Turning the pages back...

August 1, 2004

A year ago on August 1, The Ukrainian Weekly reported that Ukraine had changed its defense doctrine, omitting wording that stated that NATO and European Union membership were a central priority of foreign policy. The wording was replaced with a more general statement that alluded to Ukraine's continued Euro-Atlantic integration.

The changes came after Ukraine failed to achieve any perceptible progress in its quest for membership in the two most important European institutions during summits held separately by NATO and the EU in June. The defense doctrine had originally been approved on June 15, 2004, in preparation for the NATO summit.

During its Istanbul summit, NATO refused to consider a Membership Action Plan for Ukraine - the first step in the process toward membership - until the country showed that democratic changes, including notions of the rule of law, free and fair elections, and freedom of the press, had taken root.

As for the EU, it continued to refuse to recognize Ukraine as a free market economy, even though it has already extended such status to Russia. Romano Prodi, the head of the EU's executive body, the European Commission, expressly stated in the spring that Ukraine would never become an EU member.

The announcement in the defense doctrine changes came on July 26 in Yalta, where Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma was hosting Russia's President Vladimir Putin during a Russian-Ukrainian economic summit, with who could be considered the captains of industry of both Russia and Ukraine in attendance.

In Yalta, in response to journalists' queries as to why the information had not been made public earlier, various presidential press service spokespersons stated that the changes within the defense doctrine had been noted on the presidential administration website from the date the presidential decree was signed. It was learned that Ukraine had quietly made changes to its defense doctrine at the beginning of July, after its efforts at closer ties with NATO and the EU were repudiated during summits in Istanbul and Brussels, respectively.

President Putin, generally restrained in his public comments, caused more international waves when he told the economic summit attendees during his presentation that intelligence operatives from Western governments for too long had attempted to derail closer relations between Russia and Ukraine.

"Their agents within our countries and outside are trying to discredit the integration of Russia and Ukraine in various ways," charged President Putin during his address to the economic summit.

Source: "Ukraine no longer lists membership in NATO and EU as foreign policy goal," by Roman Woronowycz, Kyiv Press Bureau, The Ukrainian Weekly, August 1, 2004, Vol. LXXII, No. 31.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, July 31, 2005, No. 31, Vol. LXXIII

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