As NATO’s air war against Serbia escalated, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma dispatched a peace mission to Belgrade on March 27, but apparently to little avail.
Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk and Defense Minister Oleksandr Kuzmuk met with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and other Serbian leaders and offered Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma’s services as a mediator, but a senior Ukrainian official told Reuters afterward that Milosevic ‘seems to be deaf and blind to our proposals.’
Before and during the mission Ukrainian media were full of reports that Kuchma might hop down to Belgrade during his previously scheduled March 30-31 state visit to Slovenia.
But reports on Kuchma’s visit and on Tarasyuk’s simultaneous tour of several European capitals to talk up Ukraine’s proposal made it sound increasingly unlikely that Kuchma would meet Milosevic anytime soon.
The Ukrainian government’s busy display of diplomacy also failed to impress the NATO alliance.
‘They didn’t come up with anything, which is not surprising,’ The Associated Press quoted an unnamed senior U.S. State Department official as saying.
With Ukrainian peacekeeping forces still on the ground in Bosnia and parliamentary leftists calling for breaking off Ukraine’s cooperation with the NATO alliance, the presidential administration seems desperate to maintain a balance between East and West.
Russia has already ended its participation in the alliance’s Partnership for Peace program and recalled its observer to NATO headquarters in Brussels, but Ukraine has continued to speak about building on its NATO ties while condemning the bombing of rump-Yugoslavia’s territory.
Leftist orators in the Verkhovna Rada thundered against U.S. and NATO ‘genocide’ and tabled measures calling for an end to NATO ties and a reconsideration of Ukraine’s non-nuclear status.
The latter measure passed on March 24, but the presidential administration quickly rebuffed it, with Kuchma saying at a military exercise on March 26 that it would be ‘impossible’ for Ukraine to independently maintain nuclear weapons.
Even the Rada’s traditionally pro-NATO Rukh faction deplored the bombing, and faction head Yury Kostenko circulated a statement that called for ‘preserving the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia.’
But the Rada failed to pass a resolution severing ties with NATO, and Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry moved to reassure the West that it was not parting ways with Europe.
‘Ukraine is not interested in a confrontation between the United States and Russia, or the continuation of NATO air strikes, or an all-Slavic crusade to defend the Serb brethren,’ The Associated Press quoted Tarasyuk as saying on March 26.
Returning directly from Belgrade on a military transport plane, Tarasyuk told reporters in Kyiv that the Ukrainian offer was on the initiative of Kuchma alone, and that it was not made on behalf of any third country or group of countries.
Tarasyuk traveled to Warsaw on March 29 and took his case to Polish Foreign Minister Bronislaw Geremek to urge a diplomatic resolution to the conflict. Poland, one of the three newest members of the alliance, has lobbied strongly to prevent Ukraine’s isolation from the West, and Geremek apparently warmed somewhat to Ukraine’s appeal, acknowledging that ‘there is always room for negotations.’
Geremek, however, stopped short of any condemnation of the bombing and said that ‘minimal conditions must be met’ by Serbia before the bombing could be called off.
Meanwhile, protests against U.S. and British embassies in Kyiv brought together a curious coalition of socialists and Ukrainian nationalists.
About 70 members of the Ukrainian Socialist party picketed the U.S. Embassy on March 26, preceded by 30 members of the far-right Ukrainian National Assembly/Ukrainian Self-Defense Organization (UNA-USO). Both groups chanted ‘Yankees out of Yugoslavia,’ and UNA-UNSO called for volunteers to help deliver ‘humanitarian aid’ to Yugoslavia.
UNA-UNSO mercenaries were reported to have fought in Chechnya against the Russia, and UNA-UNSO leader Anatoly Lupynis called for parliament to overturn laws against Ukrainians serving as mercenaries
Ukrainians also turned out in large numbers for anti-NATO demonstrations in the eastern Ukrainian cities of Sumy and Luhansk, where the Unian news agency reported that 2,000 demonstrators took to the streets.
However, public outcry over the bombings has been considerably more subdued in Ukraine than in Russia, where the U.S. Embassy was peppered with automatic-rifle fire on March 28 by a jeep-load of masked men armed with Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenades.
At a March 30 news conference convened by the ambassadors of NATO-member countries that have embassies in Ukraine, U.S. Ambassador Steven Pifer said his country ‘is not opposed to demonstrations as long as they are peaceful.’
Pifer would not comment about whether the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv had heightened security in response to the attack.
‘I will only say that we have very good cooperation with Ukrainian security officials,’ he said.
Paraphrasing a statement issued by U.N. Secretary Javier Solana, Canadian Ambassador Derek Fraser said NATO had undertaken military action ‘to avert a human catastrophe at the heart of Europe.’
British Ambassador Roy Reeve said NATO’s military actions were in response to concerted effort by Serbian military and paramilitary forces to ethnically cleanse Kosovo.
‘To argue that NATO actions are responsible for the flood of refugees is totally wrong,’ he said. ‘We need to ensure that Milosevic is not going to profit by his actions.’
Regarding Ukraine’s attempt to bring Yugoslavia back to the table, alliance diplomats were suggestively terse.
‘We wish the Ukrainian government the best of luck in its efforts,’ Fraser said.
