From rhetoric to competition
One of the culmination points of the Year of Russia in Ukraine in terms of politics was Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov’s visit to Kyiv and the first ever joint meeting of the boards of Foreign Ministries of Russia and Ukraine on May 19. The joint board, according to official information, discussed primarily the issues of strategic partnership. “Now our task is to work out this principle in detail, fill it with concrete content, and put it down in a document to that effect,” spokesman of Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Aleksandr Yakovenko stated in Moscow on the eve of the visit.
In Kyiv it was Minister of Foreign Affairs Anatoly Zlenko who placed the accents during the celebration of the first Europe Day in Ukraine: “I think we have no alternative to EU membership in Ukraine’s future. However, we have no other choice but strengthen our friendly relations with Russia... Do we have to follow Russia’s steps or stand aside? I think we should try to do things together.”
Thus, Kyiv, in keeping with its old methods, wants to get into Europe, on the one hand, through America (trying to blend into the general context of the post-Iraq tendencies and getting its relations with Washington back to normal), and, on the other, through Russia, at least, on the level of official declarations.
The fact that Russia noted “Moscow and Kyiv’s growing strivings for interaction in the very important military and military-political sphere” (quotation from the statement of Russia’s Foreign Ministry’s spokesman according to Interfax) makes one wonder in what way and through what prism this idea is viewed by Moscow. Incidentally, today few think about the strategically dangerous potential of the Black Sea Navy problem that soon will have to be solved considering the new circumstances and different declared strategies.
Today Russia admits that it wants from Ukraine primarily some harmonization of their approaches on issues of strategic stability and safety, fighting terrorism, cooperation with European organizations, and above all with the EU. The need to coordinate actions in entering the World Trade Organization and coordinating positions within the CIS framework is especially stressed.
The Ukrainian parliament has already had to make much effort to prove to Moscow that “consolidating efforts” (in Soviet Slavic jargon consolidation usually means getting together to do whatever Stalin or any one of his successors decree everyone ought to get together and do, not strengthening, rounding out, or making something more viable as is usually the case in English — Ed.) and providing access to confidential information on negotiations about entering the WTO (the Stalinist terminology so often used in both countries make them perilously easy to confuse — Ed. ) are different things. Russia’s Prime Minister Kasyanov, in part (and in the finest traditions of Soviet history — Ed.), insisted precisely on such a treatment of “consolidation,” which would require immediately familiarizing Moscow with everything the Ukrainian delegation achieved or failed to achieve. In international practice this appears strange if not outrageous.
Until recently, there were strategic differences regarding the “joint economic space” of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine. While Moscow insisted that the space should really be a common one, including the prospects for common currency, and Kazakhstan’s vice premier spoke on the need to shape it as a supranational institution, Kyiv first said that it will be just a free trade zone and then ceased comment. In any case, this topic was also a priority at the board’s meeting. It seems that it is still impossible to find out today as well as two, five, or ten years ago why we cannot simply introduce free trade within the CIS in which everybody says they are interested in and not creating some supranational institutions.
Among the inevitable issues was discussion of the prospects for the so-called gas transport consortium. Ukrainian diplomacy did not completely approve the fact that at first a trilateral meeting could not be held (the third side and potential investor is Germany and the Ruhrgas Consortium), and then the Germans were informed about it only the day before. The question of whether Moscow was interested in the European’s equal presence in this game is not out of order. It is known that this subject was recently discussed in the Crimea by Presidents Kuchma and Putin, as well as the one of this amorphous “joint space.” The results of their talks remain unknown to the wider public.
The strategic relations have already been displayed also in the treaty On State Borders, whose Clause 5 reads that the Azov Sea and Kerch Gulf are defined as internal waters of the two states — such a formula could not have been suggested by Kyiv. True, Ukraine kept saying that still the borderline was to be delimited. Another sign of the strategic path of the relationship is that after the de facto completion of delimiting the land border Kyiv avoided any speculation on what was going to happen after. According to world practice, this should have been followed by demarcating the borders by marking them off precisely.
It is difficult to hide the undisguised mutual pressure and trade wars behind the strategic rhetoric. Today the situation looks like this: several groups are trying to implement their own strategic partnership from both Ukrainian and Russian sides. Meanwhile, neither Kyiv nor Moscow is able to demonstrate an integral, open, and understandable policy.
