“Governments may change, but the course may not”

The trouble of Europe is that it cannot understand Putin’s “gangster-style” mentality and does not have the faintest idea of what to counter him with. This is a strong belief of Andrius Kubilius, a Lithuanian politician, the former prime minister of Lithuania. The Day met the politician to discuss the way the Kremlin influences the EU, the way the current situation looks from the outside, as well as the challenges of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.

Andrius Kubilius, 58, is very well known to The Day’s readers. In an interview six months ago, this politician described the critical situation in Ukraine with a colorful expression that spread over almost all the Ukrainian media – “red alert.” Whenever Kubilius makes this kind of statements, he knows what he is speaking about, for he is an experienced statesman – he twice held the office of Lithuania’s prime minister, and both if his terms fell on the times of crisis: 1999-2000 and 2008-12. Now Kubilius is leader of the opposition and member of the budget and European affairs committees at the Lithuanian Seimas (parliament).

Kubilius fully supports Dalia Grybauskaite’s caustic comments on the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, compares Putin to Russian-speaking Vilnius hoodlums, and is actively building a “defense front” against Putin in Central and Eastern Europe.

In an interview with our newspaper six months ago, you described the situation in Ukraine as “red alert.” Has anything changed?

“The situation is still critical. Yet there are some positive signals. The government has managed to put out some of the ‘red bulbs.’ I mean, above all, subsidization of the energy sector. You have managed to create market conditions for the entire energy system, which immediately reduced the budget’s fiscal deficit and removed one of the factors of ‘big-time’ corruption. Of course, skeptics will say: this ‘bulb’ has gone out, but others have lighted, which means destabilization of the social situation. People have to pay more for the public utilities, and this is dangerously heating up the ‘atmosphere’ against the backdrop of general impoverishment of the populace. The government has, naturally, come up with a system of compensation, but, like in Lithuania in the 1990s, this did not ease social tension.

“Therefore, in this ‘season,’ stability of societal moods will be one of the greatest challenges for Ukraine which can easily destabilize the political situation. And your enemies can easily take advantage of this situation.”

And what about the mood of donors and creditors? How are the Ukrainian “successes” being rated on the international arena? We failed to pay off debts by September 25. It is in fact a “red bulb,” a technical default. What is the reaction to this?

“It will say nothing new if I note that your situation is always the talk of the town. Unfortunately, I don’t know the latest information, so it is difficult for me to comment on the ‘technical default,’ but it is a very good signal that your minister of finance managed to successfully negotiate the restructuring of some debts.

“The Western world should have a more effective plan of actions for Ukraine – first of all, about rendering financial aid. The logic of actions is unclear from a geopolitical and strategic viewpoint when Greece is ‘presented’ with 300 billion and then another 80 billion euros, while Ukraine receives two billion at best…

“The West should interpret assistance to Ukraine not only as salvation of Ukraine itself, but also as the only instrument for helping Russia. Ukraine’s success is the most effective factor of influence on Russia’s evolution. For present-day Russia is dangerous to the entire Europe. Of course, the EU is aware of this. But when it comes to the crunch, logic vanishes from the behavior of European leaders. One can still hear it said in the EU (in an open and a veiled form): ‘We do not want to help Ukraine openly because this can provoke Russia.’”

“PUTIN HAS OPENED IN SYRIA A SECOND FRONT OF THE HYBRID WAR AGAINST THE WESTERN WORLD”

Describing your first meeting with Putin in an interview with the Austrian newspaper Die Presse, you said he is a man with the mentality of “a 1990s Lithuanian hoodlum” (“I call it bandit-style mentality: back in 2010, when I was the prime minister, I informally chatted with Putin for an hour, and, as a result, I gained an impression that I had known this man for a long time. He reminded me of a young hoodlum from a Vilnius suburb populated by the Russian-speaking people. If a person like this can see that you want to negotiate, he primitively interprets this as your weakness and deals you a blow” – the article “Andrius Kubilius: Putin Reminded Me of Thugs,” Die Presse, May 14, 2015). Do you think there are leaders in today’s world, who can effectively oppose this?

“We have been taking a positive view of Angela Merkel’s activities lately. We can see now, of course, that her leadership is being tested by the Syrian refugee crisis. Putin has found levers to influence European leaders. He has opened in Syria a second front of the hybrid war against the Western world. His current ‘adventures’ in Syria are above all aimed at aggravating and protracting the refugee crisis in the EU. And this second hybrid front, as we call it in Lithuania, is aimed, first of all, at Germany and Angela Merkel personally.

“I do not advocate the theory of global conspiracies, but it sometimes has a grain of the truth.

“I hope Merkel will ride out the crisis, remain the EU leader and, particularly, continue to take the side of Ukraine. But I still can’t see a clear strategy of behavior towards Russia in the Western capitals. I mean not so much the Ukrainian question as Russia itself. For the previous strategies failed. The policy of appeasing the aggressor has produced no results. On the contrary, Putin feels he is omnipotent. Ukraine, Europe, and the whole world are on the receiving end.

“Maybe, Putin’s actions in Syria will sober up the West. In his latest article, the well-known US politician and journalist Paul Goble offers an interesting way out. He tries hard to persuade readers that the Western world, including the US, should get back to the times of George Frost Kennan [a US diplomat, political scientist, and historian, mostly known as ideological father of the Cold War-time ‘policy of containment,’ the author of books on the relations between Russia and Western countries; the grand-nephew of George Kennan who was linked to Russian revolutionaries of the 1890s. – Ed.], the ‘long telegram,’ and the policy of containing Russia. In simple terms, the West should do today what the Americans did after World War Two to contain the Soviet empire. This strategy is needed today.

“After this, the Western world would be much more aware of the necessity to help Ukraine. They would clearly understand why they need it.”

And what do you think the latest Paris summit showed? What conclusions have you personally drawn from the latest stage of the Minsk agreements?

“If I were the Ukrainian president and government, I would be speaking far more clearly about the next steps as part of the Minsk agreements from the viewpoint of Ukraine.

“Far from all in the West know the clauses of the Minsk agreements. It is clear that ‘Minsk’ is about how to halt the war and avoid further bloodshed. This seems to have been achieved… Then Putin or somebody else from his ‘court’ comes out and says: the next stage is elections. And the West thinks: well, OK… But the fact that the next stage should be Ukraine’s regained control over the Ukraine-Russia border and liberation of Donetsk and Luhansk from all kinds of bandit formations, recedes to the background. I would advise the Ukrainian leadership to speak loudly and distinctly about this stage right now. Let us see what Putin will say to this.

“What next? Ukraine must speak clearly about this, so that we in Lithuania could say the same words. For we can only hear now: ‘The Minsk agreements work and elections are the next stage.’”

“EUROPE CANNOT UNDERSTAND PUTIN’S ‘GANGSTER-STYLE’ MENTALITY AND DOES NOT KNOW WHAT TO COUNTER HIM WITH”

Still, who can oppose Putin now? Who are Ukraine’s allies today?

“We are your partners. But, obviously, we need to better coordinate our efforts and form sort of a ‘front’ of Central Europe. Your allies are we, the Poles, Visegrad [the Visegrad Four. – Ed.]. Of course, it is sometimes difficult to understand… But we can also cooperate with the Scandinavians.

“We should establish a ‘frontline’ consisting of the informal networks of Ukraine’s political friends – both right and left. We in Lithuania have already launched this process and set up a network of centrist parties. But we must make a more strenuous effort together with Ukraine. This is supposed to be an effective instrument to make Ukraine’s voice louder all over the world. Thanks to this, international forums and debates should give a more distinct picture of the Minsk agreements – not in terms of the way Putin, France, or Germany interpret them but in terms of what is written there and what is the logic in Ukraine in them – for example, that elections must not be held when the territory is occupied and Ukraine does not control the border.

“Unfortunately, I can’t say today that Scandinavian countries are as eager to help Ukraine as they were to help us in the 1990s. They are saying that we in Lithuania should be the No.1 enthusiasts and they will join us later. I can see their logic and the immense responsibility that rests on our shoulders.”

And what about the logic of Scandinavian countries?

“For them, Ukraine is quite far. They don’t understand or see the worldwide significance of the fact that what is now being decided in Ukraine is the destiny of not only Ukraine, but also of Russia and, hence, of the main European question: is it possible now to put an end to a tectonic conflict between Russia and the European continent in such a way that Russia will become a more or less European-type state? This chain was broken up in the west. Instead of repairing it, they are harping on the same tune: let us not provoke Russia. They cannot understand the gangster-style essence of Putin and his regime and the fact that it is a weak response that is really provoking Russia.”

“AMERICAN BUSINESS EQUALS A TANK BATTALION”

Some are saying that the leaders of world economies are not exactly rushing to help us because they don’t have commercial interest here. Thy claim that, in addition to “losing” the NATO vector, we made another major mistake which seriously impaired our security: in the late 1990s and the early 2000s we failed to attract large American, German, and French companies to privatization in Ukraine. Is it so?

“This opinion has the right to exist. But I would not say it is a 100-percent factor.

“I remember well a story that occurred when I first became the prime minister of Lithuania. In 1999 we had one of the first, as I say, ‘battles’ with Russia. I mean the privatization of our refinery. Our premier Paksas [Rolandas Paksas, Prime Minister of Lithuania between May 18 and October 27, 1999. – Ed.] refused ‘with tears in his eyes’ to sign the sale of this plant to the Americans. From November 3 of the same year onwards, when I was the premier, the Russian lobby, particularly the company Lukoil, exerted relentless pressure. But we claimed (with the US consent) that if the Americans came to our refinery, this would be tantamount to the coming of a tank battalion. In other words, it was our defense. We were not yet NATO members at the time, and security was a very sore point for us. So, the Americans came, bought our refinery, worked productively, and carried out reforms, but they went three years later, still before Lithuania joined NATO. It was a shock for us. But the greater shock was that they sold our refinery to… the Russians – the company YUKOS. We didn’t know much about Khodorkovsky at the time. The company is Russian. Our ‘tank column’ disappears and ends up in Russia to boot. Later, we understood, of course, that Khodorkovsky was not the Kremlin, but…

“As for Ukraine, I can see a slightly different problem in the question of capital ownership. We in Lithuania also came across a similar one, when we dealt with our business. At first we had very scandalous, I would even say criminal, privatization. There was a group, ABSV, a purely mafia-style entity. They privatized a lot of factories in Kaunas [Kaunas, a city in Lithuania, a port on the river Neman, a large industrial center and a junction of railroads and highways to Vilnius, Kaliningrad, Riga, and other Baltic cities. – Ed.]. Then these businesses and many banks went bankrupt.

“So, our privatization showed that there were practically no problems when a foreign investor was coming, whereas there was so much ‘dirt’ when Lithuanians were taking over the assets. The picture clarified much later – perhaps about five years after privatization.”

Privatization in Lithuania was carried out before you became the premier…

“Yes. It occurred in 1993-95, when former communists were in power. This is the way they ‘divided.’”

And what did you do when the situation clarified? Why did you, the premier, not opt for re-privatization?

“There were slogans of this kind – in 1999, when we were going through the Russian crisis. Many businesses went bankrupt. We were called upon to revise the privatization, but we immediately said we wouldn’t do so.”

Why?

“We saw that this would shake the investors’ confidence in Lithuania. Secondly, there was no clear understanding of a juridical solution of this problem. There could have been so intricate procedures that it would have taken us decades to search for an answer, sinking and floundering in the ‘mire.’

“We had some high-profile court trials. For example, members of the abovementioned ABSV group were even jailed. But it is an exception rather than a rule. It was very easy to see in the ABSV case that what they had bought up went bankrupt on purpose, which adversely affected certain banks and depositors. Obviously, we investigated this kind of cases, impounded property, or punished culprits by imprisonment. But we did not announce a total revision of privatization. In my view, this would have been unwise on our part.”

To what extent powerful was influence on governmental bodies and politicians of that-day Lithuania on the part of the people who enriched themselves on “dirty” privatization?

“Naturally, business groups of this kind are trying, like anywhere, to influence. Sometimes they are lucky, sometimes they are not. Some of them, who had started their business at the very outset, using their connections and clout in the state, really remained quite influential. But in this case Lithuania was a bit luckier than Ukraine because we were offered the prospect of EU membership well before you were. Therefore, when privatization was in progress and the vested interests we are talking about were coming up and gaining strength, we were establishing European-type governmental institutions – we were even helped to establish them. So, as these groups were gaining strength, so were the state’s institutional foundations. And these groups turned out to be unable to grab the whole state and privatize the economic and the political instruments of the state. At the time, the state found the ways to balance the influence of those groups and stop it when it began to pose a threat.”

In other words, you, the premier, had somebody to rely on, whenever a member of these “groups” was coming into your office room?

“Yes.”

“IMMUNITY FOR GOVERNMENTS IS NONSENSE”

In one and a half month’s time, the Arsenii Yatseniuk government’s year of “immunity” expires. Do you think the Ukrainian parliament ought to give him another term in office or it should replace him? If so, in what way and who with?

“Well, first of all, the very idea of a year-long immunity for the government sounds odd to me. I would advise to drop this practice, but I can’t do so because I don’t know how the system of government in Ukraine can be stabilized constitutionally. We in Lithuania are lucky because our jurists and members of parliament drew up a constitution in 1992, then we voted for it in a referendum and have been living with it for 23 years without changing anything. So, we have no immunities for the government.

“You can’t possibly expect new democracies to have political stability as kind of a boon. This doesn’t happen. In 2000, 10 years after the proclamation of our independence, I was the tenth prime minister. In other words, we changed the government every year on the average. In 2008, when I assumed premiership for a second time, I was the 15th head of the government. And it was the first government that managed to ‘survive’ all the four years in office. That’s the reality. One must not make a tragedy out of this. I have repeatedly told the politicians of both New and Old Europe that we must be ready to see that governments will be often changed in Ukraine. There is no need to draw any tragic conclusions from this, such as – all’s gone bust, there’s no statehood, it’s a failed state, etc. We in Lithuania have done so much mess with governments and even presidents… But we steadfastly followed the road, for we had a goal – we were told: reform yourselves and you will be EU members, and we believed in this. With this goal in view, we went forward along the chosen path in spite of political fluctuations.

“Ukraine should be prepared to accept the idea that democracy means that the government may lose the elections and others will come over, but the Ukrainian voter should choose between right- and left-wing parties, not between Brussels and Moscow.”

What do you think of the Yatseniuk government?

“I can see what has been done. It’s not so little. It is very hard for this kind of post-revolutionary governments to hold back public trust. It is an almost unaccomplishable mission. There is a good book on young democracies by Samuel Huntington. He describes what happens to the sentiments of people in post-revolutionary societies.

“I can see all the signs that you are approaching the beginning of economic growth – as it was in the case of Saakashvili after the first years of slump. Your slump has lasted for 20 years and has even deepened now. But the ‘spring’ of your economic potential is very powerful. And I can see that it is on the point of ‘shooting.’”

What are the signs?

“Your financial and banking systems have been more or less stabilized, and European business conditions are being created. I saw a very good indicator of your success in the Doing Business rating list – you have gone 50 places up in a year. One more year, and you will catch up with Lithuania. All you need is relative stability of the political system, not of the government. Governments may change, but the Westward course may not.”