Foreign Affairs Committee on March 24th, 2014

[Michael Druckman, Resident Country Director, Ukraine, International Republican Institute]

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am honoured to appear before the committee today on behalf of the International Republican Institute, IRI. We thank the committee for its kind invitation to offer our thoughts regarding the situation in Ukraine and to share with you some insights on the activities of IRI. I am pleased to follow up also on the earlier exchange the committee had with IRI's president, Ambassador Green.

Mr. Chairman, not since it became independent in 1991 has Ukraine had such an opportunity to reform its political, economic, and judicial systems. At the same time, Ukraine faces existential threats from both external and internal actors. It is critical that the international community support the democratic process in Ukraine, especially to ensure a transparent presidential election in May. That election is important for stabilizing the country and empowering the new government to implement these long-term reforms.

Former President Yanukovych's sudden reversal on European integration in November 2013 precipitated spontaneous protests by Ukrainian citizens throughout the country, with the biggest in Kiev. The Ukrainian government attempted to suppress the movement, popularly known as the Euromaidan, or European square, by brutally beating those involved, most of whom were students.

As a result of the government's brutal crackdown on November 30, up to a million Ukrainians from across the country flooded into the capital to exercise their right to protest peacefully. Violence erupted again in January and in mid-February during which government forces utilized rubber bullets, tear gas, and water cannons against the peaceful protestors. In spite of the increased aggressiveness and number of casualties, protestors refused to give up Independence Square, the centre of the Euromaidan movement in Kiev.

As a result the government positioned snipers throughout the city who indiscriminately shot at protestors. On February 21, finally, opposition leaders signed an agreement with former President Yanukovych to, among other things, conduct presidential elections no later than December 2014.

The agreement, however, was not accepted by Euromaidan protestors, and Yanukovych fled the capital effectively abdicating the presidency. In his absence the parliament voted for Oleksandr Turchynov as interim president on February 22, and on the same day, set early presidential elections for May 25, 2014. The parliament also voted to release former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who had spent more than two years in prison on politically motivated charges.

Displeased with developments in Ukraine, Russian Prime Minister Medvedev asserted that the developments constituted an “armed mutiny”, ignoring the fact that Ukraine is an independent country. At the end of February after the eyes of the world had moved from the region and the Sochi Olympics, Russian forces invaded the Crimean peninsula in Ukraine, first taking control of the Crimean parliament, followed by naval bases and military outposts throughout the region.

On March 16 Russia-occupied Crimea called for a referendum with two options on the ballot: to join Russia or to increase autonomy. There was no option to maintain the current status quo. The referendum was rightly deemed illegal by the international community. Of specific note, the vote was boycotted by the Crimean Tatar community, an indigenous population of Crimea who were forced into exile to central Asia by Joseph Stalin in 1944 and were only able to return to Crimea following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The Crimean Tatars have been considered among the most progressive actors on the peninsula, having most adamantly supported the Euromaidan movement. The Qurultay, their governing body, was not initially a directly elected entity. At their own initiative in May 2013, the Crimean Tatars held their first direct elections to this representative body. IRI, with the support of the United States Agency for International Development, observed the 2013 Qurultay elections. The elections were the only elections to have been held under former President Yanukovych's regime that met with international standards.

Although Russian President Putin attempted to persuade the Crimean Tatar leadership to support the March 16 referendum with promises of government positions and security, the Tatar leadership refused. It was not lost on the Tatar community, and it should be remembered by the international community, that among the first casualties of the Russian invasion of Crimea was a Crimean Tatar activist, Reshat Ametov, whose body was found with signs of torture after his kidnapping.

The March 16 Crimea referendum showed official results of 97% of voters choosing to join Russia. However according to an IRI survey conducted in May 2013, only 23% of Crimean residents supported joining with Russia. Although somewhat dated, the poll provides an accurate snapshot as it was taken during a time of peace and reduced tension. In the same poll, IRI found that 53% of Crimean residents supported maintaining the status quo with Ukraine. This is in sharp contrast with the official results announced 10 days ago in Simferopol with Russian troops on the streets.

While Russia appears to be consolidating its power on the Crimean peninsula, it has also been escalating tensions in eastern and southern Ukraine. As the conflict erupted in Crimea, pro-Russian groups appeared in eastern Ukraine, attempting to take over government buildings and demonstrate support and unity with Russia.

In the last few weeks, several Ukrainians have been killed by these pro-Russian groups, who have clashed with pro-Ukrainian demonstrators in the cities of Donetsk and Kharkiv. In both cases, evidence points to pro-Russian groups attempting to create provocations, disrupt public order, and give the impression of an unstable political situation in which ethnic Russians or Russian speakers were under threat.

These events have had a profound impact on the political situation in Ukraine. New political forces have emerged from the Euromaidan movement, while others have been diminished. Interim President Turchynov and the parliament sought to move quickly to stabilize the evolving situation by creating a new government within a week of the former president’s abandonment of the presidency.

The new prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, has promised to undertake difficult economic and political reforms and to set the course for Ukraine’s European integration. On March 20 Yatsenyuk signed an association agreement with the European Union and officially announced the government’s plans to accelerate economic and political ties with Europe.

With the presidential election set for May 25, potential candidates have until the end of March to announce their candidacy. Thus far, boxing champion Vitaliy Klychko, leader of the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform, has announced his intention to run on a platform promising Ukraine’s European integration. In addition to Klychko, outspoken leader of the Right Sector, Dmitry Yarosh, has also announced his intention to run, most recently calling for a policy of Ukrainian non-alignment. Sergiy Tigipko, from the former president’s party, the Party of Regions, has also announced his candidacy, calling for a complete overhaul of the political system. We understand that prominent businessman Petro Poroshenko is also considering entering the race. Finally, it is expected that Yulia Tymoshenko will announce her candidacy.

The goal of the IRI's assistance in electoral processes, with support from USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy, is to ensure that the forthcoming presidential election meets international standards. If Ukraine, particularly its eastern section, can administer an election that is peaceful, open, and transparent on May 25, it has the opportunity to continue as an independent and sovereign country and will be able to continue on a democratic, constitutional, and western path. The west must do everything it can over the next two months to assist in this endeavour, and this must be our collective priority. In addition, transparent elections would create space for Ukraine to be able to develop sound economic policies and continue to build its democratic institutions. In light of this, it is difficult to overstate the importance of a free, fair, and well-administered presidential election on May 25 for the future of the country.

However, Ukraine will not be able to achieve this short-term goal if it continues to have to face the threat of an armed invasion of its eastern and southern territories. It is incumbent upon the west to use all means at its disposal to deter any such external threat.

The IRI began programming in Ukraine in 1994, working with numerous funders from the United States, Europe, and Canada. The IRI has sought to support the development of national, broad-based, and well-organized political parties. It has done so by providing parties with regular national public opinion data to inform their decision-making processes. The IRI has also sought to use this polling data as a mechanism for building coalitions among like-minded parties by focusing on issues. The IRI regularly provides political parties and candidates with campaign trainings on message development and voter targeting. Currently, the IRI is providing such trainings in the lead-up to the May 25 election.

The IRI has also sought to promote democratic governance across Ukraine. Often in Ukraine, local elected officials are unaware of their rights and responsibilities. In addition to conducting trainings to inform officials of these rights, the IRI recently began to create a network of reform-oriented local elected officials. In conducting its initial trainings, the IRI observed that local officials in one part of the country were often not aware of reforms their counterparts were conducting in other cities in the country. Therefore, the IRI sought to connect these officials by conducting study trips and exchanges, such as taking officials from Crimea to observe best practices in western Ukraine. The IRI seeks to expand this program in the future, with a particular focus on building bridges between local elected officials in eastern and western Ukraine.

Finally, a critical component in ensuring transparent and free national elections is the participation of non-partisan international observers to monitor election day and bring legitimacy to the result. The IRI has fielded an election observation delegation in every presidential and parliamentary election in Ukraine since the country declared independence in 1991. As a result of these observation missions, each delegation issued a comprehensive report following the elections, which served as the basis for subsequent reforms instituted by the Ukrainian Central Election Commission.

In conclusion, after the May 25 election, the IRI plans to continue its work, including providing assistance to the new government as it builds democratic institutions based on the principle of accountable representation.

The immediate objective for the international community must be to help Ukraine create a sense of stability and security so that it can conduct the May 25th election in a transparent manner. This will then help Ukraine to be able to focus on the economic, judicial, and political reforms it needs to undertake.

Again, Ukraine cannot achieve stability if its primary focus is on securing borders against possible military invasion. Therefore, the west must continue to do what it can to minimize pressure on Ukraine’s borders in the south and in the east.

Thank you for your attention. I am happy to answer any questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much, Mr. Druckman. You are not in Washington, as I said earlier, but are right here with us today. I appreciate that and apologize for earlier.

I'm going to welcome Mr. Gershman now, who is with the National Endowment for Democracy.

Sir, we'll turn the floor over to you for 10 minutes.

[Carl Gershman, President, National Endowment for Democracy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It’s a great honour for me to present testimony on Ukraine to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Commons. It is also great for our two capitals to be linked electronically.

Let me note also that at the beginning of the hearing we heard Canadian bipartisanship, and that's also reflected in the National Endowment for Democracy. Michael represents our Republican institute, but we also have a Democratic Party institute, and we're all working together on the issue of Ukraine.

The Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea, backed up by President Putin's revanchist doctrine enunciated in his appalling speech on March 18, threatens more than Ukraine’s security and territorial integrity. In the words of this week’s The Economist magazine:

...it poses a broader threat to countries everywhere because Mr Putin has driven a tank over the existing world order.

Vladimir Putin is not Adolf Hitler, and Russia today does not pose as ominous a threat as Nazi Germany did in 1938-39, yet the analyst Anders Aslund is correct in drawing deeply disturbing parallels between Putin's emotional, belligerent, and self-pitying speech in the Kremlin and Nazi Germany’s public discourse in the years leading up to World War II, in particular Hitler’s speech declaring war against Poland. These parallels include defining nationality by language and ethnicity and not by statehood, reserving the right to intervene to support ethnic Russians anywhere, emphasizing historical grievances, claiming that borders were drawn wrongly, charging that post-Soviet leaders betrayed Russia, justifying the annexation of Crimea with a rigged referendum, and holding the west at fault for the current crisis, just as Hitler blamed the duplicity of the United Kingdom and France for his attack on Poland.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, looking for ways to contain and not inflame the present crisis, prefers the analogy of 1914 to that of 1938. The implicit assumption here appears to be that the main danger is not a belligerent and revanchist power but the possible failure to anticipate and prevent the carnage that may lie ahead. However, the 1914 analogy also raises other troubling parallels between the world of 1914 and today: the complacency of affluent democracies, the assumption that economic globalization has overcome nationalist divisions, the belief that emerging global norms obviate the need for diplomacy backed up by military deterrence, and the instability created when, as George Weigel said in a recent lecture on the origins of the Great War, “the great powers that stand for order in the world [remain] idle while the forces of disorder gather strength.”

Some foreign policy realists have argued that Russia today is simply defending its interests within its own sphere of influence, but that argument completely sweeps aside the essence and the source of the Ukraine crisis. It did not come about because the European Union or the United States was challenging Russian interests in its “near abroad”, as Russia calls the countries that used to be part of the Soviet Union. It happened because millions of people in Ukraine rose up against a thieving kleptocracy and demanded accountability and the rule of law.

Are we to ignore the aspirations of the people of Ukraine or subordinate them to the demands of geopolitics? In his March 18 address, Putin charged that the Euromaidan movement was controlled by nationalists, neo-Nazis, Russophobes, and anti-Semites, who resorted to terror, murder, and riots to seize power. Here he shows himself to be a worthy successor to the Soviet rulers and a true product of the KGB, for he has elevated the big lie to the pinnacle of its political discourse. He has revived the Orwellian inversion of the truth as a tool to justify actions that are otherwise indefensible. He reminds us of what Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said in his Nobel lecture in 1970, that anyone who has once proclaimed violence as his method must inexorably choose the lie as his principle. Our task, Solzhenitsyn said then, is to defeat the lie.

That is what the Ukrainian Jewish leaders did on March 5, when they joined together to denounced Putin's “lies and slander” and declared, and this is a quote:

...we certainly know that our very few nationalists are well-controlled by civil society and the new Ukrainian government—which is more than can be said for the Russian neo-Nazis, who are encouraged by your security services.

The charge that the Euromaidan movement was led by Russophobes is also a lie. The Economist notes that many of those gunned down on Independence Square by Mr. Yanukovych's snipers were from the Russian-speaking east.

When the former Russian political prisoner Mikhail Khodorkovsky recently spoke on the Maidan to tens of thousands of Ukrainians, praising their popular and multi-ethnic revolution for freedom and dignity, the Ukrainians chanted in response, “Glory to Russia! Glory to Russia!”

Responding to the Russophobe charge, Timothy Snyder, the author of the famed study Bloodlands, which tells the story of the slaughter of some 14 million non-combatants by Stalin and Hitler before and during World War II, writes:

There is a country where millions of Russian-speakers lack basic rights. That country is the Russian Federation. There is a neighbouring country where tens of millions of Russian-speakers enjoy basic rights—despite the disruptions of a revolution and Russian invasion. That country is Ukraine.

Putin's real Ukraine problem, Snyder writes, is not Russophobia, but the fact that Ukraine is a country of “free people who speak freely in Russian, and might set an example one day for Russians themselves.” What Putin fears, in other words, is a Maidan in Moscow, and all of his demagogy, as well as his attempt to reimpose Russia’s rule in the near abroad, is an attempt to prevent that from happening. This fear lends a special irony to Putin's repeated pretension that Russia and Ukraine, as he said in his Kremlin speech, “are one people” and “we cannot live without each other”.

As we defend Ukraine's freedom, therefore, we cannot forget Russia's. We must remember that there is another Russia, the Russia of the exiled Khodorkovsky; the Russia of such courageous people as the late Andrei Sakharov, Anna Politkovskaya, and Natasha Estemirova; and the Russia of countless activists on the front lines of the struggle today, who are now in the greatest danger, with Putin, in his Kremlin address, having designated them as a fifth column and a disparate bunch of national traitors.

Putin has enjoyed a brief spike in popularity with his nationalist demagogy. But discontent in Russia is as great under Putin as it was in Ukraine under Yanukovych, and there is just as much hatred of corruption and bribe-takers. This discontent is likely to intensify as the consequences of Russia's and Putin's imperialist overreaching begin to be felt in the form of expanded budget deficits, shrinking foreign direct investment, and greater capital flight, which the exiled Russian economist Sergei Guriev notes could not come at a worse time since the Russian economy is now stagnating.

As we look to the future I believe we need to focus on three core priorities. The first is to do everything possible to help Ukraine take advantage of the Maidan-inspired breakthrough to become a successful democracy that fulfills the hopes for dignity and freedom for which so many Ukrainians have sacrificed and given their lives.

The most urgent need, in addition to providing the resources needed to stabilize the Ukrainian economy, will be to help Ukraine conduct free, fair, and peaceful presidential elections on May 25. This will involve support for both domestic and international monitors, for civil society groups promoting voter education and mobilization campaigns, and for independent media. Monitoring and countering the efforts by Moscow to delegitimize the new government by disrupting the election in the east and south of the country will also be extremely important.

It will also be necessary to strengthen Ukraine's defence capabilities and to begin the process of helping it diversify its energy resources.

The second priority is to deter further Russian aggression by strengthening NATO and the defence capabilities of front-line states and by bolstering Georgia and Moldova. Sanctions should be intensified by adding new names of Putin's economic and political allies to the list announced last week and ending Russian participation in the G-8 and its process of accession to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Such steps, in addition to their political and security benefits, will also give encouragement to Russia's democrats. One of them wrote to us last week asking us to convey his gratitude to the tougher sanctions that President Obama announced on Thursday. He conceded that in response to the sanctions Putin's repression could get even harsher. I quote, “harassment and maybe even arrests and violence await us. But it is still a great happiness to feel the real support of your country and your people. You can’t imagine how important it is! Because it provides hope: our struggle is not in vain.”

Indeed it isn't, and this raises the third priority, which is that all of us—the United States and its allies, parliamentarians, and members of civil society—must speak with a clearer voice on the issue of democracy and human freedom. For various reasons, including a preoccupation with solving difficult domestic problems, the world’s democracies have not been projecting a vision of what they believe in and stand for morally and politically.

What has happened in Ukraine is an opportunity to regain a sense of democratic purpose. This is not just because we face a more urgent security challenge than we did before Russia annexed Crimea and Putin enunciated his new doctrine. It also has to do with the example set by the Euromaidan, which was a movement for civic renewal and a declaration of dignity. That movement has really just begun, and very difficult tasks lie ahead, but if Ukraine succeeds in its historic quest for democracy, it will make possible something that was talked about in 1989 but never fully realized—a Europe whole and free. If that happens, we will all live in a much safer, a much freer, and a more peaceful world.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much, Mr. Gershman.

I'm going to ask the group again if we can go with five minutes so that we can try to get as much in as we can. We're only going to be able to get in a round and a half.

I'm going to start with Madame Laverdière.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to both of you for a very interesting presentation on an utterly important subject.

I will be very brief, as we have just a few minutes.

You both spoke about election day and the need for observers, but what can we do beforehand, before election day? Would it be useful to have observers on the ground before the election actually takes place? Is it better to work in a multilateral or bilateral fashion? What would you suggest? The question is for both of you.

[Michael Druckman]

Mr. Gershman, I'll let you take the first shot.

[Carl Gershman]

Thank you very much. It's a great question.

Yes, I very strongly agree that we have to be active now and continuously between now and the May 25 election. One thing that's going to be very important to do is to support independent media and observers who can monitor the potential disruption of this election by Russia and its agents, and to publicize that and do everything possible to prevent it from happening.

The second thing that is going to be critical is to help mobilize and educate voters. There are Ukrainian civil society organizations that are doing that, and we are prepared.... We are going to have a board meeting on Friday of this week, and we're going to approve many grants that are devoted to that purpose...for all of these things in strengthening civil society. Our party institutes will be helping the parties prepare for the election.

It will be also necessary to have domestic observers, not just international observers, so that this becomes a national effort by Ukraine and the international community to have a successful election that will lay the foundation for and be the first major step towards Ukraine becoming a successful democracy that could become part of the democratic west.

[Michael Druckman]

Thank you for the question.

Regarding engaging early and having monitors on the ground, absolutely, Canada has traditionally always had very large election delegations, especially to Ukraine's most recent elections. But in addition to just providing additional monitors on the ground for long-term observation, it sends a signal to our Ukrainian friends that we're here with them, we're working together, we're working with local civil society organizations, and there is a visible presence for international partners together with Ukrainians during this election period.

On the issue of coordination, I'm very happy to say that your embassy is doing a fantastic job of coordinating the election efforts, together with the U.S. embassy, holding and coordinating meetings among the various stakeholders and organizations there, and making sure that there is no duplication of efforts, yet every resource is being used in a well-thought-out manner, particularly working with local groups on the ground that are looking to monitor not only media but also issues of voter safety and voter integrity.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Very briefly, as I have very little time, you both talked one way or another of the growing discontent within Russia.

How do you see the situation evolving in Russia in the coming months?

[Carl Gershman]

We had a Russian specialist who came to NED last week and gave a talk. She said that she had no idea, and she is from Russia and she is a specialist, so I don't want to pretend to know. I don't have a crystal ball.

But what I said in my testimony is something that I deeply believe. We have to remember that Russia is a country that has really, for a long time, been in the middle of an existential crisis, not only an economic crisis but also a demographic crisis. Its population has been going down. With all of these terrible problems that Russia faces—the corruption, the health problems—for Russia to now reach out in an imperialistic way to take over other peoples, the cost of that is going to be extraordinary.

Last year there was $63 billion of capital flight from Russia. That capital flight is going to increase as wealthy people in Russia try to protect their resources against what they think is a very insecure situation.

There was $80 billion of direct foreign investment in Russia. That investment will go down as it becomes obviously more difficult to invest in Russia, and there will be rules against it. I expect that the economic crisis of Russia is going to intensify.

There is also a profound hatred in Russia among the common people for bribe-takers. According to a poll released by the Russian Academy of Sciences, 34% of the people in Moscow said that they'd like to shoot bribe-takers on sight, and that two-thirds of Muscovites would like to do that. There is this hatred.

Now, Putin is saving himself—or he thinks that he's saving himself—by trying to whip up nationalist hysteria. Indeed, he has had a temporary spike in popularity, but that is not going to continue.

We should think of the Russian economy today as a kind of Potemkin economy. There is something false about it. They do have wealth. They do have resources. They will be able to accomplish certain aggressions, but ultimately I believe that the contradictions of the Russian economy will sharpen, the discontent will grow, and the activists who are now isolated will become much more influential in the period ahead, in my view.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Madame Laverdière.

We're going to turn it over to Mr. Anderson for five minutes, please.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I would actually like to follow up along some of those same lines of thinking.

I'm just wondering about the economic sanctions that have been imposed in Ukraine. It seems that they became most effective when it began to impact the oligarchs around Yanukovych, and that really seemed to be when his attention started to focus on the issues.

I wonder if you can tell us a little bit about the role of economic sanctions. How can we go about effectively implementing them? They have implemented some on us today as well, and a couple of our MPs are involved in that, too. But how do we make them more effective? If you're talking about the weakness of the Russian economy, how can we best target those so they work most effectively?

Mr. Druckman, if you want to go first, that's fine.

[Michael Druckman]

Thank you for the question.

Speaking from the perspective of the Ukraine and what we saw on the ground there over the last few months, once those sanctions went into place we saw very quickly former president Yanukovych lose his supporters in the parliament. This allowed the interim government to begin moving legislation very quickly to restore stability to the country. But it was the targeted sanctions on these individuals, their businesses, and their financial dealings that worked. Once the money was targeted, they left. They took the money with them and in some cases they tried to physically take it out with them.

Once that base of support went, the whole house of cards began crumbling.

Russia is obviously a slightly different case, and there's a different set of circumstances on the ground there. When you speak with a lot of people—Ukrainians and others on the ground there—the targeted application of those sanctions in the Ukraine probably occurred too late, but when they went into effect there were immediate results.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Gershman.

[Carl Gershman]

I think one of the purposes for targeted sanctions against the people around Putin, the political operatives and the economic elite who are helping him implement his current agenda, should be to give such people pause and lead them to the conclusion that there is no future in following Putin.

In my view, if the sanctions are tough enough, there will be splits within the Russian elite. That is when the Putin system will begin to come unstuck. I don't know how fast that will take. It's inevitable, in my view, that a lot of the leadership will seek to protect themselves and will be very concerned when sanctions start hitting them. A lot of Russians have enormous wealth here in the United States as well as in Europe. A lot of the Ukrainian money was in Europe. When you start hitting those people and that money, and you start hitting the key institutions, then I think the divisions will begin to grow.

There is one further thing. I think helping Europe and helping Ukraine diversify energy resources will become critically important. This will take time, but we have liquefied natural gas that could be made available. It may take a couple of years, but we have to begin the process now and to signal right now that we're going to do this. Even if we can't implement it immediately, by sending the signal that we're going to give licences to companies to develop the necessary ports and infrastructure for the delivery of this natural gas, I think it would send a very powerful signal to Russia.

All of those things I think are important and will have political consequences.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

That also means protecting some of Ukraine's ports, I suppose.

[Carl Gershman]

Yes. I mean, there—

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I just have another question about Moldova. I had a chance to visit there a couple of years ago. We really fell in love with the country. They have many issues and problems there, and I'm just wondering if you can talk a little bit about Russia's attempts to....

They already seem to be attempting to destabilize them. They have elections in the fall. But there's also the issue of Transnistria and the fact that they seem to be trying to initiate some sort of a similar activity to what we saw in Crimea.

I'm just wondering if the two of you can quickly address that.

[Carl Gershman]

That is surely one of the points that the NATO Secretary General called attention to. Clearly you could have something like what happened in Crimea happening in Transnistria. There are also other places, such as the city of Kherson, which is right north of Crimea. It's the transit point for a lot of the energy that goes into Crimea. That could become a point of attack by Russia.

In all of these cases, I believe the west, the United States and its allies, will have to implement a stronger policy of deterrence, a policy of deterrence that will have to, in my view, not have boots on the ground; we're not going to do that. It means helping build up local forces and helping to develop within NATO the capacity to deter Russian aggression.

We have to remember that in 1994 the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia signed the Budapest agreement with Ukraine, when it denuclearized and gave up its nuclear weapons, that its security would be guaranteed. If that is not done, it sends a message to other countries that have nuclear weapons today. They will not give up their nuclear weapons because in the end their security will not be protected.

So the issue is really also nuclear non-proliferation, that we have to stand by Ukraine and show that a country that gives up its nuclear weapons does not have to fear that it will be invaded by its neighbours.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

Very quickly, and then we'll move on.

[Michael Druckman]

The Russian playbook is very short. It's just a few pages. What happened in Crimea worked. I think Moldovans should be very concerned about this scenario replicating itself there, because it has been successful in Crimea up until this point.

On the issue of ports, Odessa remains right now the only deepwater port that Ukraine has. It is in a threatened position. The eastern portion of the country also has two large ports on the Azov Sea whose ships need to transit the Kerch Strait, which currently is being blockaded by Russia. For the industrial east, their exports used to transit through Mariupol and Berdyansk in eastern Ukraine. This will put a strong economic pinch on that region at a time when the government is trying to keep everyone sewn together.

These are absolutely things to be concerned about.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Mr. Garneau, you have five minutes.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Given what's happened in the last month in Crimea, and what Russia has done, and the fact that we're now talking and imposing sanctions, I agree with you that the presidential election on May 25 is a very key moment ahead of us. But I want to be 100% clear that I understand what you are saying with respect to that election.

Is it your understanding that the presidential election will occur in all parts of Ukraine, not just the mainland, and including Crimea, or is it your understanding that it will not go into Crimea?

[Michael Druckman]

Thank you for that question.

It's the International Republican Institute's understanding that preparations are being made by the central government to provide polling stations for Crimean residents to vote in Kherson oblast and possibly other locations as well. The question is this. If they set up these polling stations will people be allowed to transit freely out of Crimea to go vote, and then will they be allowed to return?

These are tricky questions and I'm sure there's a bit we could learn form the Georgia experience with voters from Abkhazia and Ossetia voting in Georgia proper.

I think that's a temporary solution to the problem, but I know there are groups that are on the ground working with the government to try to come up with a way to systematically make sure that voters are franchised in Crimea.

With eastern Ukraine, I think everything is scheduled to proceed accordingly. I know it is.

But again, Russia is preparing to destabilize those regions and make it so that those polling stations, those district commissions, are not able to carry out their electoral duties. That is something we need to be very careful about, and it's all the more reason for the presence of as many observers on the ground as possible, especially in eastern and southern Ukraine.

Thank you.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Mr. Gershman, is it your understanding that anyone who is living on the peninsula of Crimea will be afforded the opportunity to vote, but they'll have to cross to the mainland, if I can put it that way, to exercise their vote?