ANALYSIS: Increasingly assertive Russia poses challenge for U.S. policy (03/11/01)

ANALYSIS

Increasingly assertive Russia poses challenge for U.S. policy

by Taras Kuzio

An increasingly assertive Russia will provide the new U.S. administration with one of its first foreign policy challenges, particularly in four post-Soviet states deemed by the former Clinton administration to be of strategic interest to the West: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Ukraine.

Writing recently in The Washington Times, Frank Gaffney, president of the Washington-based Center for Security Policy, called for "strengthening Ukraine as a counterweight to Russia" through a "strategic partnership" that shows U.S. commitment to its independence and sovereignty.

Securing Ukraine as a "bulwark against Russia's emerging revanchism" is a complicated business. As Mr. Gaffney points out, the quid pro quo for this U.S. commitment to Ukraine would be that it "be willing to undertake at long last genuine democratic, political and free market reforms."

Although pro-Western Prime Minister Viktor Yuschenko is a strong supporter of such policies, President Leonid Kuchma is tarnished from allegations made during "Kuchmagate" and has presided over years of stagnation. The United States and the West therefore, have to balance between criticizing President Kuchma while supporting Ukraine's independence and the Yuschenko government so that any criticism does not lead Ukraine, which already is disillusioned by the coldness of the European Union, to return to Eurasia.

Ukraine can choose to be either Russia's buffer, in the manner of Belarus, or the West's; while Mr. Kuchma remains Ukraine's president its integration into Trans-Atlantic and European structures will prove to be impossible.

Ukraine traditionally dampens its pro-Western foreign policy during winter when its demand for energy grows. But, recent developments in Ukraine's relations with Russia have proven to be more than the usual winter warming of relations.

In October of last year President Kuchma fired his pro-Western Foreign Affairs Minister Borys Tarasyuk after Russia insisted that he be removed in return for it compromising over energy debts and pipelines. Mr. Tarasyuk was replaced by Anatolii Zlenko, whose first official visit was to Moscow where he successfully obtained a concession from Russia that it would no longer build gas pipelines to bypass Ukraine through its dominion, Belarus. Interviewed this month by the Kyiv-based newspaper Segodnya Mr. Tarasyuk said, "I am sure that (my removal) was 'ordered' by the state structures of our northern neighbor."

During the last two years Ukraine and Russia have held eight presidential summits, far more than with the United States. Foreign Affairs Minister Zlenko admitted that relations with Russia were "normalizing," which made "it seem as though we are sharply strengthening the eastern vector of our foreign policy."

At the last CIS summit Russia obtained assurances that Ukraine would expand its presence in the CIS in the military and political realms - areas that Ukraine has traditionally avoided. The Ukrainian Parliament, although dominated for a year by the non-left majority, has withdrawn its threat to withdraw from the CIS Inter-Parliamentary Assembly which it joined in early 1999. Ukraine has also joined the newly created Moscow-based CIS Anti-Terrorist Center run by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), is considering upgrading its participation in the CIS Air Defense Agreement from associate to full membership and has agreed to increase the number of joint military exercises with Russia from 28 in 1998 to 52 this year.

Most recently Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeev told his Ukrainian counterpart, Oleksander Kuzmuk that "Russia considers Ukraine as its most important strategic partner," adding that "Russia would like to clarify and coordinate the positions of the two states on a number of important problems related to the security of both Russia and Ukraine." After intensive discussions Mr. Sergeev optimistically concluded that Moscow and Kyiv had reached "common approaches" on a number of issues, although both sides continued to air different viewpoints on NATO enlargement.

On January 18 Russian and Ukrainian defense ministers signed their first ever joint military program. The agreement foresees the creation of a joint-command post of marines in Sevastopol and a "powerful major rescue detachment" based on the Black Sea Fleet and the Ukrainian navy. Mr. Sergeev also held talks with President Kuchma, Prime Minister Yuschenko and Verkhovna Rada chairman Ivan Pliusch. Other discussions centered, on cooperation between both countries military industrial complexes and the coordination of arms exports.

This shift in recent months can be understood in either of two ways.

Pessimists would see in it a serious strategic re-orientation of Ukraine away from the West and NATO towards Russia and the CIS. Russian Col. Gen. Leonid Ivashov also read this into the new agreements believing that they signified a "joint parrying of foreign threats."

Optimists would say that these developments could be placed within the context of the Soviet tradition of unfulfilled "protocols of intention." The May 1997 Ukraine-Russia treaty has numerous unfulfilled articles. Ukraine and Russia signed an extensive 10-year economic agreement in February 1998 that also led many to conclude that Ukraine was re-orientating itself eastwards. Instead, the treaty has remained on paper, and trade between both countries continued to decline. Similarly, in July and November 1998 Ukraine released detailed programs on its integration into the EU and NATO, respectively, that have been only partly fulfilled.

Ukraine also has joint military units with Poland, and it is unlikely that it is a coincidence that both countries signed a military agreement on January 22, only four days after signing similar ones with Russia. The Polish-Ukrainian military agreement also envisages expanding their joint military unit and further cooperation in military technology.

President George Bush warned the Ukrainian Parliament on August 1, 1991, just over three weeks before Ukraine declared independence against "suicidal nationalism" in what has been dubbed his "chicken Kiev" speech. Nearly a decade later the geopolitical situation in Europe has changed. President George W. Bush is now likely to support Ukrainian independence in the face of Mr. Putin's attempts to re-assert Russian hegemony, a test of nerves over Ukraine that could re-kindle a new Cold War.

Taras Kuzio is a project manager at the Center International and Security Studies, York University, Toronto.

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