Putin visits Kyiv to conclude "Year of Russia in Ukraine" (02/01/04)

Putin visits Kyiv to conclude "Year of Russia in Ukraine"

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - With Russian President Vladimir Putin in attendance at a jubilee concert dedicated to Ukraine-Russia relations, Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma hailed the current warmth of bilateral relations and called for still closer ties, particularly in the economic sphere.

The Ukrainian state leader also touched on controversy when he noted that the Pereiaslav Treaty signed between the two countries 350 years ago - the subject of much academic deliberation and political conflict since then - was the only option at the disposal of the leader of the Ukrainian Hetman State at that time.

"Today we view many historical events differently than our forebears did," stated Mr. Kuchma. "However, I want to stress that 350 years ago the documents signed in Pereiaslav were the only possibility available to prevent the inevitable defeat of Ukraine [in a war against Poland]."

Mr. Putin, who spoke after his Ukrainian counterpart, did not waver from the Russian historical line that Russia, as Ukraine's big brother, did what was asked of it as the protector of the Ukrainian Hetman State.

"If any other decision had been made, today we would not have such a powerful European country as Ukraine," said Mr. Putin.

The Russian president added that he was "proud" of Ukraine's recent achievements as an independent country.

The comments by the two state leaders came as Mr. Putin spent two largely ceremonial days in Kyiv on January 23-24 to commemorate the end of the "Year of Russia in Ukraine" and the 350th anniversary of the Pereiaslav Treaty.

Presidents Putin and Kuchma co-hosted the jubilee concert at the Ukraina Palace of Culture, formally intended to mark the end of the Year of Russia in Ukraine, a series of cultural exchange and development events celebrating the Russia-Ukraine friendship, which had been preceded by a similar yearlong series of events in Russia in 2002 held under the banner of the "Year of Ukraine in Russia."

Originally the concert was also to have put a spotlight on the 350th anniversary since Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky in 1654 signed a treaty of military alliance with Tsar Aleksei of Muscovy. For centuries afterwards Russian leaders used the treaty to legitimize their control over Ukrainian lands. The Pereiaslav anniversary was moved off center stage and downplayed here after Ukrainian national democratic political leaders criticized the commemoration by a Ukrainian president of an event that began a process of centuries of imperial domination of Ukrainian lands by Moscow.

The two state leaders, who have developed a close personal relationship since President Putin took office when his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, resigned at the end of 1999, highlighted the several ways that relations between the two countries have grown closer in recent years.

"I think the main achievement of this past year is the full and mutual understanding of our closeness and our differences," explained Mr. Kuchma at the beginning of the concert.

The Ukrainian president said he was pleased that trade turnover in the last year had risen by 30 percent to $12 billion after dropping for several years. He said that still closer economic cooperation was needed and that the Single Economic Space and its hallmark as envisioned by Mr. Kuchma - a free trade zone among Russia, Ukraine, Kazakstan, Belarus and perhaps other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States - would further spur economic growth and development.

He said the last year had seen a wide range of challenges addressed and resolved by Kyiv and Moscow, in which he included the development of the free trade zone and the Single Economic Space, as well as regulation of state borders in the Azov Sea and the Kerch Strait.

President Kuchma even managed to put a positive spin on the events surrounding the Ukrainian island of Tuzla in the Kerch Strait, which Russia attempted to encroach upon with its attempt last autumn to connect the island to its mainland by means of a dike.

"Last year, the name Tuzla Island, previously known to few people, became a part of everyday life," Mr. Kuchma said. "Today we can state that the leaders of both countries were able to handle this complicated problem and solve it in a civilized manner, as befits good neighbors. Finally, after a decade of fruitless talks, we managed to compromise on the issue of the legal status and the usage of the Azov Sea and the Kerch Strait."

In a little noted agreement signed between the two presidents on December 24, 2003, Ukraine and Russia agreed - while negotiations continued on a final resolution of border issues - to keep the Azov Sea as an undelimited body of water held in common and agreed to joint use of the Kerch Strait, which in effect gave Russia the right to control sea lanes that are currently considered part of Ukrainian territory. Another round of diplomatic talks aimed at agreeing on a sea border was scheduled for January 29-30 in Moscow.

On the second day of his visit the Russian president visited the historic Pecherska Lavra (Monastery of the Caves), long considered the center of Slavic Orthodoxy and controlled today by the Kyiv Metropolitan See of the Russian Orthodox Church. The ROC has refused to relinquish control over what is considered the holiest religious site of Ukrainian Orthodoxy.

The two presidents attended a specially called Holy Synod of the ROC in Kyiv, which goes by the name Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Moscow Patriarchate here and is headed by Metropolitan Volodymyr Sabodan. Interfax-Ukraine reported that during the meeting Mr. Kuchma expressed support for a single Orthodox Church in Ukraine.

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