COMMENTARY: Vladimir Putin: The return of the Russian imperialist? (11/21/04)

COMMENTARY

Vladimir Putin: The return of the Russian imperialist?

by David Marples

Russian President Vladimir Putin, firmly established in power after the 2004 presidential election in Russia, has earned a reputation for careful diplomacy. He is the man who avoided participation for his country in the war in Iraq, and yet maintained friendly relations with U.S. President George W. Bush. He is the leader who charmed British Prime Minister Tony Blair, despite clearly defined policy differences between the two countries.

However, his actions of the recent weeks have undermined four years of careful diplomacy. He has interfered blatantly in the contentious election campaign in Ukraine, while sanctioning the prolonged dictatorship of Alyaksandr Lukashenka in Belarus.

The Belarus issue can be dealt with briefly. Mr. Putin did not intervene recently when citizens of Belarus went to the polls in a referendum to decide whether the president could seek a third term in office (his current mandate expires in 2006) and amend the current Constitution to do so.

The vote - more than 79 percent in favor - was largely engineered by a government that controlled the media, harassed opponents and forced most voters to take part in an advance poll on October 12, five days before the election. Sausages and beer were provided for voters, while the president's portrait adorned most voting booths.

Alone among the major world powers, Russia recognized the vote as free and fair. Cynics observed that President Putin himself may seek a third term in 2008 and could hardly criticize his Western neighbor for similar sentiments.

In Ukraine, relations between current President Leonid Kuchma and Mr. Putin have been very warm for the past six months. Mr. Kuchma, bereft of international friends and shunned by the European Union, has turned to Russia as a desperate resort. The Russian leader has responded with the unambiguous embrace of a bear for a honey pot.

In an earlier visit to Ukraine, he suggested that the two countries had an identical history and stressed the importance of Kyiv in Russia's heritage. More recently the subtleties have been dropped in favor of an all-out attempt to drag Ukraine into the Russian sphere.

Three weeks ago, during a televised visit of Mr. Kuchma and his presidential nominee, Viktor Yanukovych to Moscow, President Putin openly endorsed Mr. Yanukovych's candidacy. Like President Kuchma he stressed the significance of continuity of good relations, and the stability of the Ukrainian economy under Mr. Yanukovych.

Then Mr. Putin visited Kyiv, this time for the commemoration of the liberation of Ukraine by Soviet troops from German occupation 60 years ago. However, the event was brought forward by a week so that it preceded the October 31 election. Together with President Kuchma, President Putin and Yanukovych (as well as President Lukashenka and Ilkham Aliyev of Azerbaijan) took part in official ceremonies on a grand scale. No observer could miss the inference: that Russia and Ukraine will be in step, as long as Mr. Yanukovych wins the election.

Ukraine, meanwhile, is replete with mass demonstrations - largely of students - in support of contender Viktor Yushchenko, who allegedly wishes to take Ukraine closer to the West, by means of the elusive and thus far unresponsive EU.

Mr. Putin is prepared to open the Russian border to Ukrainians. Thousands of Ukrainian expatriates in Russia have been encouraged to vote for Mr. Yanukovych. The two countries have every possibility of forming a union, just as Russia has done with Belarus.

But why would residents of Ukraine wish to base their future on a commitment to Russia? Why would they pay heed to Mr. Putin today, in contrast to the way they ignored Boris Yeltsin's threats 13 years ago during the dissolution of the Soviet Union?

The results of Mr. Putin's policies - not to mention the callous disregard for democratic procedures by the Ukrainian authorities and Mr. Kuchma - have been to elevate Mr. Yushchenko to the rank of a national hero, one transformed ipso facto into a candidate for democracy and the preservation of independence. One Ukrainian writer has declared that a Yanukovych victory will turn the country into a thuggish dictatorship with the curtailment of hard-won freedom.

There is little real substance to Mr. Yushchenko's campaign. Absent through illness for long periods, he has tried to emulate Mr. Kuchma's early notion of a multi-vectored foreign policy that would hold dialogues with East and West. There is little to indicate how he would persuade the EU to permit Ukraine to join, or how he would end the endemic corruption that pervades political and economic life.

It is of no electoral consequence; more important is that Mr. Yushchenko is not a Russian puppet, nor is he likely to bow before pressure from Moscow, no matter what the issue.

What has President Putin to gain from his intervention in Ukraine? At best, he would gain a reliable partner with important economic and security links to Russia. There would be no danger of a Ukraine in NATO or isolated from Russia through the economic curtain of the EU.

At worst, he has created new enemies among the Ukrainian electorate, and engendered a political divide within Ukraine at a time when it needs to be united. That political divide is between a Ukrainian-speaking West and Russian-speaking East, with the former in the Yushchenko camp and the latter for Mr. Yanukovych.

It is a divide that has been evident in every presidential election in Ukraine since 1991, but it is bridgeable, and there are grounds to believe that the prime minister's native Donetsk aside, the large industrial cities of the east are becoming hesitant about supporting Mr. Yanukovych.

President Putin in the space of 21 days has given credibility to every anti-Russian myth of recent times, particularly the image of rapacious imperialist. There is no reason for him to be in Ukraine immediately prior to an important election campaign. It is a blunder of the highest order and one that was probably reflected in the election results on Sunday.

Dr. David Marples, a professor of history, directs the Stasiuk Program for the Study of Contemporary Ukraine at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta. A version of the article above was originally published in the Edmonton Journal's October 30 edition.

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