York University conference examines Ukraine between NATO and Russia

by Andrij Kudla Wynnyckyj
Toronto Press Bureau

TORONTO - York University recently hosted a conference titled "Ukraine between NATO and Russia," thanks to the efforts of Prof. Orest Subtelny of the department of history. The one-day symposium examined the geopolitical and military aspects of Ukraine's position in post-Cold War Europe.

A key speaker was Admiral Volodymyr Bezkorovainyi, the former Soviet submarine fleet commander and, more recently, the former commander of Ukraine's Black Sea Fleet. Admiral Bezkorovainyi was invited to speak on his area of immediate experience: strategic concerns in the Black Sea, as well as the impact of the Black Sea Fleet (BSF) issue on Russian-Ukrainian relations.

The day began with two sessions that addressed the general geopolitical issues and specific military issues raised by the symposium's title.

The first speaker was Dr. Hryhorii Perepelytsia, chief analyst at the Institute of Strategic Studies in Kyiv. Dr. Perepelytsia said Ukraine is very fortunate to have emerged as an independent state when it did, greatly benefiting from the initial atmosphere of trust in Europe in 1991. The Conventional Forces in Europe agreement limiting the forces arrayed by the two superpowers and their allies, resulted in a turning of all armies to an essentially defensive posture, he said.

The former Soviet Pacific Fleet captain said this was made possible by Russia's geopolitical collapse and its reversion to a geopolitical position it had occupied in the 19th century.

Since Russia's domination of Eastern and Central had been predicated on a military presence, the analyst contended, this collapse created a security vacuum that most countries wanted to fill quickly by becoming members of NATO.

Dr. Perepelytsia asserted that without the influence of West, Ukraine would simply not exist as an independent state, adding that historically his country has enjoyed independence only when the influence of West has been significant - first, in the late 17th and early 18th centuries when Sweden pressed eastward; then following the revolution of 1917; and finally, since 1991.

After 1991, Dr. Perepelytsia said, Russia, as the nucleus of the former empire, saw the Commonwealth of Independent States as a way to continue the old patterns of relations. However, Ukraine had always considered the CIS, an institution which it helped establish, to be an instrument of arriving at "a civilized divorce" from the old sphere of influence.

Dr. Perepelytsia said that at first Ukraine sought to serve as a bridge to Europe, but this proved largely impossible, since Russia simply acted as if it spoke on the CIS's behalf, and was not interested in allowing newly independent states to establish bilateral relations with Western European countries and institutions - NATO in particular.

He further asserted that Ukraine's nuclear disarmament policy was entirely geared to establishing its credibility with the West, since the missiles stationed on its territories were pointed in that direction, a matter over which it had no operational control.

Moving to the present day, the strategic analyst said, "Ukraine considers NATO not to be simply a military alliance, but a key element in the security architecture of Europe" and that the organization has already played a key role in ensuring the security of Ukraine.

"Thanks to NATO's expansion," the Kyiv-based official said, "Ukraine was able to sign and have ratified an agreement with Romania on cooperation, border demarcation and territorial integrity; was able to sign a treaty of friendship and cooperation with Poland; and finally, was able to sign a wide-ranging bilateral pact of good neighborly relations, friendship and cooperation with Russia, something we had been unable to secure for years."

Dr. Perepelytsia claimed Ukraine is in a position to restrain Russia's European geopolitical ambitions and, as such, to foster the growth of a democratic civil society in the former superpower.

He said his country is equally well placed to act as a stabilizing, peacekeeping force in the Transdniester and Caucasus regions, and has been reforming its military to reflect both these possibilities and the realities of its present economic situation.

NATO as anti-vacuum insurance

Prof. Aurel Braun, a historian at the University of Toronto, disagreed that a security vacuum emerged in the traditional sense that needed to be countered with a strong military or other institutional response. Instead, he suggested that for countries such as Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary, seeking NATO membership was rather like "buying insurance."

Prof. Braun warned against being seduced by the model proposed by former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, that is, his idea of Ukrainian independence as a guarantor against Russian hegemonic resurgence.

While Prof. Braun conceded that this model is "not entirely inaccurate," he contended that it is not the best instrument to achieve the goal of European security, since "a protective moat" is not the best long-term solution. He contended that fostering democratic reforms in Russia is, and these could only be secured if the former hegemon did not feel threatened.

The Toronto-based historian also pointed out that Ukraine itself must keep a close eye on its economic well-being, something he said could only be maintained by close ties with Russia.

The next commentator was Sherman Garnett, a senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who, in turn, disagreed with Prof. Braun. He gave high marks to Ukraine's foreign policy apparat for achieving considerable success, but cautioned that its very success has "created a progressive and ambitious set of interests."

Mr. Garnett, author of the recently published study "Keystone in the Arch: Ukraine in the Emerging Security Environment of Central and Eastern Europe," said ambitions such as membership in the European Union and NATO "are simply not supported [by Ukraine's] societal, political and economic weaknesses." The author said that if Ukraine is perceived as not qualified to pursue these ambitions and begins to fail as a viable state, there is a danger that "a more dangerous external environment could emerge."

The former Pentagon analyst pointed out that, thanks to the pragmatism of Presidents Boris Yeltsin, Leonid Kravchuk and Leonid Kuchma, Russia and Ukraine have able to arrive at a far greater level of rational accommodation than has been called for by elements in their respective societies.

The West's more "Ukrainian" view

But Mr. Garnett pointed out that the fundamental difference between the two countries' approach (Russia seeking to have Ukraine revert to a deeper, more comprehensive reintegration, while Ukraine wants to set a clearly defined individual role for itself as a state and a society) has meant that outside influence from the West, specifically from the United States, has been of paramount importance.

He said Russian-Ukrainian relations should be drawn into European cooperative institutions. "It doesn't mean that we always take Ukraine's side," Mr. Garnett concluded, "but I think that we have a more 'Ukrainian' view of the outcome that should emerge - a normal state-to-state relationship."

Prof. Peter Potichnyj of McMaster University, who acted as moderator of this discussion, took issue with the point raised by Prof. Braun concerning the possibility of "supporting democratic elements in Russia from the outside." The Hamilton-based historian asserted that democratization is the internal responsibility of Russia's leaders, and that any effect that either Ukraine, the West or anyone could hope to have is "at best, marginal."

"I don't think that one should talk about congenital anti-democratic tendencies in Russia," Prof. Potichnyj added, "but one should not dismiss centuries of authoritarian experience."

Military aspects of bilateral relations

In the absence of the scheduled speaker, Gen. I. Smishko, chief of Ukraine's military intelligence, Dr. Perepelytsia addressed issues specific to Ukraine's military policy. First off, he tackled the apparent contradiction of a self-declared neutral and non-bloc state entering into partnerships and treaties with institutions such as NATO.

Dr. Perepelytsia made a distinction between "functional" neutrality and "instrumental" neutrality. As the analyst recounted, Ukraine's government is not trying to guarantee its security via neutrality, but rather affirm its independence. He explained that, in this light, Ukraine's non-alignment was not a non-NATO position, but rather an effort to avoid integration in Russian-dominated structures and military alliances.

As a result, Ukraine is not a Tashkent Pact member, but an observer. In this fashion, Dr. Perepelytsia said, Kyiv can maintain its military-industrial cooperation with other states of the CIS and keep these relations bilateral. Ukraine is thus free to avoid ties to the CIS as a whole and develop those that advance its security interests with such neighbors as Moldova, Georgia and Azerbaijan.

The analyst conceded that Ukraine's observer status ceded the ground to Russia within the CIS, "enabling Russia to transform the body into an instrument for furthering its national interest, rather than an organization of equals." For practical purposes, the CIS general command coincides with the Russian Federation's general command, Dr. Perepelytsia noted.

Russia is also continuing to apply pressure to Ukraine to join all manner of joint defense systems, such as the anti-aircraft defense network, and has attempted to isolate Ukraine from contacts with NATO by prompting CIS heads of states and ministers of defense to condemn Ukrainian participation in the Partnership for Peace program.

"In my opinion, speaking as an individual, and not even as an officer," the analyst said, "if Ukraine were able to establish close cooperation with NATO structures, we would break our association with the Tashkent Pact."

Military industrial co-dependency

However, he added that this is impossible, given that all of Ukraine's military equipment is manufactured and deployed according to former Soviet standards. In order for Ukraine to renew, modernize and maintain its equipment, it must continue to cooperate closely with Russia and other CIS countries and this will be necessary for some time to come, Dr. Perepelytsia explained.

Agreements along these lines are entered into in three principal areas: the exchange of surplus military equipment, the repair of equipment and cooperation in the sphere of the military-industrial complex.

For the sake of comparison, Dr. Perepelytsia said that in 1996, 10 joint programs were planned with the Russian military, of which four were carried out. As part of the NATO-sponsored Partnership for Peace Program, Ukraine participated in over 200 exercises and programs.

The Ukrainian official said that a military infrastructure with potential for great financial benefit is still in place in Ukraine, but has little direct practical value. These include an extensive anti-ballistic missile defense system, an early-warning network, and elements of the former Soviet space program.

When Ukraine inherited these facilities, it faced the question of what do with them, he said. The Baltic countries simply destroyed them, Kazakstan leased them to Russia, but Ukraine decided to incorporate them into its defense infrastructure and would be used in order to generate revenue. To this day, these installations are used to produce data, train personnel and manufacture materiel for Russian programs, but Russia pays its way.

Ukraine is also assisting individual CIS countries that lack the facilities and resources to establish their own armed forces, thus ensuring that they are not completely dependent on Russia.

Dr. Roman Solchanyk, a senior analyst with the Rand Corporation, began by agreeing with Mr. Garnett about the fundamental difference in Russia's and Ukraine's approaches to the dissolution of the Soviet Union's integrative structure in 1991.

The former Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty editor then reminded the audience that while Ukraine does not wish to get too entangled in the CIS and Tashkent superstructures being built by Moscow, "it is still politically incumbent on Ukraine to cooperate with Russia."

Nevertheless, he also said it is very doubtful the Tashkent Pact would be renewed when its term expires next year. Few of the signatories are under any illusions that it is anything other than a disguise for the Russian Federation's armed forces, and even fewer have any enthusiasm for supporting it economically.

Dr. Solchanyk also highlighted the different socio-political roles the military plays in Ukraine and Russia, and thus the two states face dissimilar situations as they seek to reform their armed forces.

The California-based researcher pointed out that Ukraine was the first country of the former Soviet states to embark on a program of establishing its own independent armed forces, because it was bracing for the dissolution of the empire. Despite this head start, its military has endured and continues to endure many problems, not least of which is establishing a command structure in a force that was formerly directed from the outside.

On the other hand, Russia is confronted with difficulties of a much larger scale, Dr. Solchanyk said - sheer size and a greatly politicized atmosphere to name but two. In Ukraine there are about 100 generals; in Russia there are practically too many to count.

In Ukraine, there is a very low level of politicization in the officer corps and President Kuchma recently issued a decree separating the functions of the Army's General Staff and the Ministry of Defense. In Russia, names such as Lebed, Rokhlin, Rodionov dominate the political life of the country, and the latter two have both called for a military uprising against civilian authority, not to mention the attempted putsch led by Gen. Aleksandr Rutskoi.

In Ukraine, Dr. Solchanyk contended, the armed forces are adapting themselves quite well to playing a small, secondary role in dealing with matters of regional interest and adapting to the political reality. In Russia, the army still has the same old geopolitical ambitions which it feels it should carry out, but doesn't have the resources.

The Rand analyst pointed out that the Russian army has been forced to fight a series of neo-colonial wars in Chechnya, Tajikistan and the Transdniester, and its poor morale and disarray are obvious. Dr. Solchanyk asserted that the Russian army doesn't have a clear idea of its sphere of operations. "What are the borders?" Dr. Solchanyk asked rhetorically, "The Russian Federation's? The old USSR's? The CIS in totality? Where are the threats coming from? NATO? New threats?"

Dr. Solchanyk said the principal asset of the Russian Federation's military is its ability to "unfreeze" conflicts such as that in Abkhazia and Nagorno-Karabakh.

Transition to integration

Dr. Perepelytsia said that the possibility of Ukraine's integration with NATO is a strong one, but a long-term proposition. He explained that Ukraine would have to bring its forces in line with the organization's military and industrial specifications, and NATO itself would have to complete its own transformation into a more inclusive Euro-Atlantic security structure.

Dr. Perepelytsia said both issues are provided for in the recent charter on a Distinctive Partnership signed by NATO and Ukraine in July.

Echoing sentiments expressed by Mr. Garnett, the analyst addressed domestic concerns that need to be addressed if this "ambition" is to be realized.

First, the economic issue. In order to adhere to NATO standards regarding equipment, Ukraine would have to increase its military budget from the current annual $800 million to $2.5 billion.

Second, a stronger civic domestic consensus in favor of joining the organization is needed. Citing recent polls, Dr. Perepelytsia said that support currently stands at 36 percent in favor, 25 percent against and the remaining 39 percent undecided or indifferent. He added that, regionally, Crimea and south and southeastern Ukraine tended to oppose NATO, largely because of the lingering cold-war belief that it is a hostile military alliance.

"Sea of peace"

In its final session, the symposium drew on the undisputed authority of a man who has been directly involved in the formation of Ukraine's policy and continues to do so as a representative of the Defense Ministry, Admiral Bezkorovainyi.

In his introduction, Prof. Jurij Darewych, a York physics professor, mentioned that the keynote speaker had risen from the rank of lieutenant to command "the [Soviet] Northern Submarine Fleet with nuclear tipped missiles pointed in this general direction," adding that "however, he has since changed roles, so I don't think you have much to worry about."

The admiral began on an optimistic note, saying that "at present, in assessing the political and military situation in the Black Sea region as a whole, one can state that Ukraine faces no concrete military threat from any country."

This fact is tempered, he said, by the reality of ongoing tensions in Moldova, the Transdnister, Abkhazia and Chechnya, and this situation demands that Ukraine achieve the requisite state of readiness. This readiness does not entail imminent intervention in conflicts, but the securing of an atmosphere of stability in order to best take advantage of oil exploration opportunities that Ukraine has on the sea's continental shelf; the establishment of a refining center in Odesa; the establishment of a pipeline carrying natural fuels from the east and south; and the development of a profitable ship-building industry.

He said Ukraine has been a part of NATO's Partnership for Peace Program since 1994, and its participation has focused exclusively on peacekeeping, humanitarian operations, search and rescue missions, and other forms of cooperation.

"We feel that the Black Sea should be a sea of peace," Admiral Bezkorovainyi affirmed, and mentioned the ongoing consultations in Vienna concerning a general regional agreement.

Survey of BSF conflict

The veteran naval officer then outlined a history of the formation of the region's various naval forces, "which has been the cause of a series of incidents that attracted international concern," from the time of the meetings of CIS leaders in Miensk in early 1992.

Admiral Bezkorovainyi said that the initial four-month delay (at which point he had not yet arrived to assume command) in settling the issue of the Black Sea Fleet was a great failure in Ukrainian policy, which allowed "reactionary elements in the Russian admiralty to politicize the fleet and to wrest it from under Ukrainian authority."

The admiral divided the past five years' worth of events into two phases. The first began with the August 1992 Massandra Agreement, in which he said it was agreed that the BSF would be handled as a bilateral matter separate from other concerns in the CIS, but instead resulted in actions by Russia's naval command to block the implementation of this agreement.

The Russian Duma's July 1993 resolution to claim Sevastopol as Russian territory made ratification of the agreement impossible for either side, he said, and the impasse continued until after the election of President Kuchma in mid-1994. The second phase continued until May 1997, when a treaty dividing the BSF was finally signed, allowing the Russians to station their ships on Ukrainian territory as a foreign force, and confirming Ukrainian territorial integrity and its undisputed claim to the city of Sevastopol.

Since this agreement, Admiral Bezkorovainyi said, the conduct of joint Ukraine-NATO Sea Breeze exercises have confirmed that Ukraine will not be swayed from the policies it wishes to pursue, and that it has achieved the stability it was seeking, notwithstanding the various flaws in the agreements reached.

Prof. John Jaworsky of Waterloo University, who had previously served as the translator for the sessions, was this session's discussant and he decided to focus on Crimea. He dismissed notions of the BSF as a "bunch of rusting hulks in a tiny lake in an obscure part of Europe," that should not be a matter of concern for Ukraine.

The military historian suggested that, strategic and military questions aside, the Russian BSF could continue to be a source of instability, since the region has a very weak and distorted economy, and, as Dr. Solchanyk indicated, because of the many Russian officers who appear unable to restrain themselves from playing a regional political role and contribute to local social turbulence.

Prof. Jaworsky added that "several regions [in Ukraine] could compete for the title of most corrupt, but most would agree that the pervasiveness of corruption in the peninsula's Parliament and in the society at large."

Prompted by a question from Prof. Jaworsky, Admiral Bezkorovainyi agreed that the control of the movement of Russian officers, for which the latest treaty provides, will be of particular importance.

He said the BSF has more of a political than military significance, but said he is optimistic that "the tensions within the fleet that were so well financed [by Moscow] are not likely to be so well funded in the future."

In response to another question, Admiral Bezkorovainyi said similarities to the U.S. presence in the Philippines are essentially superficial. "In the Philippines you had an imported situation," he said, "In the Crimea we had an inherited situation."

The naval commander recommended that Ukraine "legally localize the problem, and limit all concerns and activities to the Russian presence on leased territory."

He concluded by expressing his belief that cooperation between Ukraine and Russia is a reasonable prospect, and that the two countries should concentrate on the special and unique character of their relations.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, December 21, 1997, No. 51, Vol. LXV

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