Zakarpattia – together, but separated

Ukraine’s ongoing conflict with Russia has diverted the central government’s attention away from the deterioration of the security situation in regions which are not threatened by direct aggression from Russia. Zakarpattia is one of these. It is one of the poorest and most ethnically diverse regions of Ukraine and also its westernmost region, bordering Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Poland. Kyiv neglected to launch measures to weaken the position of the region’s unquestioned leader, Viktor Baloha and his family, who have been in de facto control of Zakarpattia for years now. Moreover, it seems that, after the Euromaidan, Kyiv decided to give the Baloha family a ‘free hand’ in the region in exchange for maintaining stability. This further strengthened their position. As a consequence, no measures were taken to limit negative phenomena present in the region such as smuggling and organised crime. It was only the armed confrontation between the police and representatives of Right Sector in July 2015 in Mukacheve that strikingly revealed the extent of these problems. This was a criminal incident and a blot on the image of Kyiv which assured the public that the reform of the public security system was making rapid progress. Furthermore, it had far-reaching political consequences—it forced the government in Kyiv to attempt to regain control of the region and to weaken Baloha’s influence, as well as Baloha himself to carry out actions focused on maintaining the status quo.

So far, Russian-backed Rusyn separatism and the autonomy-oriented slogans of the Hungarian minority have been considered the main threats to state security present in the region. It seems, however, that the potential of these movements is low, unless they receive strong external support. In this context, the fact that a criminally-motivated incident has triggered a crisis in the region which resulted in a conflict between the regional political and business elite and the central government is all the more significant. The conflict is growing in importance particularly in the context of local elections planned for 25 October 2015 in which the balance of power in the region and the political future of the Baloha family is at stake.