Ukraine and Russia complete delimitation of their land border (02/02/03)

Ukraine and Russia complete delimitation of their land border

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Ukraine and Russia officially completed the delimitation of the land border between them on January 28 - more than 11 years after the two countries separated and nearly five years after border talks began.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin signed the historic agreement during a three-day visit to Kyiv on January 27-29. While in Kyiv Mr. Putin took part in several functions in Ukraine's capital, including the official opening of the Year of Russia in Ukraine and an informal summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

"If at times assertions of Russian imperial ambitions [over Ukraine] have echoed here, beginning today I would like for them to stop," said Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma after he and Russian President Putin signed the documents that finally fixed the border between their two countries.

The agreement was only one of 10 the Russians and Ukrainians signed in the Ukrainian capital, but undoubtedly the most significant. In it Kyiv and Moscow officially fixed their 2,063-kilometer (approximately 1,300-mile) border after years of haggling and debate. An initial version of the land border was agreed upon at the close of 2001, but official adoption was put off.

The two sides still have several outstanding problems to resolve, among them the demarcation of the land border they have delimited, which Russia continues to oppose. On January 29 an unnamed spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, "The signing ceremony does not mean the two sides intend to demarcate the border along the current map, only the fact the parties agree on the current delimitation," reported Interfax-Ukraine.

There is also the maritime border - yet to be agreed upon even though a deadline of July 2002 passed long ago - and resolution of fishing rights in the Sea of Azov.

Mr. Putin, who described "healthy compromise" and consideration for the national interests of both countries as the key to finally reaching a land agreement, said that only "functional, bureaucratic problems" still need to be ironed out in that area.

However, he explained that the maritime border continues to present a challenge at the "political and expert level." Russia has maintained that the line that would separate the two countries in the Sea of Azov should be drawn at the sea bottom, while Ukraine has urged that it be enforced at the surface as well. At issue here are rich fishing resources in that body of water, most of which are located near the Ukrainian coast.

The Russian leader echoed the Ukrainian president's remarks after the historic signing ceremony, stating that the Russian intention is for close, but equilateral relations between the two countries.

"I wish to stress once again that Russia has made this step consciously, because we must resolve all questions that could cause any doubt as to Russia's intention to build its relations with Ukraine on equal footing," said Mr. Putin.

President Putin's plane landed in Kyiv the evening of January 27 and he was quickly whisked off by motorcade to the Ukraina Palace of Culture for the opening of the Year of Russia in Ukraine ceremonies and a jubilee concert by Russian performers initiating a series of cultural events in Ukraine over the next 12 months The ceremonial year is aimed at bringing the two countries closer.

At the concert hall he joined President Kuchma in lauding the necessity and inviolability of the Ukraine-Russia partnership. While Mr. Putin said that the Year of Russia in Ukraine would "strengthen the old friendship," which he called "one for the ages," Mr. Kuchma said the two countries needed each other to prosper in a globalized world.

"They are being taught by the past how to build the future, and they are ready to respond to the challenges of the new millennium, to demonstrate the nobility of their intentions and the grandeur of their aspirations to the world," said Mr. Kuchma.

However, many of the more than 500 demonstrators who stood outside the Ukraina Palace of Culture would undoubtedly have disagreed with the two state leaders. The crowd, consisting of members and supporters of the democratic right political forces of the Our Ukraine parliamentary faction and the National Rukh of Ukraine, the Ukrainian National Party and the Sobor-Republican Party chanted, "Go Home Putin," while holding placards that announced: "No one has been forgotten, nothing has been forgotten"; "Moscow Church Out"; and "UOC-MP: Nest of Moscow's Special Intelligence."

Representatives of these political forces and members of Ukraine's intelligentsia, including Social Democratic Party (United) leader and first Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk, along with fellow National Deputies Ivan Pliusch, Borys Tarasyuk and Viktor Yushchenko, and former Minister of Defense Kostiantyn Morozov signed an open letter to President Kuchma enumerating their concerns over the "dangerous tendencies" that could result from the project. Among the various issues raised they accented the inability to resolve current problems associated with dominance of the Russian language in Ukraine and the failure to re-establish Ukrainian as the dominant language as well as problems in establishing Ukrainian-based cultural and educational curriculums in Ukraine's schools.

At one of several press conferences held in the days around the Putin visit, Prof. Roman Trofymov of Kharkiv University commented that a special year in Ukraine dedicated to Russia is superfluous and even absurd.

"Why do we need a special year of Russia in Ukraine, when every year has been Russia's year in Ukraine," explained Prof. Trofymov, alluding to 350 years of Moscow's political and cultural hegemony over Ukraine, which the country shook off only after the downfall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Prof. Trofymov stated that even though political control from Moscow has been shunted aside, the Russian language still dominates the country. He noted that for every 56 books published in Ukraine in the Russian language only one is published in Ukrainian.

Critics have given other reasons for not proceeding with the Russia in Ukraine project. Some have emphasized the immorality of proceeding with a special year dedicated to Russia in Ukraine during the same year the 70th anniversary of the Great Famine is to be commemorated. Others have said that Ukraine's leadership continues to engage in far too much Moscow-gazing, as exemplified by a separate presidential commission established to oversee commemorations of the upcoming 350th anniversary of the fateful Pereiaslav Accord - which Russia has claimed for centuries as the legal document for its control over Ukraine. They also point to the project to celebrate the 85th anniversary of the birth of Volodymyr Shcherbytsky, one of the last leaders of the Ukrainian SSR.

During a full day of talks on January 28, while other CIS leaders were still arriving in Kyiv, Presidents Kuchma and Putin addressed specific issues of mutual concern, mostly regarding the economic sphere and trade development between Russia and Ukraine. President Putin noted that while economic cooperation is growing stronger, problems remain.

He noted that the documents for a Ukraine-Russia energy consortium to handle the transfer of Russian gas and oil through Ukraine to Western and Central European markets would soon be ready for signing. He held out that German participation through private entities remained a distinct possibility, as did participation by other energy-producing states in the Caspian Sea region.

Over the course of the last decade, the acrimonious relations between Moscow and Kyiv at the economic level have centered on Ukraine's oil and gas debt to Russia, as well as the movement of Russian energy sources through Ukraine to other parts of Europe. Recently Ukraine completed a new oil pipeline from Odesa to Brody, in addition to an oil terminal in the Black Sea port to store the black gold. It also agreed to allow Russia some control over its natural gas pipeline in return for Russian financing to update the pipeline and expand its capacity.

The two sides downplayed the fact that, even with closer relations between businessmen from both sides of the new border, trade turnover between Russia and Ukraine in 2002 fell by 6 percent - from more than 10 billion hrv to a little over 8 billion hrv - after a 20 percent increase the previous year. And, even though Mr. Kuchma hailed the ever more intimate economic relations between Kyiv and Moscow, he did not address the fact that it was the fall of Ukraine's exports to Russia by more than 8 percent last year - while Russia's exports to Ukraine were rising by two percent - that led to the decline, according to Polityka and Kultura magazine.

The two sides signed nine other agreements during Mr. Putin's three-day stay in Kyiv, mostly in the educational and medical spheres, including an accord to establish branches of Ukrainian universities in Russia and Russian institutions of higher learning in Ukraine; and documents on cooperation to promote contacts among youth organizations, and educational establishments and organizations involved in policy-making directed at the youth. Representatives of the two health ministries also signed agreements on cooperation to promote the exchange of information and technology in health care and the establishment of direct links between health care institutions.

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