A few short weeks ago the Kiev I visited was awash in talk of terrorist plots and civil war.
The lightning-quick annexation of Crimea by Russian troops had created much anxiety. People feared that the commemoration of May 9, the day on which Ukraine and Russia celebrate the Soviet Union’s victory in World War II, would encourage pro-Moscow insurgents to seize government buildings beyond their strongholds in eastern Ukraine. Hundreds of well-armed and well-trained men, many with links to Russia, had already moved into hard-scrabble industrial cities near the Russian border. There had been violent clashes between Ukrainian patriots and pro-Russian separatists in Odessa, in the south.
The mood today is markedly different. Voters throughout Ukraine will go to the polls for the presidential election on Sunday amid clear signs that major unrest is abating and that President Vladimir V. Putin is backing away from his gambit to annex more Ukrainian territory.
This is a remarkable reversal. After Russia’s flash invasion of Crimea, Mr. Putin had seemed to be on the march. It is believed that, emboldened by the weak Western response and rising popularity at home, he then approved the offensive in eastern Ukraine. He reportedly sent in Russian fighters to support the ethnic Russian minority and Russian speakers in the region, apparently in the hope of triggering a separatist insurgency and eventually splitting up Ukraine — or at least weakening the new non-Moscow-aligned government in Kiev.
But the effort soon stalled. If Moscow’s so-called green men were largely welcomed when they swept into Crimea, its proxy fighters got little assistance from locals when they slipped into eastern Ukraine. In a poll by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology released in late April, at most 30 percent of respondents in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions supported secession from Ukraine, and majorities in both regions opposed it.
Odessa, Mykolaiv and Kherson — three large Russian-speaking cities in southern Ukraine — are not just quiet these days; polls show that all three are becoming unlikely enclaves of Ukrainian patriotism. In Dnipropetrovsk, where pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian sentiments have long been evenly divided, opponents of separatism recently marched through streets festooned in blue and yellow, the colors of the Ukrainian state.
Even in Donetsk and Luhansk, two hotbeds of separatist support in eastern Ukraine, public anger is mounting over disruptions caused by the insurgents. Basic public services have been suspended. Bank branches have shut down. And people are staying at home, fearful of the loose gun-play and criminality of erratic pro-Russia ultranationalists.
Last Sunday in Kiev, I met a well-educated middle-aged woman from Donetsk who described the new rhythm of life in her hometown now that several hundred insurgents roam its streets. She said the separatists receive cash payouts every Monday, and that for the next few days the city is relatively safe, as they drink and party. By Thursday, with no money left to spend, they start marauding, robbing and extorting residents, or fighting among themselves. The violence has compelled local businesses to set up private security forces, and they, the woman from Donetsk said, tend to shoot at armed insurgents first and ask questions later.
Public support for the insurgency is also being undermined by the incompetence of the new leaders of the so-called People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, which were created after dubious referendums held on May 11. These leaders do little more than hold press conferences and order their militias on sorties. Pavel Gubarev, the self-proclaimed “people’s” governor of Donetsk, seems to have worked until recently as a Santa Claus-for-hire.
With the push for secession now stalling, anti-Russian sentiment on the rise in southern and eastern Ukraine, and Ukrainian patriotism surging throughout most of the country, Mr. Putin has begun to distance himself from the separatists. He has not officially acknowledged the results of the May 11 referendums, and he has suggested that Sunday’s presidential election could help stabilize Ukraine. His ultimate objective remains murky, but for now he seems to be backing off.
Several government ministers and political leaders I met in Kiev over the past week expressed cautious optimism at the pushback from the Ukrainian people. “I think this will end up all right,” one minister said.
These officials and Western diplomats said the Russian government was about to significantly cut the price of the gas it sells to Ukraine. A back-channel dialogue between Moscow and Kiev has begun. On May 17, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk of Ukraine told me and a small group of Western writers and academics that he had recently met a leading envoy from the Kremlin and believed Mr. Putin was looking for an “exit ramp” away from violent conflict.
The way out may involve some of Ukraine’s oligarchs, who want more trade with Europe and North America, but also have significant business interests in the Russian market. Rinat Akhmetov — the richest man in Ukraine, a onetime ally of the deposed President Viktor Yanukovych and a mainstay of the political scene in the Donbass region — has taken a stand against the separatists. This week he denounced the agents of the Donetsk People’s Republic as armed thugs. He has organized the steelworkers and coal miners in his employ into civilian patrols throughout the Donetsk region. He has called for strikes to protest any further lawlessness. Such positioning by the oligarchs will be crucial to the stability of the country.
The front-runner in Sunday’s election is Petro Poroshenko, who made a fortune in the confectionery and automobile-manufacturing businesses. Mr. Poroshenko is pro-E.U. and was on the front lines of the push to oust Mr. Yanukovych last winter, but he is also well known to Russia’s elite as a businessman and a pragmatist. This combination would make him a credible interlocutor for the Kremlin, especially now that Mr. Putin’s expansionist ambitions have crashed against the determination of Ukrainians, making way for a new dynamic between the two countries.
Adrian Karatnycky is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, where he co-directs the Ukraine in Europe program.