ANALYSIS: Russia still threatens Ukraine's stability (11/17/96)

ANALYSIS

Russia still threatens Ukraine's stability

by Taras Kuzio

Recently the U.S. Congress overwhelmingly approved a resolution that stressed Ukraine's important geopolitical role within Europe and confirmed that the country's territorial integrity was an important element of European peace and stability. The ink had not yet dried on this U.S. resolution when threats to Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty were once again raised by Ukraine's eastern neighbor - Russia. Instead of supporting Ukraine, the West largely ignored these aggressive acts. This obvious gap between words and deeds only encourages those members of Russia's elite who yearn for the restoration of the Soviet empire.

The importance of Ukraine to European security was only recently recognized. As late as January 1994, U.S. intelligence reports predicted that Ukraine was on the verge of disintegration and civil war and argued that Ukraine's reintegration with Russia may therefore be the best option to promote stability. Two years later times have changed. With Russia closer to a post-Yeltsin era that looks set to be led by the nationalist Aleksander Lebed or Communist Gennadiy Zyuganov, Ukraine's strategic importance to the U.S. and European security has been recognized. The U.S. House of Representatives and Senate resolution applauded the fact that Ukraine opposed "the emergence of any political or military organization which has the potential to promote the reintegration of the states of the former Soviet Union".

It is all the more surprising therefore that Russian territorial demands upon Ukraine are largely ignored by the U.S., the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the United Nations. The world's nuclear powers, after all, have provided security assurances to Ukraine that have supported its independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity. The West's silence about these events may be explicable. On the eve of U.S. elections, nobody wanted to be overly pessimistic about Russia.

Serious concerns

But three factors give cause for concern. Firstly, the assumption that xenophobes and imperialists only exist within the extreme left and right in Russia is badly flawed. Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov and the head of the Duma Committee on International Affairs, Vladimir Lukin - both avowed democrats - have consistently supported territorial demands on Ukraine. The State Duma law adopted in October asserting rights to the entirety of the Soviet Union's former Black Sea Fleet and proclaiming Russian sovereignty over the Ukrainian port city of Sevastopol was adopted by 337 votes, with only 5 abstentions. This prompted Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, then on a visit to Moscow, to ask aloud at a press conference, "Where were the votes against? Where was (the pro-government) Our Home is Russia? Where were the democrats?" Indeed, it is now plain that a large proportion of the one-third of the Duma who belong to democratic factions, including members of Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin's Our Home is Russia party, support territorial demands against neighboring states. Mr. Chernomyrdin himself called the Duma's actions a warning to Kyiv to relent on the issues of the Black Sea Fleet and Sevastopol.

Second, the West can no longer hide behind the illusion, as it has on numerous occasions in the past, that Russian territorial demands are designed to win support in upcoming elections and are not really supported by the executive. There are no elections scheduled in Russia until the end of the decade and the State Duma is no longer acting in isolation, but as part of a consensus among Russia's elite's toward Ukraine. The Russian Foreign Ministry backed the Duma resolution and its foreign minister, former spy master Yevgeny Primakov, has refused to accept that the Helsinki principles on the inviolability of post-1945 borders is applicable within the former Soviet Union. In addition, it is arguably no coincidence that the Russian government applied restrictive import taxes solely to Ukrainian products a month preceding the Duma vote, thereby exerting economic pressure to ensure that Ukraine complied with the demands for Sevastopol raised by the Duma. Nor is it surprising that Russia's Communists now openly declare that there is no disagreement between them and President Boris Yeltsin with regard to the policies that should be applied to Ukraine and the rest of the former Soviet Union.

Third, the West, in its preoccupation with Mr. Yeltsin's health, seems reluctant to look to his likely successors, who, opinion polls tell us, will probably be either Mr. Lebed or Mr. Zyuganov. Although the West may favor Mr. Lebed, who is somewhat supportive of economic reform and halted the war in Chechnya, his views differ little from that of Mr. Zyuganov on Ukraine and the need to revive a new Russian-led Union. Acting in his former executive capacity as secretary of the Russian Security Council, Mr. Lebed openly declared that, "a territorial dispute exists between Russia and Ukraine" over Sevastopol and the Crimea. With a post-Yeltsin Russia ruled by either Mr. Lebed or Mr. Zyuganov, territorial claims against Ukraine would be directly promoted by Russia's executive. The West cannot continue to merely issue resolutions while closing its eyes to dangerous trends in Russian policy towards Ukraine. If indeed the executive and the Duma are as powerful as Russia-watchers say, then Mr. Yeltsin cannot escape responsibility for the failure to normalize relations with Ukraine.

Three policies should be therefore adopted by the West and its security structures, such as NATO and the West European Union, towards Ukraine. First, five years of stalemate have shown that left to themselves, Ukraine and Russia are unlikely to finalize an agreement on the Black Sea Fleet and the Russian naval base at Sevastopol. The trilateral summit of the U.S., Ukraine and Russia, which proved so successful in resolving Ukraine's nuclear question, should be revived as a semi permanent but flexible forum where outstanding issues can be resolved. After all, the United States has extensive experience in negotiating rights for military bases throughout the world that could be put to good use in Sevastopol. The trilateral forum, together with perhaps the UN and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, could make sure that Russia would follow any agreement arising out of the forum - perhaps entailing that Russia build an alternative base within an agreed time frame that would ensure that its navy withdrew from Sevastopol with reasonable speed.

Recognizing Borders

Second, the trilateral forum could also smooth the way to the signing of a Russian-Ukrainian treaty that would recognize current borders. Russia should not be allowed to continue to refuse to abide by its previous commitments. In November 1990 Ukraine and the Russian Federation signed a treaty which recognized their borders, which Russia claims is invalid following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia is also a signatory to the security assurances that were given to Ukraine by the five declared nuclear powers. If Russia is able to unilaterally demarcate its borders with Estonia, Latvia and China, there should be no obstacles to their demarcation with Ukraine.

Finally, NATO will decide in the near future which countries will join its enlarged structure. Ukraine has helped smooth this process by blocking attempts to cajole a united anti-NATO enlargement front and scuppering Moscow's attempts at forging an anti-NATO military alliance. But an enlarged NATO should not ignore Ukraine's justified security concerns. NATO should therefore propose a Charter to be signed with Ukraine that would build on both the security assurances previously advanced by the three NATO nuclear powers as well as the wide ranging cooperation that has developed within the Partnership for Peace program. The WEU, whose secretary, Jose Cutiliero, visited Kyiv in September to sign a joint agreement on future cooperation, should also establish closer security cooperation with Ukraine.

By continuing to ignore Russia's territorial ambitions, the West is undermining its support for democracy in Ukraine. If the West leaves President Kuchma to take on the might of Russian pressure himself, the external threat may undercut the domestic consensus he has built up over the last two years throughout Ukraine in support of his modest reform program.

Taras Kuzio is a research fellow at the Center for Russian and East European Studies, The University of Birmingham (U.K.) and a senior research fellow at the Council of Advisers to the Ukrainian Parliament. The article above appeared in the Wall Street Journal's European edition on November 7. Copyright: Wall Street Journal Europe.