Senator Richard LUGAR: Ukraine must take its place in Europe

Senator Lugar, you have been dealing with Ukraine during the whole decade of its independent history. How do you evaluate these ten years?

Ukraine has excellent relationships with all of its neighbors, and that is a major achievement. Clearly, Ukraine is enjoying its independence, which we now celebrate. Ukraine has its independence to the point of being an active participant of Partnership for Peace and a substantial contributor to stability in Europe through its provision of peacekeepers. Ukraine is acting as it should as a major country in terms of its geographical size and a great and talented population.

Not rarely the opinion can be heard that after implementing the program for eliminating nuclear weapons on Ukraine’s territory, for which you had been one of the authors, the US satisfied its interests, while Ukraine did not gain anything. What can you say about this?

Let me offer some historical background for collective threat reduction program. When I first visited Ukraine in April 1992, we found a young American diplomat and five other employees of a consulate here in Kyiv. At that time American foreign policy shared the importance of independence for Ukraine, but technically we were not very well prepared for this. When we returned to the United States, we visited with President George Bush and Secretary of State James Baker and emphasized the importance of establishing of an embassy in Ukraine. They recognized that need, but stressed that they need strong congressional support. When I returned in November of 1992, we found out that an office was rented for Ambassador Popadiuk’s residence. Before that we visited with President Boris Yeltsin in Moscow. He spoke in a very strong tone about his alarm over nuclear weapons and necessity for Ukraine to cooperate with Russia on this issue. In Ukraine we had dinner with President Kravchuk, during which I mentioned to him that our government was prepared to give $150,000,000 of support to Ukraine in return for getting rid of nuclear weapons in Ukraine. President Kravchuk immediately invited me and Senator Nunn to the door of the room were we had our meal, summoned Ukraine’s press corps and announced to them that Senator Lugar had just offered Ukraine $175,000,000 to rid the country of nuclear weapons. I hurried back to Washington to visit with President Bush and asked him to confirm this sum, which he did. I mention that because this was the beginning of serious consideration of Ukraine as a threat reduction program participant, which still continues although it is now nearing completion. In various forms well over a billion dollars has been spent, but fact is that it offered a very important avenue for the US and Ukraine to work through extremely difficult technical and security problems within the course of the past ten years. And that remains important now because our secretaries of state, representatives of the Department of Defense, and Administration have many contacts with people in Ukraine, with military as well as civilian counterparts, and the degree of trust and the evaluation of competence that has come from those contacts was growing continuously over this decade. I think it is true to say that this has brought a really high degree of confidence in Ukraine as to the constancy of American friendship and the importance we placed in the Ukraine’s security and Indepen dence. I remember the first of my conversations with a Ukrainian military about the need to provide housing for Ukraine’s troops who were displaced by the rejection of nuclear weapons. The next symbolic event I participated in was sawing the tail off a blackjack bomber as an indicator that blackjack bombers were going to be destroyed. This led to further conversations with Ukrainian officials about other projects of the program of threat reduction. Currently Ukraine is proceeding with important military reform. This is a difficult process, in which the United States was helpful and wants to be continually helpful to work with Ukraine at the size of force appropriate under current conditions. Representatives of the US government are sharing with the officials in Ukraine our concern about missile defense, our concerns about the strategic poster of our own forces. There is a constant flow of important information between our countries.

Speaking about anti-missile defense, there are certain cautions towards this program in Ukraine and also certain dissatisfaction with the fact that the United States did not recognize Ukraine as a party to negotiations about the future fate of the 1972 treaty.

The US government takes the position that an essential threat to our country may come from the so-called rocket states that attempt to intimidate or blackmail the United States with their missiles. We are to test various means of stopping that threat. President Bush expressed to President Putin that we would like Russian understanding of our legitimate defense needs and appropriate modification of the international treaty. But in any event there are conversations about how Russia and the United States and our NATO allies and other friends might benefit from the tests, from the experimentation, which we conduct in antimissile defense. I was invited by our Defense Minister Rumsfeld to lunch with a Russian delegation that came to Washington in the aftermath of the President Bush- President Putin meeting. And I was impressed with the fact that the Russian delegation seemed to understand the importance we placed upon proper testing and experimentation in missile defense. They wanted us to take seriously their thoughts about the reduction of nuclear weapons. The Russians want to framework as to how that strategic downsizing might occur as to which missiles and when we might destroy and what the Russians are to destroy among warhead missiles. Largely they are interested because maintenance of these missiles is very expensive, but they are already planning downsize their strategic missiles. Secretary Rumsfeld has indicated that the defense planning which the Defense Department is being engaged in plans to be completed at the end of September, and then the US will be in a better position to discuss strategic weapons issue at that point. I found that most of the European leaders simply are disturbed with the fact that there might be a dispute between the United States and Russia, and they do not want to see that. By and large, they appraise that the United States and Russia in some form are prepared to reduce their strategic weapons.

So, do or do not the US plan to use Ukraine in these negotiations as a legal successor of the 1972 Anti-Missile Treaty?

I don’t know whether Ukraine will be engaged in that process. I suspect that clearly the United States’ leaders will inform the leaders of Ukraine about our plans the same as we are informing Russians. Continuous sharing over the last ten years of defense planning should inspire us to continue such talks.

President Bush Sr. asked a historical question in Kyiv: why does Ukraine want independence? In Bush the Younger’s presidential term many have an impression that the Ukrainian-American relationship due to the scandals in Ukraine have been frozen to a minimal temperature. There were numerous assumptions that the US had not yet worked out its policy towards Ukraine. There also is the fact that Presidents Bush and Kuchma have not met yet. What do you say?

First of all, President Bush asked me to come to Ukraine to represent him. He knows I am enthusiastic about Ukraine and have been so for the last ten years. He also wanted me to express his enthusiasm as president of the United States. I think it will be true to say that we look forward to being of assistance for Ukraine in a whole host of ways and simply looking for opportunities to do it appropriately. Our country has been concerned by the investigation of two journalists who lost their lives in this country. We take freedom of the press very seriously, and we think that Ukraine does, too. We are hopeful that serious investigation may be accelerated with some important outcomes in the future. We would congratulate Ukraine again and again for the formation of free and fair elections, the peaceful passage of power, which is a very difficult thing for a newly independent country to do. We simply are hopeful that in the context of the March elections in Ukraine it is important to guarantee not only that the voting is free and fair, but the campaign must be open and the society be respected. We are genuinely pleased to see the high rating of economic growth in the latter part of year 2000 and its acceleration in 2001. We look forward to the commercial code to be completed and judicial reform and contract law. Then investment not only from America but from other countries will accelerate the growth of the standard of living in Ukraine.

Can we interpret your words like development of the Ukrainian- American relations will depend primarily on the results of investigations of the murdered journalists’ cases, on how honest and open the elections will be, and what particular laws will be ratified?

We are going to have excellent relations with Ukraine. Not only the American government but tens of thousands of Ukrainian-Americans are enthusiastic about the continuing success of this country. My point is that a great deal more constructive American assistance is going to occur if it is apparent that not just the March elections but all elections in Ukraine are conducted in a free and fair way. Businesspeople throughout the world will not take the risk in this country without there being a proper framework of law that guarantees for the rights of the shareholders, the equity holders, etc. So many Americans are enthusiastic about Ukraine but they are impatient and frustrated that events in this country did not move as fast as enthusiasts would like to see. We tell ourselves that a miracle cannot happen in ten years, but at the same time we wish that it could; we would like to accelerate the process.

Could you describe in a few words your view of the strategic partnership between the United States and Ukraine?

A strong sense of mutual security. The recognition of the importance of independence for both of our countries in this dangerous world.

In what way is Ukraine’s independence important for the United States?

We believe that Ukraine’s independence is a certain guarantee that Ukraine will take its rightful place as a part of Europe. The US has been involved in Europe through NATO for the last fifty years, which have been years of peace. As an independent country, Ukraine has the option of being a bilateral partner in Partnership for Peace program. And in due course it will bring it the option of being a member of NATO, and a rendition to being independently a member of European Union. We think that the destiny of Ukraine is that of a large independent state that has the resources to retain independence and to offer its leadership in Europe. All such options were not available to Ukraine as a part of the Soviet Union. We believe the last ten years the development of democratic institutions, human rights, and the beginnings of a strong market economic system leading to the higher rates of living standards in this country — these are all indicators the independence we celebrate was the best course for Ukraine and for the world.