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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

Who is Breaking Up With Whom?

3 November, 1998 - 00:00


One of Russia's most influential newspapers stressed the other day
that Ukraine is breaking up with Russia. A statement like that would have
been relevant five years ago when Russia was painfully becoming aware of
Ukraine as no longer part of the great empire, when the first signs of
what would become an independent Ukrainian policy were seen, and when they
finally got around to Black Sea Fleet negotiations and signing an international
agreement, although the process seemed endless.

In fact, Russia has long broken up with Ukraine, as evidenced by its
relationships with the US, NATO, and European Union, as well as by its
efforts to retain the superpower status on the one hand and its own ways
of solving its problems (e.g., firing on Parliament in the fall of 1993
and enforcing "constitutional order" in Chechnya). On the other hand, Russia
no longer supplies oil and gas to Ukraine on "friendly" terms and buys
no Ukrainian sugar for the same reason, while letting Ukraine carry the
water if a joint Russian-Ukrainian space mission fails. If this is not
a split, what is it? Russia's largest trade partner is not the CIS, which
Moscow tries to preserve with such jealous care, but the European Union.
A fact worth considering, isn't it?

Ukraine did her breakup bit a while later, when official Kyiv started
talking about strategic partnership not only with Russia, but also with
the United States and Poland, when a charter was signed with NATO as a
hint to all who cared to know that Ukraine could eventually apply for membership,
and when complete integration into European structures was proclaimed Ukraine's
strategic goal. Incidentally, this stand caused no criticism even from
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, famous for his CIS integration ideas.

Breaking up with Russia, especially now that Ukraine is experiencing
similar problems, although in a lower key, and is at least going through
the motions of taking purposeful steps to overcome its crisis, looks only
natural. Neither this author, nor any of his fellow countrymen would want
Moscow to drag us down with it, just as no one in Ukraine would want to
sever all contacts with Russia.

From the outset, very much in our own way, Ukraine has been losing the
Russian market literally by the day over the years of independence, unable
to fill in the gaps thus formed in Europe, America, or Asia. Talk about
integration with any partners may well remain empty phraseology without
securing trade contacts, joint projects, and, of course, mutual benefit.
Integration into a union with Russia looks realistic no longer, but who
is there to forbid Ukraine to try to win the Russian sugar market? As for
Ukrainian leaders saying that Russia remains Ukraine's major strategic
partner, we will see what they actually mean several years from now, particularly
when the term of the Russian Navy's lease of Sevastopol's infrastructure
expires.

 

 

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