Improvisation with Turnaround

The four presidents’ Moscow statement on preparations for creating a single economic space in Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Belarus makes one admit that, at least, the president of Ukraine has received another offer he won’t deny. All he can do is find the least unacceptable option. The lack of any public discussion of the idea, of options, calculations, scenarios, or arguments pro and contra, the haste with which the “statement of the four” was made — all these are indications that, at any rate, the idea wasn’t born in Kyiv. The regional integration mentioned in the document cannot deceive anyone. It is highly problematic to integrate into the West and East simultaneously without causing schizophrenia or even more serious diseases. The fact that the aforementioned economic space is to be created by the end of this year and, correspondingly, start working in 2004, leaves no doubt that Russian business and the Russian capital have nothing against, first, obtaining reward for certain services directly connected with the presidential campaign in Ukraine. And, second, why pay more (i.e. win privatization tenders) if you can just come and take it. The words ‘integration,’ ‘economy,’ ‘Europe,’ or ‘Eurasia’ have little to do with it.

Here we could say that this is where the policy of isolation and isolationism lead. However, from a geopolitical point of view, it is precisely this scenario, given that certain rules of the game are observed, that can completely satisfy both the West, which is frankly afraid of saying something concrete about Ukraine, and the East, or Russia, which can hardly revive its great power without access to Ukrainian, Kazakh, and other resources. However, this will soon bring big problems to all of these big players, but who is going to think about such things now?

The “statement of the four” can also mean an opportunity for a certain delay, or another verification of the fact that the CIS has proceeded from an apparent death to a real one, or even a provocation of a kind. Under the present conditions, when Ukraine was in fact denied an opportunity for joining the process of European integration for the next few years, this provocation could work, though the result might be far from what is expected.

It seems that the Ukrainian parliament, in its current state, was unlikely to achieve such radical change towards the once proclaimed course. What makes the situation so sad is not the fact that such statements can be made, but the very fact of such debates and also the misspent previous years and lost opportunities for dictating conditions to both East and West. Meanwhile, it seems that our diplomats are used to work under improvising and extreme conditions.