[lg policy] Salient Issues in Ukraine-Russia Relations and Yanukovych ’s Moscow Visit

[Harold Schiffman]

Salient Issues in Ukraine-Russia Relations and Yanukovych’s Moscow Visit

Vladimir Socor

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s visit to Moscow on March 5
(see “Yanukovych in Moscow: More Than Balancing the Brussels Visit,”
EDM, March 10) focused almost entirely on bilateral relations,
practically overlooking or avoiding international issues. The
following issues were discussed in public:

• Governance model: Yanukovych praised Moscow’s handling of the
financial-economic crisis as a worthy example for Ukraine to follow.
Political stability has helped Russia to cope better than Ukraine did
with the crisis, he observed. “My task is now to catch up with Russia,
bring our living standards, pensions and social assistance up to
Russian levels,” the gaffe-prone Yanukovych pledged. Sarcastically he
offered to send some Ukrainian “demagogues” (politikany,
politikanstvo) to Russia, so that the Russian people could even better
appreciate the stability they enjoy. When Yanukovych said at one point
that he must await the formation of a new coalition, Medvedev
retorted: “I do not need to form a coalition to resolve any problems”
(BBC Monitoring, March 9).

According to the Levada Center’s latest surveys of Russian public
opinion, only 8 percent believe that Ukraine is more democratic than
Russia. Conversely, between 50 percent to 65 percent believe that
Russia is more democratic than Ukraine and feel compassion for the
country because it must live with uncertainty about election results
(Vedomosti, March 9). Such findings spell the end of Western
assumptions, and Moscow’s fears, that the Orange Revolution might have
provided a democratic example to Russia.

• Language Policy: Responding to the Russian media’s leading
questions, Yanukovych assured Moscow that he would keep his
presidential campaign promise to implement the European Charter on
Regional and Minority Languages. This will result in conferring
official status to the Russian language (apparently on a par with
Ukrainian) in many of Ukraine’s regions, particularly in the Party of
Regions’ strongholds.

Following his return from Moscow, Yanukovych made an appearance at the
shrine to Ukrainian national poet Taras Shevchenko, assuring
Ukrainians that their language would alone retain the status of the
state language on a country-wide basis, while Russian would receive
official status in certain regions (Interfax, March 9). This will,
however, not allay concerns about linguistic de-Ukrainization and
re-Russification in Ukraine’s east and south, resulting from this
measure. As a sop, Medvedev and Yanukovych have decided to hold a
joint Taras Shevchenko Year in Ukraine and Russia.

• Russia-Ukraine Interstate Commission: created and co-chaired by
Putin and Yushchenko while presidents, the commission has remained
inactive. Some of the sub-commissions have met periodically, however,
notably the one tasked to delimit the maritime border and discuss
contentious issues related to the Russian Black Sea Fleet based on
Ukraine’s territory. Both sides now intend to hold a full meeting of
the Interstate Commission during the first half of this year in Kyiv,
in connection with Medvedev’s planned visit there. Ahead of that
event, the new Ukrainian government (if and when it is installed) will
prepare an action plan for the commission’s consideration.

• Black Sea Fleet: Medvedev and Yanukovych agreed that bilateral
consultations should continue as before, based on the 1997 agreements
on the temporary stationing of the Black Sea Fleet on Ukrainian
territory. Characterizing this as a very difficult and complicated
problem, Yanukovych implied that it can ultimately be settled by the
two presidents among themselves. At the news conference, he promised
to help resolve the issue “in a way that would satisfy both Ukraine
and Russia,” and even “very soon.” The first part of the answer merely
echoes Yanukovych’s campaign rhetoric, when he suggested prolonging
the basing agreement beyond the 2017 deadline. The “very soon,”
however, is a disconcerting addendum, possibly presaging a quick deal
to Ukraine’s detriment.

• NATO: Russian leaders had apparently hoped for an explicit
Yanukovych statement that Ukraine will not seek NATO membership
(Rossiyskaya Gazeta, March 9). At the press conference, a planted
question attempted to goad Yanukovych into endorsing an anti-NATO
referendum, signatures for which are currently being collected in
Ukraine. Instead, Yanukovych merely declared that “Ukraine will
develop its relations with NATO as a non-bloc state and in accordance
with its national interests” (Interfax, March 5).

• Soviet Legacy Preservation: Medvedev and Yanukovych agreed to
celebrate the Soviet “great patriotic war” together in Moscow on May
8, and to “synchronize” the celebrations on May 9 with Belarus
President Alyaksandr Lukashenka on a tripartite basis. This
configuration was the only hint at a post-Soviet “Eastern Slavic
solidarity” during Yanukovych’s visit.

Yanukovych promised to revoke, before the May celebrations, the Hero
of Ukraine titles that Yushchenko had awarded to Stepan Bandera and
Roman Shukevych, the leaders of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA)
during the 1940’s. One of the most tactless decisions of the
Yushchenko presidency, the award has become an irritant in
Ukrainian-Polish relations, given that the UPA had mainly targeted the
Polish civilian population and Armija Krajowa units in 1941-44 (and
Bandera was an anti-Polish fighter prior to the war). From 1944
onward, however, the UPA resisted against the Soviet authorities, an
activity that Russian authorities today continue to regard as
criminal, in Ukraine or anywhere.

• Natural Gas: Yanukovych announced on the visit’s eve that he would
urgently raise the issues of Russian gas supplies and transit
(Russia-24 TV, March 4), meaning price cuts for Russian gas supplies,
in return for sharing control of Ukraine’s transit system with Gazprom
in a consortium. The current price is said to be $305 per one thousand
cubic meters, with Yanukovych seeking a reduction to $210 (Kommersant,
March 5). Key industrialists behind Yanukovych and his Party of
Regions need discounted gas to maintain their competitive position
internationally. The party itself would promise cheap gas to the
populace, if snap parliamentary elections are held in Ukraine this
year, as seems distinctly possible. Gazprom control of Ukraine’s
transit system would be the price for cheap gas.

Ironically, Yanukovych accused the outgoing Prime Minister Yulia
Tymoshenko of “destroying the contractual basis” of the
Russian-Ukrainian gas trade. However, it was Putin who signed the
contract with Tymoshenko in January 2009, and Moscow declares itself
satisfied with its commercial terms to this day. According to Russian
Energy Minister, Sergei Shmatko, after the talks, the gas price and
gas transport consortium have not been discussed with Yanukovych.
Moscow will discuss this issue after the formation of a new Ukrainian
government, and as part of preparations for Medvedev’s planned visit
to Kyiv in the first half of the year (RIA Novosti, March 6).

• Steel: Yanukovych solicited lower tariff barriers and higher
quantitative quotas for Russian imports of Ukrainian steel products
(Interfax, March 7). This remains a contentious issue in bilateral
relations at the state level from the mid-1990’s to date. Former
president Leonid Kuchma and his governments (including Yanukovych’s)
perennially raised this grievance with their Russian counterparts.
Leading Ukrainian steel producers expanded into European markets in
recent years, reducing their interests in ties with Russia. The
economic crisis, however, has increased again the importance of the
Russian market to the Donetsk steel industry. It seeks not only to
return there but also to bid for contracts to supply steel pipes for
Russia’s Nord Stream and South Stream pipeline projects.

• Customs Union: Russian leaders had expected Yanukovych to consent,
at least in principle, to join the Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan Customs
Union and, in a follow-up stage, the Single Economic Space planned by
those countries (Rossiyskaya Gazeta, March 9). Yanukovych demurred
twice, citing Ukraine’s membership in the World Trade Organization
(WTO) as its overriding choice. This must have irritated the Russian
leaders. When Yanukovych spoke afterward of a “complete turnaround in
Ukrainian-Russian relations,” Putin retorted curtly: “Then join the
Customs Union” (Interfax, March 5, 7).

That remark displays Moscow’s approach to the Customs Union as a
Russian-owned project, participation in it being a function of each
country’s bilateral relations with Russia. The relevant paragraph in
the joint concluding declaration, however, reads: “Respecting the
freedom of choice, mechanisms and forms of the countries’
participation in economic integration processes, Russia and Ukraine
will strive to ensure that this participation does not harm the
interests of their bilateral cooperation.” Thus, Moscow desists, at
least for now, from asking Ukraine to choose between the WTO and the
Russian-led Customs Union.

• Agriculture: A cryptic remark by Yanukovych in Moscow seemed to
allude to a Russian-Ukrainian grain cartel. This idea has tentatively
been broached earlier, but was not developed. Yanukovych said in
Moscow that Ukraine, always a great breadbasket, “must use the huge
potential of our agricultural sector” together with Russia. He
suggested that “joint actions in the grain market” be included in the
action plan, which is to be prepared for the meeting of the
Russia-Ukraine Inter-governmental Commission in the first half of this
year (Interfax, March 5).

http://georgiandaily.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17620&Itemid=132

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