Brett Daniel Shehadey
Special Contributor for In Homeland Security
As the Ukrainian President Viktor F. Yanukovich and his government depart from European integration and trade, they plug back into Mother Russia with both feet.
Since the November 30th walk-out of the Ukraine-EU free trade deal, police cracked down with violence targeting hundreds of protestors as thousands came out to the streets of the capital in Kiev. A large crowd of about 10,000 gathered the night before in anticipation of a presidential signature and deal with Europe.
Mass demonstrations involved hundreds of thousands in spite of inclement weather. So much of the demonstration is furnished in deeply rooted symbols of oppression and independence. The symbolic destruction of a statue of Lenin is a demand to drop Russian ties. The gathering at Independence Square in Kiev is also rooted there; as well as the Orange Revolution’s successful overturning of a fraudulent presidential win in 2004 by now acting president, Yanukovich, backed by Russia and the Eastern Ukraine.
Police wearing masks stormed the lead political opposition’s office [the All-Ukraine Union Fatherland]. Police stole computer hard drives and servers. Opposition leader, ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s has been jailed since 2011 over allegations of corruption that rolled out after her loss for a bid to presidency against Yanukovich.
Ukraine is facing a severe economic debt crisis, a financial crisis in the form of a currency crash all on top of political crisis in the form of protests and violence in an epic East-West split. The President of Ukraine has released some demonstrators from detention but not the demands for resignation or the dissolution of government. But Yanukovich did say he would trade and political agreement and consider the IMF.
President Yanukovich met with three former presidents of Ukraine to discuss the crises via Round Table talks, including: Leonid M. Kravchuk, Leonid D. Kuchma and Viktor A. Yushchenko. A similar arrangement was used to defuse the demonstrations in 2004, keeping stability and characterized as the Orange Revolution.
Just prior to the Orange Revolution, the Russian supported Yanukovich’s victory amidst electoral fraud in the first series of rounds. Then contending candidate Viktor Yushenko called for a massive resistance movement and was met by 100,000 protestors initially, leading up to one million, according to some estimates.
The Supreme Court of Ukraine got involved and Round Table talks were led by then president Leonid Kuchma to discuss the presidential election crisis. In the end, Viktor Yushenko defeated Viktor Yanukovich in the 2004 third round run-off election that was monitored by international observes as free and fair. Yet victory came at the price- the poisoning of Yushenko with TCDD diocin which has disfigured his face. He still managed to push for greater EU integration and liberal policies while not abandoning Russian ties. All of those are now threatened by the acting president and old rival, Viktor Yanukovich.
Then, as now, the greater East –West split remains the central threat to stability and progress. Moreover the East of the country backed Yanukovich with Russia, which recently got their way with his refusal to sign the EU free trade accord and team up with the IMF. Effectively, through him, Russia erases the past gains by people like Yushenko and Tymoshenko that led them westward.
In his defense of Ukraine’s current economic plight, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that his banks extended to Ukraine $30 billion in loans and commentators from Russia claim $9 billion in savings annually from Russian gas imports, according to the New York Times.
In 2010, After his election, Viktor Yanukovich immediately signed the Ukraine-Russia Naval Base for Natural Gas Treaty, which leased the black sea port Sevastopol for another 25 years in exchange for a reduction of almost one-third the price in natural gas.
A recent deal with China gives Ukrainian farm land up to China’s agribusiness in exchange for cash. Nevertheless, it is unlikely to meet the demands of debt and payment for Russian energy imports. Russia is clearly taking the whole country as collateral but like the old USSR, neither the country satellite state benefits in the short run or the motherland in the long run by a paternal-client relationship. Yet Russia is more concerned with border states, as before and is dictated by old thinking of geopolitics rather than partnerships and progress.
Ukraine needs Western investment beyond agricultural or loans if they are to grow and compete in the 21st century. The Russian-Led Customs Union would prevent Ukraine from joining the EU for good. In return, they would receive lower gas prices. Only Belarus joined the Union thus far, but critics call it the re-installation of the satellite republics under Putin and a loss of Ukrainian sovereignty.
The East and West pull is growing with the rulers and the people of Ukraine are at odds and foreign interests stretching the country. It appears it is still trotting to the East, even with a third recession. Russia has greater influence, and the East is a high industrial sector more reliant on Russia. But Ukraine may take one step East and one step back West too.
The government’s harsh response to police atrocities brings Western diplomats out to hold peace talks. The official US position was given by Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Victoria Nuland:
“The U.S. supports Ukraine’s European choice, a nonviolent and just political resolution to the current standoff, and a return to economic health with the support of the International Monetary Fund.”
Russia’s State Duma (the lower chamber of parliament) played their Cold War Soviet Bloc thinking, accusing the West of interfering with [their] Ukraine: “stop mounting external pressure on the politics of a country that is brotherly to us.”
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