Same Declarations, Different Views

Viktor Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine bloc continues to seek contacts with Russian politicians. As we know, a little more than a month ago bloc leaders announced they intended to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin during his visit to Ukraine. Although they failed to do so, Mr. Yushchenko and his followers visited Moscow by invitation of Boris Niemtsov and Irina Khakamada, leaders of the Russian Union of Right Forces (SPS). On November 13, Mr. Niemtsov and Ms. Khakamada paid a return visit to Kyiv, in the course of which SPS and Our Ukraine signed a cooperation manifesto.

It is not so difficult to guess what has prompted Our Ukraine lately to radically intensify its political activity. Suffice it to recall that Mr. Yushchenko made a number of foreign trips on the eve of the parliamentary elections, including one to the US, where he met many people who care very much about Ukraine’s future. As to Our Ukraine’s Russian vector of efforts, the search for contacts with the Russian Olympus is so far confined to the foothills.

President Putin firmly upholds the legitimately elected power of Ukraine’s President Leonid Kuchma. The opposition SPS is far from an influential political force in the Russian Federation. Ms. Khakamada and Mr. Niemtsov undoubtedly represent the Russian political elite, but only the part of it that so far simply strives to participate in important decision-making. Yet, it is too early to say that Our Ukraine has persuaded SPS to lobby its interests in Russia. It will be recalled that very recently, on the eve of the parliamentary elections, television showed SPS leaders shaking hands with leaders of the Winter Generation Team bloc. But when the team failed to make its way into parliament, the SPS people surprisingly quickly forgot the intention to cooperate with it. The document SPS signed this time with Our Ukraine points out that the two political forces have the same vision of the strategic development of Ukrainian-Russian relations within the context of European integration as well as of the prospects of building a democratic society with a market economy. Simultaneously, both sides failed to hide entirely different and sometimes even opposed viewpoints on some problems in the relationship between Ukraine and Russia. Mr. Niemtsov and Mr. Yushchenko preferred not to tell journalists bluntly that they had differences on certain points. Instead, they announced a list of Ukrainian-Russian relations items which they think Our Ukraine and SPS should seek a common vision of. In particular, the Russian guests put on this list the attempt of certain Ukrainian forces (in fact a part of Our Ukraine — Ed.) to abolish Crimean autonomy through the Constitutional Court, the problem of relaying Russian television to Ukraine (SPS supports such a relay), the problem of a gas transit consortium, and especially “the problem of the Russian language in Ukraine.” Ms. Khakamada is convinced that the Russian language should be granted a certain status in areas densely populated by ethnic Russians. While the language question was being discussed, both SPS leaders spoke quite emotionally, while Mr. Yushchenko preferred to keep silent in reply. Yet, OU/SPS contact is a good thing. We must make friends with Russian parties and factions. There are a host of test situations for these contacts: it is quite clear whether a politician takes a position or, to put it mildly, the latter depends on the audience. Still, all this has very little to do with big-time politics.