Two years into his presidency, Viktor Yanukovych’s professed foreign policy of balancing Ukraine’s relations with the West and Russia appears to lie in shambles.
The European Union has frozen signature of the association agreement and free trade arrangement. He had to cancel his Central European summit in Yalta because most of the invitees declined to attend, and NATO leaders in Chicago displayed little desire for bilateral meetings with him.
Meanwhile, Moscow shows no interest in granting Kyiv’s most fervent request – a lower price for natural gas – unless Ukraine surrenders control of its gas transport system or joins the Customs Union, the latter of which would kill the EU free trade arrangement.
The core of the problem lies in the sharp downturn in Ukraine’s relations with Europe. That is bad in and of itself, but it also is a major factor in Moscow’s tough stance toward Kyiv. The Russians calculate that Mr. Yanukovych has backed himself into a corner from which there are no good exits.
Over the past two years, the president repeatedly stated that his priority foreign policy objective was to bring Ukraine closer to, and eventually into, the European Union. But democratic regression and selective prosecution of opposition leaders, such as Yuliya Tymoshenko, have stymied Kyiv’s efforts to improve its ties with Europe and pose an obstacle to Ukraine’s relations with the United States.
Mr. Yanukovych miscalculated.
Before telling the West that ‘if you do this, you will push us into the arms of the Russians,’ Kyiv should think carefully. When a man walks into a bank, pulls out a gun, points it at his head, and demands $100,000 or “the hostage gets it,” the threat rarely succeeds.
He assumed that he could pursue political repression at home and nonetheless enjoy good relations with the West. Watching this play out over the past year has been like watching a slow motion train-wreck.
At several points, Mr. Yanukovych could have changed course. For example, last October he could have had the Party of Regions amend the criminal code to annul the article that was the basis for last summer’s trial of Ms. Tymoshenko. But he chose not to switch course, and Ukraine’s relations with the West have plummeted.
Part of Mr. Yanukovych’s obstinacy may result from an inflated sense of Ukraine’s geopolitical weight. Many in the Ukrainian elite appear to hold the view that Ukraine’s geopolitical importance to Europe and the United States is so crucial – that Ukraine matters so much in a geopolitical tug-of-war between the West and Russia – that the West would ignore democracy problems and embrace Ukraine, for fear that Kyiv otherwise would fall into Moscow’s orbit.
Over the past ten years, both as a U.S. government official and as a private citizen, I have had Ukrainians tell me “if the West does this, you will push us into the arms of the Russians.”
That line, and the implicit threat it seems to convey, goes down badly in the West. It suggests a lack of commitment on Ukraine’s part to joining Europe and the Euro-Atlantic community. It implies that Ukraine is an object of the foreign policy of others rather than a subject capable of determining its own foreign policy course. Most strikingly, it disregards the fact – fully recognized in Europe and the United States – that falling “into the arms of the Russians” is not in the interests of Ukraine.
The West bears some blame for fueling this sense of geopolitical importance.
Most recently, the NATO summit declaration in Chicago, before criticizing domestic problems within Ukraine, stated that “an independent, sovereign and stable Ukraine, firmly committed to democracy and the rule of law, is key to Euro-Atlantic security.”
So one can understand why there is the belief in Kyiv in Ukraine’s central geopolitical importance.
To be sure, in developing the EU’s policy toward Ukraine, some EU member states have been guided by geopolitical considerations. But they now are clearly in the minority.
For the large majority of EU member-states, values matter and drive EU interests regarding Ukraine. Those countries see a Ukraine that embraces Europe’s democratic values as a more stable, transparent and predictable partner than one which does not. There is little interest, on the other hand, in engaging closely with a Ukraine that appears headed down the path toward becoming another Belarus rather than another Poland.A similar view has taken hold in the United States. When Mr. Yanukovych abandoned pursuit of a closer relationship with NATO, the U.S. government threw its weight behind supporting a closer EU-Ukraine relationship as the best way to draw Ukraine into Europe.
Values matter for Washington as well, and the U.S. government will not try to argue to the European Union that it should set those values aside.
If Mr. Yanukovych clings to a hope that the West will ignore the democratic regression and rule of law problems in order to keep Ukraine away from Russia, he will continue to miscalculate.
And before telling the West that “if you do this, you will push us into the arms of the Russians,” Kyiv should think carefully.
When a man walks into a bank, pulls out a gun, points it at his head, and demands $100,000 or “the hostage gets it,” the threat rarely succeeds.
