods of daily use. 

Another issue is structural unemployment - when there are unemployed people whose skills do not meet the labor market requirements. Therefore, it is necessary to develop retraining programs in Ukraine. This will help reduce the unemployment rate now and, in the future, will reduce the forecasted labor shortage in the country. In addition, such programs will be highly relevant for many vulnerable categories of the population, including people with disabilities, internally displaced persons, and war veterans. The State Employment Service is working on such projects, but their number and coverage should be significantly increased. For this, the state could rely on veterans’ integration programs, such as those developed by the USA. The speed at which people who have experienced traumatic events can reintegrate into civilian life depends on the effectiveness of such actions. 

In general, the forecast for 2023 regarding the level of unemployment is optimistic. The National Bank of Ukraine predicts a further decrease in unemployment. However, the recovery of the labor market in the East of the country will be slow and long, even after the end of the war, so Ukraine should pay more attention to this problem. A decrease in the unemployment rate will positively affect economic activity in the country and help preserve revenues that support the state budget. 

June 1 is the Day for the Protection of Children in Ukraine. Traditionally, municipal administrations of each city organize different activities for children and their parents to participate on that day. The bright colorful invitations to celebrate Children’s Day published by the Children's Service of the Melitopol City Council in 2021 are still available on the council’s social network pages. Guests are promised to have a lot of fun with plenty of quests, competitions, performances, and cartoons. Now Melitopol is under Russian occupation, alongside parts of the Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Kharkiv, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions, as well as Crimea.

According to UN data at least 501 children have been killed since the war escalated in February 2022, but the real figure is likely far higher, stated Catherine Russell, UNICEF’s Executive Director. Another appalling war crime committed by Russia in relation to children is their abduction, deportation, and re-education. Daria Herasymchuk, the President's Commissioner for Children's Rights, previously reported that as of the end of March, the Ukrainian authorities knew of more than 19 500 children that had been taken from the temporarily occupied territories to Russia, but it has been difficult to accurately count them due to the occupation of part of the territory of Ukraine.

ANALYSIS

There are four separate categories of deported children, according to a report by Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab: 1) children who have parents or clear familial guardianship, but are forcibly separated from their relatives during the ‘filtration’ if their parents are accused of supporting Ukrainian Army or similar actions; 2) children deemed to be orphans by Russia - among them there are children whose parents have been killed by Russians; 3) children who were under the care of Ukrainian state institutions prior to the February 2022 invasion - in the majority of cases, heads of orphanages or boarding schools were replaced with those appointed by Russia; and 4) children whose custody is uncertain due to wartime circumstances caused by the full-scale invasion. In 2022, the Russian government established a large-scale system of at least 43 children's camps in Russia-occupied Crimea and Russia, in particular, Moscow, Kazan, and Yekaterinburg, with two camps located further in Siberia and one in Russia’s Far East. Children in such camps are deprived of the opportunity to contact relatives: “Russians do absolutely everything to prevent the child from reuniting with their relatives. They immediately take away the children's phones and do not allow them to report their location”, states Herasymchuk. The main purpose of such camps appears to be political re-education through "integrating children from Ukraine into the Russian government's vision of national culture, history, and society". Children are being subjected to Russification, Russian state propaganda, and military education (including firearm training). Children who have already been returned to Ukraine have confirmed that they were subjected to psychological pressure as well as physical torture for refusing to sing the Russian anthem or other acts of disobedience.  

Russian law prohibits the adoption of foreign children without the consent of their home country, which Ukraine has not given. But in May 2022, Putin signed a decree making it easier for Russia to adopt and give citizenship to Ukrainian children without parental care — and harder for Ukraine and surviving relatives to win them back. In addition, the ‘new parents’ have a right to change a children’s personal data, i.e. name and surname of the children, which makes it even more difficult to track them. 

Only 364 children out of almost 20 000 have been returned to Ukraine, said Dmytro Lubinets, the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Verkhovna Rada. The Prosecutor General's Office reported that there is currently no single transparent algorithm or mechanism that makes it possible to return Ukrainian children from Russia. 

On March 17 the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia's Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights Maria Lvova-Belova, for Moscow's forced deportation of Ukrainian children as a war crime. According to Ukrainian legal analysts, since the crime includes the transfer of children from one national group to another, it is quite possible to talk in the future about the re-qualification of the crime to an act of genocide. 

On May 21, at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy proposed organizing a Peace Formula Summit in July to mark 500 days since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion. Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said his country is ready to host the summit in Copenhagen. He also noted that the Peace Summit should be attended not only by Ukraine's allies. "We need to attract the interest of countries such as India, Brazil, and China," Rasmussen said. The Ukrainian Peace Formula was supported by the G7 and several countries of the Global South as the only viable platform for negotiations to achieve a fair and lasting peace in Ukraine. Earlier on May 17, 46 countries had pledged support for Kyiv's peace initiative at the Council of Europe summit. The European Union backed Ukraine's Peace Formula and the summit as the starting point to begin implementing its points. Meanwhile, six African leaders suggested that Ukraine should agree to start peace talks with Moscow even if Russian troops remain on its territory. Recently, Li Hui, the Chinese government's Special Representative for Eurasia, visited Kyiv, Warsaw, and Paris, where he called on all parties to create conditions for peace talks. Instead, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said that Ukraine would not accept proposals that would lead to the loss of territory or a frozen conflict.

ANALYSIS

This spring, four visible "peacekeeping" initiatives emerged from China, Brazil, the Vatican, and a collective of African countries respectively. The central tenet of each of these plans revolves around stopping the war immediately through "peace" negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow. This scenario coincides with the Kremlin's position on conflict settlement or, rather, its freezing. There are several reasons for this rush. Firstly, the so-called "special military operation" has not yielded the expected results for the Russians, and in order to "save face" they are promoting the idea of peace talks through all possible communication channels. Secondly, predicting a possible defeat on the battlefield, Putin has significantly intensified "peace mediator diplomacy" through his allies and partners in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.  

Kyiv, on the other hand, is promoting its own Peace Formula and uniting more and more countries around it. One of the key takeaways from the G7 summit for Ukraine was the consensus of its leaders and several countries of the Global South (India, Brazil, Indonesia) that "the formula for peace can only be Ukrainian." At the same time, Zelenskyy does not reject the ideas of peace mediators with alternative positions, seeing this as an opportunity to convince them of his own vision. An active dialogue with China's Special Representative is currently underway; on May 11, Celso Amorim, Special Assistant to the President of Brazil for International Affairs, visited Kyiv, and African leaders are expected to visit Kyiv in early June.  

In this context, the idea of holding a global Peace Summit at the initiative of Ukraine is a timely decision of Kyiv. It will help to once again draw the attention of the international community to the Ukrainian scenario of ending the war (de-occupation of territories, compensation for damages by the aggressor, security guarantees, etc.) and unite more countries around this idea. The advantage of such an event would be the wide range of participants, including countries from the Global South, Asia, and South America. This is the task that Ukrainian diplomacy is actively working on now, as highlighted by Zelenskyy's participation in the Arab League summit and Kuleba's visit to Africa. 

Simultaneously, the strongest argument for Ukraine will be a successful counter-offensive and the removal of the occupiers from Ukrainian soil. Such a development would significantly speed up the negotiation process and provide Kyiv with a stronger position in dialogues with Moscow.

Would there be no full-scale war, Ukraine would currently have been in an election campaign. The upcoming parliamentary elections were supposed to be held in October this year, with a presidential election in March 2024, and local elections in autumn 2025. This will not happen since the Constitution of Ukraine clearly prohibits the holding of elections whilst martial law is in place or during a state of emergency. 

International partners supporting Ukraine’s fight for democracy will be demanding free and fair elections after martial law is lifted. PACE President Tiny Kox, in an interview, stated “If Ukraine does not hold elections, we will have to ask ourselves – what did we defend in this war of aggression?”.  

Some parties are preparing for the elections by trying to assess the balance of power whilst many Ukrainians are busy defending the country. There is a working group in the parliament in charge of developing a procedure to change electoral legislation and hold elections after the war.  

ANALYSIS

If and when Ukraine wins the war, there will be several challenges to ensure free and fair elections, these being both organizational and political in nature. One of the key issues will be updating the registry of voters. There are cities that are completely wiped out, like Mariupol, Maryinka, and Bakhmut. Around 8 million Ukrainians are currently displaced in Europe and around 5 million are internally displaced. Organizing voting abroad presents a significant challenge, whilst the situation of internally displaced voters is another issue that must be considered. According to the polling results from November 2022, 77% of Ukrainian internally displaced persons (IDPs) are not planning to move from where they are located in the nearest years. For example, Lviv is hosting around 250.000 IDPs which can significantly alter the election outcome. There are discussions within the parliament to hold elections via Diia, which might seem like a sound solution for many of the electoral challenges that are being posed. However, it would be extremely difficult to provide security against cyber-attacks as well as to ensure secret voting as stipulated in the Ukrainian Constitution. Voting via post could also be a solution, though it would require significant investment and come at a high total cost. 

In the meantime, Ukrainian authorities are already discussing whether to revert from the proportional electoral system with open party lists which was finally introduced in 2019 to return to the closed lists and majoritarian system. According to the new rules introduced in 2019, voter turnout will define how many seats a particular constituency will get in Parliament. Since some constituencies are completely ruined, authorities have proposed lifting the proportional system, at least temporarily. A return to a majoritarian system or proportional system with closed party lists would benefit the incumbent party but would lead to the return of corruption risks associated with elections in Ukraine. The new draft law has put the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) in charge of deciding on certain electoral procedures, such as voting in de-occupied cities and communities. However, experts say that because the NSDC is under the control of the president, it might lead to politicization of the procedure. A central challenge that Ukrainian democracy faces is that the power to call elections, or change election legislation, is vested in the parliament. Most of the mono-majority Sluha Narodu party’s deputies have not demonstrated significant results at their work and many of them do not show up in the parliament. Holding free and fair elections after the war will be both difficult and expensive but doing so would be a minimum requirement for Ukraine to be called a democracy.  

On May 26, the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine warned that the Russian occupiers are preparing a large-scale provocation by simulating an accident at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), after which an emergency leak of radioactive substances will be announced, and Ukraine will be blamed for the incident. The purpose of this action would be to provoke the international community to conduct an investigation, during which all hostilities will be stopped. The Russians seek to use this pause, which they have long sought, to regroup the occupation contingent and stop the Ukrainian counteroffensive. To cover up their actions, the Russians have disrupted the staff rotation of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) permanent monitoring mission, which was scheduled for May 26. As of now, fortunately, no extraordinary event has occurred. However, this does not indicate at all that this will not happen in the following days, as Ukraine's counteroffensive has begun, and Russia needs any methods to slow it down.

Despite numerous calls from the IAEA and world leaders, the occupiers are not reducing their presence at the ZNPP. According to Intelligence Service, "the territories of power units No. 1, 2, 4 are used as logistics and military bases. Occupant personnel, armored vehicles, and trucks are located at these sites. The rotation takes place covertly during the curfew (from 11:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m.). All trucks are tightly sealed. Intelligence has pointed out that they may contain ammunition and explosives. Employees of regular shifts, who must inspect power units at least 1-2 times a week, are not allowed on the controlled territory. Those who tried to conduct control rounds were subjected to beatings and torture. Several of them are in hospital in serious condition.

At the same time, as a result of shelling by the Russians on the night of May 22, the last high-voltage transmission line, from which the ZNPP was supplied with power for its own needs, was disconnected. Ever since the beginning of the occupation, the Ukrainian nuclear power plant has been in blackout mode. After the loss of external power, which is vital to ensure the operation of the pumps for cooling the nuclear material of the power units, all diesel generators of the nuclear power plant were switched on automatically, with the fuel supply enough for ten days. "If it is impossible to renew the external power supply of the station during this time, an accident with radiation consequences for the whole world may occur," Energoatom noted.

We remind you that the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, seized by the Russians on March 4, 2022, does not produce electricity, and instead, it consumes it from the Ukrainian energy system to meet its own needs. At the beginning of May, according to IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi, all six power units were shut down. IAEA experts present at the ZNPP regularly report shelling there.

ANALYSIS

On May 22 in Japan, the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy once again stated that the Russian Federation must hand over full control of the occupied ZNPP to Ukraine and the IAEA. He emphasized that Russia is the only terrorist state in the world that has launched tank fire at a nuclear power plant building and that no other party has turned the nuclear power plant into a training ground and depot for storing weapons and shells. Russia is using this nuclear power plant to bombard Ukrainian cities with jet artillery. Prior to that, during a conversation with the Chinese President, Zelenskyy emphasized the need to resolve the security situation around the ZNPP. 

Ukraine is interested in helping nuclear powers to resolve the issue of nuclear safety at the occupied ZNPP because they are also guarantors of the Budapest Memorandum. In particular, Ukraine and France, in a joint statement, called on the Russian invaders to withdraw from the temporarily occupied ZNPP. Back on May 14, the head of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, once again announced an agreement with the Russian Federation and Ukraine regarding the protection of the ZNPP in the UN Security Council, in order to reduce the risk of a catastrophic accident due to military actions near the ZNPP. However, the promised agreement has not yet been made public, although Grossi has recently held a meeting with the head of Rosatom. 

According to the head of Energoatom, the Ukrainian military understands that during a counteroffensive they must bypass the ZNPP in order not to damage it in battle. Ukraine can take back the nuclear power plant without the use of force simply by blocking the supply lines to the facility and interrupting the connection between ZNPP and Crimea. To achieve this, Melitopol must first be liberated, and then the supply routes must be cut. According to Energoatom CEO Petro Kotin, the occupiers will then be forced to leave the ZNPP as they will be surrounded by the AFU.

The occupiers are afraid of Ukrainian counteroffensive actions and their inevitable consequences. Putin wants to stop hostilities, so their main task is to establish a ceasefire and further freeze the conflict. Because of this, the Russians are putting effort into inventing new provocations which include the bogus use of nuclear or chemical weapons. Some military experts suggest that the Russians are ready to blow up a nuclear waste storage facility, and subsequently blame Ukraine and force a pause in hostilities. An explosion at the ZNPP would have the appearance of a "dirty bomb". Such an incident would undoubtedly cause the release of radioactive substances which would be immediately detected by observation centers in Europe. The IAEA, which has an observation center at the ZNPP, would raise the issue to the whole world and demand a cease-fire until the investigation is completed and the consequences of the nuclear disaster are eliminated – an outcome that corresponds exactly with what Putin wants. However, Ukraine is not a country of suicide bombers who would deliberately blow up a nuclear power plant. The cities of Nikopol and Marhanets are burning every day under the fire of Russian artillery, which is fired by Russia from the territory of the ZNPP. Ukraine does not respond to these strikes. 

The Russians could engineer a false-flag operation, making it seem as if a Ukrainian unit has tried to liberate the ZNPP, and as a result of these actions, an explosion occurred. The probable meaning hidden in it is exclusively terrorist - the Russians seek to frighten the world with dire consequences if the Ukrainians begin to de-occupy the ZNPP. At the same time, the ZNPP is difficult to detonate due to strengthened defense systems. 

Most experts do not believe that the Kremlin will resort to nuclear contamination. After all, Russia would like to use Ukrainian lands for political, and economic purposes, meaning that radioactive contamination of these territories is not profitable for them. 

At the same time, the accident planned by the Russians will lead to the contamination of not only Ukrainian lands, but also the territory of Belarus, the Russian Federation, and EU countries. Another point of view is that if the occupiers blow up the nuclear power plant, they will lose 150,000 combat-capable soldiers in an extremely short period of time, which means that they will not have the opportunity to hold the south of Ukraine and Crimea. At the same time, an unprecedented nuclear terrorist act would have been committed, which in turn will activate the international military machine to quell the nuclear terrorist. Such a terrorist attack may well activate NATO's Article 5. In turn, the Russians will not have the resources to repel NATO's counter-terrorism operation. 

At the same time, the station is important for both sides. For the Russians, it ensures energy independence for the temporarily occupied territories. For Ukraine, this is a serious power-generating asset that can produce an energy surplus that can be sold abroad. Most likely, in the near future, there will be subtle movements around the ZNPP that will determine positions. 

The Ukrainian operator of nuclear power plants, Energoatom, stated that they are ready to promptly replace the ZNPP personnel in the temporarily occupied Enerhodar immediately after the de-occupation. An independent assessment of the property of the ZNPP will be conducted after that. The value of Energoatom's property destroyed and damaged due to Russian aggression has already reached 32 billion UAH (almost €1 billion), the lion’s share of which is the ZNPP itself. 

In general, due to Russian aggression since 2014, Ukraine has lost 27 GW of installed capacity, with the largest losses falling in the period between March and May 2022. Losses have increased exponentially since 2014. Since 2014, there have been two large thermal power plants (TPPs) in the occupied territory, with 4 GW of installed capacity. In May 2022, due to the full-scale Russian invasion, 21 GW were already under occupation. In particular, the ZNPP, which provided about a fifth of the country’s electricity production, has been occupied since March. Due to massive attacks on the Ukrainian power system, as of May 2023, losses of installed capacity have increased to 27 GW. Seasonal repairs of power units are possible only when the units are stopped. Therefore, electricity production temporarily decreases. In order to ensure balance in the energy system, energy experts again began to call on consumers to limit electricity consumption in the evening hours, and on May 23, Ukraine suspended the export of electricity, which is foreseen to last for almost two months. 

Russia's current war against Ukraine demonstrated the readiness of the democratic world to unite in the fight for freedom and liberal values. However, there are democracies all over the world in need of protection against autocracies willing to challenge international order. One year from the start of full-scale invasion, we introduce you the report “War in Ukraine: Lessons identified and lessons learned“, which analyzes policies and practices that have impacted Ukraine’s resilience in key sectors. Outcomes of this research can be used as recommendations for other democracies building resilience against conventional, hybrid, or other threats (e.g., natural disasters), from Europe to the Pacific.

Thank you.

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