Ukraine's Teething Troubles
Price of the Question
I don’t think it would be right to consider developments in Ukraine as a Yushchenko-Yanukovich-Timoshenko triangle as many people do. Others, like Yulia Mostovaya, The Week’s Mirror deputy editor-in-chief and Defense Minister Anatoly Gritsenko’s wife, say if a triangle of President Yushchenko-PM Yanukovich-Speaker Timoshenko emerged, it would alleviate the situation.
Events in Ukraine can be interpreted in two ways. According to one opinion, the current turmoil is just a part of teething troubles which will inevitably open a period of maturity when issues of euro integration, NATO, languages and land privatization will be settled. In contrast, some people tend to see the developments as the start of a fatal illness – the disease of the aged post-Soviet elite which will split the country in two.
There is another point to consider when analyzing events in Kyiv. Major business is a factor which did not play any significant role in similar circumstances in Russia in 1993. In the meantime, Ukrainian tycoons are losing millions in profits every day. There is no further capitalization to their assets. Looking for a way-out from the political standoff, major business wants to remain both Ukrainian and international with access to foreign markets and its fair play.
Will major business bring reason to politics in Ukraine? This is the question. In fact, there has been scarcely any politics but a lot of money relations in the 15 years of Ukraine’s independence. Money matters have ranged from purchasing a place on an election roll to buying a court decision. But the trouble is that you can’t buy a political decision and stabilization.
If the Ukrainian crisis comes down to teething troubles, then a new election will be a valid solution. In this case, the parties should enter talks to refine the vague constitution and election law and ask the people for a decision. If we interpret the developments as a fatal illness, the country may end up in a civil conflict and separatism. In this case, the present-day Ukraine can be compared to the 1993 Russia when the parliamentary crisis led to the first Chechen war. But I still believe that Ukraine is going through a stage rather than writhing on the deathbed.
What about Russia, then? Ukraine has been considering Moscow as a threat ever since the last year’s gas crisis. Quite naturally, Russia’s political elite, or the Kremlin, thinks that the worse Ukraine feels, the better. Following the same idea, an emerging Ukraine may become a paragon of a civil democratic solution to other former Soviet republics. But it’s not the only reason why Russia is concerned about the situation in Ukraine. There is still the issue of the Black Sea Fleet to consider as Russia has pledged to withdraw its navy from Ukraine in 2017. But as I see it, officials in Moscow – and they may as well retain power until 2017 – are not going to pull out the Black Sea fleet anyway.
Savik Shuster, host of the Svoboda Slova TV show, Ukraine
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 18, 2007
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