Is a Croatian scenario possible for Donbass - trim_c - LJ. Bosnian or Croatian script for Donbass What does the Croatian script mean for Donbass
Vladimir Viktorovich Volk - expert at the Center for Scientific Political Thought and Ideology
As expected, the meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US Secretary of State John Kerry took place in a warm, friendly atmosphere, but the lion's share of the conversation was behind closed doors. The general public was never presented with another version of the scenario for the implementation of the Minsk agreements, namely, the transfer of the border of the DPR and LPR under the control of Ukraine. Although preliminary forecasts said that Kerry came to Moscow, in addition to “talking about sanctions and Syria,” to get the keys to the eastern “doors” of Donbass.
“At all levels, through the mouth of the President of Russia, in other formats, we say that we are for them (Donbass - author’s note) to become part of Ukraine,” these words belong to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. However, in the republics themselves, slandered by the Russian official media, the sentiments are diametrically opposed in terms of their “consent” to returning to Ukraine. Tens of thousands of local fighters and volunteers in urban areas will not only be able to seriously rebuff the punitive troops of Kyiv, but also once again “frame” the Kremlin, taking, for example, Mariupol, Volnovakha or Shchastya.
Unlike the Russian oligarchs, who have become hostages of the militias due to sanctions vulnerability, the latter have nothing to lose except their lives. However, they too are currently hostages of the oligarchic elite of the Kremlin, who have arranged this strange “swing” with the official recognition of the Donbass republics. Hence the conclusion: the Russian Foreign Ministry’s agreement to link the lifting of sanctions with the implementation of the Minsk agreements was a mistake from the very beginning. The fact that Kyiv has no other options to resolve the Donbass problem other than a military one is also indicated by preparations. The State Border Service of Ukraine announced another call for border guards, canceled in 2008. A plan has been developed to “regain control” of 409.3 km of the border of the people’s republics of Donbass with Russia.
The head of the department, Viktor Nazarenko, notes that “in this matter he will act in close cooperation with the armed forces and other law enforcement agencies.” Over the past two months, since the date of elections in the DPR and LPR was postponed according to the laws of Ukraine, the military of this country has concentrated almost all the main technical and human resources in the Donetsk, Mariupol and Lugansk directions. Win or lose no longer matters much to the Kyiv puppet government - the country is a puppet and is not solving its own problems.
Just like, for the Kremlin, it doesn’t make much difference who wins the Donbass battle - the newly minted Western crusaders or the Russians. Victory for Donbass means strengthening of Western sanctions, defeat means millions of refugees, mass protests, the stigma of shame and the crusaders’ campaign against Crimea and Transnistria.
What will Moscow choose in conditions when they are clearly making it clear that the Croatian option is inevitable? And he was predictable. Was it worth pursuing an imitation of peace and Bosnian adaptations instead of liquidating and overthrowing the Kyiv regime back in the spring of last year, when the window of opportunity for this was open? Moscow is trapped. It was its own political regime that brought it there. It is doubtful that he will find a decent way out. This means that the Donbass tragedy is another prelude to the tragedy in Moscow itself.
The West of Ukraine and Galicia, first of all, are a nationalist and Uniate region, infinitely far from the rest of Ukraine both in local “gvara”, and in religion, and in lifestyle and values. There are also purely medical differences: the Ministry of Health records a lack of iodine here, and the local population does not use iodized salt. And seven centuries of life outside of Ukraine itself take their toll.
However, medical and historical indicators only contribute to the choice of local residents as cannon fodder for the Maidans. As well as allies. It is not surprising that the Ustasha flag appeared in the Donbass in the summer of 2014.
The Ustasha and the neo-Bandera are united not only by religion, but even by slogans. “Serba to willow” is surprisingly similar to “Moskalyaku to Gilyak”. And just like the Banderaites, the Ustasha distinguished themselves in World War II not by victories on the fronts, but by the genocide of the Serbian people, Gypsies and Jews. The main ideologist of the Ustasha, Mile Budak, wrote: “kill a third, expel a third and convert a third of the Serbs to Catholicism.” Surprisingly similar to the views of Hauptmann Shukhevych, who headed the UPA: “not to intimidate, but to exterminate. There is no need to be afraid that people will curse us for our cruelty. Even if only half of the 40 million Ukrainian population remains, there is nothing wrong with that.”
Therefore, one should not be surprised that, following the militants, advisers from Croatia also flocked to Kyiv. Recently they even held a round table - they discussed Croatia’s successes in Operation Storm and the subsequent annexation of the Danube region.
At the same time, the Kyiv “experts” were more interested in Operation Storm, while the Croats did their best to emphasize the peaceful component. Vesna Škare-Ožbolt, who in the 1990s was the head of the Croatian presidential administration, participated in all negotiations on the return of territories, and in 1996 led the process of peaceful reintegration of the Croatian Danube region, without much success tried to convey to “her Kyiv partners” what the separatists need help, provide financial assistance in the restoration of destroyed cities and villages, and provide greater rights to the region. I didn’t find any understanding.
And I couldn’t find it. It was not for nothing that Kyiv was interested in the military component. The fact is that by the time the operation began, the UN “blue helmets” under the leadership of the French General Janvier were on the demarcation line. Having learned about the impending offensive, the French general immediately notified the sector commands about the attack being prepared in 3 hours, and they, in turn, notified the Serbs.
There is no point in considering the reasons for the defeat of the RSK - they were simply left alone with an enemy who not only outnumbered them many times over, but also received full NATO support - from planning operations to collecting intelligence information.
But it’s worth mentioning about the peacekeepers. From the first minutes of the operation, the “blue helmets” posts came under fire. Soldiers from the Czech Republic, Denmark and Nepal were killed.
From the report of the UN Secretary General on resolution 1009 (1995) it is known that on August 5 the Croats used captured UN peacekeepers and captured Krajina soldiers as “human shields”. The total losses of peacekeepers, including the wounded, amounted to 18 people. Of which only one died from Serbian bullets.
This is precisely the experience because of which Kiyo does not agree to the introduction of peacekeepers, which he himself loves to talk about. And the reluctance to perceive the difference between Ukraine and Croatia lies entirely on a practical level.
The scoundrels who have settled in Kyiv today received power as a result of an armed coup and do not enjoy the support of the population at all. The rating of Poroshenko and his officials fluctuates within the statistical error. Even the killers from the nationalist detachments, which are not subordinate to anyone, hate him.
They can stay in power with bayonets and fear. But they could never achieve it democratically - every time they had to organize a Maidan. And the “successes” after that are each time too sad and obvious to talk about.
The predecessor of the current “president,” Pan Yushchenko, brilliantly failed the elections, which he at least controlled. 5 percent (!) is an absolute anti-record for the ruling head of state.
Therefore, no Minsk and no more or less free elections are possible. The people who demanded a referendum on federalization in February-April 2014 (peacefully demanded!) will find themselves in the absolute majority, turning Galicia into separatists. Precisely those three regions of Western Ukraine from which for more than a hundred years the infection of that same iodine-deficient Galician nationalism has been spreading, which in no way spreads to the whole of Ukraine, although it is called “Ukrainian”.
The southeast of Ukraine has always demanded the freedom to live on its land in accordance with its own, and not Bandera’s, ideals. And since this was always the opinion of the majority, it was necessary to organize Maidans, and then study the experience of the Ustasha.
But our Republics of Donbass are not the Serbian Krajina, and Russia is not Serbia. And the remnants controlled by Poroshenko are far from Croatia.
Therefore, Galicians should learn Polish today
In connection with the emergence of reports that some Ukrainian politicians are promoting the so-called Croatian scenario for Donbass, it is worth recalling what the destruction of the Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK) by the Croats looked like in the conditions of 1995 and why such an analogy, to put it mildly, is lame on both legs.
For the Croatian army, this was not just an armed action, but a well-planned multi-stage army operation with the full support of the United States and Germany with the involvement of UN peacekeeping forces stationed on Croatian territory.
The RSK declared its independence in 1991 after Croatia refused to grant autonomy to the Serbs. In 1992, UN peacekeeping forces were stationed along the border between the rebel Serbs and Croats. Until 1995, under the protection of the Blue Helmets, the RSK managed to strengthen a territory independent from Croatia, which consisted of three regions. Political structures were created - the assembly, the government, ministries, internal affairs bodies, the army, and the economy developed.
In the summer of 1994, negotiations on economic issues between Croatia and the RSK began, albeit with great difficulty. In the fall, joint committees began to work (military and agriculture), which discussed issues of a ceasefire, the passage of humanitarian convoys, the release of bodies of those killed in battles to relatives, and the organization of agricultural work. At the beginning of December 1994, the Agreement on the normalization of economic relations between Krajina and Croatia was signed.
In January 1995, Knin (the capital of the Republic of Serbian Krajina) and Zagreb were proposed a political settlement plan, the so-called Zagreb-4 plan, according to which the Knin region should receive autonomy, and Western and Eastern Slavonia should be integrated into Croatia. However, the Croats were not happy with this plan. They continued to prepare an operation to return Krajina by military means.
In May and August 1995, the Croatian armed forces carried out two military operations, the result of which was to annex two of the three Krajina territories to Croatia, meaning that these territories were to be annexed without people (without Serbs).
The first operation, called “Brilliance” (May 1, 1995), formally aimed to liberate a 40-kilometer section of the Belgrade-Zagreb highway, blocked by the Serbs after a number of incidents on this road. In fact, during the operation, Western Slavonia was supposed to be cleared of Serbs.
Back in 1991, the Serbian population was completely expelled from 280 villages in Western Slavonia, and on May 1 and 2, 1995, there were no Serbs in the remaining 65 villages. Before the start of the operation, the Croatian authorities secured diplomatic support from Germany and the United States, and also achieved a change in the status of the peacekeepers in Croatia. The number of troops (four guards brigades, one formation and three detachments) participating in Operation Shine in Western Slavonia was 12 thousand people. They were opposed by 4 thousand Serbian RSK soldiers and the armed population of the villages. At 2.30 a.m. on May 1, the commander of the Bjelovar Operational Zone, Croatian Colonel Luka Janko, sent a dispatch to the peacekeepers’ headquarters in which they were notified of possible military actions. Peacekeepers were asked to retreat to safe places. They withdrew, and the 15 thousand Serbian population of Western Slavonia were left without protection.
By the end of the day on May 2, Serb resistance was localized, and the encircled population was exterminated by Croatian soldiers. More than 9 thousand houses were destroyed, all Orthodox churches were destroyed. In Pakrac, for example, the Croats killed all the civilians remaining in the city, burned the corpses, and took women and children to an unknown direction. According to various sources, from 2 to 5 thousand people died in the city. UN observers were able to record that 15 buses with civilians were taken out of Pakrac in an unknown direction, whose fate could only be guessed at.
Until May 5, the Croatian authorities did not allow representatives of international and humanitarian organizations to visit battle sites, captured cities and villages in order to have time to destroy traces of war crimes. The number of refugees from Western Slavonia amounted to more than 20 thousand people. The system of UN protected areas, which was created over several years, suffered a complete collapse in Western Slavonia.
The tacit approval of the ethnic cleansing in Western Slavonia by the “world community” allowed Croatia in August 1995 to launch a new offensive on the largest territories of the RSK, the so-called Knin Krajina. Despite the decision of the RSK leadership to begin peace negotiations with Zagreb, in response to the peace settlement program proposed by UN Deputy Secretary General Yasushi Akashi, Croatia began to implement a plan to defeat the RSK. The operation was carried out under the code name "Storm". On August 4, the 100,000-strong Croatian army launched a large-scale offensive against the Republic of Serbian Krajina along the entire front line, which was 630 km. Massive artillery bombardment lasted the whole day, barrage fire covered meter by meter every corner of the small city - the capital of the RSK Knin. Then the infantry also attacked Knin from two directions.
The RSK army was scattered and retreated in a disorganized manner, and the population fled from their homes. Loaded cars, tractors, and trucks left the city in a hurry, creating a convoy more than ten kilometers long. The Croatian military had the column of refugees in full view, and they shot unprotected people with fire from the ground and from the air.
Entering Krajina, the Croatian army burned and destroyed literally everything in its path. Croatian officers used intelligence from NATO aircraft patrolling the war zone. “Today’s Krajina is a burnt and devastated land that has fallen into the hands of vandals,” wrote a Belgian journalist who ended up in Krajina during the days of the Croatian offensive (1).
The EU special mission that visited Krajina recorded that from 7 to 22 August in the South sector, from 60 to 80% of Serbian property was destroyed, that only 2-5% of those who lived here before were Serbs, that all the livestock was destroyed, that the villages were burned to the ground (2).
What about the “world community”? Only Moscow and Belgrade cast their voices, but then no one heard them. On August 10, 1995, the UN Security Council adopted resolution No. 1009, calling on Zagreb to stop hostilities and allow humanitarian organizations to arrive in the RSK, but in general, international organizations, like the leading powers, remained absolutely indifferent to the Serbian tragedy.
If today someone in Ukraine, looking at the results of the Croatian operations “Shine” and “Storm”, when the lands cleared of Serbs returned to Croatia, is thinking about repeating this with the Donbass, then he needs to sober up. The world has changed a lot in twenty years.
If the Republic of Serbian Krajina had a weak army, then the defenders of Donbass have already convincingly demonstrated both the strength of their military organization and the determination to defend their land. If in 1995 Croatia’s military actions were supported by Germany and the United States, today these and other Western powers are bound by UN Security Council Resolution No. 2202 unanimously adopted on February 17, 2015, an integral part of which is the “Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements”, as well as the Declaration the presidents of Russia, France, Ukraine and the Chancellor of Germany in support of this “Package of Measures”.
And finally, the Republic of Serbian Krajina did not receive any support from the outside (even peacekeeping forces made way for the Croatian army) and was left to the mercy of fate. However, if some madman in Kyiv imagines that something like this could happen again today in the Donbass, he will be greatly miscalculating. And along with him, the whole of Ukraine will fail.
1) Bilten Vesti. Moscow, 1995. 22 Aug.
2) Srpska Krajina, August 1995: Expulsion. Victim of the aggression of the Hrvatsk army on the Republic of Srpska Krajina. Beograd/Cetie: Veritas/Svetigora, 1997. P. 75
Illustration copyright Reuters
The “Croatian scenario” for the liberation of Donbass is a phrase that politicians and experts have recently begun to use when it comes to resolving the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
This scenario began to be discussed more actively after the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) Alexander Turchynov last week announced the need to complete the ATO and move to a new format of protection against hybrid warfare.
The working group, which includes parliament members, experts, and employees of the National Security and Defense Council, continues to work on a bill that can be considered before the end of the summer session of the Verkhovna Rada.
- Reintegration of Donbass: why are they talking about it now?
First Deputy Speaker of Parliament and representative of Ukraine in the contact group on resolving the conflict in Donbass, Irina Gerashchenko, assures that this project provides for a non-military way to end the war.
“Important: Ukraine remains committed to the political and diplomatic path to resolving the war in Donbass, inspired by the Russian Federation, while we are fighting for de-occupation and the return of territories. This is precisely the philosophy of the bill,” - she wrote on your Facebook page.
At the same time, the “Croatian scenario” has supporters - primarily at the everyday level, although the advisability of a military operation instead of an ATO is supported by some military personnel and experts.
"Storm" after the failure of the peace plan
On August 4, 1995, the Croatian army launched Operation Storm, which lasted several days and ended with the liquidation of the self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Krajina.
In just 84 hours, the Croatian constitutional and legal order was restored in all territories captured by Serbian separatists, except for Eastern Slavonia.
About 200 thousand Croatian troops took part in the operation.
The Croatian scenario would mean a complete and unconditional withdrawal of Russian military and mercenaries from Donbass Dmitry Tymchuk, military expert, deputy of the Verkhovna Rada
On the eve of the offensive, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman made a special statement in which he emphasized that attempts to peacefully resolve the conflict had failed, therefore, to restore sovereignty, Croatia was forced to begin military action.
Member of Parliament and military expert Dmitry Tymchuk is convinced that the Ukrainian government should implement the “Croatian scenario” in Donbass for several reasons.
“It would mean the complete and unconditional withdrawal of Russian military and mercenaries from Donbass and the cessation of supplies to the two army corps fighting in Donbass against the Ukrainian army. This would mean the actual cessation of the activities of Russian-terrorist troops as an integral structure and their transformation in Donbass into disparate groups of local marauders" - wrote Dmitry Tymchuk on Facebook.
He claims that the military operation is supported by many residents of Donbass who want a speedy end to the war.
Illustration copyright UNIANThreats and consequences
Military expert, director of the information and consulting company Defense Express Sergei Zgurets believes that a military operation in Donbass is impossible for several reasons.
He says that the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine studied such a scenario and came to the conclusion that there would be serious threats if it were to materialize.
“The number of victims in the event of a military operation can be measured in tens of thousands. Today, the ratio between the Ukrainian military and armed separatists is approximately 1:1. To carry out a military operation, a ratio of 1:3 in favor of Ukrainian troops is necessary. The price can be very high,” he said Sergei Zgurets in a commentary for the BBC Ukrainian Service.
The number of victims in the event of a military operation can be measured in tens of thousands Sergei Zgurets, military expert
He also claims that today “as a result of the redeployment, some military units of the Russian Federation are located at a distance of less than 100 km from the Ukrainian border.”
“This allows the separatists to count on military support from Russian territory. It can be assumed that when the Ukrainian army reaches the border, provocations may occur that will allow Russia to use weapons from its territory,” the military expert said.
This, notes Sergei Zgurets, is a fundamental difference from the situation in 1995 in the Serbian Krajina, which could not count on the support of Serbia, since it was separated from it by hundreds of kilometers of Bosnian territory. In addition, the Croatian army had a significant military superiority over the self-proclaimed republic.
The Croatian military experience was studied by the National Institute for Strategic Studies (NISI) under the President of Ukraine and outlined its views in the analytical report “Donbass and Crimea: the price of return.”
Experts named both positive and negative consequences of the “Croatian scenario”.
pros
- Restoring the territorial integrity of Ukraine and winning the war
- Greater chances of bringing to justice those guilty of treason, collaboration and terrorism
- The ability to impose your own conditions on the local and regional elite
Minuses
- Significant loss of life
- Increased spending on the army, the population of the region and the restoration of its infrastructure after destruction
- Worsening attitude towards the Ukrainian authorities of a significant part of the region’s residents
- Further deterioration of relations with Russia, as well as the European Union, which prefers political and diplomatic ways to resolve the conflict
At the same time, the institute’s experts consider the so-called “German scenario” acceptable for Ukraine.
We are talking about reunification, similar to the unification of East and West Germany in 1990. The scenario provides for the voluntary reintegration of the Donbass territories not controlled by Ukraine.
Croatian experience
Ukrainian leaders allow the use of Croatian experience, but in other areas.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, who visited Croatia last week, said Ukraine would benefit from its experience of joining NATO and the EU.
Even earlier, Deputy Minister for Temporarily Occupied Territories and Internally Displaced Persons of Ukraine Georgy Tuka said that Ukraine is interested in studying the experience of Croatia in the post-war period.
“Croatia has extensive experience in post-conflict resolution, and we are interested, among other things, in the methods and technologies of negotiations, the issue of prisoners of war and missing persons,” said Georgiy Tuka.
“In addition, I am interested in how the Croats solved the problems of integrating the returned territories, how they held elections, how they returned settlers, how the state supported them. Croatia’s experience in international courts is also important, since Ukraine must prepare for similar cases against Russia,” the official is sure.
From the very beginning of the Ukrainian conflict, a fairly common place in journalism was its comparison with the events of the dismemberment and destruction of Yugoslavia during the so-called period. "Yugoslav War" 1991-2001. And now one of our best specialists in Ukraine Oleg Nemensky commented on the entry into force of the Ukrainian law “on the reintegration” of Donbass on February 24, 2018: “The new law does not imply any mechanisms of reunification, but only a military path” - the same “Croatian scenario” that the Kyiv authorities constantly refer to and which is now presented as Ukraine has the ideal of resolving such conflicts. Let us remember that this was Operation Storm in 1995 to eliminate the Republic of Serbian Krajina." Back in 2015, from the Ukrainian “expert” side, the option of repeating the “Croatian scenario” in Donbass was formulated by the director of the National Institute for Strategic Studies Vladimir Gorbulin. According to Gorbulin’s definition, the “Croatian scenario” involves the forceful liberation of the “occupied territories” without any compromises. On February 24, 2018, the Department of Information and Press of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in its commentary determined that with the law on the “reintegration of Donbass” “Kiev finally confirmed its focus on a forceful solution to the conflict in the South-East of Ukraine.”
However, we note further that with the presented “Croatian scenario” from Gorbulin, not everything is so simple, since on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference an alternative and also “Croatian scenario” was actively discussed - the introduction of a UN military and police mission to Donbass with the establishment of temporary international control over the territory abolished DPR and LPR. The talk was about repeating, when resolving the conflict in Donbass, the model of peaceful reintegration of Eastern Slavonia previously occupied by the Serbs into Croatia under the Erdut Agreement of November 12, 1995.
Details of the interview with the US State Department Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker On February 21, 2018, the Ukrainian publication “European Truth” indicates that the United States is offering the Kremlin a settlement of the crisis in Donbass precisely according to Erdut’s “Croatian scenario”. Therefore, the signing by the President of Ukraine immediately after returning from the Minsk Conference of the law “on the reintegration of Donbass”, offering an alternative military “Croatian scenario” - not Erdut, but Operation Storm - should first of all be considered as a means of putting pressure on the Kremlin to recognize what it needs Americans in the format of a peacekeeping mission. An additional tool of pressure was the announcement of the supply of American weapons to the Ukrainian armed forces. The future Ukrainian “Storm” must be armed. Its alternative can only be Erdut. Moscow needs to choose between two “Croatian scenarios” in Ukraine. Immediately after the Munich Conference, the United States again called on Russia to withdraw its forces and heavy weapons from “eastern Ukraine” and agree to the deployment of a UN peacekeeping force in the region, under whose guarantee Kiev would implement the Minsk agreements. This statement was made from Washington against the backdrop of the visit of the US First Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan to Kyiv.
For the first time, the “positive Croatian experience” of peaceful reintegration in 1996-1998 of Eastern Slavonia and Western Sirmium as a model for resolving the conflict in Donbass was officially proposed to Ukraine in November 2016 during the visit of the Prime Minister of Croatia to Kiev Andrey Plenkovich. Soon the question was put into practical terms. According to Croatian media, in March 2017, the “Croatian experience” was discussed during the visit to Croatia of a delegation of the Ukrainian Ministry of Occupied Territories, headed by the Minister Vadim Chernysh. And in May 2017 in Zagreb, at a meeting of the working group on cooperation between Croatia and Ukraine, the Ukrainian side was again acquainted with the “Croatian experience of peaceful reintegration” for its application in the Donbass. In September 2017, Prime Minister Plenkovic spoke about the significance of the “Croatian experience” from the rostrum of the UN General Assembly. It was then that discussions began on the possible format of the UN peacekeeping mission in Donbass. There has been qualitative progress in this matter.
In connection with this “Croatian passion” in Ukraine for the Erdut model peacekeeping project, it would be desirable to comment on a number of significant details related to the obvious limitations and inaccuracy of modern commentaries on this operation.
First of all, about the general political context of the Erdut Agreement. The first important circumstance. The Western recognition of the independence of Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) was carried out against the will of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). From a formal point of view, this was an obvious violation of international law. The justification for external players could be the fact that after the declaration of independence of Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the existence of the FRY became illusory and instead of it, in terms of practical politics, Serbia acted, led by the Chairman of the Presidium of the Socialist Republic of Serbia (1989-1991) and since 1991, the President of Serbia Slobodan Milosevic. True, already on April 28, 1992, Belgrade officially announced the renunciation of the proclaimed “Third Yugoslavia” from any territorial claims to Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
By this point, the Serbian party apparatus had assumed the right to represent the interests of all of Yugoslavia. What remained of Yugoslavia itself was Serbia and Montenegro, and Serbia became Yugoslavia. From the very beginning, the Yugoslav war was fought not for the restoration of the federation and to suppress the “rebellion”, but in the name of the nationalist interests of all former parts of the country. The nationalist interests of Serbia required the separation of Serbian territories from the self-determined republics of Yugoslavia, which in turn became self-proclaimed republics, relying at the initial stage of their formation on the last federal institution - the Yugoslav army. However, instead of creating a single Serbian rebel territory, which was hampered by the enclave settlement of Serbs in different proportions in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, to form a single Serbian self-proclaimed state, a single parliament and united armed forces to unite with Serbia, separate Serbian proto-states were created - the Republic of Srpska ( RS) in BiH and the Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK) in Croatia. In the absence of unity between them, there was some military and political interaction with each of them relying on the FRY in its rear. The unity of the Serbian cause in the RS and RSK was limited to Belgrade.
The lack of Serbian unity led to the “international peacekeeping process” - apparently separate for BiH and for Croatia. The secret unity of this process was carried out at the level of Belgrade. Therefore, it is impossible to consider the “Croatian peacekeeping scenario” according to the Erdut model in isolation without connection with the Dayton peace settlement in BiH. In fact, the Erdut Peace Agreement took place in the broader context of Dayton, being, as it were, one of its sections addressed to Croatia. As a result, as a result of peacekeeping, it looks as if the Serbs received half of the territory of BiH under Dayton for their autonomy in exchange for the complete surrender of the RS to Croatia. It is a well-known fact that Erdut’s reintegration of Eastern Slavonia into Croatia was in fact conditional on Croatia’s participation in the 1995 Dayton Peace Conference. Erdut is Croatia's prize for pacifying Bosnia. The Erdut Agreement was preceded by a personal agreement between Serbian President Milosevic and Croatian President Franjo Tudjman on the sidelines of the Dayton talks. Late Russian envoy to the UN Vitaly Churkin in 1995, he was one of those Russian diplomats who put pressure on Milosevic to agree to the decisions of the “international community” according to the Dayton-Erdut formula. Let us recall that the “prize” for the Americans in the Dayton Agreement was that BiH was occupied by the NATO peacekeeping contingent (IFOR), and not by the UN. At the same time, the smaller problem of Eastern Slavonia was resolved through the UN.
The surrender of the Republic of Serbian Krajina was due to its internal weakness, the fault of which was the local leadership and Belgrade. Over the three years of its existence, the RSK never became a unified state. Its three parts - Knin Krajina, Western Slavonia and Eastern Slavonia - remained semi-independent autonomous regions, which were skillfully manipulated by official Belgrade. At the same time, Eastern Slavonia, which was surrendered to Croatia under the Erdut Agreement, remained throughout the war under the direct control of Belgrade, including military. Its territory was controlled by the Novosadsky Corps of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), located in neighboring Yugoslav Vojvodina, an autonomous region of Serbia. Meanwhile, the territories of Western Slavonia and the Knin Krajina were defended by the territorial corps of the RSK itself - the Serbian Army of the Krajina (SVK) created in 1992. When created, the SVK included in its composition all the forces of the JNA remaining in the territory of Carniola and Western Slavonia, including its infrastructure, military equipment, weapons, equipment, logistics, command and technical personnel. With skillful management of these resources, they were quite sufficient to wage an offensive and defensive war in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
However, power in the RSK was never consolidated. The local leaders of the Serbian uprising here became a kind of local “princelings” of the “liberated” lands. In such a precarious state, the RSK authorities were nevertheless firmly tied to official Belgrade. They themselves made their “state” the latter’s bargaining chip in “trade”, both with Croatia and with the West. In such a situation, the leadership of the RSK did not care at all about military affairs. Over the three years of its existence, the RSK, due to its internal policies, lost from half to a third of its population, who left its territory. This reduced the military resources of the RSK and indicated the direction of flight in a crisis situation.
In relation to pacification in the RSK, its leadership was offered the so-called. “Plan Z-4”, which was agreed in 1994 at the Russian embassy in Zagreb at a meeting of representatives of the Contact Group consisting of representatives of four international organizations and intermediary countries - the UN, the EU, the USA and the Russian Federation. The Z-4 was finally approved by the Quartet in January 1995.
According to this plan, the Serbian Krajina was guaranteed broad autonomy within the Republic of Croatia, but without international legal personality. Foreign affairs, defense, and international trade remained under the jurisdiction of Croatia. Serbian autonomy within Croatia received the right to its own flag, coat of arms, president, parliament, government, courts, police (but not army), the use of the Serbian language and Cyrillic script, the right to its own finances, money, customs and the right to independently conclude individual international agreements .
For citizens of the Serbian autonomy, the right to dual citizenship was provided - Croatia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Residents of the autonomy had the right to take part in national elections in Croatia. The presence of representatives of the Serbian autonomy in the Croatian parliament, government, courts and other central government bodies was envisaged. The Croatian army could enter the territory of Serbian autonomy only at the invitation of its president. Croatian laws on its territory could only be implemented with the consent of its authorities. Disputes between Serbian autonomy and Croatia were to be resolved in the Constitutional Court. Let us note here that the “Z-4 plan” in the content of autonomy rights is reminiscent of the Minsk agreements.
The downside for the Serbs was that the “Z-4 Plan” provided for autonomous status only for the Knin part of the SRK. Its other components: in the West - Western Slavonia, and in the East - Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium (the Croatian side called the latter the “Croatian Danube”) were to return to Croatia without the right of autonomy.
However, despite its beneficial nature in the light of subsequent events, the “Z-4 plan” was immediately rejected by the president of the RSK Milan Martic, who did not even submit it for consideration by the local Assembly. In tactical and strategic terms, this was a diplomatic mistake by Martić, which was not prevented by Belgrade. If the Serbs had not abandoned the Z-4 first, the Croats would certainly have done it for them. Then the responsibility for blocking the peace process fell on the Croatian side. And so Knin’s refusal of the “Z-4 plan” became the reason for the Croatian authorities to solve the RSK problem militarily. The West, of course, due to Serbian intractability, did not fundamentally object to it on the principle that winners are not judged.
During the Croatian military operation "Lightning" (Blesak) in May 1995, the RSK lost Western Slavonia. At the same time, the Knin part of the RSK did not provide military assistance to the West Slavonian part. This was a harbinger of further disaster. The Serbs seemed to be playing giveaway, inviting the Croats to make new attacks. In August 1995, the Croats carried out the military operation “Storm” (Oluja), as a result of which part of the Serbian Krajina was occupied with the capital of the RSK in Knin. RSK ceased to exist.
As a result of these military operations of the Croats in May and August 1995, the Serbs lost control in three of the four sectors of the RSK, which were under the protection of UN peacekeepers from the UNPROFOR mission. Objectively, while pursuing the UN “peacekeeping” policy, UNPROFOR peacekeepers in the RSK acted in favor of the Croats throughout the war. Although there were isolated clashes between the French and Dutch peacekeeping contingents and Croatian troops during the Lightning in Western Slavonia, in general, in accordance with their mandate, UN peacekeepers did not have the right to engage in hostilities with one of the parties to the conflict unless they were attacked. The main role in the defense of Western Slavonia was assigned to the Nepalese and Jordanian peacekeeping battalions, and the Croats did not take them into account at all. Therefore, the “Croatian scenario” in its military execution for Donbass should take into account the lesson of 1995. UN peacekeeping forces can become part of the process of “internationalization” of the conflict. And their deployment in the conflict zone cannot prevent an offensive with decisive goals by one of the parties to the conflict, if such an offensive follows and meets the interests of the United States and its allies. Former US President Bill Clinton later wrote in the book of his memoirs “My Life” that he, like the chancellor Helmut Kohl, believed that “diplomatic efforts will not produce the desired result until the Serbs suffer a serious military defeat.” This was done by Croatian hands.
By the fall of 1995, one of its four parts remained from the RSK - directly bordering the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) - Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium ("Croatian Danube"). But now the Croats could no longer carry out a military operation similar to “Storm” and “Lightning” against this residual territory of the RSK, since here they would directly collide not with the territorial corps, but with the Serbian army - the “Army of Yugoslavia”, which had reliable rear and communication lines. Therefore, Croatia made a diplomatic decision to establish control over the territory of Eastern Slavonia due to the similar impossibility of resolving this issue militarily. As we wrote above, a diplomatic solution to this problem passed informally, like the other side of Dayton.
The Erdut Agreement was signed in the village of Erdut on November 12, 1995 between representatives of Croatia and the Serbian authorities of the regions of Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium - the “Croatian Danube”. The agreement provided for the end of the war in Croatia and a transition period for the return of Serb-occupied regions to Croatia. The signing of the treaty was attended by the US Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith and UN mediator former Norwegian Foreign Minister Torvald Stoltenberg.
On the Croatian side, the agreement was signed by the former Prime Minister Hrvoje Sarinic. From Eastern Slavonia - Milan Milanovic who have received special instructions from the authorities of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Such secondary importance of the figures of Erdut’s signatories is reminiscent of the current behavior of the Ukrainian side, which sent the virtually ousted ex-president to Minsk for negotiations Leonid Kuchma.
Based on the Erdut Agreement, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1037 in 1996, which created the UN Transitional Authority for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium (UNTAES). The UN mission UNTAES was supposed to oversee the demilitarization of these areas and ensure the peaceful reintegration of the territory into Croatia, as well as monitor the actions of the Croatian police and the return of refugees. According to resolution 1037 (1996), a Joint Council of Serb-majority municipalities was created in the “Croatian Danube region”. Other governing bodies of the former RSK ceased to exist here. After the Erdut Agreement, the remaining units of the Serbian Slavonian army were disbanded in June 1996, and their weapons were transferred to the Yugoslav army.
The UN military and civilian mission in Eastern Slavonia consisted of 4.8 thousand soldiers, 400 police and 99 military observers. (1) The military and civilian contingents were managed by the UN provisional administrator, who exercised the highest management function.
The UNTAES mission's first mandate was issued by the UN for one year. A year later, the mandate was extended for another year and ended on January 15, 1998. On January 15, 1998, the former territories of the Serbian Krajina were officially finally incorporated into Croatia.
The process of integration of the “Croatian Danube region” into Croatia was gradual and looked like this.
At the first stage, a general demilitarization of the region was carried out. During it the following were carried out:
Withdrawal of Serbian military units;
Disarmament of local Serb territorial militias;
Weapons were confiscated from the population.
The entry of the Croatian army into Eastern Slavonia was not expected at this stage.
In the next stage, a “temporary police force” was created in Eastern Slavonia. For example, police patrols began to be formed on a “parity basis”: one of the police had to be a Serb, another a Croat, and the third an international policeman from the UN mission.
The third stage of peaceful reintegration was the return of refugees - mainly Croats.
In the fourth stage, local elections were held in the region under Croatian electoral laws.
The fifth stage was the introduction of the national Croatian currency, the kuna, into the region.
At the sixth stage, the so-called “convalidation”, i.e. partial recognition of documents that were issued by the authorities of the unrecognized RSK.
At the seventh stage, the “National Committee for Establishing Confidence” began its work. The policy of “restoring trust” included, among other things, a refusal to prosecute individuals who “held weapons in their hands” but for whom there were no documented war crimes. There was no official amnesty in Eastern Slavonia. Therefore, in different years, all the main leaders of the Serbian Krajina of 1991-1995 appeared before the judges in The Hague - Milan Babic, Milan Martic And Goran Hadzic. Babic, sentenced to 13 years, committed suicide in his prison cell. Martić is serving a 35-year sentence in Tartu prison in Estonia. Hadžić's trial in The Hague was abandoned due to his terminal illness. By comparison, two famous Croatian generals who participated in and led Operation Storm were also initially convicted by the Hague court. Ante Gotovina And Mladen Markac respectively to 24 and 18 years in prison. Then Gotovina and Markach were acquitted and released.
So, after a transition period of two years, the region is fully returning to the legal framework of the country and under the control of the central government of Croatia. The UN peace plan for the reintegration of the Croatian Danube region did not envisage any special status for the region. The Croats themselves assess the “peaceful reintegration” of Eastern Slavonia in 1996-1998 as one of the most successful projects of Croatian-American relations in the nineties of the last century. The Erdut process made it possible to quickly consolidate Croatia under the auspices of the West, which allowed this country to join NATO in 2009, and the European Union in 2013.
Croatia remains a unitary state. The number of the Serbian population in Croatia as a result of the war and the “peaceful settlement” according to the “Storm” and “Erdut” scenarios decreased by 2.5 times. In December 1998, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman defined the main result of “reintegration” in his public statement: “We have solved the Serbian question: there will no longer be 12% Serbs or 9% Yugoslavs, as there were. And 3%, however many there are, will no longer threaten the Croatian state.” According to the 2011 census, Serbs in Croatia made up 4.36% of the population.
The main problem in Serbo-Croatian relations remains the return of Serbian refugees to Croatia. The Serbs do not have territorial-administrative autonomy in Croatia. Currently, their representatives have received 3 seats in the Croatian parliament. According to the preamble of the Croatian Constitution, Serbs are in first place on the list of 22 national minorities in Croatia. They are a national minority in Croatia, not an autochthonous people. The European norms of cultural autonomy introduced into the national legislation of Croatia have made it possible to significantly liberalize language policy in the field of school education and official use in municipalities with the presence of a third of national minorities in their population. However, problems of domestic and street violence remain. According to a report by the Serbian National Council, in 2016 there were 331 cases of attacks against Serbs in Croatia, including anti-Serb protests, destruction of Serbian property, and attacks by hooligans.
Let us draw the necessary conclusions from the Croatian lesson of “peaceful reintegration” according to Erdut’s scenario. The Croatian example of peacekeeping demonstrates that a military-police and administrative UN peacekeeping mission with a special mandate can indeed become an instrument for pacifying the Donbass region, but on the terms of the United States and nationalist Ukraine. One can imagine that the UN mission will honestly carry out its work within the framework of a format similar to Erdut. But when creating the UN administration of “special areas”, even the adoption by the Ukrainian parliament of the special legislation required by the Minsk agreements on “special areas” does not guarantee the creation of autonomy with special rights. Autonomy can be accepted, and then canceled at the “requests” of the local population. After all, the devil, as we know, is in the details. The key to the process here are elections, which are scheduled to be held under Ukrainian legislation and under “international governance” of the region. Moreover, elections are not held immediately after the establishment of international governance of the UN, but with a certain pause. Let us note that when holding “free and fair local elections” according to Ukrainian legislation with the participation of all displaced persons and refugees, parties and pre-election associations of “separatists” will be excluded from the process at the start. As a result, the new government in Donbass, “freely and honestly elected” under international control, will itself, in the person of its legislators, renounce the autonomy imposed by the “occupiers” and choose “decentralization” of the region in the Kiev style.
From the point of view of the importance of the main direction of the settlement, amnesty does not become a problem. Under her, in any case, the leaders of the “separatists” are determined to go to trial. International police can make the necessary arrests.
Now the Kremlin insists that the start of a UN mission requires the consent of the parties to the conflict, and Russia, they say, is only a guarantor of the implementation of the Minsk agreements. From the point of view of the Americans, to begin with, only fundamental agreement to the proposed format is enough. The process of starting negotiations between the parties to the conflict and the UN may well be launched within the framework of the ongoing consultations in Minsk. Representatives of the UN may be included as guarantors of agreements from the Normandy Four. As for the United States, according to the US State Department Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker at the Munich Conference, it is quite enough for them: “The only thing we can do is to give a mandate to peacekeeping forces from the United States and achieve full implementation of the Minsk agreements.”
However, let us not forget the main lesson of the “Croatian scenario” for all participants in the conflict in Ukraine, and most importantly for Kyiv. Agreement on a peacekeeping mission in the required format can only be achieved through compromise. In practice, Erdut for Croatia and Serbia came in a package with the Dayton Agreements. Therefore, one should not place too much faith in American statements such as those recently made in Kyiv by the First Deputy Secretary of State: “We will never agree to one region of Ukraine being exchanged for another. We will never conclude an agreement on Ukraine without Ukraine’s participation.” It is precisely this kind of assurance that should indicate the opposite. Such a deal is possible in principle. The exchange of the RSK in Croatia for Serbian autonomy in Bosnia and Herzegovina with general pacification indicates that such an option is fundamentally acceptable for the United States. Here we need to pay attention to verbal meanings. The fact is that the English language knows such a concept as “humbug”, which is absent in all other languages. English dictionaries interpret this word as “a lie covered with a plausible pretext” or “a lie cleverly disguised as the truth.” At the same time, the practical use of “humbug” does not lead to split consciousness or moral allusions, since a “plausible pretext” will cancel the lie and make it justified. A gentleman who uses humbug is still a gentleman. This meaning of this Anglo-Saxon concept “humbug” should be remembered not only in Kyiv, but also in Moscow, as well as in Berlin and Paris. It can become a “humbug”: they wanted one thing, but it turned out completely different. Circumstances got in the way.
(1) Military personnel, military observers and civilian police for the UNTAES mission were provided by: Austria, Argentina, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Ghana, Denmark, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Ireland, Kenya, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Nepal, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Russia, Senegal, Slovakia, Great Britain, USA, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, Fiji, Finland, Czech Republic, Switzerland and Sweden.
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