How did Russia manage to gain such a deal? And who are the beneficiaries?
The Russian Black Sea Fleet has been at Sevastopol since 1783 and has fought wars against the Turks, British, French, and Germans. In 1991, its future came under consideration as it found itself part of an independent Ukraine. Eventually, about 80 per cent of the ships went to Russia, which signed an agreement with Ukraine in 1997 for a 20-year lease of two Black Sea bays at Sevastopol for $98 million per year.
Yushchenko had indicated his reluctance to extend that lease, pointing out that, according to the Ukrainian Constitution, no foreign military installations are permitted on Ukraine’s territory. The presence of the fleet and its use in Russia’s war with Georgia in August 2008 was a bone of contention between Yushchenko and the Russian leadership. He also evicted Russian security agents in Sevastopol late last year.
The current agreement represents a stunning volte-face on Ukraine’s part. The deal was evidently elaborated by Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov and signed on April 21.
Medvedev, rather than Putin, was the official signatory but there is little doubt of the latter’s crucial role in formulating the contents. The two parliaments, it was reported, may ratify the agreement as early as April 27.
Russia has agreed to reduce the cost of gas exported to Ukraine by 30 per cent until 2019, which will save Ukraine an estimated $40 billion over the next decade. In 2010, Ukraine will pay $230 per thousand cubic metres of gas compared within originally anticipated $334. In return, Ukraine agreed to increase its gas imports of gas by 10 per cent this year and extend the lease for the Russian Fleet until 2042.
To most outsiders the deal seems heavily weighted in Russia’s favour. Until 2017, Russia can continue to deduct the price of the lease from monies owed by Ukraine for gas since the early 1990s. After that time, cash payments will be made, but the agreement will only last for two further years. In the remaining 23 years, Russia can theoretically raise the price of gas again.
Ukraine is already paying well above market prices for gas. More important, it is allowing a foreign state to occupy a key strategic base indefinitely. Ukraine’s prospects for future membership of NATO, which could re-emerge after the end of Yanukovych’s tenure, now seem dim. Russia intends to modernize and expand the fleet, and stresses its role in combating piracy off the coast of Somalia as evidence of its international usefulness.
Yanukovych manifestly failed to negotiate on Ukraine’s behalf. It is inconceivable why his starting point was not a five-year extension of the existing lease, which was stipulated as an option according to the 1997 agreement. There is also no logic to his ready agreement that the lease of a military base be linked to payments for gas. There is no indication that Russia intends to halt construction of its Nord Stream pipeline, which would bypass Ukraine to transport of Russian gas to Western Europe.
The new agreement practically nullifies Ukraine’s ability to conduct an independent foreign policy. And only the most naive observers would anticipate that the deal clarifies the future of Russian-Ukrainian relations. Putin, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, and dozens of Russian legislators have dismissed the 1954 transfer of Crimea to Ukraine as an anomaly. They have also declared that Sevastopol will always remain a Russian city. More pressure could soon be put on the pliable Ukrainian president.
The agreement instantly divided Ukraine. It is supported by the Regions Party, which has a small majority in the Parliament, but has outraged other factions, including Our Ukraine and the Tymoshenko Bloc. The former has called for Yanukovych to be impeached. Whether the president has enough support to win ratification remains to be seen.
Despite his April meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama, resulting in the decision to remove highly enriched uranium from Ukraine by 2012, Yanukovych has been dismantling his predecessor’s legacy with bewildering speed. He gained a majority in parliament by ignoring the law on factions and persuading individual delegates to switch their support to Regions.
The presidential web page on the 1933 Famine disappeared promptly after Yanukovych’s electoral victory, allegedly because of "technical difficulties" (a typical Soviet phrase) and his appointment of Dmytro Tabachnyk as minister for science and education seemed calculated to inflame Western Ukrainians. Tabachnyk published an article in Izvestiya last year claiming that residents of this region were not really Ukrainians and had different values from people in "Greater Ukraine." A parliamentary vote to remove him failed narrowly in late March.
In the new agreement, Yanukovych once again demonstrated his disdain for the current Constitution. In the short term, he might have improved Ukraine’s financial standing, but he has tied Ukraine’s military and security future to that of Russia, undermined its independence, and divided the country more than his hapless predecessor managed after five years in office.
David Marples directs the Stasiuk Program on Contemporary Ukraine at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta. The article was published by the Edmonton Journal and is reprinted with the author’s permission.
