A Cold Wind Again Blows from Moscow

The Ukrainian statistics released last week some contain data that cannot please anyone: trade with Russia in the first half of this year has decreased by 20% from the same period of last year. And this is despite the fact that both countries' presidents have come to terms on the necessity to remove all the obstacles like the VAT and other taxes and have ordered their governments to take corresponding measures to do so. Moreover, until the very recently they declared their willingness to further develop their relationship in the direction of strategic partnership, and for a full year have discussed working out a large scale program of bilateral economic cooperation.

Most people paid no attention to the fact that the unofficial meeting of Presidents Kuchma and Yeltsin on Ukrainian territory was postponed. Now it is to be quite a formal one involving wider circle of people and is to take place in Kharkiv instead of Crimea, not this summer but in September.

Ukrainian representatives more often reproach the Russian government for its dragging out the program of economic cooperation, unwillingness to delimit borders, and to buy sugar.

One can agree that Russia has more important problems to deal with. The financial crisis which has become almost a reality now will apparently strike Ukraine also, and its consequences will be palpable for Europe as a whole. There is an outflow of oligarchs and political forces from Yeltsin's headquarters. In a word, the situation is vague.

However, even under such conditions something could be done in order for presidential statements not to look like empty declarations if both countries really need a strategic partnership – at least for awhile. In any case, the Kremlin has had numerous opportunities to make the Duma ratify the Ukrainian-Russian Treaty, but it obviously does not want to. Perhaps the climate of the relations can be better characterized with the fact that this year Kuchma more often met Poland's Kwasniewski than Russia's Yeltsin.

There are attempts in Moscow to make use of the situation whereby Ukraine has neither cut the umbilical cord connecting it with Russia nor has gotten closer to the Europe it so desires.

It is first of all psychologically difficult to cut this cord. However, to continue living under such excessive dependence on the Russian market and Russian fuel can hardly be pleasing to any Ukrainian political force.

In fact, the country today has nothing with which to fend off Russia should there be yet another attempt to exert diplomatic, natural gas, or other kind of pressure. This is nothing but a result of the "successful" policy that has been conducted during last few years overwhelmed by personal interests. Moreover, the MFA has not always been admitted to it.

It seems that only now is Kyiv making its first attempts alter the course of its Russian policy into a normal foreign policy. And this already irritates Moscow. However, it is unlikely for Ukraine to achieve any success without it.