Test of Heavyweights
It happened so that an ordinary event, the appointment of an ambassador of one country to another, made headlines not only in those two countries. The thing is that Viktor Chernomyrdin will from now on represent Russia’s interests in Ukraine. Some people in Moscow have already nicknamed him the Governor General of Ukraine.
There is a common point in the numerous comments on this topic, which have already been and without doubt will be given: that Chernomyrdin’s political weight corresponds to the significance new Russian leaders attach to the relations with Ukraine. But the quality of these relations can be understood differently by Russia, Ukraine, and the West. Accordingly, the views of the final goal can and must differ.
Chernomyrdin’s appointment was a successful move of the Kremlin administration at a time when Ukraine’s position seems to be as weak as possible, the more so that this is perhaps the only case in the history of diplomacy when the ambassador can afford to be on a first name basis with the head of the state where he is accredited. On the other hand, this appointment will evidently become the logical culmination of his career, since the epoch which made possible his fantastic rise and a certain trace he left in the post-Soviet history is itself becoming history. Today’s Russia does not have much in common in look with Russia of 1992.
Chernomyrdin’s appointment will obviously become not as much a reason as a catalyst of a possible radical revising by the United States and perhaps the European Union of their policy toward Ukraine, which was in fact ripe even before the series of the Ukrainian scandals began. What kind of policy it will be one can only guess, since there is no other man in the arsenal of any Western country who knows Ukraine as well as Chernomyrdin does.
Of course, we can mention the speech of US Republican Senator Richard Lugar, one of the authors of the Nunn-Lugar program for dismantling Ukraine’s nuclear potential, in which he called on the European Union to “provide Kyiv with light at the end of the tunnel.” The point is that a clear signal is necessary on the perspective for Ukraine to join the EU in the future, which could, in the senator’s opinion, be of great significance for further successful reforms. A certain perplexity among EU member states can be also mentioned. Some of them do not want complete isolation for Ukraine, others do not want to put the possibility of Ukrainian integration up for discussion even theoretically.
It is obvious that through Chernomyrdin Russia will have deep influence on Ukrainian affairs. Equally obvious is that due to many factors which caused this appointment and also to its own unwillingness to develop in conformity with the demands of the times, Ukraine is turning from an active subject of international relations into a passive object — in other words, a battlefield for a diplomatic skirmish for influence and perhaps in some sense a buffer with essentially restricted abilities. But this is only one possible scenario, the more so that in such course of events there cannot be any winners.
A chance still remains to prove that Kyiv has a word of its own and has something to prove it, despite who might be the Russian or American ambassador to Ukraine. And the ability to find an adequate response will mean the ability of the government elite to get through quality testing.
As regards appointing the heavyweight Chernomyrdin — in any case, it is clear that the future will be interesting.
