Not Every Russian Premier Will Fly Half Way Across the Dnipro...

The comments of Ukrainian officials on a new visit by a high Russian dignitary, this time the Prime Minister, were highly unemotional. Nobody doubts Mr. Primakov did not reach Kyiv for health reasons indeed. But at the same time Russia is again facing a new wave of domestic political problems which, in the opinion of many, have already played a certain role. And when yesterday's power-wielding oligarchs, like Boris Berezovsky and banker Smolensky, are now being sought by Interpol, this could in fact thwart a visit. Moreover, Mr. Primakov's mission to Belgrade and Europe had failed shortly before (which everybody except he admits), air strikes on Yugoslavia continue, which in fact demonstrate Russia's loss of superpower status. Resounding victories are the only thing Moscow needs against this backdrop. But this could be problematic. The more so that on the eve of the proposed visit the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared that the reactions by Kyiv and Moscow to the Yugoslav bombings and their proposals to settle the Balkan situation differed fundamentally.

As late as the evening of April 6, Mr. Primakov's visit to Kyiv was still in the pipeline. Also in the works was the Kyiv summit on Transnistrian problems slated for Friday and to be attended by not only Mr. Primakov and Leonid Kuchma but also by president Petru Lucinski of Moldova and Transnistrian leader Igor Smirnov. Kyiv expected a breakthrough, for the latest low-profile efforts of Ukrainian diplomacy on this front have begun to bear fruit.

However, the request to put off the visit is not unprecedented. For example, last year Ukraine also announced non-participation in the Central European summit in Salzburg a few hours before it began, and this was not considered something terribly out of the ordinary.

There are many still-unresolved Ukrainian-Russian problems: gas debts, unblocking of hard-currency accounts at the Foreign Economic Bank Russia inherited from Soviet times, long-promised allocation to Kyiv of its share of real estate from former Soviet property in 36 countries, and joint projects. It is unlikely that something might suddenly change just now.

Ukraine's foreign policy circles suspect it not mere circumstance that Russia has asked to prepare Mr. Primakov's visit precisely at the time of the planned Washington summits of NATO and NATO-Ukraine. It was the same story, when the visit to Kyiv of then Russian Premier Victor Chernomyrdin was timed to coincide with celebrations of the Marshal Plan jubilee. But Kyiv, in the words of a top diplomat, is and will calmly go about its business.