EDITORIAL: In Moscow's embrace (08/01/04)

EDITORIAL

In Moscow's embrace

There are two main schools of thought on what happened to cause Ukraine to abruptly change its defense doctrine to expunge wording that called for European Union and NATO membership as principal foreign policy goals.

Some pundits in Kyiv explain the unexpected change as a reflexive move by an outraged and frustrated Ukrainian president (prone to fits of temper), who finally lost patience with hollow overtures and tough demands from the West, as it continued to keep Ukraine at arm's length distance while vexing the country with promises of membership in its two most important institutions.

Others in Ukraine say that the move toward Moscow was under way anyhow and that the failure by both NATO and the EU to throw Ukraine a morsel of hope regarding future membership only made more severe what was a strategy preordained far in advance. The plan laid by the political circles of the pro-presidential forces, as these pundits would have it, was for President Leonid Kuchma to provide his chosen candidate for the president, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, a foreign policy direction that would find strong support with the demographic element of Ukraine that would guarantee him an electoral majority. The target: pensioners and residents of the heavily populated eastern and southern regions of the country, specifically the voters who most eagerly await reunion with Moscow as the source of their economic and societal salvation.

In both versions what is strikingly clear is that the EU and NATO both have failed in the carrot-and-stick approach they had decided to pursue in prompting Kyiv to assure democratic elections in the fall.

The sticks they have wagged at Kyiv in the last months were readily discernable. Leaders of both institutions, including NATO's new secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, warned Ukraine that it could be politically ostracized if presidential elections aren't free and fair.

What's not understood is why NATO and the EU failed to offer a juicy carrot as well.

We wonder why the EU could not have finally delivered to Ukraine the free-market economy status it has sought for so long. Russia has enjoyed such status for about a year now, and the two economies are developing similarly, according to most estimates.

As a result, the veil has been lifted earlier than perhaps planned, and it is now obvious that Mr. Yanukovych, who had made every attempt to say the right things and make the right moves to appease the West, is pro-Moscow at heart, a politician from the old Soviet school, not much different from Mr. Kuchma. He looks to be more at home negotiating in Moscow over a shot of vodka than in pursuing delicate talks with the unknown and unforeseen forces of the West. He doesn't like nuance, although he admires foxiness.

If it were otherwise, Mr. Yanukovych would have expressed disagreement with the decision to change the country's defense doctrine prior to an election in which he has a vital stake. One would think he would want to begin his presidency with all options available to him.

Yet, the larger dilemma for Ukraine is not the West's failure to make the proper tactical move in regard to relations with Kyiv, or in Kyiv's failure to understand the West and its motivations. The more important problem is the move Moscow has made to seize the opportunity and to focus Kyiv's political gaze firmly upon its northern neighbor as its only hope and salvation from wrongly perceived international isolation.

From appearances at the Russia-Ukraine economic summit in Yalta on July 26, Mr. Putin has become the dominant figure in Ukraine-Russia relations. A moment captured on the Ukrainian television station ICTV on July 26 strikingly depicted the essence of the relationship, if only symbolically, between two political leaders. It showed a docile-looking President Kuchma quietly sipping coffee at his seat at the summit table while Mr. Putin, sitting next to the Ukrainian president and engaged in conversation with a third party, allowed himself to stretch back and expand his chest as he extended his arm to embrace the back of Mr. Kuchma's chair. The embrace of the chair, like the economic embrace of Ukraine by Moscow, can be interpreted in many ways. It takes on a negative connotation, however, when joined with the curious comment made by Mr. Putin the same day, in which he accused "agents from the West" of trying to derail Ukraine-Russia "integration."

The Cold War-era rhetoric aside, the reference to "integration" is the larger concern for us. Mr. Putin's remark was the normally restrained president's most brazen suggestion that there is some sort of goal in Moscow of Russian-Ukrainian integration. If Mr. Putin was referring to the SES, why no mention of Kazakstan and Belarus? Even if Mr. Putin simply chose his words badly, it is unnerving that a Russian president has no qualms blatantly inserting his political thoughts on matters pertaining exclusively to Ukraine and the West, especially while a visitor in the country.

Most troubling, in the end, is that neither Ukraine's president nor its prime minister has offered his view on a controversial comment by such a prominent foreign leader made in their backyard. Unless, of course, it was all preplanned.

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