EDITORIAL: Ukraine moves toward NATO (06/09/02)

EDITORIAL

Ukraine moves toward NATO

It was never inconceivable that Ukraine would eventually move into NATO. Ukraine's armed forces have trained regularly with NATO troops in the Partnership for Peace program for years. The two have a distinctive partnership formalized in a NATO-Ukraine special charter signed in Lisbon in 1997. Furthermore, President Leonid Kuchma and his administration have talked about moving closer to Europe for more than two years now.

Right about the time of the last presidential elections in 1999, Kyiv had rejected the unworkable foreign policy of "multi-vectorism" that had put equal accents on maintaining relations with both Russia and the West. And while the new policy focus was to be on integration into Europe, practical steps in that direction were few. The problem always was Moscow - whether Kyiv admitted it or not. Even as Kyiv talked more often of a serious need for European integration, ties with Moscow began growing faster and closer. Everyone understood: Moscow was not going to let Kyiv get any closer to Brussels than it was already. Then, last autumn the world suddenly changed.

When Vladimir Putin seized the initiative on September 11, 2001, and made the historic phone call to the White House to offer Russian support, which eventually led to the special relationship he now enjoys with U.S. President George W. Bush, it changed how the countries that loom in Russia's geopolitical shadow could behave.

Ukraine has now taken the initiative and begun to do what was not thought realistic only months before. On May 23, Yevhen Marchuk, secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, declared that the country would take all the necessary steps to obtain NATO membership. Not surprisingly, the announcement came only after Mr. Kuchma had met in Sochi with Mr. Putin, and where, not coincidentally, the subject was Russia-NATO relations.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Anatolii Zlenko, an architect of Ukraine's latest foreign policy, which has been dubbed "To Europe with Russia," received strong support for Ukraine's decision at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, where he met with NATO Secretary General George Robertson, and in Paris with French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin. Britain and the U.S. also have expressed support for the decision through their diplomats in Kyiv.

Without question, we support Ukraine's declaration and a move towards and eventually into NATO. There is no reason not to. Ukraine will be able to continue to modernize its armed forces and to adopt NATO military standards. The action will bring Ukraine more security, and Ukraine will be forced to continue down the road to democracy. We just wish Kyiv would stop looking back at Moscow for approval every time it makes a strategic move - what Taras Kuzio of the Center for Russian and East European Studies, University of Toronto, called continued "Little Russianism" (June 4 RFE/RL Report).

Likewise, Ukraine must begin to ascertain what its strategic place and role will be in a Europe that may no longer need it as a buffer zone, or go-between if you prefer, with Russia. Writing in the Ukrainian magazine Politics and Culture, Prof. Bohdan Osadchuk of Berlin University, who was present at the signing of the new NATO-Russian partnership, noted that Polish journalists responded to his question on Kyiv's role in the new arrangement by stating that such questions will only irritate the Russians, while an unnamed Western diplomat told him flatly: "We no longer need Ukraine."

We hope that Kyiv begins to understand that while Moscow is a lurking giant that Ukraine will always have to watch with a wary eye, Russia is on its way to a semblance of normal relations with the West, and now is the time for Ukraine to carve out its future spot within Europe - without Moscow's guidance. The first step should be an uncompromising move to complete economic and democratic reforms. For, while NATO is about common military strategies and standards, it is also about common democratic principles and human rights standards.

Much will be discussed and decided at the next Ukraine-NATO commission meeting scheduled for Prague in November. Ukraine must show a strong desire to follow up its declaration with actions, which begins by giving a clear impression that Kyiv is developing democratic practices, a civil society, a free press and the rule of law - in other words, that it is becoming a European state.

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