Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared on three TV channels simultaneouly while he was in Kiev for the anniversary of its liberation.
Photo: Dmitry Azarov
| Other Photos |
 |
|
 |
Very Expensive to Buy Votes
// The Price of the Question
Andrey Kozyrev, Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation
Russia has unambiguously endorsed one candidate in the Ukrainian presidential elections and even congratulated him on his victory before the Ukrainian Central Elections Commission announced the outcome of the voting. And that while all major European countries refused to recognize the election as legitimate. That will cost Russia dearly, and the cost will be paid both in foreign policy and in domestic affairs.
The Ukrainians will settle their election sooner or later. Their movement away from the post-Soviet oligarchic structure toward the competing Western model is already irreversible. It is only a matter of time. It was faster when Yushchenko was prime minister, and it will probably be faster yet if he becomes president. If anyone else becomes president, the course of events will remain the same, just maybe going more slowly and with more detours. Equally assuredly, any president of Ukraine is going to maintain good relations with Russia (especially economic relations) at the same time it moves closer to the West. There are no other alternatives for Ukraine.
Russia will undoubtedly take its latest diplomatic bruises because it has a different position on the merit of the Ukrainian elections from Europe and the United States. That is, it seems, simply because they set President Putin up. Participating in a candidate's campaign is not the same as restoring the monarchy. One diplomatic kick has already been delivered in The Hague at the Russia-European Union summit. Instead of discussing the four areas that are of vital interest to Russia, the dialog there was bogged down in emotional exchanges on Ukraine, which could have been avoided.
We are, unfortunately, long accustomed to taking our knocks. When Russia supported Milosevic, they beat up us then too. But both then and, nothing all that dramatic for Russia happened. Putin didn't turn the plane around over the fogbank, so our bruise probably won't smart all that much.
As with Milosevic, the scar on domestic is likely to be worse. The only possible winners in the situation with Russia and the Ukrainian elections are those who want to restore the dividing line between Russia and Europe. There will be Europe on one side, with democratic values and procedures, including requirements for correct electoral procedures, with some Asiope (that's a backward kind of Eurasia) on the other, the inadequate post-Soviet world, which Russia supposedly has some interest in maintain the way it is. But that fantastic line will not be drawn where it was before. Ten years ago, when Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland joined NATO, the line ran through the Balkans. Now it is in the middle of Ukraine, between its eastern and western halves.
Our withdrawal into yet another besieged fortress is very dangerous. It will help only the most reactionary forces within our corrupt bureaucracy and the most reactionary elements in our political establishment. And that is a high price to pay for the Ukrainian elections.
Andrey Kozyrev
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 26, 2004
|
|
|
