Steelworkers help keep uneasy calm in eastern Ukraine
Steelworkers help keep uneasy calm in eastern Ukraine
(about 11 hours later)
MARIUPOL, Ukraine — Steelworkers employed by eastern Ukraine’s top tycoon helped police keep order in some disputed cities Friday as an uneasy calm prevailed over the beleaguered country ahead of nationwide elections scheduled for May 25.
MARIUPOL, Ukraine — He’s a baby-faced billionaire, the son of a coal miner and Ukraine’s richest man. Now, Rinat Akhmetov may also hold the balance of power in the region’s tensest standoff since the Cold War.
The unarmed patrols in the cities of Mariupol and Makeyevka by employees of companies controlled by Ukrainian billionaire Rinat Akhmetov were intended to restore order a week after fighting broke out for control of Mariupol’s police department, according to a spokesman for Akhmetov and official statements from his company.
Two days after Akhmetov deployed workers from his steel plant to restore order in a region torn by separatist violence, calm appeared to return Friday to the center of this eastern city. A few steps from a recent deadly clash, people lunched on sushi as a song by Katy Perry played. Near the scorched city council building that had been held by pro-Russian militants, a group of Akhmetov’s unarmed steel workers lounged and smoked cigarettes as they kept watch.
Akhmetov, believed to be Ukraine’s richest man, issued a statement saying Donetsk should remain part of Ukraine and arguing that independence or absorption into Russia would spell economic catastrophe. His company, Metinvest, is the most powerful firm in the industrialized eastern part of Ukraine.
A few blocks away, at the ruins of the city police department where at least seven people died last week, retired steel worker Oleg Krivolapov welcomed Akhmetov’s intervention.
In the southeastern port city of Mariupol, where at least seven people were killed in clashes last week between police and pro-Russian militants, a group of unarmed steel workers lounged at a playground Friday near the burned-out city hall building, which was flying the flag of the separatists’ self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic.” The members of one of Akhmetov’s patrols chatted with each other and smoked cigarettes, and two of them sat on playground equipment reading books. They declined to talk to reporters, saying there were forbidden to do so.
“He has his factories, his industries, a lot of money — he could do a lot,” said Krivolapov, who trusts that his former colleagues at Akhmetov’s Ilych Factory can keep the peace. “Of course, he should have done something sooner.”
A steady flow of visitors arrived at the scorched shell of Mariupol’s police department. Many stood in silence, staring at the walls pockmarked with bullet holes and the charred timbers jutting into a blue sky where the roof had collapsed. Others looked at a picture of one of victims or read their eulogies on sheets of paper taped up near the entrance, which was carpeted with flowers and religious icons.
The steel workers’ patrols seem to mark a turn in the conflict, but Akhmetov’s decision to use his clout may be more significant. Since the fall of his longtime ally, former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, Akhmetov has restrained himself from pulling out all the stops to try to restore order. But with his decision to put his workers on the street, he may be saying enough is enough with the separatist movement in eastern Ukraine.
“It really troubled me what happened here, and I often come here,” said Oleg Krivolapov, 45, a retired steel worker of the Ilych Factory owned by Akhmetov. Krivolapov said the city has been calm since the May 9 violence. He said he did not know whether the steelworkers’ patrols have helped bring peace to Mariupol’s streets. But he said former colleagues are part of Metinvest’s patrols, and he believes they will do what they can to avoid bloodshed.
A king among men here, his empire of steel plants, factories and coal mines spreads across Donbas — as many Ukrainians refer to their nation’s industrial heartland. Akhmetov is its largest private employer and is known as the “shadow governor” for his links to local and regional politicians. His businesses also maintain their own private, well-trained security force of more than 3,000, including former elite Ukrainian commandos.
As Krivolapov sees it, Akhmetov’s considerable political and economic clout could help resolve the crisis by bringing about real change and a fair shake for the Donetsk region.
Should he go all-out — a level of commitment that still remains unclear — observers believe he has the power and influence to turn the tide.
“He has his factories, his industries, a lot of money — he could do a lot,” Krivolapov said. “Of course, he should have done some something sooner.”
“He controls everything in that region,” said Alexander Paraschiy, head of research at Concorde Capital, a Kiev-based brokerage and analytical firm. “If Akhmetov decides to stop this separatist show, he would be able to do it in a couple of minutes.”
Akhmetov “owns the region’s political parties — that’s what people are saying. He financed them. Politically, they could achieve a lot in the Verkhovna Rada to prevent bloodshed,” Krivolapov said, referring to the national legislature in Kiev.
Ukraine’s troubled east erupted into separatist violence months ago, and tension built in this port city for weeks before an intense battle last week between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian militants. That raises an important question: Why is Akhmetov choosing to act now?
A tenuous calm has prevailed in eastern Ukraine since ad hoc talks on Ukrainian national unity in Kiev earlier this week. Pro-Russian separatists did not attend the gathering. British Foreign Secretary William Hague nevertheless called the talks, which ended in accusations and grandstanding after one session, “clearly successful.”
There are myriad theories. Some critics, for instance, have accused him of privately backing the separatists to force concessions from the pro-Western government in Kiev. At least one separatist leader, Pavlo Gubarev, told a state-owned Russian media outlet that Akhmetov helped finance the uprisings. Although he is a longtime supporter of Yanukovych and his Party of Regions, Akhmetov has denied those charges.
Hague warned Russia of “wider economic and trade sanctions” if it interferes in Ukraine’s planned May 25 presidential and mayoral elections.
“I tell you with confidence that I didn’t and won’t give one cent” to the separatists, Akhmetov told Ukraine’s Interfax news agency this week.
There were scattered reports of clashes in eastern Ukraine on Friday, including an exchange of gunfire at a checkpoint held by Ukrainian national guardsmen near Mariupol. A Ukrainian television news reporter said the shootout occurred about 10 p.m. Thursday and lasted about 15 minutes, pinning down her and her crew. Irina Herasimova, who works for Ukraine’s Channel 5 news, said there were no injuries among the guardsmen or her crew.
Yet the chaos has led the pro-Western interim government in Kiev to begin seriously considering one of Akhmetov’s key demands: that Ukraine become a more decentralized state, giving more power to the regions. Such a deal could help protect Akhmetov’s businesses and political interests in the country’s east.
Meanwhile, the head of a militia group backing Kiev’s interim government claimed late Thursday that a unit of pro-Ukrainian volunteers has retaken control of Velyka Novosilka, the center of a regional district about 30 miles southwest of the city of Donetsk.
Critics who charge Akhmetov with tactically supporting the separatists’ uprisings say he may have become caught in his own web, his authority and businesses suddenly threatened by the spreading might of pro-Russians in the region.
The Donbas battalion took back control of the local police department and seized weapons after a confrontation late Thursday without injuries, the commander of the volunteers, Semyon Semenchenko, said in a posting on his Facebook page.
“If he is acting now, it is not because he cares about Ukraine, but because his own interests are at stake,” said Igor Lutsenko, a prominent Kiev-based activist who was kidnapped and tortured by the Yanukovych regime in January.
He said the group planned to move next on the city itself to remove pro-Russian separatists from the Donetsk People’s Republic, who have taken over a regional administration building there.
Known as ‘the respected’
Semenchenko wrote on his Facebook page that the pro-Russian separatist police chief had fled. He said his Ukrainian volunteers demanded that remaining officers swear a new oath of loyalty to Ukraine.
Akhmetov’s early career was plagued by accusations of underworld dealings. He was thought to be a protege of Akhat Bragin, the former president of the Shakhtar Donetsk soccer club. Bragin, who died in a 1995 bomb blast, was also alleged to be an organized crime boss.
The report could not be independently confirmed.
Akhmetov, however, has denied any illegality, saying his empire was built on gutsy business moves, acumen and smart investments. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he branched out into coal, and, more important, steel manufacturing. In 2000, he founded System Capital Management, involved in mining, metals, energy, finance, telecommunications and media.
As the Kiev talks were underway, officials in Moscow appeared to soften their stance, at least publicly. In an interview with Bloomberg Television, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia has “no intention” of sending troops into eastern Ukraine, despite Western fears that it will invade after the presidential and mayoral elections set for this month.
Currently No. 92 on the Forbes list of the world’s top billionaires, he commands an estimated $12.2 billion in global assets – a figure down from $15.4 billion in 2013. He resides part time in London, where he owns one of the city’s most expensive apartments at One Hyde Park, a hyper-luxury complex a stone’s throw from Harrods.
Although Western nations have threatened additional sanctions against Russia, Hague said they were not willing to give an “exact definition” of what would provoke them or what form the measures would take.
Akhmetov has sought to distance himself from the brutality of the regime’s last days. Anders Aslund, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics, said Akhmetov is seen in eastern Ukraine as a patriarchal figure and is called “the respected” by his workers.
“If we set a red line, Russia knows that it can go up to that red line,” he said at a news conference. “Efforts to disrupt the election may take many different forms. That’s not something we can define in advance,” but it will be “what determines the attitude of the whole Western world” toward Russia.
“No one can stop him,” Aslund said. “He’s by far the most powerful person in Donetsk. When he comes down, he comes down like a ton of bricks.”
In separate comments, Secretary of State John F. Kerry said, “If Russia or its proxies disrupt the election, the United States and those countries represented here today in the European Union will impose sectoral economic sanctions as a result.”
It remains uncertain, though, whether he is intent on asserting his full force or is simply seeking to keep the separatists in check temporarily.
Asked whether the West would be watching for direct Russian interference or hold Moscow accountable for the actions of the pro-Russian separatists, Kerry said a judgment would be made based on “attitude and behavior.”
Accusations of betrayal
“I’m not going to start laying out the whole series of definitions except to say to you that it is clear what proxies mean,” he said.
In this port city of nearly a half-million, the barricades set up by separatists started coming down Wednesday morning, apparently after an agreement was struck by all sides.
A senior State Department official said earlier that “we have been pretty clear in being able to pinpoint and expose . . . when Moscow’s hand has been behind past disruptions.” The official added, “We’ve seen it in the past — we’ve seen personnel, we’ve seen money, we’ve seen weapons, we’ve seen coordination, we’ve seen actual actors. So all of those things are possible again in this context.”
Akhmetov spokesman Jock Mendoza-Wilson said 228 company employees hit the street Thursday, the same as on Friday. They have been running 44 routes, he said, and are spread out over four additional cities, including Donetsk, although they appeared to be less of a presence there.
The official also made clear that threatened sanctions on what President Obama has said would be “sectors” of the Russian economy — including mining, defense, energy and banking — are not likely to be imposed across the board, as in Iran. Instead, the official said, they would “use a scalpel rather than a hammer,” focusing on “new investment” in sanctioned sectors.
Each patrol consists of half a dozen employees, usually with two police officers.
The European Union, whose members have far more substantial stakes in the Russian economy than does the United States, has balked at sectoral sanctions and complained that they would unfairly target Europe.
“It’s made a big difference,” Mendoza-Wilson said. “What you had last week were armed separatists and National Guard. What you have now is public order, because these people are trusted.”
France has indicated that it is likely to go ahead with a $1.6 billion contract, signed in 2009 for delivery this year and next, to supply Russia with two Mistral-class amphibious assault ships, despite U.S. disapproval. Other European countries are concerned about existing contracts for the supply of Russian natural gas.
Mendoza-Wilson said Akhmetov has “been in the middle of this since the beginning of this, but it hasn’t been public. But now this has been a public act, people can see he’s been involved.”
The official declined to specify whether existing contracts would be exempted from new sanctions.
Sergei Budalyn, 59, a retiree who took time Friday to check out the shell of a bank branch where his daughter had worked until separatists torched it, called Akhmetov “our financial god.”
But the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to provide background information to reporters, described a far more limited approach than Obama did in his March 20 announcement that he had signed an executive order authorizing sectoral sanctions. Kerry, too, was far more expansive in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month, saying that “the United States and our closest partners are united in this effort despite the costs and willing to put in effect tough new sanctions . . . on key sectors of the Russian economy.”
“Really, a lot depends on him,” Budalyn said.
“In energy, banking, mining — they’re all on the table . . . if Russia does not end its pressure and aggression on Ukraine.”
But it was not as if the pro-Russians had been banished. Their flag flew above the city administration building, and about 100 pro-Russian activists were gathered on its steps Friday afternoon. Many of them accused their self-proclaimed and pro-Russian “people’s mayor” of betraying their cause by cutting a deal with Akhmetov.
On Thursday, Kerry would not announce “what the precise sanctions are” but said the administration has decided on them, and that U.S. officials have continued working with the Europeans to ensure they are on board.
“I think it was a mistake,” said Aleksei, a supporter of the Donetsk People’s Republic, the pro-Russian separatists organization in the region. He declined to give his last name for fear of reprisals.
“I’m not going to get into characterizations of scalpel or a sledgehammer or whatever, except to say to you that they’re effective, and if they have to go into effect, they will have an impact,” Kerry said.
With the patrols, Aleksei said, there may be less chaos, but there is still plenty of uncertainty and suspicion.
Faiola reported from Kiev and Deane from London.
“From the position of the ordinary person’s point of view, thanks to them, the city has been preserved,” Aleksei said. “But from the other side, it means Akhmetov controls everything in Mariupol.”
Faiola reported from Kiev. Stephanie Kirchner in Berlin contributed to this report.
