INTERVIEW: Nicholas Burns on evolving U.S.-Ukrainian relations
Secretary of State Warren Christopher's March 19-23 trip to Eastern Europe and Russia included one-day meetings with government officials in Ukraine. In Kyiv, Mr. Christopher denounced the Russian Duma's non-binding resolution declaring the dissolution of the Soviet Union illegal.
Mr. Christopher's March 19 visit with Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma centered on Ukraine's relationship with NATO, closure of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant, and progress on Ukraine's new constitution.
Accompanying the secretary of state on his European tour was R. Nicholas Burns, State Department spokesman and deputy assistant secretary for public affairs. Mr. Burns is the former special assistant to President Bill Clinton on Russia and Ukraine (1993-1995).
A career foreign service officer, Mr. Burns served on the National Security Council at the White House during the break-up of the Soviet Union until his appointment to the State Department in January 1995. In the fall of 1993, he led an economic delegation to Kyiv that marked the shift in U.S. policy toward Ukraine. In 1994, Mr. Burns traveled to Kyiv five times to enhance the U.S.-Ukrainian economic relationship.
Below, in a March 26 interview with Assistant Editor Khristina Lew, Mr. Burns offers The Weekly his views on U.S.-Ukrainian relations.
CONCLUSION
Q: The proposed union between Russia and Belarus certainly puts Ukraine in a precarious situation, and Secretary Christopher did say in Prague on March 20 that "no nation in Europe should ever be consigned to a buffer zone between great powers." Has the United States given Ukraine any assurances that it will not find itself in the position of buffer zone?
A: We do want Ukraine to find a place in Europe that is truly independent, because that's what the Ukrainian government clearly wants. I think that's what the Ukrainian people, if you talk to them, clearly want. We don't want to see Ukraine end up in a no man's land between East and West. What we'd like to see is Ukraine tied into the West as well as the East.
Given the history, given the economic relationship, it's not practical to think that somehow Ukraine will totally separate itself economically from Russia or Kazakhstan or Poland. On the other hand, Ukraine doesn't need to be entirely subject to the economic power of Russia. Ukraine can orient itself economically to have much closer ties with the other Central European countries. Ukraine can have those ties with the United States and Canada, where it has a lot of Ukrainian Americans and Ukrainian Canadians who can make a difference in the relationship. I think that's absolutely true. We'd like to see Ukraine develop closer economic relations with all the European countries and with North America. That we think will strengthen it and give it more independence.
Q: There is a marked shift in the United States' stance towards Ukraine, and it's been fairly recent. Certainly in 1991, when Ukraine declared its independence, the United States did not support it to the extent that it does now.
A: I think you're absolutely right. There's been a very dramatic shift. I date it to the fall of 1993. For the first eight or nine months of the Clinton administration, up until September or early October, the administration took the view that because we were not working effectively with Ukraine on the nuclear question, we would not be in a position to have close economic relations. That policy did not succeed. It was not entirely effective.
So, in the fall of '93, in fact in late October, two things happened. One, we sent an economic delegation to Kyiv to try to open a new relationship, and I think we committed ourselves to $155 million at the time economic assistance program, which was much more expansive than anything we had done before. We told them, "We would like to help you with economic reforms (this is the Kravchuk government) regardless of what happens in the nuclear issue," which was a shift. We de-linked those two issues.
About 10 days later, Christopher came to Ukraine. He said, in addition to the new economic relationship that we've already established with you just in the last week or two, I would like to see what we can do to help Ukraine and Russia figure out their nuclear relationship, which led to the trilateral statements of January 12, 1994.
Through '94 the relationship really took off - the first seven months with Kravchuk and then beyond that with Kuchma. We did a lot of things together. We vastly expanded American assistance to Ukraine, helped by the Ukrainian American community and the Congress, the Republicans and Democrats who support Ukraine.
We completed the nuclear deal, which I think has been good for Ukraine. I think it's positive for Ukraine to transfer the nuclear warheads out. It will help Ukraine in the long term.
In '93-'94 our government reached out to some of the younger economic reformers - Roman Shpek, who is now deputy prime minister, Serhiy Osyka, who is now minister of trade. We continue to think that those people, people like that, are the real hope for Ukraine in the future.
I think Kuchma did a great thing by bringing them into the government and giving them so much authority, because they are the ones who have led the way, under his leadership and support, towards economic reform. We were able to hook them up with the IMF and the World Bank in '93 and '94, and that's made a great difference. Ukraine now has an IMF program, which is very important to Ukraine.
I do date it back to the fall of '93. Until then there was an ambivalence in the relationship, I think on both sides, complicated by the nuclear question.
Q: Going back to the Russian Duma. Duma Chairman Gennadiy Seleznyov attacked Mr. Christopher for his statement that the Duma resolution was "highly irresponsible." He said the Duma would consider passing a resolution censuring the secretary. Any comment?
A: I think you know what our comment is. We think the attempt by the Communists, the Agrarian Party in the Duma to resurrect the Soviet Union is doomed to failure, number one. We oppose it very strongly, number two. And number three, these politicians can get down on us all they want. We know what's right for the United States. What's right for the United States is to continue to argue for the independence of the countries that became independent in December 1991. We're not going to flinch from that policy. It's the right policy for us. So this criticism doesn't bother us.
Q: What kind of assistance and support is the United States going to give Ukraine in terms of seeing not only the closure of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant take place, but also help Ukraine secure the sarcophagus, make the area safe and explore alternative means of energy?
A: I think this happens on two levels. First, I think it's a very positive development that the Kuchma government has now agreed with the G-7 that it will try to close Chornobyl by the year 2000. Chornobyl is a huge risk. If there were to be another accident, it would be a catastrophe for the Ukrainian people and for neighbors of Ukraine.
Clearly Ukraine is going to need financial assistance and technical assistance from the West in order to do this. You can't just ask a country to shut down a major source of its power and not get some assistance in replacing it. Certainly not a country in Ukraine's situation.
So the G-7 and Ukraine are committed to trying to develop a financial assistance plan that would extend fairly substantial assistance to Ukraine over the next four or five years, in order to allow Ukraine to shut down Chornobyl in the next four or five years. And that's two things: it's financial assistance, it's also technical assistance. They continue to need assistance in how to improve safety at nuclear power plants. In addition to Chornobyl there are others operating in Ukraine. We're committed to doing that. That's going to be on the agenda in Moscow. That's one of the reasons why President Kuchma is coming to the meeting in Moscow. It will also be on the agenda in all future U.S. meetings with Ukraine. Now that's multilateral. That's all the G-7 countries working together.
Bilaterally, we have provided Ukraine our own independent assistance on nuclear power safety over the last two years. We are also trying to do things to help reach down to the people level. Secretary Christopher said last week that we'd be extending another $10 million in assistance to Ukraine to try to help Ukraine deal with the effects of Chornobyl. I'm talking here about assistance to hospitals and public health authorities.
That's one of the reasons why he visited the Okhmadit hospital. He went and met with the leading doctors in the hospital who are caring for the patients and who are also doing research on some of the cancers being caused by the radiation sickness.
Then he met with some of the patients. In fact he met with a young woman who's 19, who was 9 at the time, who lived in the affected area. She has just had a baby who has some birth defects. The hospital is now trying to do some surgery to correct some of these defects. It was really heart-wrenching to see.
The secretary met a couple of teenagers who are in the hospital who have cancer. He met with some older people who have cancer, which the Ukrainians think was caused by Chornobyl-related diseases. Then he also met with the staff of the hospital - nurses, hospital workers - just wanted to show our concern for people who were affected by this in general.
Sometimes it's just not enough when you're a diplomat, or a leader in this case, to talk about the issues. Sometimes when you're in a foreign country you've got to symbolically reach out and express an interest. That's what Secretary Christopher tried to do in the issue of the damage to Ukraine from Chornobyl.
Q: What is next on the agenda of U.S.-Ukrainian relations?
A: I think that throughout the rest of '96 we've got to implement our economic assistance program effectively. It's a hard challenge to do that in any of these countries, given the working conditions, so I think that's a major priority for us to spend the money effectively.
Number two is to work with the G-7 on this Chornobyl question, of trying to develop a financial plan for Chornobyl.
Number three, and by no means no less important than the first two, would be to continue to watch very closely the situation in Russia, and to continue to speak out strongly and act effectively against any attempt to try to encroach upon Ukraine's sovereignty. I would say that for all the countries [of the former Soviet Union].
Frankly, I think that President Yeltsin won't do that. I think that Yeltsin has had a fairly good relationship with both Kravchuk and Kuchma. I don't think Yeltsin is interested in recreating the Soviet Union, but I think there are a lot of people in the Russian Duma who are. That's why the elections are important in Russia, very important.
We have said pretty aggressively, on the record, that we don't support the anti-reformers. We support the reformers. Now we're not going to come out and endorse Yeltsin. We're not going to endorse any particular political candidate. It would be crazy for us to do that. It would be ineffective. But we made it very clear that we don't support the Communists. I said that, Christopher said that, many times. We don't support the Communist agenda, it's not a positive, productive agenda.
Q: Did Mr. Kuchma or any Ukrainian government officials discuss with Mr. Christopher what's going to happen in June?
A: It certainly comes up in all of our conversations with the Ukrainians, the Kazakhs, the Caucasus countries, the Balts. But I do think, having being in Kyiv just last Tuesday [March 19], the Ukrainian-U.S. relationship is very strong and mutually supportive. I think we've put into place the right policy. I think in retrospect we understand that we might have done things a little differently in the beginning of '93, but I think we did turn it around. For the last - almost three - years now, it's been a good policy.
Q: Do you think the policy that the United States has towards Ukraine threatens Russia in any way?
A: I honestly don't. No, because I think that there are a lot of Russians who understand that these other countries need to be independent - that it's not necessarily a bad thing for Russia. They need not be threatened by it. We want a good relationship with Russia, too. And just as we're trying to build a good relationship with Ukraine, we're trying to do the same thing with Russia. We're not trying to isolate Russia. Russia's too big to be isolated.
Q: What changes have you noticed in Kyiv since the first time you were there?
A: The first time I was in Kyiv was in '87. I've noticed, since '93, changes in almost every visit. But this last time, just last week, I noticed, driving down Khreshchatyk, many more stores, brighter colors, many more small businesses being created. Maybe a sense of greater self-confidence, collectively, just in the last year and a half or so.
Obviously life is tough for a lot of people there, and they're really feeling the pinch from the transition. I do notice some physical changes in the street, and I also noticed some changes in the way the people talk to American officials. I think Ukraine is headed in the right direction, and we just hope that it keeps heading in that direction.
I think that the leadership is important. The fact that Kuchma is president is important. If you talk to [Parliament Chairman Oleksander] Moroz, he's got a fundamentally different view of where that country should go. I think that Kuchma has made a great difference. And the type of people he's attracted around him make a difference. We're impressed by him, Shpek, Osyka, [Viktor] Pynzenyk [deputy prime minister for economic reforms], Borys Tarasiuk, who's now the Ukrainian ambassador in Brussels; Anton Buteyko, who's now the deputy foreign minister, very, very impressive guy. I think [Foreign Minister Hennadiy] Udovenko has handled himself very well. It's an impressive group.
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, April 7, 1996, No. 14, Vol. LXIV
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