Ukraine-Russia: No Unsolvable Problems
On July 2 Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov completed his official visit to Ukraine. Last Monday he met with President Leonid Kuchma and the next day with Foreign Minister Zlenko. However, his negotiations with his Ukrainian counterpart stand out among these events, not only because it was after the meeting between Messrs. Marchuk and Ivanov that military relations between the two countries made headlines in news agency reports. Yevhen Marchuk was recently appointed Ukraine’s Minister for Defense. It would be hard not to notice that new appointments always attract much attention from Russia’s leadership. Moscow politicians for the most part try to be listed among first to meet with any new Ukrainian leader who will influence in a certain sphere the further development of bilateral relations. Military and military- technological relations are definitely among Russia’s priorities, the more so when it concerns a country where the Russian Federation’s Black Sea Navy is based, a country which adjoins Russia and wants to enter NATO.
The formal reason for the Russian minister’s visit was at least two issues: developing Ukrainian-Russian cooperation and signing two documents. One of them is an international agreement on liquidating and returning aircraft equipment from Ukrainian and Russian Defense Ministries’ repair depots, and second — a contract on training personnel for the S-300 anti-aircraft systems, including tactical exercises with combat shooting at the Russian Defense Ministry’s training grounds. These issues were in the limelight during Minister Ivanov’s meeting with President Kuchma, according to the head of the state’s press secretary. In general, it seems that Sergei Ivanov’s meetings with Ukrainian leaders were held in a quite friendly atmosphere, considering that, as Messrs. Marchuk and Ivanov stressed, there are no insoluble problems between Kyiv and Moscow in the sphere of military and military-technological cooperation, in part, the Black Sea Navy deployment on Ukrainian territory.
Speaking about the Black Sea Navy, Mr. Marchuk stated that a joint Ukrainian-Russian intergovernmental commission is working in Sevastopol now, seeking ways to solve certain problems. Among them he named mutual visual identification of ships, frequency resources, and regulating maritime traffic in Sevastopol Bay. In the words of the Ukrainian minister, at present there is in fact no liabilities problem with the Black Sea Navy. “These are working problems, not deadlocks,” Mr. Marchuk observed. He also stated that the issues of the Russian Black Sea Navy deployment on Ukraine’s territory and Ukraine’s integration into Euro-Atlantic structures do not contradict each other. The minister recalled that regulating this deployment is envisioned by a corresponding agreement. “The issue of its denunciation has never been and will never be on agenda,” he said. Recall that many experts, including the most pro-Western ones, believe it inappropriate to raise the question of withdrawing the Black Sea Navy from Ukraine. American politicians, in part, speak more about Russian military bases in Georgia than in Ukraine.
In his turn, Minister Ivanov remarked that “the range for strengthening cooperation is very broad,” particularly, in the sphere of military education, exchanging experience in the transition to all-volunteer armed forces, etc.
Speaking about the negotiations in general, Minister Marchuk said that they were far from simple: “There were complex issues that had been prepared for a long time, and today they were solved. I am sure that in the near future we’ll have a number of impulses, which will help our cooperation to gain momentum.” Minister Ivanov commented on testing the An-70 plane. According to him, testing the Ukrainian-Russian An-70 military transport will resume after all the defects already found are corrected.
At his meetings with the press Minister Ivanov spoke repeatedly about the strategic importance of our states’ relations in the military sphere. “Russia has always considered and still considers Ukraine its strategic partner. We are building our relationship in the military sphere based on this point,” Minister Ivanov claimed even before his visit to Kyiv. There have been no threats of any deterioration so far. Much depends on Russia’s consistency in meeting its obligations, in part, those regarding the Black Sea Navy deployment in the Crimea. Ukraine has long raised the questions of observing ecological standards in the region and using certain premises. Perhaps we will soon know when these issues might be solved.
