JOHN MARONE, KYIV
SO MUCH FOR UKRAINE - A DAY AFTER THE RUSSIA-EU SUMMIT
If the EU is having trouble finding a common language with the Kremlin, what does this mean for Ukraine, which continues to awkwardly straddle the east-west divide in search of stability?
Friday’s Russia-EU summit in Samara was supposed to address touchy issues like human rights and energy supplies.
But judging by the press conference held thereafter, both sides agreed not to agree.
Europe can afford – at least in the short term – to humor Moscow’s show of great-power caprice.
It can’t afford to upset its strategic supplier of fossil fuels.
Ukraine, the main transit country for Russian energy exported west, is more vulnerable, not having made the cut for EU membership, as some of its former east-bloc neighbors did.
And as the latest standoff between its pro-western president and Moscow-friendly premier shows, Ukraine is equally vulnerable from within.
The EU can’t even agree on a common energy strategy in relation to Russia, with individual member states cutting their own deals with Russian gas giant Gazprom.
So why should anyone expect EU leaders to go out on a limb to promote democracy beyond its already extensive borders?
No one should doubt that the Kremlin believes it can behave as it likes in its own backyard.
The problem is how far, in the mind of Moscow, does its backyard extend?
Ever since former KGB man Vladimir Putin took over the Kremlin, Russia has been re-imposing an authoritarianism that recalls the Soviet Union.
Most recently, peaceful demonstrations in Moscow and St. Petersburg were brutally suppressed by the police last month.
During the press conference in Samara, Putin was unapologetic.
“[These demonstrations] don’t bother me at all. But I think that any such activities must be conducted within the framework of the law and not disturb the peace of other citizens.”
Of course, EU Commission President Jose Barroso and German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke out in favor of democratic principles, just for the record.
But the Russian president was confident.
Sitting between two of Europe’s most powerful leaders in the heartland of his massive energy-rich country, he told the world how Russia sees things.
“What is pure democracy anyway?” Where have you seen such a thing? … Is there pure democracy anywhere our world? How about in Germany?”
Beyond the borders of Russia, in former Soviet Republics and Cold War satellite states, Putin’s Kremlin has been no less active, using hydrocarbon exports, the Russian Diaspora or anything else to show its former subjects that it demands respect.
Late last month, Tallin’s significant population of ethnic Russian rioted in the Estonian capital over the government’s decision to relocate the Soldier-Liberator Monument from the city center to a military cemetery.
While other governments called for calm, Moscow fanned the flames of ethnic indignation with controversial official statements. The Estonian ambassador was even allowed to be roughed up by protesters in the Russian capital.
Putin put a different spin on things in Samara, blaming the Estonian authorities for the death a Russian protester.
“In Tallin, they didn’t just break up a demonstration, they killed one of the demonstrators,” he said.
Ignoring the fact that Soviet troops entered Estonia as invaders, as well as the far worse record of the Russian police in handling demonstrations, Putin was merely expressing a view held by a large number of his countrymen.
Many Russians feel the same about western Ukrainian military units that fought against the Red Army, labeling them fascists.
Parts of western Ukraine were never under the influence of Moscow until the Soviet Union forced them to be.
But as in Estonia and other former republics, Moscow can count on the support of ethnic Russians or other local sympathizers to promote its version of history.
Following the Tallin riots, the Russian Foreign Ministry went so far as to lecture authorities in Lviv after a World War II monument there was damaged by vandals.
On Victory Day, May 9, Putin said such vandalism sows discord between nations.
And the Kremlin is not just spouting rhetoric.
Tiny Georgia has been in a state of cold war since the pro-Western Mikheil Saakashvili came to power in one of a string of color revolutions across the former Soviet Union.
The Kremlin’s relations with Ukraine’s pro-western President Viktor Yushchenko have been more amicable.
But the fact that Ukrainian Premier Viktor Yanukovych, whom the Kremlin openly supported during his fraud-filled bid for the presidency in 2004, has snatched up much of the country’s executive power might be part of the reason for this.
Nevertheless, the Kremlin has almost tripled the price that Ukraine pays for gas imports within the space of a year.
Energy resources, including from Central Asia, are the Kremlin’s weapon of choice in cowing countries that used to be under its control.
When Lithuania’s government rejected a Russian bid to purchase an oil refinery, oil shipments to the refinery were suspended, purportedly due to a pipeline problem that is taking a long time to repair.
Urged on by the United States, some former Soviet republics and satellite states are trying to break Russia’s energy grip over them and, increasingly, much of Western Europe.
A week before the Samara summit, Polish president Lech Kaczynski invited the leaders of Georgia, Azerbaijan, Lithuania and Ukraine to Kracow to galvanize support for the construction of an oil pipeline from the Caspian to Europe around Russia.
But the Kremlin was quicker on the draw.
At the same, Putin was in Central Asia, where he received backing for a similar pipeline going through Russia.
In response, US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said the Russian initiative “would fly in the face of what is needed, which is the diversity of suppliers" to Europe.
Ukraine’s Odessa-Brody pipeline, which was also supposed to pump Caspian oil to Europe around Russia, met a similar fate under Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. It is currently being used to pump Russian oil south to the Black Sea.
Not only is Russia thwarting efforts to run energy to Europe around it, it is itself sidelining the role of transit countries like Ukraine, with the help of Western Europe.
Despite alarm bells in Europe over Russia’s tightening energy grip, Germany and Russia are moving forward with the construction of a gas pipeline across the Baltic Sea.
“Russia must defend its interests as professionally as our [EU] colleagues do,” Putin said in Samara.
Germany and other EU countries that have cut energy deals with Russia are also looking after their interests.
Even the Poles, who called the Baltic pipeline agreement a second Molotov-Ribbentrop, and threatened to derail the Samara summit over Russia’s banning of Polish meat, are looking after their interests.
Together with the Czechs, Warsaw looks set to allow the US to install a missile defense system on its territory.
It’s nice to have US support and be in the EU at the same time.
Ukraine, on other hand, is vulnerable to energy blackmail and a host of other issues that can be dictated by Moscow.
Moreover, unlike Poland and the Czech Republic, Ukraine is divided on the inside, with Premier Yanukovych canceling efforts toward joining NATO and stalling WTO entry.
And like Russia, Kyiv has still not brought the murderers of outspoken journalists to trial.
Merkel and Barroso might not have liked much of what Putin said in Samara on Friday, but they aren’t likely to do anything about it.
Putin’s confidence during the summit was based on the knowledge that bilateral economics take precedence over issues of EU solidarity.
“As a rule, these are issues that lie in the sphere of the economic selfishness of a first, second or third European country, but they do not always respond to the interests of the European Union or Russia,” he said.
If Putin can so haughtily brush aside the interests of EU members, newly joined or not, what kind of treatment can Ukraine expect?
John Marone, Kyiv Post Senior Journalist, based in Ukraine.
May 21, 2007
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