New York Times - 01.13.2002

 

The New York Times


With U.S. Blessing, Russia Gives Fragile Ukraine a Hand

By Ian Fisher

HARKIV, Ukraine — In the last decade, the United States pumped more than $2 billion into Ukraine, the huge and puzzled nation hinged to Russia's western edge. This was not just to be nice: Ukraine had nuclear weapons, the still real threat of Chernobyl and 50 million people who could steer their fragile new nation toward Europe or drift back into Russia's embrace.

Now the nuclear arms are gone. The Chernobyl nuclear plant is shut. But Ukraine's relations with Russia seem warmer than ever: at a recent summit meeting in this big industrial city about 25 miles from the Russian border, the flags of both nations waved together on frozen streets as the two presidents — Leonid D. Kuchma of Ukraine and Vladimir V. Putin of Russia — once again pledged friendship and tighter business ties.

Not so long ago this warming might have caused alarm in Washington, a sign that its influence in Eastern Europe was slipping. But a changing calculus between West and East, marked by far better relations between Russia and America themselves, seems to be depriving Ukraine of some of its geo-appeal.

American officials sound unconcerned, casting Ukraine and Russia as partners in reform leading toward European standards of business and governance. "We see no contradictions between Ukraine's `European choice' and stable, normal relations with Russia," said Carlos Pascual, the American ambassador to Ukraine. "Ukraine can — and should — pursue both. A stable, confident and reforming Ukraine would be the kind of neighbor that could encourage a reform-minded Russia on its own transition path. The obverse is likewise true."

Jack F. Matlock Jr., a former ambassador to Moscow and a keen observer of the former Soviet bloc, said that when the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991 Ukraine was seen by many in the State Department as a crucial ally for the Western camp. That sense of urgency, he said, has faded, even as the commonality between Ukraine and Russia — large Slavic nations with extremely strong economic and business ties — has become clearer. "As Russia builds stronger institutions, and they are doing that, I think they can be of enormous help to Ukraine, and they can probably do it better than we can," Mr. Matlock said.

As the Americans seem less purposeful, Ukrainians — particularly intellectuals and reform-minded politicians — worry. They fear that their nation is moving backward, or eastward, even as other former Soviet satellites — and indeed Russia itself — move more solidly toward the European Union and NATO.

"Before, Ukraine was like a buffer zone between Russia and the West," said Volodymyr Polokhalo, a writer and a political scientist. "Today, Ukraine is transforming itself into a transit country into Russia. Putin is following a very wise policy that uses the weaknesses in Ukraine to his own strength."

The newspaper Holos Ukrayiny, or The Voice of Ukraine, recently worried, "Having noticed Russia's will to achieve civilized living standards, the West is getting increasingly keen on Russia dragging Ukraine along."

In the last year, economic growth in Ukraine has skyrocketed — to some degree on the strength of increasing investments from Russia, which supplies Ukraine with 70 percent of its energy and is Ukraine's largest export market.

But the general state of the economy is still in shambles, controlled by an elite of powerful businessmen. Many of the dealings with Russia — whose envoy here is Viktor D. Chernomyrdin, the former Russian prime minister and the former Gazprom chairman — are murky. The rule of law is wanting.

Politically, Ukraine has suffered. President Kuchma allowed the dismissal of a reformist prime minister, Viktor Yushchenko, as his own popularity dipped to single digits over allegations that he was involved in the slaying of a journalist, Georgy Gongadze, in late 2000.

In October, a general sense of incompetence and loss of control came to a boil when the Ukrainian military accidentally shot down a Russian jetliner over the Black Sea, killing 78 people. Mr. Kuchma denied it, then made matters worse with a string of comments like, "Maybe the missile didn't understand Ukrainian."

Then at year's end, the government announced that it would issue pellet guns to journalists so they could protect themselves if the police could not. In the last 10 years, about a dozen journalists have been killed or have disappeared.

Ukraine's reputation hit such a low that a group was formed several months ago devoted to sprucing up its image abroad. Oddly, Ukraine Cognita, founded by businessmen with the blessing of Mr. Kuchma himself, seems aimed as much at warning the nation's leaders that they are doing Ukraine serious harm as at alerting foreigners to the country's good qualities.

"The image of the country is of a totalitarian regime, no freedom of the press, no human rights, high corruption," said the group's executive director, Irina Gagarina, not bothering to dispute a single allegation. "It's a pity for a generation of Ukrainians, which is actually ready to make the country better for the future."

Many eyes are now turned toward the parliamentary elections set for this March; concerns exist as to whether they will be fair or a repeat of Mr. Kuchma's re-election campaign in 1999, widely considered tainted with fraud.

In this national slump, as Western leaders heaped criticism on Mr. Kuchma, particularly over the journalist's death, Mr. Putin remained silent. He went on meeting publicly with a grateful Mr. Kuchma — who like the Russian leader was successful in the Soviet system — and made comments about how Ukraine and Russia "should develop their relations with the rest of the world in tandem."

For their part, American officials say they are certainly not abandoning Ukraine. Direct American investment is still higher than that from Russia. Aid remains among the highest to any nation in the world, with the aim of ultimately seeing Ukraine in Europe.

In a speech in Poland last summer that still represents his most detailed public look at Eastern Europe after the cold war, President Bush singled out Ukraine in his sweeping call to erase the dividing line between East and West.

But his call came wrapped in a question mark, which reflects the frustration of Ukraine's resistance to change. "Some in Kiev speak of their country's European destiny," he said. "If that is their aspiration, we should reward it."

Although there is a long, lingering sense of unfairness in Ukraine over what most people here perceive as poor treatment by Moscow during the 70 years of the Soviet Union, Russia and Ukraine seem ready to develop their friendship.

At the summit meeting here, Mr. Putin said Russia and Ukraine should coordinate their efforts to join the World Trade Organization. They also discussed having Ukraine use Russian technology and financing to finish two nuclear reactors to replace Chernobyl, a deal in which Ukraine might walk away from a long-planned financing arrangement with Western nations.

One thing is certain: most Ukrainians do not share the ambitions of Aleksandr Lukashenko, the Stalinist president of Ukraine's northern neighbor, Belarus, to be formally reattached to Russia.

This sense of nation — at times shaky between staunch Ukrainian nationalists in the west and those oriented more toward Russia in the east — seems embodied in a new square under construction in central Kiev celebrating independence from Russia in 1991. Some complain that the design — especially a heraldic, gilded, statue of a mother Ukraine — is a bit too Soviet. But ask almost anyone on the square, and the words come out much like those of Roman Gadysh, 24. It is, he said, a symbol "of beauty and independence."