Personal Contact
For our observers, the meeting of Ukrainian and Russian presidents is always an important topic. The Russians will comment and forget: well, someone new has come to see Vladimir Putin. The next day, for instance, Alyaksandr Lukashenka is arriving, and there will be again brotherly embraces, talk of integration. And what will they decide? Nothing. That is not what they meet for.
Now the question, “And what have they decided at the Russian- Ukrainian summit?” is no longer insulting. We also understand that despite all the interviews with presidents and reports by official information agencies, the Sochi meeting has not, as yet, settled such important (to us) issues as energy debts to Russia or the nature of Russia’s participation in privatization of Ukrainian pipelines. These matters were discussed, but a mechanism for implementing such decisions could not possibly be worked out during this private meeting in Sochi. Now the initiative goes to the experts who can see that the presidents were too optimistic in their arrangements, as has been the case more than once before.
What did they actually meet for? I have written in the past that the nature of the Russian-Ukrainian dialogue has seriously changed since Boris Yeltsin’s retirement. This is because the private relations between the presidents was a big part of their dialog. Leonid Kuchma has no such contact with Vladimir Putin, but now it is gradually being established.
Only this is not true. At the meeting with Leonid Kuchma, Boris Yeltsin could agree to some decision or another obviously not good for Moscow — as viewed by the government, for example. However, Yeltsin’s order meant that the apparatus would long and cautiously sabotage the president’s decision, and Kyiv would have some time for maneuver. Vladimir Putin lacks the capability to impose his will on the apparatus. An authoritative president, celebrating his birthday in the environs of St. Petersburg, while his Premier and all the officials attend the presentation of his predecessor’s memoirs. I propose the following situation for comparison: Ukraine’s premier and presidential administration leaders attend the presentation of memoirs by former President Leonid Kravchuk on the day when Kuchma celebrates his birthday in Truskavets. Does this seem right? You might think that Kravchuk would not, in the first place, fix his presentation on that day. And this is precisely what I am talking about.
Thus, the apparatus will ignore, rather than sabotage Putin’s decision, although he will never learn about this himself. Such trifles can hardly be of interest to him, for he thinks strategically. And this means that the diplomacy of private contacts at this phase of Russian-Ukrainian relations loses any sense. One will have to negotiate not on friendly terms, but based on the findings of expert groups, government delegations, authorized commissions, etc. I understand that this is boring. But what can you do?
