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The Shapeshifter Scores
// The price of the question
Viktor Yanukovich traveled to Washington more than a year and a half after Viktor Yushchenko's trip there. The two trips are completely dissimilar. President Yushchenko was received like one of the family. No other Eastern European leader has ever been shown such honor. Not with Yanukovich. For the White House, Yanukovich is “the other guy,” and U.S. President George W. Bush's people are not as easy for Yanukovich to talk to as Russian President Vladimir Putin is. Therefore, Yushchenko was met with embraces and Yanukovich with polite little smiles.
Yanukovich's visit is mush richer in drama and intrigue, however. And is challenges are greater. Whether he wanted to or not, Yanukovich thought about Moscow with every word he said and every gesture he made. Yushchenko didn't have to. And he had to do a remarkable job repackaging himself to show that he was not at all what they took him to be in the U.S. Not a Kremlin henchman, but a democratic leader expressing the hope of the Ukrainian people. His level of trust has never been higher, incidentally.
Unlike the Biblical Esau, President Yushchenko will not sell his birthright for a bowl of pottage. But there is nothing to stop Yanukovich from trying to sell Washington the idea that today he is the embodiment of the democratic project that began when the Orange Revolution rejected him for president. It is probably not by chance that he showed up in America at the same time as Foreign Minister Tarasyuk's irregularities and spoke so much about democracy and fighting corruption. He said what they wanted to hear. The American image makers who worked for him knew their business. But it was funny that his associates in Kiev were forcing out Defense Minister Gritsenko, practically America's last friend in Kiev, while Yanukovich was in negotiations in Washington.
Yanukovich's show was a difficult one in some respects, but easy in others. First, they cannot help but understand in Washington that the keys to today's Ukraine rest in different pockets – one in Yushchenko's and one on Yanukovich's. Second, they cannot allow themselves to treat Yanukovich incautiously in Washington because that would be used by those who say that the Orange Revolution was Washington's doing and who want to impose their will on the Ukrainian people. Thus, Yanukovich seems to be winning the his most important game on the other team's field.
Sergey Strokan
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 06, 2006
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