KYIV – While attention in Ukraine has remained focused on coping with the coronavirus pandemic and meeting the conditions to secure further financial support from the International Monetary Fund and others, there have also been some notable developments in the foreign policy sphere.
The occasion of the first anniversary of Volodymyr Zelenskyy assuming office as president has also encouraged both the president and the press to reflect on his performance in the area of external relations – and especially those concerning Russia. The president has provided his own thoughts on what has been achieved and where things stand.
In recent weeks, Ukraine has assumed the revolving chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Forum for Security Cooperation, and has been preparing for both the EU Eastern Partnership summit in June and a new meeting in the context of the Normandy Four format involving the leaders of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine.
Kyiv’s main attention has been focused on securing critically needed financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Union (EU) and other donors and creditors. While it awaits confirmation of the amount of support from the IMF, the European Commission announced last month that it will provide 1.2 billion euros to counter the coronavirus.
“This is an unprecedented amount of macro-financial assistance. The EU’s decision is not only a manifestation of solidarity in difficult times. This is a testimony that Ukraine made no mistake in making the European choice. After all, a friend in need is a friend indeed,” President Zelenskyy emphasized. He elaborated that the EU funds will also help guarantee Ukraine’s macroeconomic stability.
On May 20, the Ukrainian president convened a press conference to discuss his first year in office. It turned out that the journalists were more interested in his performance on the domestic front than in the foreign policy sphere. The obvious exception, as could be expected, was the impasse with Russia, the ongoing war with it in the Donbas and the Minsk and Normandy Four processes, Russia’s occupation of Crimea and the critical question of President Zelenskyy’s personal interaction with President Vladimir Putin.
Mr. Zelenskyy was asked if he regretted his optimism a year ago when, having promised to end the war with Russia, he had said that all that was necessary to start the peace process was to stop shooting. He explained that he had not meant that the Ukrainian army should stop firing, but that both sides should agree to a ceasefire. The new president had wanted the Ukrainian forces to set an example by not shooting first and be seen to be “provoking,” but this did not mean that they renounced the right to defend themselves and their positions when attacked.
Unfortunately, the president continued, the Russian-backed forces had not accepted his conciliatory initiative and the war has continued. In his view, those fighting on behalf of Russia in the Donbas are nervous about their ultimate fate and have continued to stoke the fires of conflict with their shelling and sniper fire. But, when pressed, President Zelenskyy also made it clear that there should be no doubt about who is responsible for the continuation of the war, that Moscow bears responsibility for it and that its proxies in the breakaway quasi republics are under its control.
Presidential Office of Ukraine
The outdoor press conference held on May 20 by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the occasion of his first year in office.
The situation in Mr. Zelenskyy’s view has been exacerbated by the deepening of the humanitarian crisis in the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics” (DNR and LNR) as a result of the growing impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Russia, itself stretched in coping with this crisis, has not provided the enclaves with the basic means to deal with it, and the situation there is both serious and a threat to areas controlled by Kyiv to the west. Ukraine has offered humanitarian assistance for the population, but occupied Donetsk and Luhansk have refused it. Nevertheless, some basic aid is getting in from Ukraine via the Red Cross.
Mr. Zelenskyy was asked if there was any point in continuing to rely on the existing negotiating mechanisms, the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) consisting of the OSCE, Ukraine and Russia, which meets in Minsk, but recently has been conducting its talks by video contact, and the Normandy Four Format involving the leaders of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine.
The Ukrainian president acknowledged their shortcomings but said that for the foreseeable future Kyiv would “fight to the end” to preserve and energize these structures. Breaking with them would undermine the entire edifice on which the sanctions regime applied against Moscow was based. Although Mr. Zelenskyy reiterated that Ukraine has a Plan B, and even a Plan C, to fall back on, it prefers to revamp these interconnected mechanisms and is willing to give them a chance for a further year or so.
For this purpose, the president elaborated, Kyiv has recently upgraded its representation in the TCG and hopes that Moscow will do likewise. The present Ukrainian administration remains determined not to deal directly with the representatives of the DNR and LNR and thereby bestow recognition on them. Formally, at the negotiations in Minsk, they remain the “guests” of the Russian delegation. And the fact that some of them are now known to have received Russian passports makes it even more difficult for Kyiv to accept their presence.
Mr. Zelenskyy confirmed that former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma remains as the head of the Ukrainian delegation in the TCG, but that he has already recommended that his colleague Oleksii Reznikov, a lawyer, deputy prime minister and currently minister for reintegration of the temporarily occupied territories, take over from him. Both Mr. Kuchma and Mr. Zelenskyy regard him as a first-rate professional.
As for the Normandy Four talks, Mr. Zelenskyy said that the last summit of the four leaders in Paris last December had been a significant step forward. True, it had neither assured a ceasefire nor a continued disengagement of armed forces along the “Control Line,” as the frontline is referred to, but it had led to the release and return of a further 135 Ukrainian prisoners being held by the enemy side. It had also revamped the negotiations within the TCG in Minsk.
At present, Mr. Zelenskyy said, all the parties were preoccupied with the coronavirus pandemic, but once the situation improves, he said he hopes that another Normany Four summit would soon be held and produce further results.
Asked about bilateral contacts with Moscow, Mr. Zelenskyy acknowledged that they are important and should be kept open to the extent that it is politically feasible. He stressed several times that the situation remains “complicated” and that it is better to have direct contacts with Mr. Putin, if the situation allows, than not. In support of this, he cited the example of their direct cooperation in making the most recent exchange of prisoners possible.
Mr. Zelenskyy admitted that Crimea remains a particularly difficult issue, noting that it falls outside the purview of the TCG and Normandy Four processes. For the moment, even though at home he had just taken steps to bring greater recognition to the plight of the Crimean Tatars, it apparently remains on the back burner.
Surprisingly, neither Mr. Zelenskyy nor the press went deeper into issues connected with foreign policy, such as relations with the European Union, NATO or the United States. The only issue the president emphasized was the importance of receiving further financial support at this critical stage from the International Monetary Fund and others, and hence the need to have met their conditions, most notably through the recent adoption of the so-called “anti-Kolomoisky” banking law.
Journalists did not press Mr. Zelenskyy on some of the more contentious issues related to foreign policy and his own behavior. He got off relatively lightly in dealing with implicit questions about why his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, lacking in diplomatic experience, has been given responsibility not only for dealing with Moscow, but foreign policy generally, at the cost of effectively sidelining the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The president described Mr. Yermak as a trusted friend and a lawyer with a background in international law. He neglected to mention that the head of his Presidential Office had in fact specialized in law dealing with film production and sales.
The other matter on which the president sounded far from convincing was the reason for his discreet trip to Oman at the beginning of January that, when exposed in the media, he had described as a private one. On this occasion too he continued to be evasive, presenting it as a family holiday during which he also wanted to privately conduct business on behalf of Ukraine with Oman’s leaders.
Generally, observers have been in agreement that during his first year in office Mr. Zelenskyy has not deviated from Ukraine’s pro-Euro-Atlantic integration strategy, nor given way to Russia. But, as Hanna Shelest, director of security studies at the Foreign Policy Council Ukrainian Prism notes, “Throughout this period, there has been little attempt to implement a more global foreign policy or develop individual regional strategies.”
Writing recently for the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert, she summarizes what we have seen as follows: “President Zelenskyy has publicly confirmed his commitment to Ukraine’s European choice, but he is still finding his feet as an international statesman and has yet to lay out a coherent foreign policy that goes beyond the basics of the Euro-Atlantic pivot begun in 2014.”