Washington or Surgut?

On the day when Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma started his trip to Siberia it became known that his Uzbek counterpart Islam Karimov received an invitation to come to Washington for negotiations with President George W. Bush and other members of his administration. Of course, there is no reason to compare these two visits. However, it is worth mentioning that while the United States is displaying its deep interest in Uzbekistan and is ready to talk with its president without complaints about his democracy, the president of Ukraine follows in the steps of Aliaksandr Lukashenka.

One could argue that this trip is important, correct, economically profitable, and fateful for the Ukrainian diaspora in Siberia; that the Ukrainian president, unlike his Russian counterpart, does not follow the principle that this is not the tsar’s business. Still, none of these explanations can cover up the fiasco of Ukrainian foreign policy in the Kuchma period. Was it worth of insisting upon a multivector policy just to find oneself over a glass of vodka in Urengoi without any hope for a cup of coffee in Washington?

No doubt, Islam Karimov was lucky with the change in the global geopolitical situation. Everybody remembers him now. Everybody needs him. And Ukraine, luckily and not, is so far away from the radical terrorism zone! And what are we to do under such circumstances? Reorient toward Urengoi and Surgut without even understanding that the leaders of the country we are trying to build some mythical “new relationship” with will envy not us but Islam Karimov. They are working doggedly to receive in May the president of the United States in the Kremlin in a decent way, with respect and offers, because if they do not make an agreement with him decently and with good will, they might well disappear from the geopolitical world map, and even a territory equaling dozens of Frances will not rescue them.

We also should work persistently here, a bit west of Surgut.