ANALYSIS: Ukraine's "Little Russian" foreign policy proclaims "To Europe with Russia!" (06/23/02)

ANALYSIS

Ukraine's "Little Russian" foreign policy proclaims "To Europe with Russia!"

by Taras Kuzio
RFE/RL Newsline

Since President Leonid Kuchma's re-election in November 1999, the election of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the removal of Borys Tarasyuk as Ukraine's foreign affairs minister in 2000, oligarchic groups in eastern Ukraine have unofficially replaced Ukraine's 1993 foreign policy concept with a now one: "To Europe With Russia!"

Andrii Derkach, son of the disgraced former chairman of the Security Service of Ukraine and a leading member of the Dnipropetrovsk-based Labor Ukraine oligarchs, headed the inter-factionary group called "To Europe with Russia" in the last parliament. In the winter of 1998-1999, the last obstacle to what Kuchma craved in 1994 - "normalization" of relations with Russia - became possible after the Russian Parliament's ratification of the 1997 treaty with Ukraine.

"To Europe with Russia" goes together with the pessimistic view that "Nobody is waiting for us in the West," a slogan that President Kuchma first aired in his 1994 election campaign. That slogan is self-serving, as Mr. Kuchma and his oligarchic allies are unwilling to undertake the necessary steps to join the West. Obviously, it is easier to blame the West for not "inviting us" than it is to find fault with Ukraine's own domestic policies.

Ukraine's never clearly defined "multi-vector" foreign policy was confusing enough. The addition of the idea of "To Europe with Russia" indicated that not only was Ukrainian foreign policy merely a tool to react to short-term changes (i.e., "multi-vectorism") but worse still, Ukraine was meant to operate only under Russia's wing in the same manner as when it was a "younger brother" in the Soviet era. To this is added a lack of self-confidence and national pride when President Kuchma says, "Ukraine cannot make any progress without Russia."

"To Europe with Russia" deepened the Russophile view among many Western Europeans that Ukrainians, Belarusians, and Russians should be treated as one group, something that Kyiv had long complained about. As the newspaper Ukraina Moloda lamented, "After similar statements, Ukraine is not treated very seriously in the world."

Although "To Europe with Russia" has come under attack recently from Mr. Tarasyuk, now a member of Viktor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine, and even from former President Leonid Kravchuk of the oligarchic Social Democratic Party Ukraine (United), it has remained the cornerstone of Mr. Kuchma's "Little Russian" foreign policy, as evidenced by the March decree to commemorate in two years' time the anniversary of the 1654 Treaty of Pereislav that placed Ukraine under Russian rule. President Kuchma and Foreign Affairs Minister Anatoliy Zlenko, along with Volodymyr Lytvyn, chief of the presidential administration and the United Ukraine faction and Volodymyr Horbulin, chairman of the State Committee for the Military-Industrial Complex, constantly repeat "To Europe with Russia" in different variations.

As a high-ranking member of the presidential National Institute for Strategic Studies think-tank recently complained, President Kuchma and his entourage do not see themselves as leaders of an independent sovereign state. For historical reasons, Mr. Kuchma's "Little Russianism" is more pro-statehood than its counterpart in Belarus; nevertheless, Ukraine's leaders cannot envisage Ukraine outside the Russian sphere of influence, and Moscow will always remain far more important to them than Brussels and Washington.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, unlike his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, does not question Ukraine's independence. He was the first Russian leader to attend Ukraine's annual independence celebrations (on its 10th anniversary last year). The more "pragmatic" Mr. Putin approaches Ukraine differently than Belarus, as he understands that Ukraine will not follow the Belarusian path of negating sovereignty.

At the same time, Mr. Kuchma's "Little Russianism" is also not in favor of full independence outside Russia's orbit. Such a commonwealth, or even confederation, closely resembles the Union of Sovereign States option favored by Russian leaders when the Soviet Union had de facto ceased to exist after August 1991. One of the first decisions by the new pro-Kuchma government in May 2001 was to require visas and foreign passports from citizens of all CIS states as of January 1, 2002 - that is, except for Russia and Belarus, whose citizens can still use domestic passports.

"Little Russianism," like "multi-vectorism," is a reflection of an amorphous and confused national identity, and hence of an inability to choose between East and West. Indeed, Mr. Kuchma has changed Ukraine's foreign policy goals this year on a month-by-month basis.

In February President Kuchma ordered officials to prepare Ukraine to join the World Trade Organization next year, and become an associate member of the European Union in 2004 and a full member by 2011. Prime Minister Anatolii Kinakh told NATO headquarters that Ukraine will continue its integration into Europe.

In March at the Odesa summit of Moldova, Ukraine and Russia, Mr. Kuchma said Ukraine would become an observer in the Eurasian Economic Community (EEC) as a step toward full membership in that body. He consistently referred to the EEC not by that name but as the defunct CIS Customs Union.

In April, Foreign Affairs Minister Zlenko and State Secretary for European Integration Oleksander Chalii ruled out anything to do with the EEC as this would contradict Ukraine's long-declared goal of joining the EU. As Mr. Zlenko correctly said, "No country can be in several customs unions or in several unions. It can chose only one union."

Finally, in May, only two days prior to an unofficial meeting with European Union President Romano Prodi, President Kuchma followed Minister Zlenko's advice and chose only one union - but it was the EEC, and not the EU. To sweeten this move, Mr. Chalii used diplomatic language to argue that this step does not contradict Ukraine's future membership in the EU. He is wrong, as evidenced by the fact that Mr. Kuchma told Mr. Putin that "more drastic steps in that direction are somewhere in sight." President Putin is luring Ukraine toward full membership in the EEC through the prospect of taxes on Russian exports being paid within Russia, which will allegedly bring $400 million to $450 million in revenues to Ukraine and result in an additional 1.5 percent growth in the GDP.

To make matters even more confusing, Ukraine also decided in May to seek NATO membership after Russia had made the first move. Yevhen Marchuk, the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, claimed this was evidence of the "end of Ukraine's multi-vector foreign policy." How he reached such a conclusion is impossible to understand with Kyiv going west to NATO and east to the EEC.

Ukraine's decision to join the EEC brings it back within the Russian sphere of influence, as Russia controls 40 percent of the community's vote, which means that "Russia has a clear advantage over the other members," according to the Moscow-based Vremia Novostei. The daily also commented that this is why countries prefer to look to the EU where, as in NATO, all members have equal voting status regardless of their size or GDP. Eurasian and European integration obviously are based on different precepts.

In December last year President Kuchma complained that the West still perceived Ukraine "as the Soviet Union, or a part of it," which, he said, was wrong because Ukraine is now an independent state. But "To Europe with Russia" and Mr. Kuchma's steps this month have reinforced the view of many in the West and Russia that Ukraine is a "Little Russian" part of Eurasia - not a part of Europe.

Dr. Taras Kuzio is a resident fellow at the Center for Russian and East European Studies, University of Toronto.

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