Ukraine's U-turn

 

 

Four years ago, when the then pro-western Ukrainian President Yuschenko was warming up to Brussels while ignoring its sulking neighbour Russia, you could not help but recall the famous Ukrainian maxim: “The church is near, but the way is icy. The tavern is far, but I will walk carefully.”

So, for four agonising years, Kiev kept on going to the tavern while the Church waited; quietly doing what it does the best—twisting the arm. And in hubris, which led Yuschenko believe that it can act as a chessboard between the West and the emergent Russia, Kiev became an international playground. The people who had so enthusiastically ushered in the Orange Revolution a few years ago became wary. Yuschenko ignored domestic concerns and indulged a little too much in the international game. When he woke up, on the eve of the elections, he had already lost the plot. The gloom in Brussels was obvious. But gloomier still was Yuschenko’s camp.

Now compare that with the new President Viktor Yanukovych’s path. An open pro-Russian leader, the first capital he visited was Brussels—not NATO’s den but EU’s headquarters. He conducted talks with the President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso and the President of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek.

Unlike Yushchenko, who preferred to make pledges of ceaseless love to the nation’s European buddies, Yanukovych specified his priorities of associations with the EU. They consist of the signing of the accord on association (a first step towards the EU), the formation of the free trade zone, the non-visa regime and the EU’s support in overcoming the consequences of the financial predicament in Ukraine—rather domestic concerns, all of them. And then, he decided to rebuild the bridge with the nation his predecessor had so offended—Russia.

Talking to TSI, noted Russian-Ukrainian affairs expert, Alexey Sazonov, said, “Yuschenko’s policies were excessively jingoistic and in several respects drastically against its eastern neighbour. The incumbent, in contrast, appears to have a well balanced schema that seeks to perk up the lives of Ukrainian citizens.” Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin last week called for closer economic ties with Kiev while meeting with Yanukovych in Moscow. “We know in engineering, aviation, energy and agricultural spheres we strongly depend on each other. We have a lot of lost ground, to recover” Putin was reported to have said.

Trade volume between Russia and Ukraine wilted by more than 40 percent in the previous financial year due to the global meltdown. Putin proposed that the two former Soviet neighbours build joint ventures, including in the power sector, in third countries. He also called Ukraine to be part of an existing customs union comprising Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. Earlier, Yanukovych also met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in the Kremlin, pledging to perk up bilateral associations.

Relations between Kremlin and Kiev deteriorated over many differences ranging from Ukraine’s bid for NATO membership to gas supply.

He also said Moscow and Kiev would carry on deliberations on the prospect of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet base on the Crimean Peninsula. “We agreed... that all consultations based on the current agreements, which were signed in 1997, would continue,” Medvedev added. Yushchenko, on his part, had maintained that Russia would have to look for a fresh main base for its Black Sea Fleet once the present contract runs out in 2017.

Ukraine has faced numerous troubles in the past few decades. Poverty, crime, felony and rising disapproval with the political class are just a few of the problems gnawing away at this nation. Yanukovych’s look inside policy will mercifully solve a few of them. Another cause for optimism is that there are only two prominent parties left in the fray. Such dual-party systems have been victorious at creating even-handed political systems. The fact that there exists apparent disagreements between one party that is conservative (Yuschenko) and another that is more liberal (Yanukovich) augurs well for Ukraine's evolution.