The Empire Strikes Back Resurgent looks set to seek a lead role in this autumn’s Ukrainian election campaign

Taras Kuzio

President Dmitri Medvedev’s open letter to his the outside world that it still regards as very remains that the Ukrainian President’s role in Ukrainian counterpart , sent in much within its exclusive orbit. This is bold forward the country’s NATO drive has been ambiguous at mid-August less than a week after Russian Orthodox policy on the part of the Kremlin, especially given best. Ukraine had the perfect opportunity to enter Patriarch Kyrill’s controversial ten-day visit to what happened last time Russia entangled itself NATO in 2006 but it failed to receive a Member- Ukraine, would have created a flurry of diplomatic in a Ukrainian presidential election. After Russia’s ship Action Plan (MAP) in Riga because the presi- activity between any two ‘normal’ international disastrous intervention into the 2004 presidential dent believed his strategic priority should be not neighbours. Alas, Russia and Ukraine are anything elections, which ended up provoking the Orange Ukraine’s national security but preventing Yulia but normal neighbours and as the Ukrainian presi- Revolution and sending bilateral relations into free- Tymoshenko from returning as prime minister dential elections draw closer there are signs that fall, many thought that Russia had learnt its lessons. after the March 2006 parliamentary elections. If Russia is moving to reassert its influence in its former The Medvedev letter would suggest that this is not Ukraine had established an Orange coalition and colony. The Kyrill visit and Medvedev letter should be the case. On the contrary, Russia has apparently government after the 2006 elections would seen as two parts of the same Russian geopolitical chosen to ignore the outcomes of 2004 and as this almost certainly have received a MAP in Riga and strategy towards Ukraine which reflects the Krem- current race for the presidency unfolds will once now be well on the road to membership. Ukraine lin’s fears that Ukraine is slowly being lost to Russia more seek to intervene in Ukrainian affairs, even at did not receive a MAP because Yushchenko’s erst- and there is therefore an urgent need to rectify this the risk of further embarrassment. while political nemesis - unex split. After all, in Russian parlance Ukraine is seen pectedly returned as prime minister instead (with not just a key part of the country’s exclusive zone Stalingrad syndrome: the president’s blessing) and immediately stated of interest (dubbed ‘The Near Abroad’ by Kremlin Russia’s fear of NATO encirclement that Ukraine was disinterested in a MAP. This was political scientists); it is also considered a ‘brother Medvedev has a number of gripes with present perhaps the moment when international faith in nation’ and core component of the wider Russian Ukrainian government policy, but in terms of Yushchenko’s presidency first began to collapse, world. Russian civilisation traces its roots to Kyiv, so urgency the biggest issue remains Ukraine’s push but despite having played such a key role in the idea of the city as the capital of a fully indepen- for a NATO membership roadmap. In his explosive undermining the drive for NATO integration, dent and possibly hostile state remains anathema recent letter Medvedev charged that Yushchenko Yushchenko continues to provoke Kremlin to most ordinary Russians. Geopolitical strategists is pushing Ukraine into have long predicted that the loss of a controlling NATO, but despite these influence in Ukraine would spell the end for Russia’s Moscow accusations pretentions to superpower status and transform the fact the Kremlin into an Asian autocracy. With this eventuality now appearing more and more credible and crucial Ukrainian elections looming on the horizon, the Russian government seems intent on sending a strong message to

26 geopolitics 27 : - - - Russia’s Black Sea Fleet remains anchored in the Ukrainian Ukrainian the in anchored remains Fleet Sea Black Russia’s port of Sevastopol until 2017 and inrecent years theKremlin passions inflame to departure eventual its of issue the used has Russian majority Crimea in ethnic Tense Tense bilateral relationshave been further involvement of military covert The accusations are are not without recent historical precedent: Ukrai nians did indeed fight in Georgia and Chechnya as primarily allegedly 1990s, ofthe half first in the volunteers from the extremist nationalist Assembly-Ukrainian National (Ukrainian UNA-UNSO group Peoples Self-Defence). UNA-UNSO largely disinte stretched over stretched the past year thanks to Russia’s of separatist and occupation intervention military Ukrai of accusations Medvedev’s Georgia. in regions followed been have to Georgia supplies arms nian by more serious recent accusations that Ukrainians Russian against Georgians alongside fought actually to arms forces in South supplying Ossetia last has August. Ukraine began it that stating by responded do to continued has and era Kuchma the in Georgia manner. legal completely a in so The destabilizing effect of Russia’s Russia’s of effect destabilizing The campaign Georgian ongoing Nor should Yushchenko be seen as the historical historical the as seen be Yushchenko should Nor August 2009 August his pledges to Ukrainian voters. voters. Ukrainian to pledges his of his 2004 election programme, which is available available is which programme, election 2004 his of on the of president’s one of website, cites fulfillment the the of withdrawal example an as Iraq from Kuchma who sent Ukrainian troops to Iraq and to Iraq who the Kuchma troops sent Ukrainian brought who Yushchenko President ‘pro-Western’ fulfillment the on report Yushchenko’s home. them with the support of the Party of Regions and of PM of with the the support Party Regions Yanukovych. It is also worth remembering that itand Yanukovych ‘pro-Russian’ supposedly the was of seeking NATO membership was actually Leonid Leonid actually was membership NATO of seeking was thatof intent in a Kuchma 2002, declaration into, and transformed within, included the 2003 law on national security passed in parliament author of Ukraine’s NATO membership flirtation. flirtation. author membership of NATO Ukraine’s The firstpresident to declare Ukraine’s intention censure for censure the having to temerity even think of siding with what many Russians quite routinely common enemy. as the regard to continue :grated in the late 1990s but the former leaders of that would be capable of giving the Kremlin pause this radical nationalist movement have not simply for thought. As seen in 2008 in Georgia, it is highly What if? disappeared from the political arena. One former unlikely that the EU and NATO would sanction the UNA-UNSO leader – Andriy Shkil - is a Tymoshenko use of troops in the event of a Russian occupation of How would Ukraine’s bloc MP. Another - Dmytro Korchynsky - heads the Crimea. This uncomfortable truth is well understood policy towards Russia look if Bratstvo organization which is a member of the in both Kyiv and Moscow. the two countries’ current Eurasian movement, a tie which reinforces long-held roles were reversed? suspicions of possible links to Russian intelligence The Black Sea Fleet (Eurasian ideologist Aleksandr Dugin is close to the and the Crimean Question • Ukraine demands that Russia should not current Russian leadership). The issues of Sevastopol and the Black Sea Fleet export arms or provide military support to However, UNA-UNSO operatives could not have have become more acute in recent years largely as Belarus, Trans-Dnister or to Russian sepa- fought last year in South Ossetia as it no longer a result of Russian and not Ukrainian actions. This ratist groups in Crimea. exists as an organisation except in the minds of is hardly surprising, given the sense of attachment paranoid Russian leaders. Nevertheless, it cannot most Russians have with both Crimea in general • Ukraine intervenes in Russian national be ruled out that dubious evidence will be uncov- and Sevastopol in particular. Twice anointed as security policies and attempts to dictate ered in the coming months of Ukrainian guerillas a hero city of the Russian nation, Sevastopol is a which military alliances Moscow can and fighting in Georgia against the Russians – the use potent symbol of past imperial glory and modern cannot conclude, claiming that its is Ukraine’s of nationalist bogeymen has long been a favourite Russian defiance. It is also populated largely by historical right to protect its regional stratagem of the Kremlin in Ukraine, and in the ethnic Russians, providing the Kremlin with far interests. past both the Ukrainian and Soviet authorities have more credible claims to influence than any they used nationalist extremists as a way of discrediting may have manufactured through the distribution of • Ukraine insists that Moscow must consult independence and pro-democracy movements. If passports in South Ossetia. with Kyiv about all Russian energy questions there were any so-called ‘UNA-UNSO’ members in Although Russia de jure recognized Sevastopol as and not do deals with third parties ‘behind Georgia during last year’s war, they were likely to be a Ukrainian city in 1997’s so-called Treaty of Friend- its back’. on the FSB payroll. ship between the two nations, de facto Moscow has never regarded Sevastopol as sovereign Ukrainian • Ukraine insists that the Ukrainian ethnic Disarmed and exposed: territory, acting instead as if it remained its owner. minority in Russia be granted full minority Ukraine’s geopolitical predicament Russian politicians add to this air of instability rights and that Ukrainian be recognised as In defending its position Ukraine has consistently through regular forays into the peninsula where they an official language of the Russian Federa- struggled to make clear to the Kremlin and to the make inflammatory claims including Moscow Mayor tion. Kyiv further claims that Russia is guilty outside world that it too has a strategic interest Luzhkov’s notorious 2008 statement that Sevastopol of engaging in nationalistic gesture politics in Georgia. Three out of the four original GUAM had been ‘illegally’ transferred to Ukraine in 1954. and oppressing the downtrodden Ukrainian member states (Georgia-Ukraine-Azerbaijan- This saber-rattling is not a new phenomenon and minority. Moldova) have Russian-backed frozen conflicts has been regular feature of life in the autonomous within their borders and a fourth (Ukraine) has to peninsula ever since independence. However, • Ukraine insists that the territorial content with Russian-backed separatism. Russia’s during the Yushchenko presidency the Ukrainian exchanges in favour of Russia which took increasingly aggressive stance on Crimea and Sevas- side has become more assertive in nipping in the place in the inter-war period are techni- topol and its de facto annexation of South Ossetia bud separatist groups, banning the entry of Russian cally ‘illegal’ under international law and and Abkhazia are naturally seen by Kyiv as part of extremist politicians, halting illegal actions by begins to support separatist movements in a new Russian neo-imperial strategy towards its the Black Sea Fleet (such as transporting missiles the former Ukrainian Cossack region of the neighbours. This has left Kyiv feeling particularly without permission in urban areas) and expelling Kuban with funds and propaganda materials. exposed and vulnerable. Russia is one of the Russian spies. Many in Kyiv have applauded these Kyiv also insists that Krasnodar was illegally three nuclear powers which gave Ukraine security steps as long overdue and argued that Kuchma had transferred to Russia and begins secretly assurances in 1994 in return for Kuchma agreeing effectively permitted Russia and the Black Sea Fleet distributing Ukrainian passports throughout to Ukraine’s unilateral nuclear disarmament, but to act as lords of the (Crimean) manor. As Sevastopol the region. it is now becoming apparent that Russia poses a Mayor Sergei Kunitsyn told The New York Times (28 potential territorial threat to Ukraine. Why Ukraine August), ‘Ukraine has become more demanding, and • President Yushchenko tells Western is muted on this question remains unclear: what is has a right to do that’. This has not stopped Russian leaders that modern Russia is in actual fact clear is that Kuchma gave up the world’s third largest politicians from advocating an extension of their an ‘artificial state’ that will soon break up nuclear weapons arsenal in return for empty words. existing lease agreement for the military port. The into its component parts. Could Russia ever really intervene militarily in Black Sea Fleet is currently operating under a twenty Ukraine? Influential British journal The Economist year lease of Sevastopol and should leave the port by • Ukraine condemns the glorification of (22 August) wrote, ‘A full-blown military conflict with 2017. Russian politicians repeatedly speculate over Stalinism in Russia and attacks Kremlin distor- Ukraine seems unlikely but is no longer unthinkable’ the question of extending the Black Sea Fleet lease tions of history which seek to rehabilitate before going on to say that aggression towards its indefinitely and appear to place hopes on a revival those guilty of communist atrocities against neighbours has become a way of life for modern of Ukraine’s pro-Russian political forces in order to the Soviet people. Russia. At present there is no real deterrent in place facilitate this step. Such wishful thinking ignores the

28 geopolitics 29 Ukraine’s official Russophile history as taught in the USSR was first debunked in the late Soviet era and era Soviet late the in debunked first was USSR the in taught as history Russophile official Ukraine’s The Kremlin has always taken history seriously and control of the two countries’ shared past remains one one remains past shared countries’ two the of control and seriously history taken always has Kremlin The Belarus in 1994) or move to the contemporary Russian position of rehabilitating Stalinism. Despite much much Despite Stalinism. will rehabilitating of and position history Russian Ukraine’s contemporary for the to move or battle 1994) in the in Belarus defeat irreversible an suffered public criticism within Ukraine ofnevertheless PresidentYushchenko’s perceived have preoccupation withto historical issues, appears Russia its losses. good make to look elsewhere to have of the principle battlefields on which the current bilateral struggle is being fought. The Putin regime’s desire desire regime’s Putin The fought. being is struggle past bilateral Soviet current the of the worst which the on whitewashing battlefields by principle history. the local of of authoritarianism own its justify interpretations and morale independent five Russian past the boost increasingly to during occurred Ukraine’s has with claim course they collision a on Yushchenko. it revisionism placed under has historical begin the to not objected did vocally which often has process Russia President natural a genocide. of actually act an was famine discipline 1933 years but of such the presidency, claims Yushchenko are The short-sighted. the revival of post-Soviet Ukrainian separate declare a to as leader history Ukrainian national anniversary; first 70th its the on 2003 even in not genocide was as famine the of Yushchenko issue the raise to first the actually was Kuchma conclusion. its natural it to and carried of the campaign scope the expanded merely Yushchenko national ofUkrainian direction the the process has simply continued throughout the following tworeverse decades up It until ever the ispresentday. now would president Ukrainian future any that unthinkable history back towards a Russophile orientation (asAlyaksandr Lukashenka did after coming to power in The politics of memory: History as a weapon as a The politics of memory: History : - - - - - Tired of playing innocent victims in these energy energy these in victims innocent playing of Tired Relations between the two leading former Soviet former leading two the between Relations September 2009 September currently in the doldrums and Europe apparently in apparently and Europe the doldrums currently ready to do whatever necessary to secure reliable who signed the more recent EU pipeline agreement, pipeline EU recent more the signed who signaling a shift in policy and a larger roleeconomy for Brus Russian the With trade. transit the in sels organized an overwhelming 430 parliamentary vote vote parliamentary 430 overwhelming an organized out rule to appeared that law a for 2007 February in lease or privatization the future foreseeable the for Tymoshenko also It was pipelines. gas of Ukraine’s of a gas consortium with Russia, while Tymoshenko Tymoshenko while Russia, with consortium gas a of and to a lesser extent Yushchenko have ruled this out. It was not who Tymoshenko, Yushchenko, fully done in both Belarus and Moldova. Over the Over Moldova. and Belarus in both done fully years Kuchma, Yanukovych and Arseniy Yatseniuk have to all to varying degrees supported the idea structure structure because this undermines Russia’s long- term strategy of seeking to take control over the country’s transit network, as Moscow has success active role and is showing signs of forging a workable workable a forging of signs showing is and role active has Russia Tymoshenko. Yulia PM with partnership deal March Tymoshenko’s of critic a staunch been with the EU to modernise Ukraine’s pipeline infra to both countries’ international standing. standing. international countries’ both to squabbles, the EU has recently taken on a more gas. The result has been a quagmire of corruption of corruption a quagmire been has result The gas. the tested severely has that confusion political and damage huge done and bystanders EU of patience the bulk of its gas to European markets, by is yet the advantage neutralized largely apparent this Russian cheap to addiction hopeless own country’s dominated dominated the headlines. Ukraine international the and through passes commands the pipelines which Russia must for the time being transport republics will be with always republics deeply intertwined the politics of energy and inrecent years news of Moscow’s latest gas war with Kyiv has repeated Energy wars: the struggle struggle the wars: Energy corridor of the Ukrainian control for bound for the Georgian war zone as recently as last last as recently as zone war Georgian the for bound particularly looks argument neutrality this summer, flawed. undermines its own anti-NATO platform which calls calls which platform anti-NATO own its undermines Black Russian With neutrality. military Ukraine’s for waters Ukrainian sail from set having ships Sea fleet then it is likely that pro-Western politicians would would politicians pro-Western that it is then likely demand that NATO also have a military base. Insupporting Russia’s demands extend to the Black of Regions Party the 2017 beyond lease Fleet Sea tion and make Russia’s Sevastopol residency perma residency Sevastopol Russia’s make and tion somehow be to were constitution the if Even nent. to bases to Ukraine host changed foreign permit fact fact that any pro-Russian force Ukrainian the of would struggle majority to two-thirds the command parliament that is required to change the constitu : energy supplies, there looks like being little chance Prime movers? In recent months Ukraine’s bilateral relations with Russia have been coloured by a signs of any bold Russian energy policy in the coming of a growing understanding between Prime Ministers Yulia Tymoshenko and who have met months. However, a traditional New Year cut-off can repeatedly to deal with energy issues. If Tymoshenko’s bid for the Ukrainian presidency proved successful, never be ruled out, especially as the presidential elec- this Putin-Tymoshenko entente could form the crucial component in bilateral relations for years to come tions will be just days away at the time.

Minority languages and media domination Since the collapse of the Moscow’s attitudes towards the Russian minorities left behind the former Soviet republics has varied. In the Yeltsin era Russia was generally supportive if not always assertive. In more recent times the Putin regime has championed the cause of their allegedly repressed countrymen, with Medvedev stating the right to defend Russians wherever they are as one of the key points in his new foreign policy doctrine. Russia continually raises the language issue throughout its former Soviet empire and has accused Yushchenko While sternly demanding rights for Russian speakers different proposition to the 1990s vintage under on numerous occasions of repressing the Russian in Ukraine, Moscow is at the same time happy to Boris Yeltsin. Recent Kremlin attacks on Ukraine’s language. In doing so Moscow chooses to ignore reject any call for more rights for the second largest president and Ukrainian policy in general are part of the fact that it was under Kuchma in 1996 that the national minority in Russia – Ukrainians. The Russian a wider political trend in Putin’s Russia away from was constitutionally codified as authorities argue that Ukrainians and Russians are the flawed democracy of the 1990s and towards the country’s sole state language. very close people and therefore there is no need for the comfort zone of Great Russian nationalism, Moscow’s support for the Russian language Ukrainian language schools in Russia. If the same xenophobia and neo-imperialism. As a result of in Ukraine is undermined by two factors: Firstly, argument were to be applied in Ukraine all Russian such galvanizing events as the victorious Georgian Russian does not look like a language which is language schools would logically be closed. This is a campaign and the successful bullying of European being mercilessly squeezed out of Ukraine. Any dangerous game for a multi-ethnic empire like the NATO members over Ukraine, Russia has now shed cursory look inside a newspaper kiosk in Kyiv will Russian Federation to play. the cautiousness of the immediate post-Orange tell you that the Russian language dominates the Revolution world and is no longer afraid of reclaiming private newspaper and magazine sector. Almost all Yushchenko policies what it believes to be its rightful regional privileges. of the magazines catering for the new Ukrainian not a radical departure This is a trend we are likely to see much more of in middle classes are in Russian – many of them When comes to allocating blame for the currently the coming Ukrainian election campaign as Russia imported Moscow editions which are widely seen deteriorating relations between Moscow and Kyiv, seeks to heal the wounds opened by the 2004 as being of higher quality. Russia’s impressive TV neither side can claim to be 100% innocent. Never- . While the Kremlin is unlikely production facilities and large TV corporations theless, it is worth pointing out that on the Ukrainian offer partisan backing for any one candidate as they also dominate the Ukrainian airwaves. During his side of the current conflict President Yushchenko has had done in 2004, they will nevertheless be eager to presidency Vladimir Putin managed to bring the largely pursued policies that were in the main begun expunge the shame of what remains to date Putin’s entire superstructure of Russian media holdings by his predecessor Leonid Kuchma. Ekho Moskvy single great foreign policy defeat. under the power of the authorities, and this state- talk show host and political commentator Yevgeny controlled media machine churns out a vast array Kiselyov wrote in the Moscow Times (14 August): of sitcoms, gala concerts, comedy shows, dramas, ‘All of the problems President Medvedev mentioned thrillers and war movies that continue to dominate between Ukraine and Russia do exist, but they Ukrainian broadcasting. Ukrainian channels are first appeared long ago and most had arisen even obliged by law to provide these Russian-language before Yushchenko took office’. In addition, Kiselyov shows with Ukrainian language subtitles, but this believes that Medvedev: ‘inflated the importance of is a futile gesture against what is an irresistible these problems. They hardly justify the president of avalanche of Russian pop culture. Meanwhile, one country leveling such scathing statements locally produced Ukrainian shows often appear at the president of a neighbouring country’. amateurish in comparison. In reality the real change has occurred Russia must also be wary of setting any dangerous not in Kyiv but in Moscow, where the precedents over the issue of minority languages. current Russian leadership is a very

Taras Kuzio is a Senior Research Fellow at the Chair of Ukrainian Studies, University of Toronto, and Adjunct Research Professor, Carleton University, Ottawa. He is the author, editor and co-editor of 14 books, 5 think tank monographs and over 60 scholarly articles on Ukraine and post-communist states.

30 Responding to Russian rhetoric s c i t i l o p o e g Politicians and analysts spent much of the summer break deciphering the Kremlin’s true intentions

Oksana Bondarchuk Business Ukraine

The traditionally lazy summer months saw the temperature rise in of emotion. It may have been connected to the coming presidential bilateral relations between Ukraine and Russia, a mood epitomized campaign, but I doubt it will have any impact on the outcome of the by the undiplomatically worded and highly critical missive President elections,” he states. Medvedev sent to his Kyiv counterpart in mid-August. Meanwhile in Others saw Mr. Medvedev’s harsh correspondence as a damning Crimea tensions flared following the latest spat over jurisdiction at the denunciation of President Yushchenko’s five years in office. “In reality Russian-controlled naval port of Sevastopol. With the Ukrainian presi- it may have been a way of saying that the Kremlin is ready to work with dential elections about to get underway the Kremlin’s actions would the next leader of Ukraine but not with the current president,” opines appear to confirm that despite the setbacks it suffered as a result of a Sergei Mikheyev of Russia’s Centre of Political Technologies. similarly ambitious policy during Ukraine’s 2004 presidential elections, Russia intends to exert maximum influence on the coming campaign. The Kremlin’s choice Whereas in 2004 it was publicly known for many months that the Yushchenko: Russia must admit share of responsibility Kremlin was backing (and bankrolling) Viktor Yanukovych’s candidacy, President Yushchenko’s response to the Medvedev missive called on this time round there is less certainty over who Russia will choose to the Russian government to acknowledge its role in the current dete- support. Some have even suggested that President Medvedev’s offen- rioration. “I must agree that there are serious problems in relations sive letter may have been designed to bolster Viktor Yushchenko’s between our countries but it is surprising that the Russian president flagging nationalist credentials. “Medvedev must understand that the completely ignores any responsibility from the side of Russia,” observed Russian position as expressed in his letter will provoke a surge in patri- President Yushchenko. Later in the month PM Yulia Tymoshenko also otic spirit across Ukraine and, consequently, could generate support for responded to Russia’s criticisms by reminding the Kremlin that times Viktor Yushchenko. It seem strange given the tone of his anti-Russian have changed and Ukraine is no longer bound to follow Moscow’s rhetoric, but in many ways from the Kremlin’s perspective Yushchenko lead. “We will study our past independently, we will cope with our is the ideal Ukrainian president. He has been a weak president and a present independently, and we will build our future independently,” weak politician, and he is also a predictable politician,” explains Kost she underlined. Bondarenko, the director of Kyiv’s Horshenin Institute. Mr. Bondarenko supports his unusual thesis by pointing out that President Medvedev The first salvo from Russia’s election arsenal did actually appointed a new Russian ambassador to Ukraine this Political analysts in Kyiv have pointed to the timing of the Medvedev August, just days after stating in his letter that he was not appointing statement and the issues it highlighted as a clear indication that Russia anyone in protest at President Yushchenko’s actions. was setting out its stall for the coming presidential election campaign. Other analysts believe that Russia is currently seeking to strengthen “The timing of Medvedev’s appeal and the positions he adopted suggest ties with both leading candidates, hedging its bets between long time that this is just the beginning of Russia’s strategy for the Ukrainian Kremlin loyalist Viktor Yanukovych and maverick PM Yulia Tymoshenko. presidential elections. It is obvious that Russia intends to play an active “Russia is currently placing its eggs in two baskets and splitting its role position in our presidential campaign. What will be the next step? energies between Tymoshenko and Yanukovych,” comments analyst We will have to wait and see, but we can be confident that Russia does Ihor Paliy. Yevheniy Minchenko, the director of Russia’s International not intend to observe quietly from the sidelines. There is no doubt that Examination Institute, argues that as well as the two electoral front- Russia is willing to struggle in order to keep Ukraine within its sphere of runners, Russia’s interest as extends to keeping a close eye on dark its influence,” argues Valeriy Chalyi of Kyiv’s Razumkov Centre. horses such as Arseniy Yatsenyuk and other less prominent politicians Grzegorz Gromadzki from Poland’s Stephan Batoria Foundation who are also in the race. agrees that Russia’s current position is part of its broader Ukrainian election strategy. “This message was in reality directed not to Yush- Can Moscow find chenko himself but to all the other candidates for the presidency. a common language with Tymoshenko? Medvedev was simply stating Russia’s terms to the future president of Nevertheless, many analysts including Moscow’s Mr. Belkovskiy Ukraine,” says the Polish analyst. point to the positive results of the recent energy meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian Prime Ministers in Poland as a sign that the Medvedev’s emotional outburst Kremlin has effectively identified the likely winner of the coming elec- In Russia itself not everyone appears to share this election-oriented tion and is working on building better relations. “It was no accident interpretation of the recent dip in bilateral relations. Stanislav Belkovski, that President Medvedev identified Viktor Yushchenko personally The director of Moscow’s Institute of National Strategy, argues that Mr. and not the Ukrainian government or state in general when he was Medvedev’s message was the result of Moscow’s very real indignation allocating guilt for the two countries’ bilateral problems. In doing so, at Viktor Yushchenko’s policies and claims that it may not have had any he was able to absolve Yulia Tymoshenko of the blow,” concludes the underlying strategic meaning. “Medvedev’s declaration was a display Russian analyst.

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