COMMENTARY: Regarding "Brzezinski's Plan" for Ukraine, or who threatens democracy and stability? (06/03/01)

COMMENTARY

Regarding "Brzezinski's Plan" for Ukraine, or who threatens democracy and stability?

by Olexiy Haran

The present crisis in Ukraine has provided additional opportunity for Russian President Vladimir Putin to gain control over Ukrainian politics. And he is not going to miss it.

On May 15, two very characteristically titled articles appeared on the well-known Russian website strana.ru, which is controlled by Gleb Pavlovski, Mr. Putin's ideologist and image-maker. The first, "Money of American taxpayers is used for giving Ukrainian fascists publicity," was without a signature and resembled the form of a memorandum. The second was an interview with a Ukrainian political scientist, Mykhailo Pohrebinsky, was titled "Führers of the Ukrainian opposition play super-active on U.S. money." [The titles are cited as they appear in the English version of strana.ru.]

It doesn't appear to be a secret to Ukrainian political beau monde that Mr. Pohrebinsky is collaborating with the influential Ukrainian clan that is attacking reformist Viktor Yuschenko and the "nationalists." These articles reveal the goal of Russian policy towards Ukraine, a goal that is shared by certain circles in Ukraine, which are ready to lean towards Russia and to use Russian support in the domestic political struggle.

The fundamental arguments of both articles are the same. They coincide with the already published article "Brzezinki's Plan," which appeared on the stranu.ru website on March 15 and which alleged that there is a plan to destabilize Ukrainian-Russian relations. The principal idea of the first analytical article is that as a result of the work of Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski and "Brzezinskiites," American dollars are supporting nationalists (Yuschenko), fascists, anti-Semites (radical Ukrainian National Assembly) and the corrupted (Tymoshenko). It is further alledged that the organizers of the "Ukraine without Kuchma" movement "listened to 10 hours of taped presidential telephone conversations and arranged pieces containing abuse Kuchma heaped on the journalist [Heorhii Gongadze]. Thereupon they killed the poor man and put the blame on Kuchma."

The interview with my colleague Mr. Pohrebinsky, to whom I relate with sincere sympathy, left me particularly astonished. I have known Mykhailo since the elections of 1989. I had no doubts that this was a person with liberal and democratic worldviews. Of course, we could disagree. In particular, Mykhailo was one of the ideologists and organizers of the SLOn bloc during the course of the 1998 elections, which aimed to create "a third force" between the left and the "nationalists." SLOn used slogans to "defend" the Russian language and culture and support an alliance with Russia but did not overcome the 4 percent barrier.

Mr. Pohrebinsky knows well the history of the democratic movement in Ukraine - all the more reason his line of arguments aroused astonishment, since they clearly do not correspond to the facts. Nevertheless, they are addressed toward the Russian reader, who poorly knows the situation in Ukraine.

Mr. Pohrebinsky works out in detail some points about the "clandestine activity" of Brzezinski, Freedom House, etc.

And so, there is thesis No. 1: "It is well-known that the nationalist organizations, which are having a new lease of life in Ukraine, exist solely thanks to Western financial aid. Among them are the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, People's Rukh of Ukraine, Reforms and Order."

Yes, of course, Rukh is not experiencing the best of times right now. But it is well-known that this broad opposition movement in 1990 numbered almost 600,000 members. What does this have to do with American money? Moreover, the financial and political means of the Ukrainian diaspora and its political structures are highly restricted, and in no way comparable, to say, the Jewish or Polish diaspora. The radical nationalists have only two seats out of 450 in the Ukrainian Parliament. Just to compare: moderate national-democrats (including Rukh) have a stable electorate of 15 to 20 percent and together with Yulia Tymoshenko's Batkivschyna faction, which supported Prime Minister Yuschenko, about 75 seats.

Thesis No. 2 concerns Western grants which are "above all, of American origin, and most of them land in organizations with Ukrainian nationalist leanings, and nearly none of them go to organizations which are neutral in that respect."

This also does not jibe with the facts. During the course of several years, Pohrebinsky's Center published good surveys of the situation in Ukraine. As mentioned in these surveys, this was done with German money. It is well-known that Western money permits the fulfillment of independent research in Ukraine, while doing this with Ukrainian money is, for now, practically impossible. Everyone who is familiar with the activity of these funds knows what a large part of Western means go to non-political projects, ecology, social assistance, the reduction of potential societal conflict, including interethnic tension, and the support of science, culture and the arts.

Furthermore, a large part of American non-governmental aid (from the Carnegie Corp., Ford Foundation, Macarthur Foundation, etc.) goes to Russia, and not to Ukraine. For instance, the European University in St. Petersburg, Pro et Contra (an excellent journal published in Moscow) and many other projects are completely financed by the West. These are projects Ukraine can only dream about.

In this article, I have intentionally left out of the picture the negative tendencies in the activity of the "third sector" (there are enough "grantsuckers" in Ukraine, as well as in Russia and Eastern Europe), and discord among the Ukrainian opposition, as well as the irritation in U.S. politics regarding relations with Russia, about which much has already been written.

The key point is the fact that a purposeful - and I would even say aggressive - campaign in Russian and oligarch-controlled Ukrainian media is gaining ground in discrediting the Ukrainian democratic opposition, Mr. Yuschenko and Western politics. This is hardly conducive to creating an authentic and long-lasting stabilization of Russian-Ukrainian relations.

However, it appears that this does not bother the initiators of the campaign, neither those in Russia, nor in Ukraine.

As a result of the present crisis and insistent President Putin's policy, Kyiv may again become Moscow's vassal. It is time for the West to understand this unpleasant truth, and to react wisely and decisively.

Olexiy Haran is director of the Center for National Security Studies at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. He is currently based in Washington as a Kennan Institute Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

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