“As democratic backsliding cools Ukraine’s relations with the West, Yanukovych faces the prospect of having to deal with Putin and Moscow from a weaker posi- tion.” Ukraine’s Perilous Balancing Act STEVEN PIFER ince Ukraine regained its independence in THE OVERBEARING NEIGHBOR 1991, the primary foreign policy challenge Russia has been, is, and will remain a major fac- Sconfronting policy makers in Kiev has been tor in Kiev’s foreign policy calculus—as well as a to strike the proper balance between Ukraine’s re- player affecting that calculus. It could hardly be lations with the West and its relations with Russia. otherwise given Russia’s size and geographic prox- Ukrainian presidents over the past 20 years have imity, the historical and cultural links between the structured this balance with the purpose of fixing two countries, and the economic ties that linger Ukraine’s identity on the European map, ensuring even two decades after the end of the Soviet com- that Ukraine does not end up as a borderland be- mand economy. Still, as those two decades have tween an enlarging Europe and a recalcitrant Rus- shown, Russia can be an overbearing neighbor. sia, and gaining greater freedom of maneuver vis- Most Ukrainian strategists thus have concluded à-vis Moscow. Such a balance has generally served that Kiev requires strong relations with the West Ukraine well, but maintaining it has always been as a counterweight. Moreover, the democratic val- tricky. ues and prosperity enjoyed by the EU have long It is becoming even trickier in 2012. President attracted many Ukrainians. Viktor Yanukovych, who took office in 2010, Since the Soviet Union formally disbanded has overseen a democratic regression in Ukraine in December 1991, the Russian government has that complicates his effort to keep a balance be- sought to maintain significant influence in the tween relations with the West and with Russia. post-Soviet space, in part through the Common- His domestic political agenda, driven by tactical wealth of Independent States (CIS). Newly inde- goals and personal animus toward his rival, for- pendent Ukraine’s first president, Leonid Krav- mer Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, is hinder- chuk, adopted a cautious approach toward the CIS, ing achievement of his professed strategic goal of concerned that Russia would use it to undercut drawing Ukraine closer to the European Union. Ukraine’s sovereignty. He moved quickly in 1992, And this comes at a time when Europe and the for example, to assert control over the armed United States are preoccupied with other ques- forces on Ukrainian territory rather than leaving tions and have less time and patience for Kiev. them under a CIS command structure dominated Yanukovych is playing a geopolitical game in by Moscow. which he appears to assume that the West, and At the same time, Kravchuk strove to fix a the EU in particular, will overlook his democratic Ukrainian identity within Europe and gain free- backsliding and embrace Ukraine. This miscal- dom of maneuver in dealing with the Russians. culation risks throwing Ukraine’s foreign policy He launched an effort to build links to institutions out of balance. It could gravely undermine Kiev’s such as the EU and NATO, as well as strong bilater- bargaining position in dealing with a Russia that al relationships with the United States and key Eu- is prepared to play hardball with its Ukrainian ropean states. In 1994, Ukraine began negotiating neighbor. an EU partnership and cooperation agreement and became the first post-Soviet state to join NATO’s newly announced Partnership for Peace program. STEVEN PIFER, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, is a retired foreign service officer and former US ambassador The fate of the former Soviet strategic nuclear to Ukraine. arms in Ukraine ranked as a top problem for Kiev 106 Ukraine’s Perilous Balancing Act • 107 in the early 1990s. Bilateral discussions with Mos- would have increased the EU’s leverage to encour- cow failed to reach agreement on terms for their age democratic and economic reform in Ukraine. removal from Ukraine, and Kiev welcomed US par- Still, Kuchma and other senior Ukrainian officials ticipation in a trilateral dialogue. While Ukrainian persisted in the push for membership. leaders recognized that Washington shared Mos- cow’s goal of removing all nuclear weapons from BALANCING GETS HARDER Ukraine, they also believed that having the United Kuchma’s foreign policy seemed to find a com- States at the table could help secure a more favor- fortable balance for a period from 1997 to 1999, as able agreement with Russia. A January 1994 trilat- links with the West grew while relations with Mos- eral statement accomplished that. cow became less tense. However, events began to Leonid Kuchma, who defeated Kravchuk in the threaten the balance at the end of 1999. A marred July 1994 presidential election, was originally re- presidential election; the disappearance and mur- garded as the “pro-Moscow” candidate. In office, der of an internet journalist, Georgiy Gongadze; however, he had to confront continuing Russian and the revelation of recordings that suggested challenges. The Duma (Russian parliament), Mos- high-level involvement in Gongadze’s death and cow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, and Russian nationalists other misdeeds sparked concerns in Washington regularly called into question Ukrainian sovereign- and Europe as well as in Ukraine. ty over Sevastopol and Crimea, which had become In subsequent years, Ukraine’s relations with the part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in West worsened due to a dispute with NATO over 1954. The Russian government proposed a basing Ukrainian arms transfers to Macedonia, a flawed agreement for its Black Sea Fleet that would have 2002 Rada (Ukrainian parliament) election, and given it control of large portions of Sevastopol. the release of another recording in which Kuchma Kuchma redoubled Ukraine’s efforts to deepen seemed to approve the transfer of air defense sys- its engagement with the tems to Iraq. In 2002, Wash- West. In 1996, he concluded ington reviewed its relations a strategic partnership with EU circles increasingly are coming with Ukraine, while NATO the United States and es- downgraded a planned to regard Ukraine as a nuisance tablished a high-level com- NATO-Ukraine summit to a mission to oversee bilateral rather than an asset. foreign ministers’ meeting relations. In 1997, Ukraine to signal its unhappiness negotiated a special relation- with Kuchma. ship with NATO. By solidifying ties with NATO and Some Ukrainians at the time cautioned that Washington, Kuchma aimed in part to strengthen these moves by the West might inadvertently push his bargaining position when dealing with Moscow. Ukraine toward Russia. US officials discounted The Russians paid attention. In May 1997, when those warnings, believing that Kiev understood President Boris Yeltsin made his first official visit the risks of overdependence on Russia and would to Kiev in nearly four years, the result was a treaty take care not to fall too far into Moscow’s orbit. of friendship and cooperation that unambiguously Kuchma himself grasped this point. In 2003, he recognized Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial found a way to arrest the decline in relations with integrity. The sides also settled on the terms of a Washington by supporting the US-led military op- 20-year lease for basing facilities in Crimea for the eration against Iraq. After Baghdad fell, Kiev of- Black Sea Fleet. fered troops to the coalition stabilization force—at Kuchma took to describing his foreign policy one point, they constituted the fourth-largest co- as a “multi-vector” approach. It centered on three alition contingent. strategic directions: Europe, the United States, Kuchma also took care to keep good relations and Russia. Among the three, he increasingly with Russia. He changed foreign ministers in Sep- placed emphasis on Europe. In 1998, even though tember 2000, replacing Borys Tarasyuk—disliked Ukraine had just brought its EU partnership and in Moscow for his strong pro-West leanings—with cooperation agreement into force, officials in Kiev the less controversial Anatoliy Zlenko, and began began pressing for an association agreement that holding regular meetings with Russian President would articulate a path toward EU membership. Vladimir Putin. The Ukrainians declared 2002 the Brussels and a number of union countries balked— “Year of Russia,” and Kuchma showed greater in- unfortunately, since the prospect of membership terest in the CIS. 108 • CURRENT HISTORY • March 2012 In October 2003, the Russians rewarded Kuch- But the Ukrainians had done nothing in advance ma’s gestures with one of the oddest of Russian- to prepare the ground, and their request caught Ukrainian crises. Without consultation with Kiev, NATO members by surprise. Although a majority the Russians began building a levee from the Ka- supported or was prepared to go along with a MAP man Peninsula on the Russian mainland to Tuzla for Ukraine at an April NATO summit in Bucharest, Island in the Kerch Strait, which separates Crimea a small number—led by Germany and France— from Russia. By any reasonable reading of the his- firmly opposed the idea. tory of Tuzla Island—and certainly by the read- The push for a MAP, while ultimately fruitless, ing of officials in Kiev—the island belonged to ended any sense of balance in Yushchenko’s for- Ukraine. Kuchma cut short a visit to Brazil to rush eign policy approach. During a February 2008 back and visit Tuzla to underscore Ukraine’s terri- Yushchenko visit to Moscow, Putin threatened to torial claim. The sides later remanded the issue to target missiles at Ukraine. a bilateral working group, and work on the levee Other Yushchenko policies also provoked an- stopped, but not before reminding Ukrainians that ger in Moscow.