Russia-Ukraine: a sharp turn (1)
by
MARIA BEAT*

President Yanukovich is well known as a supporter of strong relations with Russia, and his official visit to Moscow on March 5 demonstrated this once again. The visit came as a result of a formal invitation by President Dmitry Medvedev, extended on Feb. 15 to the newly elected president of Ukraine, when congratulating him on his election. It took place just five days after Yanukovich took office and became his second official visit as head of the Ukrainian state to a foreign country.

Actually, during his first presidential visit to Brussels, while answering questions posed by journalists, he said: “As for our contacts with NATO, we maintain them today at the level reached by the previous government. In regard to their future: It’s the subject of our coming negotiations.” The Ukraine-NATO meeting, planned to soon take place, was confirmed shortly afterwards by NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who also mentioned that “the NATO position remains unchanged after the recent presidential elections in Ukraine. We decided at the Bucharest summit that Ukraine and Georgia could eventually become NATO members if they want to and meet the required criteria. This is our open door policy, and we follow it.”

Breakthrough dialogue

Circles close to President Yanukovich qualified his Moscow visit as a “new start of dialogue at the highest governmental level that could trigger a breakthrough in every aspect of Ukrainian-Russian relations,” as was said on the eve of a visit by newly appointed Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Konstantin Grischenko, who was then the Ukrainian ambassador to Russia. “The president of Ukraine and the national delegation are ready for the most open, constructive and results-oriented talks in Moscow,” he declared upon arrival in Moscow on March 5.

The very fact that the Ukrainian president recently visited Russia reveals his anticipation of a major breakthrough in Ukrainian-Russian relations. Yanukovich believes that making a “sharp turn in the right direction” is his prime task. Relations should never be as bad as they were under President Yuschenko, said Yanukovich when in Moscow, while adding that “we had never thought that something as bad as that could ever happen to our relations.” Addressing President Medvedev, he also said that improving interstate relations was necessary “in order to make the dream of the peoples of Ukraine and Russia come true.”

No doubt, Russian-Ukrainian relations greatly deteriorated during the years when President Yuschenko was in office, and Russian-Ukrainian trade turnover alone dropped to nearly $15 billion, accounting for a threefold decrease. “Unfortunately, in recent years, relations between our countries have worse than stagnated -- they’ve degraded,” Medvedev said on March 5.

Russian-Ukrainian tensions reached their peak last summer, when President Medvedev addressed President Yuschenko with an open letter saying that the Ukrainian president had conducted an anti-Russian policy. The Russian president also pointed to the “crowding out” of the Russian language, disagreements about the Russian Black Sea fleet using Sevastopol as its navy base, continuing shipments of armaments to Georgia after the tragic events of August 2008 in the Caucasus, and to the decision of President Yuschenko to join NATO without taking into account the wishes of the people of Ukraine. In reply, the Ukrainian president claimed a lack of cooperation on the Russian side and his being sidetracked by Russian leaders, who had invited him to “horseracing only.”

Russia stopped its warring rhetoric when Yanukovich won the first round of presidential elections and finally sent an ambassador to Kiev, Mikhail Zurabov, who had waited for the occasion for half a year. As such, Ambassador Zurabov presented his credentials to newly elected President Yanukovich and, while doing this, addressed him in Ukrainian.

Today, according to President Medvedev, the immediate task is to “recover and reanimate” Russian-Ukrainian relations, and in order to “revive fully fledged relations between Russia and Ukraine, all contacts -- in every field -- shall be activated.” When in Moscow, the newly elected Ukrainian president agreed to all of this and expressed his readiness to straighten up immediately and in particular the situation surrounding the Russian Black Sea fleet and the Russian language in Ukraine.

Promises from Ukraine’s new leader

“The rights of Russian-speaking people should be protected. I’ll fulfill my election promises, and the issue will be resolved in the near future,” pledged President Yanukovich on March 5. Before becoming the head of the Ukrainian state, Yanukovich for years promised to make Russian the second official language of Ukraine and made this pledge a key element of his election strategy. Nevertheless, he dropped it right before the first round of elections and, following up on it, announced on March 9, when speaking at a Ukrainian university, that “Ukrainian will continue being the only official language of Ukraine.”

As for the Russian Black Sea fleet using Sevastopol for a navy base, Yanukovich believes that “it’s an old story, and the issue is a matter for a separate agreement. The issue has always been treated with understanding by people of both Ukraine and Russia, and -- I believe -- will continue to be so. … I do appreciate the difficulties and problems surrounding the issue and believe that we will very soon together come to a solution acceptable to both Ukraine and Russia.” Before his election, Yanukovich talked about the necessary revision of the Sevastopol agreements in order to increase the rent payable by the Russians for keeping their Black Sea navy there.

In line with a rental agreement signed by Russia and Ukraine in 1997, the Russian fleet could stay in Sevastopol until 2017. The port city has traditionally been seen as the cradle of the Russian Black Sea navy. Russia is keen to continue keeping its Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol after 2017 as well. Nevertheless, the issue has started generating sharp disagreements in Ukraine in the last couple of years.

For his part, President Medvedev is ready to promote the Ukrainian language through opening broadcasting in Ukrainian in Russia. “As for the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian information space, I believe it’s an important issue. Since we express our concerns about how Russian is treated in Ukraine, we should look into how well we promote Ukrainian in Russia, whether or not we have created required conditions for studying Ukrainian and how our information space looks like,” he said on March 5.

Russia is sincerely pleased with the open and friendly approach taken by the newly elected Ukrainian president. To start their meeting on March 5, President Medvedev extended -- in a long-awaited cordial manner -- a “warm welcome to the Kremlin” to Yanukovich and wished him success as the Ukrainian head of state, having mentioned that “this success of Viktor Yanukovich is crucially important for the development of one of the closest countries to Russia.” Further on, President Medvedev said: “I do hope that with the new president of Ukraine in office, relations between our countries will gain a different momentum to become really closer and based on good will and a pragmatic approach, all the while meeting the expectations of millions of Russians and Ukrainians who want to be friends, live jointly together, develop their national economies and solve the most important regional problems, and -- actually -- create good ground for a decent life for many Russians and Ukrainians.”

Russian interest in Ukraine

President Medvedev also emphasized the Russian interest in political and economic stability in Ukraine, considering it Russia’s “highly important partner” in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). To support Ukraine in gaining this political and economic stability, Russia is ready to promote the Ukrainian position at “different international forums, including the G-8, the G-20 and in financial organizations.”

In the course of their Kremlin meeting, the leaders also decided to resume the work of a joint Russian-Ukrainian intergovernmental commission that had failed to hold a meeting for two years. Headed respectively by the presidents of Russia and Ukraine, the commission was announced to have the next meeting in Kiev in the first half of 2010, and President Medvedev is expected to participate. Also, the commission plans to become the “key element” of Russian-Ukrainian bilateral cooperation.

Russian-Ukrainian relations are centuries old, and the countries are closely tied by an organic bond, having lived jointly together as a single whole for nearly three centuries, till 1991. Their historic, cultural and economic ties are intertwined so closely that they are often inseparable. Still, it is natural gas that is the major element of Russian-Ukrainian relations today. “Cooperation in the gas sector should be based on market relations, while all the previously signed contract agreements should be strictly followed,” stated President Medvedev in the course of his meeting with President Yanukovich on March 5. This may well imply that Russia is reluctant to change the existing gas price for Ukraine, which is an issue of crucial importance for President Yanukovich and his government.

In the course of his election campaign, Yanukovich consistently promised to review gas contracts made by then Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko with Russia last year that are largely considered in his country as economically not good for Ukraine. In line with these contracts, Ukraine has been paying $305.20 per bcm of gas starting from January 2010, which is substantially higher than the Russian gas price for Europe. Going to Moscow, President Yanukovich promised to discuss a gas price revision with the Russian leaders: “I’m sure that we’ll definitely touch upon the traditional aspects of the Ukrainian-Russian relations, including the natural gas deliveries to Ukraine, gas transit to Europe as well as the reliability of the existing system.” In particular, President Yanukovich was keen on securing a gas price reduction to $205-$210 per bcm, considered by Ukraine as an economically viable import gas price. In return, he was ready to offer to Gazprom participation in managing the Ukrainian gas transportation system.

Nevertheless, gas issues were not touched upon in the course of his meetings with either President Medvedev or Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. It is quite possible that Russia will be ready to address them after the composition of the new Ukrainian cabinet of ministers is announced. Apparently, it matches the expectations enjoyed by the newly appointed Ukrainian government as well. According to Prime Minister Nikolai Azarov, “First of all, our talks with Russia will be focused on a suitable gas price.”

Russian-born Azarov is an old comrade-in-arms of President Yanukovich in the Ukrainian Party of the Regions. His nomination for prime minister of Ukraine put an end to a constant rift between the country’s president and prime minister that in recent years resulted in continuous squabbling and a lack of national stability. “In recent years, Russia has enjoyed a big advantage over Ukraine, having constant stability. This stability created conditions for interaction between the government, the Duma and the president, which was something that we lacked in Ukraine, as you know,” President Yanukovich stressed in his recent conversation with the Russian leaders.