LESSON 3 Russia and the Republics

LESSONLESSON 3 RussiaRussia andand thethe RRepublicsepublics magine this: You’ve landed a job with your QuickQuick WriteWrite congressman. Mostly you just answer the phones. IBut the conversations you overhear—or even get to take part in!—make you feel as if you’re at the center of the world. Your boss is young; he’s only in his second term. But he’s been named to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and he’s In general, is it a good idea to stick with the map thrilled. He’s looking for an issue where he can make a name for you’ve got? Or under special himself. And you think you know what he’s going to settle on. circumstances, such as It’s something a lot of constituents have been calling about. the Soviet Union’s collapse, is some reassignment One part of your district has a lot of older people from Eastern of territory in order? Europe and places that used to be part of the Soviet Union. They want your boss to push to get the United States to recognize a new country over there. It’s a little strip of land on the other side of one of the big rivers—someplace way on the other side of Romania. You’ve never quite gotten the name. LearnLearn AboutAbout Members of the congressman’s staff keep kicking the idea around. Would this be a good thing for the congressman to • the political and economic support? Would it be good for the United States? Would it be infl uence of Russia good for the people who live along that river in Eastern Europe? on the Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova A nice guy from the State Department dropped by to talk the other day. He was all business in his blue suit. He tried to • the political and economic infl uence of Russia seem nonchalant. But he obviously didn’t think US recognition on the Baltic States of this new little country was a good idea. “Stability,” he kept • the political and economic saying, “we diplomats like stability. To recognize that territory’s infl uence of Russia independence will only make our allies mad and increase on Armenia, Georgia, ethnic tensions there. It might even lead to war. We like to and Azerbaijan stick with the map we’ve got.” • the political and economic infl uence of Russia But that nice older man from the district, who’s been so on Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, helpful to your boss, happened to be in Washington that week, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, in your offi ce in fact. When he heard the man from State talk and Turkmenistan about “stability,” you thought he was going to blow a gasket. You saw him take a deep breath, walk over, and say, “The map of the Soviet Union is the map that Stalin drew. He’s gone now. The Communists are all gone. We can draw a better map.” 410 CHAPTER 4 Russia and the Former Soviet Republics 75162_C4L3_p410-433_AFJROTC_FINAL.indd 410 11/10/09 11:13 AM The Political and Economic Infl uence of Russia VocabularyVoca bulary on the Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova •bilateral Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova sit between Russia to the east •subsidy and the expanding European Union to the west. These neighbors •separatist are often grouped together, but each has a very different story. •émigré Ukraine and Belarus were founding members of the United Nations •secretariat in 1945. Yet, like Moldova, they were part of the Soviet Union. That is, they were all part of one country. Russian leader Joseph Stalin, who otherwise kept a tight grip on things, wanted each of the Soviet Union’s 15 republics to count as an “independent” member state within the United Nations so the Soviet Union would get more votes. The Western allies rejected this idea. LESSON 3 ■ Russia and the Republics 411 75162_C4L3_p410-433_AFJROTC_FINAL.indd 411 11/10/09 11:14 AM But as a compromise, Ukraine and Belarus were given their own seats at the UN. Moldova, one of the smallest and poorest of the former Soviet republics, did not get a seat. As of this writing, Ukraine is trying to join the European Union (EU), a Western economic alliance, and NATO, a Western military alliance. Belarus, on the other hand, has been backsliding in its progress toward democracy. In fact, the EU has reduced its relations with Belarus. Moldova, meanwhile, has been reaching out to the West as it seeks new connections outside the former Soviet Union. The Diplomatic and Trade Relationship Between Russia and the Ukraine Ukraine’s top foreign-policy goal is Euro-Atlantic integration. That means eventual membership in the EU and in NATO. Ukraine was negotiating an “association agreement”—a forerunner to full membership—with the EU as of this writing. Despite the European focus, Ukraine still seeks good relations with Russia and, on balance, has them. Signifi cant issues remain between the two countries, however. Membership in NATO is one of them. Moscow still sees NATO as an alliance targeted at Russia, and so opposes Ukraine’s joining it. NATO, for its part, has affi rmed that Ukraine will eventually join the alliance. But it has put off, for review “at a later date,” Ukraine’s request for a concrete plan for admission. Even while sending encouraging signs to Ukraine, NATO leaders are sensitive to Russian concerns. NATO must ask itself, if Russia ever felt threatened, would it attack Ukraine? One of NATO’s core tenets is that an attack on one is an attack on all—generally referred to as “mutual assistance.” So would NATO really come to Ukraine’s aid? How? Those questions remain unanswered for the moment. The Western military alliance must think through all possible outcomes when adding new members. Natural gas is another issue that stands between Russia and Ukraine. Under Vladimir Putin’s leadership, Russia has not hesitated to use its energy resources to exert power and infl uence over other nations. Some see Putin as particularly interested in working out bilateral deals—deals between two individual parties— with individual countries rather than working with the EU as a whole. Russia’s natural gas fl ows by pipeline across Ukraine and on to the rest of Europe. In the fi rst few weeks of 2009, the Russian national gas distributor, Gazprom, cut supplies to Ukraine. This led to a crisis for both Ukraine and the rest of Europe. Ukraine had domestic reserves of its own, but other Europeans were cut off. The situation was grim. Slovakia alarmed its neighbors by considering restarting an obsolete nuclear reactor to provide energy. Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart, Prime Minister Yulia V. Tymoshenko, signed an agreement resolving the dispute on 19 January 2009. But tensions remain between the two countries. 412 CHAPTER 4 Russia and the Former Soviet Republics 75162_C4L3_p410-433_AFJROTC_FINAL.indd 412 11/10/09 11:14 AM RussiaRussia andand thethe FormerFormer SovietSoviet RepublicsRepublics 413 11/10/09 11:14 AM Russia and the Republics ■ LESSON 3 reported in 2009, “The president’s pro-Western allies have pro-Western in 2009, “The president’s reported Daily Mail Yet another source of strain lies in the stationing of the Russian Black Sea Fleet at another source Yet to allow this until 2017. the Crimean city of Sevastopol. In 1997 Ukraine agreed the cials have hinted they will not renew Ukrainian offi however, recently, More the two countries dispute the boundaries In the same area, lease when it expires. Strait. in the Sea of Azov and the Kerch in one of its examples of Russian interference One of the most dramatic recent campaign. former Republics took place during the 2004 Ukrainian presidential But Ukrainians supported Yanukovych. contender Viktor pro-Russia Russia favored candidate. a pro-West Yushchenko, Viktor fell ill. His face swelled, developed pockmarks, the election, Yushchenko Shortly before Austria, Britain, the United States, and showed alarming signs of aging. Doctors from and France conducted tests. Their diagnosis was massive dioxin poisoning. Britain’s accused Russia of being behind the plot to kill him, but Moscow maintains its general Oleksandr Medvedko has said only three innocence. Ukrainian prosecutor dioxin TCDD.” Yushchenko countries—one of them Russia—in the world produce involvement has never been proved. Russia’s recovered; 75162_C4L3_p410-433_AFJROTC_FINAL.indd 413 The Diplomatic and Trade Relationship Between Russia and Belarus Relations between Russia and Belarus are smoother than they are between Russia and the Ukraine. Russia is Belarus’s No. 1 partner, both economically and politically. A third of Belarusian exports go to Russia. Belarus relies heavily on Russia, along with other former Soviet republics, both for export markets and for raw materials, cheap energy, and parts to build things. Market prices are a factor in these relationships. A spike in natural gas prices in 2007, as well as higher prices for Russian oil and oil-based products, led to a crisis. The Belarusian government had to cut subsidies and borrow money from Russia. A subsidy is government money used to keep prices artifi cially low for goods such as food and oil. The two countries are supposedly on track to form a “union.” The founding treaties for this union call for single citizenship, a common currency, and a common foreign and defense policy. It would be like the EU, with some institutions following the EU model, although it would be a union of two, rather than two dozen, members. Belarus has postponed carrying out the currency union. The 2007 energy crisis slowed the two countries down. Although some other entities have expressed interest in joining the “union state,” the whole project remains vague.

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