Elane Wells

Modern Tokyo Times

The name Borsch (Borscht) in the ancient Slavic language means “red”. It also derives from the Slavic word “burak”, which stands for beetroot plant. Beetroot is one of the main ingredients of Borsch. It is also how Borsch turns red in color.

History

Borsch soup is a popular Slavic dish. It was also widely cooked in such countries as Lithuania and Poland. Presently, Ukrainians consider Borsch to be one of the main folk and traditional dishes of the Ukraine, which has been cooked and loved since the 14th century.

Borsch is one of the main dishes served during such events such as weddings, anniversaries, various other celebrations and even at funerals. Borsch is one of 12 dishes traditionally cooked for Christmas Eve in the Ukraine. There are many different recipes of this soup and many secrets of cooking it. However, all of them contain certain main ingredients such as beetroot, carrots, onions, garlic, potatoes and cabbage.

The Recipe

Traditional Ukrainian Borsch is not that easy to cook since it has many ingredients. Let’s take a look at one of the simplest, but yet very tasty recipes of Borsch.

Ingredients needed for preparing a one gallon pot of Borsch:

Meat (Pork or beef, spine bones) – 10 oz; beetroot – 1 large or 2 small ones; carrots – 1; onions – 1; garlic – 3 cloves; potatoes – 3 – 5; cabbage – 5 oz; tomato paste – 2-3 table spoons; kidney beans – 1 full cup; bay leaf;  parsley roots and green; and salt, sugar, and pepper.

The tip is to start cooking the ingredients, which takes the longest to cook first. To speed up this process you may want to soak the kidney beans the night before in warm water. This would cut down the time of cooking from several hours to half an hour or so.

Step 1

Cut pork or beef (or both) to pieces or use ham or pork bones instead. Put the meat or bones into a large pot and add 3 quarters of water to it. Add the beans and set the pot on the stove to boil. Add bay leaf and some parsley root. Then add salt.

Step 2

Peel and slice the potatoes. Cut them into cubes.  Peel the onions. Peel the garlic cloves and make them into small cubes.

Step 3

Peel the carrots and beetroot. Grate them into the same bowl.

Step 4

Once your kidney beans are almost cooked, add all the above mentioned veggies into the pot. Let them boil for 15-minutes.

Step 5

Once the potatoes are almost cooked, add few a table spoons of tomato paste and sliced cabbage. Add peppers and half of table spoon of sugar. Cook for 5 to 10 minutes more. Make sure to try out the beans and potatoes first to ensure that they are cooked well.

Now your Borsch is ready!

Serving

Borsch is always served hot. You may add green parsley leafs into each bowl and top them off with one table spoon of sour cream. Usually Borsch is served with ‘black’ rye bread, “salo” and garlic, which is one of the traditional Ukrainian snacks.

A pot of Borsch can be stored in your fridge for up to a week. Regardless of keeping Borsch as a leftover, it becomes even tastier day by day with the veggies, beetroot broth, and tomato flavored cabbage simmering in cold temperature until it is boiled again.

http://moderntokyotimes.com

PS – You have various spellings of this food dish.

Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 9 Issue: 4

By: Taras Kuzio

The Jamestown Foundation

The EU’s refusal to initial the Association Agreement (which includes a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement) at the December 19, 2011, EU-Ukraine summit in Kyiv was a geopolitical setback. Initialing is a technical stage meaning that the negotiations are completed. The second stage is the agreement signed by the European Council (EC) and the third stage would be the EC recommending ratification by the European Parliament and 27 EU member parliaments.

Former US Ambassador to Ukraine, Steven Pifer, pointed out: “A failure to secure a solid relationship with the West will cause imbalance in Ukraine’s foreign policy. That would leave Kyiv more isolated and susceptible to pressure from Moscow” (http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2011/1226_ukraine_pifer.aspx). Negotiations over a gas deal to replace the 2009 contract are slow because Kyiv has given Moscow the diplomatic advantage.

European Commission President, Herman Van Rompuy, explained that progress on the agreement: “will depend on political circumstances” and “our strong concern is primarily related to the risks of politically-motivated justice in Ukraine. The Tymoshenko trial is the most striking example” (http://www.european-council.europa.eu/home-page/highlights/conclusion-of-talks-on-a-major-deal-with-ukraine?lang=en). The Kharkiv Group to Defend Human Rights issued a report documenting growing politically motivated repression in 2010-2011, with Tymoshenko as only the most visible case (http://www.khpg.org/index.php?id=1321885956).

Rompuy’s statement followed recommendations by the European Parliament in its October 27 resolution that negotiations continue but remain dependent on Ukraine reversing politically motivated trials of opposition leaders (www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=TA&reference=P7-TA-2011-0472&language=EN&ring=B7-2011-0552). The resolution was supported by the Socialist Political Group in the European Parliament that had hitherto cooperated with the Party of Regions.

Kyiv’s handling of its relations with the EU has combined incompetence and deliberate antagonism and deception towards the West. Five examples of this pattern follow.

1. Yulia Tymoshenko was sentenced to seven years imprisonment on October 11, 2011, leading to widespread Western condemnation. One day later, additional charges were laid against her and the number has since grown to ten (see “Piling Cases on Tymoshenko” at www.kyivpost.com/news/nation/detail/116273/). Her sentence came only nine days before Yanukovych’s planned visit to Brussels leading to the cancellation of his visit.

2. In September 2011, Yanukovych deceived EU leaders at the Yalta European Strategy and Warsaw Eastern Partnership summits by promising a compromise would be reached through the de-criminalization of the 1962 article used to sentence Tymoshenko. On November 15, the Party of Regions voted down an opposition motion to decriminalize the article.

The vote took place one day before the Wroclaw meeting between German President Christian Wulff, Polish President Bronisław Komorowski and Yanukovych, where he was presented with three letters. The first listed his broken promises to the EU and US. The second spelled out twelve steps Yanukovych had to undertake (including freeing Tymoshenko) with a threat that the West would take tougher action if these steps were not undertaken. The third was from the US and outlined its strong backing for the EU’s position.

Yanukovych’s deception and demonstrative aggression on the Tymoshenko case tilted the balance in the EU toward enlargement skeptic countries such as Germany. Polish Senate Chairman, Bogdan Borusevic, revealed that the Polish Presidency of the European Council continued to support the signing of the agreement, “but unfortunately we are currently in a minority” (www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2011/12/19/6848306/).

3. Ukraine demanded the Association Agreement include a reference to membership prospects. As Tatyana Sylina points out, “a demand for a perspective of membership in the family of democracies when the opposition are being shoved into jail, when there is suppression of freedom of speech and the country is reaching new heights of corruption is just plain arrogance” (http://dt.ua/POLITICS/tuman_rozsietsya,_vagonchik_rushit-91880.html).

4. Yanukovych overplayed the geopolitical threat that Ukraine could re-orientate its foreign policy to Russia if the EU did not initial and sign the agreement. A leak alleged Yanukovych planned not to attend the EU-Ukraine summit and instead participate in the Eurasian Economic Council meeting in Moscow being held on the same day. The reality is that Ukraine is not a geopolitical priority for the Obama administration, as Ambassador Pifer pointed out at the Open Ukraine conference at the Czech Embassy in Washington on December 9, 2011.

5. Four days after the EU-Ukraine summit, a Kyiv court rejected Tymoshenko’s appeal and on December 29 she was transported to Kachanivska Penal Colony No. 54, near Kharkiv. Not coincidentally on the same day, Yanukovych annulled the November 22 Day of Freedom holiday introduced in 2005 to commemorate the Orange Revolution (www.president.gov.ua/documents/14356.html). The EU and European People’s Party, of which Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna party is a member, condemned Tymoshenko’s transfer to the penal colony. US State Department deputy spokesman, Mark Toner, said “The United States was disappointed that the Kyiv Court of Appeals upheld the conviction of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko on December 23, and did not address concerns about democracy and rule of law raised in the initial trial and sentencing” (http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2011/12/179719.htm).

Tymoshenko’s transfer and the annulling of the Orange Revolution holiday confirmed that Yanukovych (not oligarchs) directs the Tymoshenko case. US Embassy cables from Kyiv released by WikiLeaks showed he had long sought revenge for his humiliation in the 2004 elections. Yanukovych acts with the intention of staying in power for the long term and believes the only person who could upset his plans is Tymoshenko. Her sentence of seven years in prison and a three year ban from official positions removes her from the next three parliamentary (2012, 2016, 2020) and two presidential (2015, 2020) elections; giving Yanukovych and the Party of Regions monopolization of power into the next decade.

Yanukovych is paranoid about Tymoshenko and this over-rides everything else (see EDM, November 18, 2011). Political expert Vadym Karasiov believes “There is more irrational than rational” in Tymoshenko’s transfer. She was not permitted to attend a New Year’s Eve concert in the penal colony because of fears she would agitate prisoners (Ukrayinska Pravda, December 31, 2011).

Ukraine-EU relations have reached a deadlock while Georgia and Moldova are proving to be better reformers and negotiations for their Association Agreements are making more progress (see European Integration Index for Eastern Partnership Countries report at www.irf.ua/index.php. Calls for sanctions are already growing and will increase throughout 2012, especially if fraudulent elections are not recognized by the West. European Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow, Andrew Wilson, argued ahead of the EU-Ukraine summit “The EU must also introduce visa bans and sanctions that target travel and financial privileges for individuals within the government who are responsible for backsliding” (http://ecfr.eu/content/entry/ukraine_after_the_tymoshenko_verdict).

Three events in 2012 will lead to a further deterioration in Ukraine’s relations with the West. In the spring, the European Court on Human Rights (ECHR) will rule on the Tymoshenko case, most probably demanding her release. Yanukovych will not implement the ECHR ruling even though they are compulsory for member states. The Euro-2012 football championship over the summer will be accompanied by political demonstrations. Finally, with collapsing popularity for Yanukovych and the Party of Regions, the October elections are inevitably going to be falsified leading to mass protests.

http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=38851&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=7&cHash=ff1d928eef1e17006ef27597767c6120

Please visit The Jamestown Foundation at http://www.jamestown.org for more in depth reports from this highly acclaimed think tank

Despite reported attempts by the presidential administration of Pridnestrovian Moldovan Republic (PMR) leader Igor Smirnov to rig the results of the recent PMR presidential election, the electorate of Transnistria chose a new path forward on December 11. Smirnov’s attempts to steal the election backfired, as he garnered a mere 25% of the vote; a clear indication the voters in Transnistria want a political settlement for their status and have become wary of PMR’s economic stagnation and Smirnov’s corruption. Dismayed by the course Smirnov has steered Transnistria in during his 20-year rule, voters instead selected the West’s favored candidate, Yevgeny Shevchuk (38.5% of the vote), and the Russia-leaning Speaker of the Pridnestrovian Supreme Soviet, Anatoliy Kaminsky (26.5% support), as the two leading vote-getters for the December 25 election run-off.

Smirnov, who initially contested the official ballot results of PMR’s Central Election Commission, lost the support of Russia for his blatant siphoning off of Russian aid, which was designated for helping stabilize the PMR’s economy as well as for his desperate and irrational call on a referendum for Transnistria’s union with Ukraine. As Ukraine struggles with its own path for economic integration – a choice between improving relations and increasing economic growth with its neighbors and trading partners by joining the Customs Union, or the possibility of an uncertain future and continued economic stagnation with an economically and politically turbulent Europe – the last thing Kiev needs is another headache with PMR.

However, Ukraine, as a member of the 5+2 talks (Moldova, PMR, Russia, Ukraine, and the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe [OSCE] plus observers from the United States and the European Union), has not taken nearly as active a role as Russia has to ensure the rights of PMR’s people. Kiev can no longer sit on the sidelines and expect that Washington and Brussels can, nor should, alone lead the mediation on the future of Transnistria. Instead, the Yanukovych administration must work closely with Moscow to ensure Kishniev no longer restricts PMR trade or limits other access to and from Transnistria. When Transnistria’s presidential election results are certified sometime after December 26, Kiev should immediately begin talks with Tiraspol and either president-elect Shevchuk or Kaminsky on finalizing PMR’s status.

With Smirnov no longer in Transnistria’s future, PMR’s voters will have a clear choice to make – Shevchuk, a candidate who supports the US/EU vision of PMR (autonomy within Moldova) or Kaminsky, who supports modern, independent statehood for Transnistria. While both candidates favor democratic change in Transnistria, there are definite differences separating both men’s visions for PMR’s future.

Shevchuk, who some analysts describe as a capable technocrat, has been described as “ambiguous” on the topic of PMR independence as far back as 2006. In many ways, Shevchuk resembles the West’s favored “orange” presidential candidate from the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election, Viktor Yushchenko. Like Yushchenko, Shevchuk fancies himself as a “pragmatist” who can move Transnistria toward a Euro-Atlantic orientation, i.e. a pro-Romanian/pro-Moldovan tilt. As Shevchuk certainly owes much of his success during this presidential campaign to those favoring PMR’s integration with Euro-Atlantic institutions, it is likely that his vision for Transnistria’s future will fall in line with those in Washington, Brussels, and Kishniev. Quite simply, final status talks under a Shevchuk presidency would likely result in a an autonomous Transnistria within Moldova and muddled talks on becoming a part of Europe – not an independent and modern PMR state.

Unlike Smirnov’s prior vision of independent PMR, which focused on authoritarianism, corruption, and crony capitalism, Kaminsky’s presidential administration would demonstrate the viability of Transnistria as an independent economy. However, Kaminsky, who unabashedly supports the preferred PMR final status view as Russia, would certainly be loyal to Moscow, unlike Smirnov who thumbed his nose at his former patron once objections were raised to the level of corruption in Tiraspol. Under a Kaminsky presidency, his administration would likely remain unapologetic on the issue of an independent PMR and the guarantee of rights for all people – Russians, Ukrainians, and Moldovans – within Transnistria.

With Transnistria’s voters charting a new course for PMR with the ouster of Smirnov, the electorate must choose its next leader carefully as the future status of PMR continues as one of the most intractable territorial questions remaining from the breakup of the USSR. As Brussels continues its discussions on possibly contracting, not expanding its EU membership roster, it is highly unlikely that Moldova, let alone Ukraine, will receive an invitation for membership any time within the next 20 years. Because of this, voters must be certain whether latching itself to Moldova’s weakened economy is the right course for PMR. A Shevchuk presidency would almost certainly lead to this scenario, while a Kaminsky administration would hold out hope that an independent PMR would become a modern state with economic growth due in large part to integrating its economy with its larger neighbors including Russia and Ukraine.

http://www.aminuk.org/index.php?idmenu=12&idsubmenu=268&language=en

Igor Smirnov, longtime president of the unrecognized Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, raised some eyebrows, and not only in Ukraine, when he recently suggested that Pridnestrovie might hold a referendum on uniting with Ukraine as an autonomous region. Mr. Smirnov’s proposition was floated in early November with Ukrayina Moloda (Україна молода) in advance of Pridnestrovie’s December 11 presidential vote, where he is being challenged by Anatoly Kaminsky, head of the opposition Obnovleniye (“Renewal”) party; and by former parliamentary speaker Yevgeny Shevchuk.

Mr. Smirnov, a longtime client of Moscow, is now in disfavor because his former patrons evidently have gotten sick and tired of seeing their aid being siphoned off, in turn jeopardizing Pridestrovie’s prospects. Instead, the Russians clearly now support Mr. Kaminsky and Obnovleniye, which has a party-to-party alliance with Russia’s ruling United Russia party. Kremlin Chief of Staff Sergei Naryshkin has openly accused Mr. Smirnov of corruption and “unwillingness to yield the way to new political forces” (i.e., Mr. Kaminsky and Obnovleniye). Further piling on, Russian law enforcement agencies have launched a criminal investigation against Mr. Smirnov’s son and his daughter-in-law for embezzling Russian financial aide to Pridnestrovie. On cue, the Russian media has opened a slash-and-burn anti-Smirnov campaign.

The only president Pridnestrovie has ever known is not giving up without a fight, however. Pridnestrovien authorities have struck back, arresting an alleged ring of Russian-sponsored political technologists (including some Ukrainian citizens), accusing them of anti-Smirnov and pro-Kaminsky activities. Moscow has been accused by pro-Smirnov media of planning a Ukraine 2004-style “Orange Revolution” to overthrow Mr. Smirnov and install Mr. Kaminsky, as a lead-in to surrendering Pridnestrovie to Moldova via the “5+2” negotiating format (Moldova, Pridnestrovie, Russia, Ukraine, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), plus observers from the United States and the European Union).

In this context, Mr. Smirnov’s Ukraine referendum suggestion may be seen as a trial balloon for switching his sponsorship from Russia to Ukraine, as part of a larger strategy to stay in power. That prospect, and allegations of an “Orange” scenario on Ukraine’s western border, deserve further examination.

‘Orange’ Pridnestrovie?

The suggestion that Moscow is pursuing an “Orange Revolution” scenario in Pridnestrovie is implausible on a number of points. The most obvious one is that the essence of a planned and executed “spontaneous democratic revolution” as a political technology perfected by the United States and allied NGOs (notably, the Soros organizations) is the slight-of-hand that turns a small and disciplined cadre of trained activists into the self-anointed nucleus of “the people.” Such a nucleus – “Otpor!” in Serbia (2000), “Kmara” in Georgia (2003), “Pora” in Ukraine (2004) – has been replicated with varying degrees of success in other places (most notably in Egypt this year as the “April 6 Youth Movement”), with assistance from Serbian mentors from the Otpor! offshoot, the Centre for Applied Non Violent Actions and Strategies (CANVAS).

Otpor! and its CANVAS progeny, complete with the clenched-fist symbol, owe more to V.I. Lenin’s concept of a party of professional revolutionaries than to traditional American ideas of representative government. Ironically, there isn’t much evidence that post-communist Russia has mastered the political technologies involved or even has sought to do so, other than trying to counter them when employed by the Washington/Soros forces.

Perhaps more relevant, there’s no reason to suggest that Moscow needs to resort to such mechanisms in Pridnestrovie. The simple fact is, the only reason Pridnestrovie has not been forcibly absorbed into Moldova (and thence, in all likelihood, eventually into Romania) is Russian support. The people of Pridnestrovie are well aware of that, limiting opportunities for an Otpor!-style ersatz version of “the people” when the attitudes and interests of the real people are obvious. So for aspiring presidential candidates, an essential credential for the job is uncompromising opposition to absorption, which in turn means demonstrating continued support from Moscow. For years, Mr. Smirnov has been able to play the “Russian card,” to his profit and that of his family and cronies.

Now that Moscow is unwilling further to tolerate rampant kleptocracy in Tiraspol, it is clear to everyone in Pridnestrovie that Russia’s preference is for Mr. Kaminsky and Obnovleniye. Voters will go to the polls aware than a Kaminsky victory, and a reformist government under Mr. Kaminsky and Renewal, is Pridnestrovie’s best bet for staying out of Kishinev’s clutches and for negotiating an eventual settlement under the “5+2” format with Moscow’s full backing. Such backing is less certain if either Mr. Smirnov or Mr. Shevchuk comes out on top. Mr. Smirnov, for obvious reasons. Mr. Shevchuk, because he is exactly the kind of leader in the new mold the west likes to work with – a “technocrat” and “pragmatic reformer” who can be expected to be more pliable than either Mr. Smirnov or Mr. Kaminsky.

Who Will Make the Run-Off?

That’s why Mr. Smirnov and Mr. Shevchuk are emerging as a superficially improbable Pridnestrovien version of a Russian-style “tandem,” with the idea of keeping Mr. Kaminsky out of a run-off with Mr. Smirnov. From the West’s point of view, a Smirnov-Shevchuk run-off would be a perfect “heads I win, tails you lose” choice to foist on the voters. Either Mr. Smirnov wins, thwarting Moscow and leaving Pridnestrovie in tatters, under a tainted and weakened leader who can be bullied by Kishinev and Bucharest into eventual submission. Or Mr. Shevchuk wins, also thwarting Moscow and leaving little choice but to accept a settlement on terms the west will dictate to him. If an “Orange” scenario does emerge in the Pridnestrovien race, it will come from western forces in support of Mr. Shevchuk, or not at all. Look for the telltale CANVAS fist.

But western-oriented CANVAS-niki wouldn’t have the same opportunity in the event of a Smirnov-Kaminsky match-up, which would be a real contest between Moscow’s former but now alienated and unviable client and the current one who can count on solid support. For Pridnestrovien voters, that would be a no-brainer.

Pridnestrovien Referendum No Benefit to Ukraine

Mr. Smirnov’s attempt to throw a curve into the mix by raising the question of a referendum to join Ukraine is perhaps a further validation of Moscow’s reasons for dumping him. Certainly there is historical basis for Pridnestrovie’s gravitation towards Ukraine (the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, 1924-1940), not to mention demography. But any move in that direction at the present time, however unlikely, would simply perpetuate Mr. Smirnov’s profitable control of his personal fiefdom in an autonomous region remaining under his tight control. How that helps Ukraine is unclear.

In any case, given Kiev’s relative passivity and unwillingness to engage meaningfully on Tiraspol’s behalf in the “5+2” context, Pridnestrovie would exchange Russia for Ukraine as its patron at its peril. While western governments scoff at Pridnestrovie’s claims to statehood, as they do those of South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Nagorno-Karabakh, there is at least a legal argument for such assertions under the Soviet Constitution and relevant Soviet law (notably the April 3, 1990, law on secession, Register of the Congress of the People’s Deputies of USSR and Supreme Soviet of USSR, issue No. 13, p. 252), as well as international law and practice. (This contrasts sharply with the recognition of the putative independence of the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija, a claim which has exactly zero legal basis and is simply an exercise of naked aggression by the same western governments.)

Nonetheless, everyone is aware that Pridnestrovie’s joining Ukraine without a negotiated solution to its status would open a new Pandora’s Box in the post-Soviet space, with incalculable consequences – not least for Ukraine’s own autonomous republic of Crimea. It’s another headache Ukraine doesn’t need.

Please visit the American Institute in Ukraine at http://www.aminuk.org/ for more in depth reports about Ukraine and regional geopolitical issues from this highly acclaimed think tank.

http://www.aminuk.org/index.php?idmenu=12&idsubmenu=259&language=en

Vice President Joe Biden during his visit to Ukraine

Understandably, during the past few weeks there has been much international focus on the ongoing saga of the conviction of Yulia Timoshenko and how it impacts Kiev’s dilemma between trade integration with the European Union or Russia. Articles in western media carry headlines like “Will Ukraine Choose a Sympathetic Russia over a Democratic Europe?” (Time U.S.) and “Ultimate Betrayal: Ukraine Retreats to a Dark Past” (Der Spiegel, Germany).

Certainly the issues raised in this context are important, and at some point Ukraine will have to choose – or perhaps be forced into a choice by circumstances. But to focus exclusively on this issue is to miss much else that is relevant to President Yanukovich’s active global policy. That is particularly relevant with respect to understanding American policy toward Ukraine and the possible impact of the current U.S. election campaign and U.S. domestic political considerations.

While President Yanukovich was to have travelled to Brussels last week, a trip that now has been postponed to November (we’ll see if it happens then, either), he has been anything but idle during late October. First he visited Cuba, where he met with current leader Raúl Castro Ruz, and his retired brother, Fidel, whom Mr. Yankovich described as “a man filled with deep thoughts about what is happening in the world. I was able to see a man who was full of life, was very energetic, enjoyed life, and who took a very good attitude to Ukraine.” Agreements for Ukraine-Cuba cooperation in a number of areas were signed, including direct flights between Kiev and Havana starting next year. President Yanukovich was awarded the Order of José Martí. Regarding the care of 20,000 Ukrainian child victims of Chernobyl, who have been cared for since 1990 in Tarara City, on the eastern side of Havana, Mr. Yanukovich was quoted as saying: “Cuba is to us the island of hope, it will save our children, was the only country that reached out to us, and we are eternally grateful.”

Ukraine’s Multi-Vector Global Policy

From Cuba, President Yanukovich proceeded on to Brazil, one of the key “emerging economies,” which together with China, India, Russia, and South Africa loom among Ukraine’s partners in alternative to the “developed” economies of Europe and North America. He continues to pursue a multi-vector policy that is not limited to the “either-or” between Europe and Russia, as the common caricature would depict it. From the perspective of Ukraine’s national interest, finding partners wherever they present themselves makes sense.

That is not, however, the way people in Washington necessarily see it. It should be kept in mind that the United States is in the middle of the campaign for elections that will not be held until November 2012. (While in many countries the period for political campaigns is limited by law to just a few weeks, American campaigns begin, literally, the day after the previous election. As soon as the ballots are cast on November 6, 2012, on November 7 potential candidates immediately will start hiring staff and drawing up their strategies for 2016.) This means that as campaign activities ascend to their crescendo – more than a year away – political considerations reflecting the specific needs of American parties and candidates will be projected onto the behavior of foreign nations and leaders, judging them not by criteria that define their countries’ interests but the unique features of politics in the United States.

To take an obvious example: Iran. For Ukraine, Iran is just another country. The Yanukovich administration has not indicated a presidential visit is in the works but has indicated interest in boosting bilateral ties with Tehran. For example, recently Iran’s state-owned Aircraft Manufacturing Industrial Co. announced that a model of the Antonov-158 airliner jointly built by Iran and Ukraine’s Antonov Co. may be in use in Iran as early as 2013. Kiev just hosted a visit by Iran’s Minister of Industry, Mine and Trade, Mr. Mehdi Ghazanfari, in connection with the fourth meeting of the Ukraine-Iran joint economic commission and the inaugural ceremony of a commercial fair in Ukraine positively showcasing Iran and Iranian products.

But for the United States, and for most American politicians, Iran is not just another country, it is the most dangerous country on the planet. This identity is not just a reflection of American humiliation at the 1979 seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran by radical “students,” with 52 American diplomats held hostage for over a year. Washington also worries about Tehran’s regional role, including support for Hezbollah in Lebanon and Shiite militias in Iraq, a suspected plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States, and most of all the prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon to be used against the U.S. or Israel. In short, for many Americans, when Ukraine steps up cooperation with Iran, it is seen as cordially engaged with America’s most deadly enemy.

Official American attitudes toward Castro’s Cuba are similar. By any count, the man whom President Yanukovich described as “full of life” can be described as such only because the CIA’s numerous assassination attempts (believed to be in the dozens if not in the hundreds) have failed. Particularly in light of the intractable hatred of Fidel in the Cuban exile community in Florida – a “must win” state for anyone hoping to become president – isolating Cuba and maintaining the U.S. economic boycott remains one of American’s firmest policy positions.

Potential Consequences?

Does this mean that the Kiev administration risks its relationship with Washington by pursuing cooperation with countries the United States doesn’t like? The answer is not a simple one. Yes, Washington officials understand that policies of Ukraine and most other countries toward Iran, Cuba, North Korea, etc., are not what they would like them to be. While it would be hard to find a penalty Washington might impose on Ukraine, there are specific problems that could arise, for example, in the form of sanctions against non-U.S. companies that do business with such states in violation of American legislation, which assumes an aspect of extraterritorial reach.

At the same time, no one should think that Washington’s priority for Ukraine no longer remains trying to drag Kiev, one way or another, onto the path of “Euro-Atlantic” integration. This means not only economic ties with the European Union but, in some form, a security relationship defined by NATO. While that path seemed to have been rudely interrupted by the 2010 electoral defeat of Ukraine’s “Orange” forces, getting Ukraine back onto that path as part of an anti-Russian strategy, only partially offset by President Barack Obama’s “reset” with Moscow, remains the top U.S. goal for Ukraine.

It is through that lens that Ukraine and the Kiev administration need to anticipate how their actions will “play” in America during the campaign. Ukraine – which not only most Americans but most American politicians would have difficulty finding on a map – will figure very little or not at all in the positions and rhetoric of American politicians. But Iran will be a frequent point of reference. Cuba also will get some attention, largely due to the fact that for half a century Florida’s Cuban exiles have been among the Republican Party’s most reliable voting blocs, and the Republicans’ only significant share of America’s growing Hispanic community. Russia will also make an occasional appearance, mostly from Republican candidates looking to score cheap points against Mr. Obama, and perhaps each other, for being insufficiently hostile towards Russia and Russia’s once-and-presumed-future-president, Vladimir Putin. To the extent that Kiev’s policies tangentially impact what are called “hot button” concerns like these, Ukraine might come into peripheral view but not assume a central role.

But make no mistake, whoever gets elected – and more importantly, the permanent officials who remain under Democrats and Republicans alike – will be keeping tabs on “who is with us, and who is against us.” Does this mean that Kiev is wrong to pursue beneficial ties wherever they can be found? No. But it does mean that such perceptions will color official American attitudes toward Ukraine and should be taken into account.

Please visit the American Institute in Ukraine at http://www.aminuk.org/ for more in depth reports about Ukraine and regional geopolitical issues from this highly acclaimed think tank.

Will ‘Reform’ of Soviet-Era Laws Revive Ukraine’s Free Trade Prospects With EU – or is Brussels Looking for a Way Out Too?

Numerous observers, both Ukrainian and foreign, now suggest Yanukovich is looking for a way out of the trial in the hopes of saving the FTA’s increasingly fragile prospects. One such exit now appears to be the notion of reforming the Soviet-era laws under which Timoshenko stands accused, according to which her alleged peccadilloes would be decriminalized. Commented the president: “We well understand the need to revise and reform the current system of criminal justice. The judiciary system needs to be reformed and we are dealing with these matters in a very determined manner.”

President Yanukovich should be taken at his word. Quite apart from the issues relevant to Timoshenko, there is widespread agreement that Ukraine’s criminal code, last revised comprehensively in 1962 under vastly different political, juridical, economic, commercial, and ideological circumstances, is long past due for a thorough overhaul. If Yanukovich can leave comprehensive and principled reform of Ukraine’s laws as one of his legacies, it would be well to his credit.

Legal Reform Won’t Work as Timoshenko ‘Rescue’ Ploy

But the imperative for legal reform as an enduring bequest to the people of Ukraine is one that must be approached thoughtfully and systematically, not as an ad hoc rescue from the political bind the Kiev administration has created for itself. Indeed, if “reform” turns out to be just a pretext for fixing the laws applicable to Timoshenko – perhaps by rushing a special bill through the Rada – it might not even accomplish the immediate task. The suspiciously convenient discovery of legal reform as a means to spring Timoshenko would lend credence to the accusation, vigorously denied by the administration, that the charges against Timoshenko all along were politically motivated, both to remove her eligibility as a future candidate and to invalidate the gas pricing deal she agreed to with the Russians in 2009.

Such a “convenient” stratagem might end up alienating the Europeans further, who, as voiced by Poland’s foreign minister Radek Sikorski, are telling Ukraine: “If you associate with us, we will hold you accountable to our standards.” Moreover, the Europeans are demanding not only that Timoshenko not be imprisoned following what they regard as a show trial, but that she be allowed to participate fully in future Ukrainian elections as a candidate, absent which the western governments (who, as is well known, are the sole judges of such things) will not certify any future ballot as “free and fair.”

As for the Russians, if anyone in Kiev thinks the Kremlin will concede the invalidity of the current price structure based on some legal machinations, they’d better think again. Whether Timoshenko goes to prison or not, the only way Kiev could hope to force a price change – as opposed to negotiating a change on terms acceptable to Moscow – would be to provoke yet another gas war. It doesn’t take a crystal ball to predict that the loser would be Ukraine, whose leverage, already weak, suffered a major blow with this month’s opening of Nord Stream. As Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin observed at the time, “Like any transit country, [Ukraine] has the temptation to benefit from its position. Now this exclusive right disappears. Our relations will become more civilized.” Or to put it another way, Kiev – whether under the previous anti-Russian “Orange” regime or now with President Viktor Yanukovich’s putatively “pro-Russian” administration – no longer can pretend that the laws of geography and of supply and demand don’t apply to Ukraine’s energy transit policy.

Even worse for any confrontational strategy by Kiev, no one should expect that this time European opinion, with Germany in the lead, would blame Russia. As even the Economist notes, while Ukraine’s “souring of relations with Russia” over gas prices, among other issues, “helped push Mr Yanukovich towards the EU, his core supporters in Ukraine’s east and south prefer union with Russia and other ex-Soviet republics. That makes sense economically: Ukraine exports more to the former Soviet Union than to the EU, and joining a customs union would deliver cheaper gas, as the Kremlin has made clear.” In any case, word from Yanukovich’s office regarding his most recent meeting with his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, claimed “considerable progress,” and Russian willingness to review the 2009 pricing agreement.

Timoshenko a Convenient Excuse for the Europeans?

As noted by the Economist of London, it appears that Yanukovich – or to be more fair, some of his advisers – “believed that relinquishing Ukraine’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which pleased America, and eschewing Russia’s pressure to join its customs union would outweigh the arrest of the tarnished Ms. Tymoshenko.” If so, that belief turned out to be misplaced. Now, even if Timoshenko does walk free, there might be insufficient time to rescue the FTA in time to meet the EU’s cumbersome 27-nation ratification process. According to one informed member of the European Parliament, if key deadlines are not met because of growing concerns within the EU, “we’re losing not one month or two months; we’re losing three years because the agreement will not be ratified in the current legislative period.”

If the FTA falters, it might not reflect just technical realities on the EU side but a change of heart: As one senior diplomat told the EU Observer, the Timoshenko drama “already had an impact on our discussions about the Eastern Partnership summit declaration [of which the EU-Ukraine FTA was to have been a key part]. It creates a negative context. We are hearing that this is a group of failed countries. Very few people are now speaking about any European perspective for them,” referring not only to Ukraine but to Moldova, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, and Belarus. In short, if Kiev is looking for a technical trick to rescue the FTA, some of Kiev’s European interlocutors may well be looking for one to entomb it. Indeed, Europeans increasingly seem to be repelled by neo-Orange notions of an “East-West” dichotomy, as voiced by Ukraine’s EU ambassador, who compared progress toward a political association and trade pact to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Said one Center-Right Member of the European Parliament, Elmar Brok, who ought to know a Berlin Wall when he sees one: “This is old thinking. We live in a modern society where values play a role. You can’t have an Association Agreement, which might even contain a European [accession] perspective and at the same time put the opposition in prison.”

To be sure, Washington is still dominated by East-West “old thinking,” and may well put pressure on the already overburdened Europeans to move forward with the FTA for exactly the reasons rejected by Brok, and probably by the Germans in general. But whether that pressure will prevail is another matter. As always, it hardly needs to be added, changes of heart connect to the pocketbook as well. At a time when the entire global market hangs by a thread because of the EU’s debt crisis, and there is open speculation about rolling defaults and the breakup of the Euro zone, qualms about “standards” may be just the excuse Europeans need. What better way for them to back out of a deal that brings neither side much tangible benefit but which they fear could subject them to an open-ended commitment on top of the existing ones they no longer can meet?

FTA or Not, Rule of Law Reforms Needed

As the Economist quotes former foreign minister Petro Poroshenko, “Ukraine’s options are not only a question of money or gas. Ukraine has ways to boost revenues,” he says: “stopping stealing, removing restrictions on exports, privatizing state property more honestly.” A true legal reform doesn’t mean just backtracking on Timoshenko, whose treatment “has signaled to prosecutors and the security services that they have a free hand,” according to the Economist: “Raiding of businesses by armed men is widespread. Businessmen say the climate is worse than a decade ago,” under Leonid Kuchma’s tenure.

President Yanukovich’s embrace of legal reform points to a real and historic opportunity to strengthen the rule of law in Ukraine. He should be encouraged to take it. But such reform shouldn’t be just a ploy to save the FTA agreement, which may be beyond help anyway.

Please visit the American Institute in Ukraine at http://www.aminuk.org/ for more in depth reports about Ukraine and regional geopolitical issues from this highly acclaimed think tank.

In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, President Yanukovich declares: “Ukraine needs Europe. Just as important, Europe cannot afford to leave Ukraine behind. “ Indeed, “Ukraine’s future belongs in Europe.” He envisions Ukraine playing “a prosperous role in the European economy.”

The article is of a piece with a trend the American Institute in Ukraine has noted before — Ukraine’s drift towards a pro-Western orientation, the chief indicator of which is Kiev’s declared preference for the European Union over joining in a Customs Union with Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia.

That is for Ukraine to decide, but is it wise of Kiev to pledge its troth to Brussels at a time when media outlets across Euroland are discussing which current members should be invited to leave — not which new members should be invited to join?

The air is full of talk of collapse and civil strife. The most optimistic scenario envisages a Japanese-style outcome — decades of stagflation, the result of an endless series of bailouts of Greece and possibly the four other insolvent EU members.

The aim of the bailouts is to save the euro project and to shield investors, i.e., the holders of Greek debt, from the consequences of their own imprudence. It is the lot of hard-pressed taxpayers from throughout Euroland — mainly Germany and other northern creditor nations — to supply the bailout money. These funds have nothing to do with fomenting growth, which in the EU has averaged a paltry 1.5% per annum since 2001, crisis or no crisis. This is why the matter of bailing out Greece is politically so highly charged across Europe. There is the widespread belief that the European project is being carried out to benefit the technocratic elite, and investors who think nothing of privatizing profits even as they socialize the risk.

The European project, as currently set up, has become so toxic politically that public support has shifted in both the creditor and the debtor states against it. In Britain, the most Eurosceptic of the largest EU member states, those who think continued EU membership a good idea has fallen to only 1/3 of the electorate. Moreover, opposition to the EU has spread from a wing of the Conservative party to large parts of the Labour party as well. In Germany, if Mrs. Merkel is to persuade the Bundestag to give further bailouts to Greece — to say nothing of establishing a fiscal union, which some are calling for — she will in all likelihood require the support of opposition Social Democratic Party members to make up for the likely defection of many of her own coalition partners.

Public opinion in the debtor nations — solidly pro-EU in the halcyon days when cash flooded in for infrastructure projects and the like with few strings attached — now chafes at onerous austerity requirements. A blogger from Greece recently told the Daily Telegraph of London that no one in Greece knows where the 340 billions euros Brussels doled out to Athens over the years have gone. He says Greeks now resent being made the scapegoats for the rapaciousness of the nation’s governing elite. He says:

“It was supposed that when we joined the EU we would benefit socially and politically and that we would learn how Western countries operate. Instead, our governments were given access to cheap loans, which were used to expand an already bloated civil service…Our government…carry on lying, cheating, stealing and tyrannizing.”

British journalist Janet Daley hit the nail on the head:

“Angela Merkel… cannot commit herself to endless bail-outs and the under-writing of infinite Mediterranean debt, just as the Greek government cannot deliver the EU’s austerity measures—because the people of both these countries do not wish it. The irresistible force has met the immovable object.”

Europe (i.e., technocratic, Brussels Europe) has learned the hard way, as British member of the European parliament Daniel Hannan has observed, that harmonization does not bring prosperity. You cannot spend your way to growth, you cannot borrow forever, and you cannot debase your currency without consequences. (The United States, incidentally, in now learning much the same lesson.) And, oh yes, Keynesian economics is a pig in a poke (кота в мешке).

What does all this mean for Ukraine? It is high time to get real. The key to prosperity is hard work, low taxes and a sound currency. Everything else is illusory.

Ukrainians should wake up to the fact that Brussels has no intention of having Ukraine as a member (which, in my view, is just as well). Should Brussels experience the best-case scenario — decades of Japanese-style stagflation — the EU’s no-growth, centrally planned economy will hardly be in a position to drag Ukraine into prosperity. This means even the limited objective of joining a free trade area with the EU is unlikely to do Ukraine much good.

Ukraine should reconsider its policy on joining the Customs Union with Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia. The benefits are considerable: Ukraine would pay domestic Russian rates for Russian gas. That represents a huge potential boon to Ukrainian state finances and to ordinary Ukrainian consumers of energy. It would get Ukraine out from under onerous IMF demands that it reduce Naftogaz’s vast operating deficit by raising the rates it charges to Ukrainian homes and businesses. Ukraine would gain unimpeded access to a market of some 200 million people that has had an average rate of economic growth of 7% per annum since 2001 (compared to 1.5% in the EU in the same period.) In short, joining the Customs Union would give a major boost to economic expansion and employment at a time of hardship for many Ukrainians.

The key to Ukraine’s future is not quick fixes or panaceas of foreign provenance. It is Ukraine’s successful cultivation of its own native resources. These include:

• The maintenance of productive relations with all neighboring powers, although with a preferential option for Russia, which remains vital to Ukraine’s peace, prosperity and energy security.
• Liberalization of the economy; this is the key to rooting out corruption and paving the way for increased Foreign Direct Investment.
• The passage of reasonable laws on the ownership of agricultural land. Experts predict a doubling of Ukrainian GDP would ensue in short order, and the country’s emergence as the Saudi Arabia of agriculture quickly thereafter.
• The cultivation of the nation’s spiritual heritage as this is vital to the nation’s moral regeneration.

I give much the same advice to the United States — a country no less in need of moral regeneration. Eschew utopian projects (the warfare/welfare state of Wilson and Roosevelt) and quick fixes (Keynesian economics) that prove illusory, adopt a realist foreign policy that strives for a pan-European entente that includes all of the former USSR, and restore the value of the national currency, among other measures. Happily, if the debate in the current U.S. presidential campaign is any indication, these ideas are making slow but steady headway.

http://www.aminuk.org/index.php?idmenu=12&idsubmenu=247&language=en

 Please visit the American Institute in Ukraine at http://www.aminuk.org/ for more in depth reports from this highly acclaimed think tank which focuses on Ukraine and important geopolitical realities and energy related issues.

Suppose that hidden enemies of the administration of President Viktor Yanukovich wished to concoct a plan that would, with one stroke, accomplish the following:

• Revive the political prospects of the President’s most identifiable rival;
• Provide a rallying cry for completely discredited “Orange” opposition forces; and
• Damage ties not only with western powers – which had resigned themselves to a shift away from the predecessor “Orange” regime’s “Euro-Atlantic” orientation – but even cast a pall on relations between Kiev and Moscow.

Could any such enemies have thought of a better initiative than the spectacle presented by the prosecutions of former prime minister Yulia Timoshenko, former interior minister Yuriy Lutsenko, and other opposition figures?

Consider first the revived political prospects for Ms. Timoshenko herself. Following her defeat in the second round of the 2010 presidential race, she sought to re-create the “Orange” street strategy that had succeeded so well in 2004. There were virtually no takers, neither in Ukraine nor in the western capitals that had been so keen to accuse Mr. Yanukovich of “stealing” the 2004 vote. Instead, they quietly encouraged Timoshenko to back down gracefully.

That has all changed now. The same governments that seemed relieved to see her shuffled off to political oblivion are now rallying to Timoshenko’s cause. She is back in the limelight, her natural element. In the courtroom she is formally the defendant, but no one doubts who’s actually running the show.

Meanwhile, opposition forces that had been in complete disarray, as well as at each other’s throats, have pulled together in a newly formed Dictatorship Resistance Committee uniting the European Party of Ukraine, Defenders of the Fatherland party, People’s Self-Defense, Batkivschyna, Reforms and Law party, Our Ukraine, Popular Rukh of Ukraine, and the Front for Changes party. (It is noteworthy that the All-Ukrainian Union “Svoboda,” a cartoonish nationalist opposition seemingly “made-to-order for Party of Regions, is not part of the Committee. However, Svoboda also has denounced the trial.) Whether these collected voices of “Orange” Ukraine can sustain their newfound unity remains a question, but there’s no denying they’re better off than they were before Timoshenko’s indictment.

Most notable has been the international reaction. The United States, the primary contributor to the $12.5-billion IMF program whose extension has been a major Yanukovich accomplishment, has insisted on her immediate release. Members of the European Union, with which Mr. Yanukovich’s administration is trying to negotiate a free-trade association while rebuffing membership in the Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan customs union, also have voiced support for the former prime minister. Wilfried Martens, president of the European Peoples Party, a collection of center-right parties in the European Parliament, voiced his full support for Timoshenko, adding that “it is clear that the Ukrainian government has a poor understanding of European values and has opted for power-politics reminiscent of the pre-Orange revolution days.”

A recent report from the “Danish Helsinki Committee for Human Rights condemned not only the political motivations but the conduct of criminal trials against Timoshenko, Lutsensko, and two other former Orange officials. Most seriously, the report accuses the Kiev administration of “criminalizing normal political decisions with which the present government disagrees,” observing that “most of the charges are of a character which would never be considered a criminal offense in countries with a different legal tradition.”

In the lead-up to President Yanukovich’s recent meeting with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev, the position of the “Russian foreign ministry was short and to the point: all gas agreements of 2009 “were concluded in strict accordance with the national legislations of the two states and with international law, and for their signing there had been received the necessary instructions of the Presidents of Russia and Ukraine”; Russia presumes that the trial “should be fair and impartial” while “observing the elementary humanitarian norms and rules.”

Timoshenko – hardly considered Moscow’s favorite Ukrainian politician – pointed to the Russian statement as proof that she had done nothing wrong in agreeing to a price structure between the two countries considered by many observers to have been too favorable to Moscow. By the same token, some believe the real aim of the Timoshenko prosecution is to pressure Moscow on gas pricing, or perhaps to come up with a “gimmick to vitiate an “illegal” price deal and get a better one – however unlikely that might be in light of “Kiev’s confused energy and trade policy toward Russia.

Whether or not energy is at the heart of the prosecution, there’s little question what the political fallout is, in the assessment of the “U.S. semi-official RFE/RL, not a friend of close Ukraine-Russia ties:

Regardless of whether gas really is at the bottom of the case against Tymoshenko, it is difficult to predict what the most logical and face-saving conclusion of the Yanukovych Machine vs. Tymoshenko could be. The Yanukovych administration is bound to lose no matter what it does.

If Tymoshenko is sentenced, the perception of a political show trial will be justified and solidified and the former prime minister will be viewed as a victim of an increasingly authoritarian regime. If she is released, Tymoshenko will be vindicated and seen as victorious over the inept and corrupt Ukrainian authorities, who persecuted her out of spite and vengeance. Her release will not be hailed as a victory for the Ukrainian justice system, which is universally believed to be politicized and corrupt.

Either way, Yanukovych loses and Tymoshenko wins.

Which leads back to the initial question of what enemy of President Yanukovich possibly could have done more damage to his administration, if that had been the conscious intent. Unless one assumes the Timoshenko and other trials were entirely the product of cold, objective prosecutorial imperatives, it must be concluded that the President has been placed in this position by members of his own entourage who have miscued him on energy, trade, nationalism, “language, “demography, and much else. Now, by wasting the President’s political capital on implausible show trials, his administration finds itself more isolated internally and under increasing international pressure.

Indeed, there are some who suggest that isolation is precisely the objective of some advisers, leading to a “Ukraine that begins to look more like Belarus. With politicized trials against opponents and increasing use of law enforcement agencies as tools of political repression and outright expropriation (and consequent “erosion of support for the administration from small and medium business), added to decline in POR’s regional support base, some members of the administration’s brain trust may imagine that President Yanukovich – by morphing into an imitation of Alyaksandr Lukashenka – would have complete freedom to play a clever “strategic balancing game between Russia, Europe, and the United States.

Hopefully, the President himself will see the looming danger in time. Far from maximizing Ukraine’s leverage with its partners – both east and west – the current course onto which the administration has been steered suggests a failure to distinguish between questionable “tactical squirming and strategic vision. It is an error of judgment neither President Yanukovich nor Ukraine can afford.

Please visit the American Institute in Ukraine at http://www.aminuk.org/ for more in depth reports from this highly acclaimed think tank which focuses on Ukraine and important geopolitical realities and energy related issues.

Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 8 Issue: 151

 By: Taras Kuzio

The Jamestown Foundation

The arrest of opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko on August 5 derails Ukraine’s integration into Europe at the same time as its relations with Russia are poor (video of arrest here: www.pravda.com.ua/photo-video/2011/08/5/6454611/).

The disunited opposition has rallied to Tymoshenko’s side with Arseniy Yatseniuk’s Front for Change issuing a press release “The rubicon has been crossed. Democracy has come to an end. The authorities have become a regime” and warned “no regime ever wins a war against its own people” (http://frontzmin.org/). European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek condemned the arrest while Western diplomats in Kyiv warned that “this is serious” and would have serious ramifications on the free trade negotiations (Ukrayinska Pravda, Financial Times, August 5). Up to her arrest, the flood of articles in the West on political trials in Ukraine had argued that the Yulia Tymoshenko case and other trials are a “selective use of justice” (Kyiv Post, July 28; Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung July 18; Der Tagesspiegel July 12). The scale of this Western criticism is unprecedented in Ukraine’s twenty years of independence.

Much of the disbelief rests on  charges relating to the January 2009 gas contract where Tymoshenko’s policies are put on trial (there are no allegations of corruption). Michael Emerson, a Senior Associate Research Fellow at the Brussels-based Centre European Policy Studies, points out that “While Tymoshenko is indicted for taking a procedural shortcut, President Yanukovych shows himself to be a champion of executive shortcuts even on matters of such strategic significance as the long-term lease of the Sebastopol naval base to Russia” (www.ceps.eu/system/files/book/2011/07/July%20ME%20on%20Timoshenko.pdf).

Criticism of the “selective use of justice” is mounting from Western governments. French Ambassador to Ukraine, Jacques Faure, described Tymoshenko’s trial as “political” and asked “where are the European values often mentioned by the Ukrainian authorities, especially in discussions between the EU and Ukraine?” (Ukrayinska Pravda, July 28).

Western experts also point out that the trials are a no-win situation for the Viktor Yanukovych administration as his “credibility and commitment to democracy are in the dock alongside her” (Economist, July 25; EDM, July 22). Freedom House President David Kramer and US Atlantic Council Executive Vice President Damon Wilson advised Yanukovych “Mr. President, time to stop digging yourself into a hole” (Kyiv Post, July 14).

If Tymoshenko is released, Yanukovych will face a reinvigorated and formidable opponent against whom he won a narrow three percent election victory in 2010 and, if he loses to her in the 2015 elections, he could face criminal charges. Meanwhile, if Tymoshenko is imprisoned he will have an image in the West of a “neo-Soviet autocrat” (Economist, July 25). Yanukovych has shown already that he is “in essence a post-Soviet authoritarian leader” and he is establishing a “Putin-lite system” (EDM, July 22, Financial Times, July 19).

A highly critical editorial in the Financial Times (July 19) is a sign of the mounting criticism and appeared in a newspaper that endorsed Yanukovych in last year’s election. The editorial compared the Tymoshenko trial to that of Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorokovsky and argued that the EU should suspend negotiations for a Deep Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) if the Tymoshenko trial continues. “Trade privileges should be linked to values” the Financial Times (July 19) argued.

In letters to the Financial Times (July 20, 21) Amanda Paul, a Policy Analyst at the European Policy Center, argued that the Tymoshenko trial should not obstruct the signing of the DCFTA.  Ukrainian Ambassador to Great Britain, Volodymyr Khandogiy, rejected any comparison of Khodorokovsky and Tymoshenko by claiming there was no executive interference in the courts, itself a highly dubious claim.

The Council of Europe’s Venice Commission outlined 28 criticisms of Ukraine’s July 2010 judicial reform that increased political interference in the courts and marginalized the Supreme Court (www.venice.coe.int/docs/2010/CDL-AD%282010%29026-e.pdf). The Ukrainian media have also uncovered how the presidential administration is directly interfering in the Tymoshenko and other political trials by instructing witnesses (see Serhiy Leshchenko in Ukrayinska Pravda, July 28).

The most dramatic aspect of growing Western criticism rests upon how the trials will impact on Ukraine’s integration into Europe, and specifically the DCFTA.  Former US Ambassador to Ukraine, Steven Pifer, stated that senior European leaders will not “want to meet with a Ukrainian leader whose domestic policies appear to have less and less in common with those of an aspiring EU state,” while his policies “have already reduced to near zero the prospects of an invitation for Yanukovych to visit Washington” (Kyiv Post, July 28).

Pifer warned that there is a growing clamor for negotiations for a DCFTA to be slowed down while “Others ask whether it is time to apply visa sanctions against selected Ukrainian officials” (Kyiv Post, July 28).

The European Commission issued a statement explaining that politically motivated trials will not impact upon the DCFTA negotiations but did state they will have an impact on the DCFTA’s ratification (Ukrayinska Pravda, July 25). It took EU members four years from 1994 to ratify the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with a then democratically inclined Ukraine. Emerson has explained that the DCFTA has to be ratified by the European Parliament and all 27 member states parliaments (www.ceps.eu/system/files/book/2011/07/July%20ME%20on%20Timoshenko.pdf).

Emerson added: “Moreover, all such agreements now include a so-called ‘human rights clause,’ which generally uses language like ‘respect for democratic principles and fundamental human rights constitute an essential element of this agreement.’ This means that if this clause is not respected, there are grounds for a very serious response, such as suspension of the agreement.” In addition, Emerson pointed out the European Parliament is “capable legally of stopping the Agreement from entering into force, if the criticisms of the case mount in volume and credibility.”

The center-right Peoples Party (EPP) with 264 MEPs is the largest political group within the European Parliament. Tymoshenko’s Bakivshchina (Fatherland) party is an associate member of the EPP which has therefore been very vocal in its criticism of her trial and democratic regression in Ukraine. The Liberals and Greens have supported the EPP’s criticism and together the three political groups have a combined 405 out of 736 MEPs (http://www.europarl.europa.eu/members/expert/groupAndCountry.do). The European Conservatives and Reformers Group have an additional 56 MEPs. Together the four political groups control two thirds of MEP’s and would be therefore able to stall or oppose the ratification of the DCFTA with Ukraine. The Socialists are the only political group with whom the Party of Regions has an alliance but they only control a quarter of the MEPs. EPP member parties control the heads of states of 17 out of 27 EU member states and they will also be in a position to block the ratification of the DCFTA with Ukraine. Another six associate members of the EPP are heads of states in countries such as Croatia which seek EU membership (www.epp.eu/eppHeadsOfStateGov.asp).

Relations are increasingly poor with Russia as Yanukovych has rejected Russian attempts to take control of strategic sectors of the Ukrainian economy while opting for the DCFTA over the CIS Customs Union (see EDM, July 26, 2010). At the same time, democratic regression in Ukraine and political trials and arrests of the opposition are derailing integration into the EU. The signing of the DCFTA is put into doubt by Tymoshenko’s arrest but even if it is signed could be suspended and was always not going to be ratified by the European Parliament and the majority of EU members.

By 2012, the year of the Euro-2012 soccer championship that Ukraine and Poland are hosting, Kyiv could find it has no friends in Moscow or Washington and Brussels.

Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor – The Jamestown Foundation

Please visit The Jamestown Foundation at http://www.jamestown.org for more in depth reports from this highly acclaimed think tank

 http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=38289&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=7&cHash=4244e1072f210ef2b22115a3e076f372

Photo not supplied by The Jamestown Foundation

The tragic deaths of dozens of Ukrainian miners in two separate accidents at coal mines in the Lugansk and Donetsk regions, and the injury of many others, demand a full investigation into the failures that led to the disasters. But whatever the findings of responsibility for loss of life and limb, they will do little to comfort the families who have lost their irreplaceable loved ones. Memory eternal!

President Viktor Yanukovich is to be commended for cutting short his vacation in Crimea to hasten to the sites of the mining tragedies and for demanding a full investigation of the causes. But in addition to unearthing the facts about the disaster, the government should re-examine the strategic direction of an energy policy centered on the dubious gambit of achieving national energy independence. Specifically, as noted by Ukrainian Journal, “plans by the government to expand the coal mining sector as a way of reducing dependence on imports of expensive natural gas from Russia” should be subject to an exacting reexamination as part of the mine inquiry.

The Geopolitics of Shale Gas from a U.S. Perspective

Reducing “dependence on Russia” is also the leitmotif of another of Kiev’s energy priorities, natural gas from shale oil. This is the subtext of Shell’s interest in investing up to $1 billion: “Ukraine, which depends on imports of Russian gas, is searching for alternative sources of energy and has recently investigated the idea of developing shale plays in the country’s eastern Donbas region as well as in the Carpathian mountains in the west. According to data collected by Naftohaz Ukrayiny, U.S. geologists estimate that Ukraine may have as much as 1.5 to 2.5 trillion cubic meters of shale gas.”

Shell, no doubt, is interested primarily and properly in the commercial value of the venture. But in light of strategic thinking in the U.S. the political aspect of potential shale gas development in Ukraine should not be lost on anyone. According to “Shale Gas and U.S. National Security,” a July 2011 study from the (former U.S. Secretary of State) James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, shale gas should be seen as a key tool in maintaining and even extending America’s post-Cold War global hegemony, especially at Russia’s expense.

The Baker Institute study is long on geopolitics and short on commercial appeal. Like the Washington-supported Baku-Ceyhan (existing) and Nabucco (fictional) oil pipelines, shale gas development is seen as the answer to political problems, not economic ones. For example, consider the following excerpts from the Baker Institute study, with comment from AIU:

• (Page 9) “Rising shale gas supplies have . . . already had geopolitical implications. For example, it has played a key role in weakening Russia’s ability to wield an ‘energy weapon’ over its European customers by increasing alternative supplies to Europe in the form of LNG displaced from the U.S. market.”AIU comment: For the authors of the report, Russia’s selling its gas to European customers constitutes an “energy weapon,” but evidently American efforts to undercut Russia’s market to achieve geopolitical goals are not any kind of weapon.
• (Page 45) “Europe’s high dependence on Russian pipeline natural gas supplies made it difficult for certain European leaders to engage in diplomacy objecting to Russia’s invasion [sic] of Georgia in 2008 and weakened their support of the shaky election of pro-Western Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko, who was negatively targeted by Moscow for his anti-Russian stances. A more diverse energy supply for Europe enhances U.S. interests by buttressing Europe’s abilities to resist Russian interference in European affairs and help border states in the Balkans and Eastern Europe assert greater foreign policy independence from Moscow. U.S. coalitions with European nations are an important element to U.S. national security, including efforts to combat terrorism and prevent humanitarian crises. An energy-independent Europe will be better positioned to join with the United States in global peacekeeping and other international initiatives that might not have the full support of Russia.”AIU comment: Of course, the important factor here is not Europe’s energy independence but dependence on countries within the U.S. geostrategic orbit, like Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, and Iraq. This makes it harder for U.S. allies in Europe to resist Washington’s pressure to participate in future misguided “initiatives” on the model of Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, perhaps soon Syria, the wisdom and even legality of which Russia has had the bad manners to dispute. Moreover, the reference to “border states” suggests a new dividing line in a Europe that excludes an alien Russia.
• (Page 45, note 26) “Germany opposed sanctions against Russia in the aftermath of its invasion [sic] of Georgia, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel traveled for meetings to St. Petersburg, Russia in December 2008 and made it clear in a joint press conference that Germany opposed placing the Ukraine and Georgia on the path to NATO membership, despite American pressure (emphasis added) in the opposite direction. http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20081006_german_question . Other European nations, including Italy, also failed to condemn the Russian military action.”AIU comment: Almost exactly three years ago, Washington’s erratic favorite Mikheil Saakashvili launched an attack on South Ossetia, killing Ossetian civilians and Russian peacekeepers. When Russia responded in force, some of America’s NATO allies had the temerity to resist “pressure” from Washington to aggravate the situation, perhaps in part because they had other sources of energy than the ones the U.S. preferred. Even worse, Ukraine’s and Georgia’s membership in NATO – which might have turned the 2008 clash into a global conflagration – are no longer acceptable to some of Washington’s key allies.
• (Page 48) “The Nabucco pipeline project has been discussed for over a decade as a further solution to diversifying the EU’s access to diverse natural gas supplies from Central Asia and Iraq. An intergovernmental agreement for the project was signed by Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Austria in July 2009, and was intended to both reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian gas as well as create new transportation outlets for Caspian resources, thereby strengthening the political (emphasis added) links between the Caspian nations and the EU. . . . However, the high expense of the project and doubts about the viability and timing of gas supplies have presented the project with substantial obstacles. But given the possible scenarios for the rise of alternative supplies to Europe as shale gas production accelerates, it becomes further unclear whether the Nabucco project will make either geopolitical (emphasis added) or commercial sense.”(AIU comment: Like its companion, Tbilisi-Baku-Ceyhan, Nabucco never made commercial sense but was only concocted as a “political” and “geopolitical” alternative to South Stream (incidentally, not even mentioned in the Baker Institute study). With approaching collapse of the Nabucco project – and with most of the countries bullied by Washington into providing lip-service to Nabucco now jumping aboard South Stream – shale gas is now floated as a kind of technological substitute for Nabucco to achieve the same geopolitical ends.)

‘Fracking’: Another Chernobyl In the Making?

What the Baker Institute report does not examine in any detail is the potential environmental impact of “fracking,” the advanced technique of injecting toxic substances under high pressure into the gas-bearing substrata to extract natural gas from “fractured” shale rock. Fracking is essential to exploiting discoveries from exploration in Ukraine and elsewhere, if the gas recovery is to be economically viable. Indeed, from a purely economic perspective, it’s fair to say that fracking is shale gas. As put by one energy industry investment expert: “Without fracturing, there is no unconventional gas production – and without production from these fields, the nation’s dependence on foreign energy would send gas prices and energy bills soaring.”

While even some environmentally conscious U.S. states, notably New York, are trying to press ahead with fracking-based shale gas exploitation, others such as neighboring New Jersey are raising legal barriers to it. So are some European countries, notably France:

“New Jersey and France don’t have much in common, but one thing they agree on is that hydraulic fracturing, which injects chemicals into the ground to extract natural gas from shale rock, pollutes water supplies and should be banned. The New Jersey legislation states that fracking

‘ . . . has been found to use a variety of contaminating chemicals and materials that can suddenly and in an uncontrolled manner be introduced into the surface waters and groundwater of the state.’

“For New Jersey, the ban is not much of an economic sacrifice because the state doesn’t possess any Marcellus shale rock located deep enough to drill anyway. But the story is much different in France, which has shale oil and gas fields that ‘are potentially some of the most promising in Europe.’ Despite the economic potential, the French legislature passed a law that gives energy companies two months to declare what type of drilling techniques they will use in areas [for which] they have received drilling permits. If a company doesn’t respond or answers that it plans to use fracking, French regulators will revoke its drilling permit.

“France’s eco-friendly legislation reflects the strong green movement in Europe right now and follows Germany’s decision to ban all nuclear power by 2022. The French Canadian province of Quebec has imposed a moratorium on fracking since March pending a detailed environmental review.

“The energy industry dismisses environmental concerns about fracking, stating that current regulations are adequate to prevent water contamination. But many are not convinced by these self-serving assurances. For example, Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives released a report in April documenting that 650 of the 750 compounds found in fracking liquid are ‘chemicals that are known for possible human carcinogens, regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act, or listed as hazardous air pollutants.’ Earlier in January, these same Democrats reported that energy companies including Weatherford (NYSE: WFT), Halliburton (NYSE: HAL), and BJ Services –since acquired by Baker Hughes (NYSE: BHI) – have continued to pump diesel fuel into the ground without a permit even after it was outlawed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Furthermore, a New York Times investigation recently discovered that the fracking process releases radioactivity into rivers as well as carcinogenic chemicals:

“Thousands of internal documents from the Environmental Protection Agency, state regulators and drillers show that the dangers to the environment and health are greater than previously understood.

“A list of the damning documents can be found by clicking here.”

[From “New Jersey and France Ban Natural Gas Drilling Based on Fracking,” Investing Daily, emphasis and links as in original.]

In short, in light of the dangerous methodologies that must be employed, shale gas is hardly a cost-free windfall for Ukraine, or for that matter for France or New York. That doesn’t mean that Ukraine shouldn’t take a hard look at shale gas as one possible option, if properly supervised and regulated. Given Ukraine’s economy, all potential sources of benefit should be put on the table.

However, the inherently hazardous nature of fracking means that the potential costs to Ukraine of large-scale shale gas exploitation are no less serious than those seen in the coal-mining deaths in Lugansk and Donetsk. Indeed, while coal-mining risks primarily affect those directly engaged on the work – the miners – the potential risks of fracking are those of poisoning the environment and people well beyond the work site. In this regard, the price of a fracking mishap potentially could approach that of a nuclear accident, with the kind of devastating consequences Ukraine knows all too well.

Staying Focused on Ukraine’s Options

Whether seen as a potential “Technological Nabucco” or a “Chemical Chernobyl,” it is clear that neither shale gas nor stepped up coal production is a panacea to Ukraine’s energy economic ills. While either or both may, on some level, be useful additions to Ukraine’s “economic toolkit,” the fact is, Ukraine’s economy and Ukrainian families need the economic benefits of sustained energy supply at cheaper prices. And they need it now.

The only way to assure that is for Kiev to abandon its non-economic flirtation with a neo-Orange geopolitical agenda emanating from Washington, which as the Baker Institute study proves is the real substance behind the shale gas initiative in Ukraine and other “border states” like Poland and Croatia (page 25). Ukrainians can’t eat shale gas geopolitics any more than they can eat the geopolitics of an unraveling NATO or of a nonexistent Nabucco.

With Germany’s phase-out of its nuclear program and the likelihood that other European countries will follow suit, Ukraine’s leverage now, before Nord Stream goes on line and possibly is expanded, is as good as it’s going to get. Ukraine needs to strike a deal with Russia on its pipeline network very soon if it wants stay in the European gas transit game. Ukraine can only guarantee its continuation as a player by coming to an agreement with Russia for long-term supply, encompassing:

• Merger of Gazprom and Naftrogaz Ukrainy and upgrade of Ukraine’s pipeline system. (The cancellation of a Yanukovich meeting with his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, due to this very issue, is not in Ukraine’s interest.) Gas for Ukraine at the required volume and price can only come from Russia or from Turkmenistan through Russia.
• Cessation of Ukraine’s opposition to South Stream, which unlike Nabucco is set to become a reality.
• Accession to the Russia-Kazakhstan-Belarus Customs Union as element of “grand bargain” between Kiev on Moscow

Such an approach hardly would undermine Ukraine’s prospects with Europe and in fact would enhance them, as the EU’s solid core (Germany and France) move to cut their own energy deals with Russia. While in the alarmed assessment of some in the U.S. that that development has contributed to revival of a “Russian-French-German axis that began to emerge in 2003 in opposition to the US-Iraq war” in the face of slipping U.S. security dominance in Europe and globally, it can only enhance Ukraine’s access to Europe as well as capitalizing on Russia’s burgeoning cooperation with China, India, Brazil and other non-Western, BRIC-oriented centers.

Please visit the website of American Institute in Ukraine   (http://www.aminuk.org/)

Deputy Executive Director James George Jatras: Mr. Jatras is a principal in a public advocacy firm based in Washington, DC. Prior to entering the private sector he was senior foreign policy adviser to the Republican leadership of the United States Senate. He earlier served as as an American Foreign Service Officer, where among other assignments he was assigned to the (then) Office of Soviet Union Affairs.

The photo was not supplied by the American Institute in Ukraine

 

The passage of an unpopular pension reform law by the Verkhovna Rada presents President Viktor Yanukovich a classic “damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t” choice. On the one hand, his signing the bill may further erode Party of Regions’ (POR) already declining popularity, not least among his core constituency in eastern Ukraine, where socialist concepts of economic security still hold some appeal. On the other hand, few can doubt the unsustainability of the current benefit structure, which consumes 18 percent of Ukraine’s GDP and boasts one of the world’s worst ratios of retirees to contributors (9 to 10). Like it or not, pension reform is a key demand of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to extend the next $1.5 billion tranche out of the IMF’s $15 billion lending package.

Under the most favorable circumstance, this would be a tricky maneuver for Yanukovich to execute, with the best face being that the IMF held a gun to his head. Failure to accede to the IMF’s demands and consequent downgrading of Ukraine’s credit rating would reverse his early successes in securing continued credit support for Ukraine and would cut off any prospect for lending and investment. Of course, these are hardly the best of circumstances, with the POR government pursuing on many fronts what looks like incoherent tactical squirming: refusing to join the Moscow-led Customs Union (CU), rejecting a Gazprom-Naftogaz merger, opposing South Stream, and reneging on promises to POR’s voter core (notably elevating the Russian language to official status) while vainly chasing votes in west Ukraine.

On the IMF and pension front, however, Mr. Yanukovich seems to have gotten the politics right. First, he has forced his opponents to draw a line in the sand on a battle they cannot hope to win. The opposition, notably the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, as much as concedes that their constitutional challenge to the Rada’s method of voting used to pass what they hyperbolically call “pension genocide” will not be sustained. Moreover, they transparently have no answer to the problem either: the numbers speak for themselves, and IMF patience is not without limits. Second, while some POR allies, notably the Communist Party, also oppose the reform law, it is not likely to result in a serious or permanent break in Yanukovich’s legislative dominance. Thirdly, regarding POR’s electoral base, while the pension reform is a bitter pill, pushing it through now would be less likely to cause Greek-style disorders of the sort that might result from either complete collapse of the pension system or, alternatively, of the economy if foreign credit and investment were cut off.

In this regard, Ukraine can take some small solace in the travails afflicting the rest of the world. At least Kiev has the ability to make sovereign decisions about its own budget arrangements – under pressure to be sure, but unlike (for example) Athens, which can’t even control the value of its own currency but must mechanically obey the diktat of the Brussels, Washington, and international banking bureaucracies. Even the United States, whose taxpayers supply most of the IMF’s funding must suffer the indignity of listening to Christine Lagarde warning Washington of “real nasty consequences” if President Barack Obama and Congress can’t reach a deal on raising the U.S. government’s debt limit above the current $14.3 trillion by August 2. At any rate, Kiev can be comforted by the fact that the reform (as described by Kiev-based Dragon Capital in a note to investors) “marks a huge positive step towards ensuring sustainability of Ukraine’s public finances and improves the prospects for disbursement of the next IMF lending package. The bill also sets the foundation for introducing the second pension pillar, which is viewed as crucial to fostering growth of the domestic financial market.”

The reference to the domestic financial market is not incidental. Each credit benchmark inevitably is followed by another, as sure as each summer is followed all too soon by winter. Last year Kiev hiked household natural gas prices to land the first two IMF tranches totaling $3.4 billion. The just-enacted pension reform will now unfreeze the disbursements from that tranche but it is expected that the IMF will remain tough with its final key condition concerning a hike in domestic gas tariffs. In a country where pensions are about $100-140 per month and where poor economic conditions are still reflected in some of the lowest salaries, life expectancy, and living standards in Eastern Europe, Yanukovich cannot afford to let his painful win on pensions be followed by fuel price increases. This again exposes the dangers of further dithering on larger economic priorities and the need for Kiev to stop chasing the mirage of any early accession to the EU (itself in crisis) and rather to cut a hard bargain with Moscow on joining the CU and on Gazprom-Naftogaz in exchange for Ukraine’s energy security and affordability. Not only Ukraine’s economy but POR’s fortunes depend on it.

Please visit the American Institute of Ukraine at http://www.aminuk.org/ for more reports from this highly acclaimed think tank about Ukraine and regional issues.

Photo not supplied by the American Institute of Ukraine

As was widely reported by the Ukrainian media, NATO believes Viktor Yanukovich has proved less pro-Russian than it had feared when, shortly after his election, he moved swiftly to extend Russia’s lease on its Black Sea naval base.

That is the gist of a draft report on Ukrainian foreign policy prepared recently by NATO’s parliamentary assembly. The report cites a number of recent instances of Kiev contradicting Russian interests on key policy questions, a development its authors make little secret of welcoming. The report clearly reveals that NATO continues to think of Ukraine as a pawn to be deployed in a protracted zero-sum game with Russia, and pines for the day when it will once again willingly embrace this role.

This would appear to represent wishful thinking on NATO’s part. After all, Yanukovich recently said Ukraine will not participate in American plans for a missile defense system that is clearly aimed at negating Russia’s nuclear deterrent. In addition, he told the French daily Le Monde that while “we maintain partnership relations with NATO and participate in peacekeeping operations,” nevertheless, we are “neutral and non-aligned.” He said Ukraine’s policy of good relations with Moscow and the West has eased tensions and paved the way for a “stronger European security system.”

Yanukovich is certainly right about that. In effectively thwarting Western efforts to drive a wedge between Kiev and Moscow—at least so far—he has done as much to solidify pan-European peace and geo-strategic stability as any other contemporary European leader, if not more.

And yet, the authors of the NATO draft report are not wrong in detecting a westward drift in Ukrainian foreign policy. They cite these developments: “[Yanukovich] has not recognized Georgia’s breakaway territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states, has not joined the Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan Customs Union…In Brussels, he spoke out against the Russian-led South Stream pipeline project…and has rejected a takeover of Ukrainian energy giant Naftogaz by Gazprom.”

Indeed, Energy Minister Yuriy Boyko’s recent statement that South Stream constitutes a threat to Ukraine’s national security calls to mind the rhetoric (and the mind-set) of the Yushchenko years.

It is not clear what motivates Kiev’s thinking in these matters. A Ukrainian foreign policy rooted in the national interest would think twice before surrendering Ukraine’s hard-won sovereignty to an alien and deeply troubled political bloc (the EU) whose prestige has never been lower, rather than join a Customs Union that would give Ukrainian industry unimpeded access to a market of some 200 million people in Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia. Membership of the Customs Union would lead to increased “direct foreign investment” in Ukraine, which would give a powerful boost to employment, growth and industrial modernization.

Ukrainian political consultant Vladimir Granovski, writing in the Kiev Post, suggests the administration is backing away from the pro-Moscow orientation promised by Yanukovich in the 2010 presidential campaign in order to curry favor in parts of the country that did not vote for the Party of Regions:

“…the ruling party [i.e., the POR] says it is firmly set on European integration and unwilling to enter the Customs Union with Russia and its allies. Other pro-Russian policies, such as making Russian an official state language, have also not been implemented.”

According to Granovski, Mr. Yanukovich feels he must be the president of all Ukrainians, not just those who voted for him. He cautions that this strategy “could lead [Yanukovich] to lose his constituency” while not gaining him “the voters in Kiev and in the western regions” he hopes to attract.

The point is well taken. Elected officials frequently seek to win over opposition voters by accommodating their views—thereby alienating their original supporters who often retaliate by staying at home rather than vote in the next election. President George H. W. Bush famously won election by promising his supporters he would not raise taxes, then, once in office, succumbed to the demands of his opponents to raise them, thus paving the way for his own ignominious defeat at the polls.

If Granovski’s analysis is correct, one could extrapolate a tendency on the administration’s part to side with Russia on security matters and with Europe on economic ones. The approach would seem to be—again, if Granvoski is right—let’s please Eastern Ukraine by accommodating Russia on NATO and national missile defense, and let’s please Western Ukraine by opting for the EU’s free trade zone and backing away from Russian language rights.

If so, the approach is too simplistic by half. The West aims to dragoon Ukraine into an anti-Russian configuration and will use the EU to do it if it cannot play the NATO card. This might please some political forces in Ukraine, but they will not support the POR. Meanwhile, many POR voters will be increasingly inclined to stay home.

Rather than play such a risky, high-stakes game—one commonly associated with presidential adviser Anna German—President Yanukovich would be better advised to stick to the foreign policy that helped get him elected in the first place.

This policy is succinctly formulated in the referenced NATO draft report: “Yanukovich…will not pull his country into a West that does not include Russia” – as indeed he should not. It is fundamental to the peace, prosperity and sovereignty of Ukraine (and Russia) that Kiev (and Moscow) resist efforts to bifurcate Europe by ramming a wedge between the Slavic nations (just as two mutually antagonistic blocs once confronted each other over Germanic lands).

Judging by the thrust and tenor of the draft report, this is clearly an objective many at NATO continue to pine for. But NATO, styled the most powerful military alliance in history, would be better advised to ponder the implications of its impending defeat in Afghanistan and its failure to bomb six million militarily out-classed Libyans into submission (and they’ve been at it since March 19th).

Meanwhile, the US public is growing increasingly intolerant of the cost of empire in a time of great economic uncertainty. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently made headlines around the world when he criticized Europeans for spending too little on military procurement, and for being less than gung-ho in their support of Washington’s geo-strategic aims (Germany and Poland, for example, have abstained from the Libyan campaign.)

What Gates did not address is the underlying cause of NATO’s distress—namely, America’s ill-starred, ill-advised and wholly unachievable quest for global strategic dominance. That’s probably because he hasn’t got a clue as to what US policy should be instead. He does not understand that America needs and yearns for a non-interventionist foreign policy that does not seek to encircle or obliterate anyone and does not aim to re-make the world in the progressive, agnostic (really atheist) image our infinitely remote, self-perpetuating, bipartisan elite have fashioned for us.

If NATO’s wars have gone badly awry leaving it with no compelling strategic justification, the EU finds itself in straits hardly less dire. Both pillars of the Euro-Atlantic system are increasingly non-viable, train wrecks in the making. President Yanukovich should rein in the westward drift in Kiev’s foreign policy, and reject the notion that he can assure the POR’s political success by adopting the policies of his opponents.

Please visit the American Institute in Ukraine http://www.aminuk.org/ for more in depth articles and reports about a very strategic region from this highly acclaimed institute.