Quo Vadis, Ukraine?

The Kyiv visit of NATO’s new Secretary General and CIS summit ideally juxtapose the choice Ukraine has consistently refused to make, to become European or Eurasian, to consciously make itself more European or drift ever more deeply into the post-Soviet environment. No amount of verbiage about the multidirectional nature of Ukrainian foreign policy can possibly postpone this choice forever. And make no mistake about it, the force of gravity is drawing Ukraine slowly but surely into the Eurasian orbit. It can be redirected toward Europe only by the force of its own political will. The Commonwealth of Independent States may well be ineffectual, but real politics in this part of the world does not take place only on the official level. Ukraine has evolved an economic system practically identical with the Russian one, dependent on the latter for energy resources, and this means Russian energy concerns will gradually be picking up bigger and bigger chunks of the Ukrainian economy in payment. This in turn means the forces running Russia will have more and more influence on how Ukraine is run. Such integration may be taking place out of the public eye in the shadows, a process having very little to do with the documents signed by the moribund club of those now officially running most of post-Soviet states, but it already seems fairly advanced.

Consider also the political style that has evolved. While the fall of the Leftist leadership of Verkhovna Rada can only be welcomed, one detail gives pause, how the majority chose Deputy Speaker Havrysh. People’s Deputy and oligarch Oleksandr Volkov simply said it would be Havrysh, and it was. This is not exactly the West’s style of decision-making, but it is very much in keeping with the way things are done in Russia.

NATO officials may praise Ukraine’s role in the Balkans and Poland talk about doing everything it can to keep its border with Ukraine open, but the trends clearly point the other way. Ukraine is not going to be integrated into European institutions until it evolves its own ones, compatible with what it wants to integrate with. So far it has failed to and shows no sign of so doing. As the new Ukrainian government’s reform program unfolds, the cardinal test will be whether or not those reforms pull Ukraine out of Russia’s orbit and into Europe. If not, I fear for this country.