'The Empire Strikes Back. Resurgent Russia Looks Set to Seek a Lead Role in This Autumn's

The Empire Strikes Back Resurgent Russia 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 Ukraine as very remains that the Ukrainian President’s role in Ukrainian counterpart Viktor Yushchenko, 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 Kyiv 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 Viktor Yanukovych 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 censure for having the temerity to even think of The destabilizing effect of Russia’s GEOPOLITICS siding with what many Russians quite routinely ongoing Georgian campaign continue to regard as the common enemy. Tense bilateral relations have been further Nor should Yushchenko be seen as the historical stretched over the past year thanks to Russia’s author of Ukraine’s NATO membership flirtation. military intervention and occupation of separatist The first president to declare Ukraine’s intention regions in Georgia. Medvedev’s accusations of Ukrai- of seeking NATO membership was actually Leonid nian arms supplies to Georgia have been followed Kuchma in 2002, a declaration of intent that was by more serious recent accusations that Ukrainians transformed into, and included within, the 2003 actually fought alongside Georgians against Russian law on national security passed in parliament forces in South Ossetia last August. Ukraine has with the support of the Party of Regions and PM responded by stating that it began supplying arms to Yanukovych. It is also worth remembering that it Georgia in the Kuchma era and has continued to do was the supposedly ‘pro-Russian’ Yanukovych and so in a completely legal manner. Kuchma who sent Ukrainian troops to Iraq and the The accusations of covert military involvement ‘pro-Western’ President Yushchenko who brought are not without recent historical precedent: Ukrai- them home. Yushchenko’s report on the fulfillment nians did indeed fight in Georgia and Chechnya of his 2004 election programme, which is available in the first half of the 1990s, allegedly primarily as on the president’s website, cites the withdrawal volunteers from the extremist nationalist group from Iraq as an example of the fulfillment of one of UNA-UNSO (Ukrainian National Assembly-Ukrainian his pledges to Ukrainian voters. Peoples Self-Defence). UNA-UNSO largely disinte- : Russia’s Black Sea Fleet remains anchored in the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol until 2017 and in recent years the Kremlin has used the issue of its eventual departure to inflame passions in ethnic Russian majority Crimea August 2009 27 :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.

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