Agency WPS
What the Papers Say. Part A (Russia)
December 13, 2004, Monday

THE CONFLICT IN UKRAINE MUST BE EXTINGUISHED AS SOON AS POSSIBLE

SOURCE: Expert, No. 46 (446), December 12, 2004, p. 36

by Oleg Khrabryi

Question: Over the past few years, the West has seen a great deal of
research and articles about Ukraine and Belarus. What led to this
flood? Might it have been a dress rehearsal for the events we are
witnessing now?

Robert Legvold: It would be a tragedy if people in Russia, or the
friends of Russia in Ukraine, interpreted these events as part of a
large-scale historical strategy by the West with the aim of
undermining Russian influence in the region or turning anyone against
Russia. Many people in Russia are probably already thinking that
someone in Brussels or Washington is organizing all these schemes and
“steering the process.” This is not the case. It s quite obvious that
organizations like George Soros’s Open Society Foundation have played
the key role in supporting the youth movements and other
non-governmental organizations in Georgia, leading to the collapse of
the Shevardnadze regime. With regard to Ukraine – and I can speak
about this with competence – the rallies there have not been a part
of preplanned efforts by any Western country, NATO or the European
Union.

After the “revolution of roses” in Georgia, many people in the West
including some governmental structures decided that it would inspire
other countries to move in a similar direction or at least will
encourage the governments of Central Asian and Caucasian countries
and probably Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus to think about the need for
greater openness and democracy. In reality the effect from the
“revolution of roses” was the opposite. It was taken as a negative
lesson. Askar Akaev, Emomali Rakhmonov and Islam Karimov took the
Georgian revolution as a threat to stability of their regimes and
started defending. Harsh measures against the opposition followed
immediately. Before Ukraine the only country that tried to follow the
example of Georgia was Armenia, where a part of opposition decided to
mobilize the people in the street for struggle against the
authorities in April 2004.

Question: Which conclusions did you make for yourself after the
Ukrainian events about relations between the West and Russia?

Robert Legvold: Interest of the West in Russia and Ukraine has a
deeper nature than the current disputes about legitimacy of victory
of this or that candidate at the elections. Unfortunately,
aggravation of interests occurred in the last few years. These are
interests of Europe and America on the one hand and Russia on the
other. This means that relations between the West and Russia started
having a nature of harsh confrontation and not cooperation. This
resulted in a situation when Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus turned into
the so-called “median lands.” I, as a researcher into these processes
at Ukrainian elections, was most of all astonished not because the
West indicated its candidate and Russia indicate a candidate of its
own but by the reasons why they did this. A real attitude of the
parties to each other was manifested in substantiation of this
choice. Russia backed Yanukovich because it considered Yushchenko a
puppet of the West, the European Union, NATO and America. The US and
Europe, permanently emphasizing their interest in openness of the
process and purity of elections, chose Yushchenko because Yanukovich
was not only considered a protege of Kuchma’s regime but was also
exposed to a strong influence of Moscow. Now everything stood on its
own place in relations between the West and Russia and this is a very
disheartening piece of news.

Along with this, destabilization of this region is not in the
interests of the West or Russia. Judging by my numerous conversations
with officials in Brussels, Kiev and Washington I can say that all my
interlocutors prefer taking into account the interests of Russia in
Moldova, Belarus and Ukraine. It is only necessary to create a
balance. What is happening now? Ukraine is rapidly moving to one side
and a dramatic conflict of interests has appeared. The theoretical
statements that are now extracted from Brzezinski’s books only
aggravate this dissent.

Question: What do you think Russia will lose in reality if the
revolution wins and Yushchenko becomes the president?

Robert Legvold: Many people in the West think that Yushchenko as the
president of Ukraine is not a bad guarantor for observance of
Russia’s interests in Ukraine. Being the prime minister he was
actively working on strengthening of economic ties with Russia. Yes,
he will not be very enthusiastic about the common economic space. It
is also true that he will start establishing closer relations with
the European Union and NATO but this is such a long process that it
does not pose an immediate threat to Russia’s interests. Moreover,
Ukraine will remain in technological dependence on Russia for a long
time.

Putin and his people make a big mistake believing that Yushchenko
will be too bad as a partner. After all, this false opinion made
Moscow interfere into the course of the election campaign. I talked
not only to Ukrainians but also to some Russian specialists. They
think that it was direct interference of Putin and his political
advisors that persuaded the people who had been neutral or skeptical
about both candidates that they had to vote for Yushchenko. Russia’s
role in this campaign was taken very negatively.

If the problem of legitimacy of Yushchenko is solved, I think that
his behavior will be similar to the behavior of Kuchma after he won
his first presidential elections in 1994, defeating Kravchuk.
Everyone was saying then that the new president would turn to the
West. But what was his first step? In October, right after the
elections, he went to Moscow and started establishing bilateral
relations. I believe that Yushchenko will do the same.

Question: Which consequences can this collision of interests in
Ukraine have for bilateral relations between Moscow and Washington?

Robert Legvold: Rivalry between the US and Russia in Eurasia arose in
the early 1990s during the presidency of Bill Clinton, when the
routes of pipelines from the Caspian region were only being
discussed. The rivalry grew worse during the presidency of Bush when
Ukraine started participating in the Partnership for Peace program.
This rivalry was permanently felt with regard to the Baltic republics
until they were not accepted to the European Union and NATO. After
September 11, Putin approved the American military operation in
Central Asia, accepted it, even despite the phobias dominating in the
Russian military establishment and also accepted deployment of
American special forces in Georgia. Russia is one of the few
countries that consider the struggle against terrorism a war. Europe
does not think so, Japan does not think so and many people do not
think so. In this sense Putin is probably one of the most reliable
partners.

He started projecting Russia’s influence primarily by economic tools
hinting to all regimes in the former CIS countries that Russia was a
better partner for them than America. In the US many members of the
Administration, at least at the level of experts, think that Central
Asia should be a place where we will cooperate with Russia. That is
why it is very important to extinguish the conflict in Ukraine as
soon as possible. This conflict could determine the future of our
relations in the most diverse regions. If Europe and US are drawn
into in harsher rivalry with Russia over Ukraine, we will feel a
negative impact from this everywhere, and primarily in Central Asia.

Translated by Pavel Pushkin