Blogging diplomacy highlights the gaping cleft in Russian-Ukrainian relations

Who to blame for the escalating tensions in the Moscow-Kiev relations will definitely depend on whom one is asking in Russia, Ukraine, Brussels and Washington. Naturally, the West, Kiev’s current political master, has long indicted and convicted Moscow on all charges, even before they had been levied, while those siding with Moscow will argue that Kiev has, at least, been ‘non-consistent’ and ‘openly destructive’ in its dealings with its ‘former senior brother’ in the non-defunct Soviet hierarchy.

Such arguments and counterarguments, charges and countercharges, etc., are endless, and have, indeed, pushed the two nations to the brink of full diplomatic breakdown, evident in the Kremlin’s refusal to send a new ambassador to Kiev till ‘there are significant improvements’ in the bilateral relations. Worse still, the relations are leaning towards an open conflict, including the possibility of military involvement, evident in Ukraine’s continuous harassments of the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet and Moscow’s unambiguous declaration of its readiness to defend the fleet against such interferences in the future with all its might.  

But there are certain things that friends and family members, an apt reference here, since the Russians and Ukrainians see themselves as ‘brotherly nations with common religion and ancestral heritage,’ find unpalatable to swallow or rather extremely difficult, if at all possible, to put up with. Geopolitical interests and the need to live up to its ‘western sponsors’ expectations’ apart, Kiev has not only started acting as ‘a non-family member’ under the Yushchenko administration, but has even become an outright enemy, siding and plotting with outside foes against the family and its interests at every turn and corner. As one Russian political observer noted recently, Yushchenko seems to have adopted the-all-means-justify-the-ends principle in Ukraine’s relationship with Russia to thwart its key strategic objectives, irrespective of the fact that such means are equally destructive to Ukraine’s national interests.

A few questions will help highlight the worrying aberrations in Kiev’s behavior that has made its domestic and foreign policy strategies unbearable, and indeed, revolting to Moscow. How can Yushchenko justify Ukraine’s sales of deadly arms to Georgia, when he knows Tbilisi’s only open enemies are its breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, populated mostly by Russian citizens? What is Kiev’s main justification for its striving to join NATO, an organization that was created to destroy the Soviet Union, other than to irate Moscow as a way of remuneration to its western sponsors, and how can one explain Kiev’s attitude to the Black Sea Fleet, knowing the history of the Crimean Peninsula, the number of wars Russia has fought and the countless lives lost over the centuries to keep the territory intact until it was handed over to ‘the brotherly Soviet republic of Ukraine’ during the heyday of the Soviet empire, when it was totally unimaginable that the great communist state would one day disintegrate into warring and unfriendly fiefdoms? 

Besides, what is the rationale behind Kiev’s penning a new strategic gas agreement with Brussels without consulting with Moscow, whose gas, by the way, it plans to pipe via its territory to its EU sponsors under the gas transportation network reform agreement? And, finally, what is the justification, apart from the questionable ‘official security thesis’ offered by Kiev, for the attempts to block Patriarch Kirill’s visits to some of Ukrainian regions during his recent pastoral mission in the country?

These types of rhetorical questions are, indeed, endless, and the obvious answers to them do not seem to qualify Kiev as 'a really friendly and brotherly nation' to Moscow, at least, at this point in time. Many will rightly, and justifiably, argue that Ukraine has a right, as a sovereign state, to do whatever it wants to do, enter into any alliances, military or otherwise, as it deems fit, sell arms to whichever countries it wants, provided that there are no official embargoes slapped against such states by the UN or any other international organizations. All these arguments are repeated over and over again by Kiev and other Moscow’s enemies like a mantra. They seem very logical, and, indeed, instinctive, like all conventional wisdoms, that it will be irrational to question their authenticities. 

But like most conventional wisdoms, majority of these arguments are wrong, especially if examined objectively beyond their surface meanings. Borrowing from political theories on government, suffice it to say here that the rights of one nation are limited by other nations’ rights and vice-versa. This is particularly true on the geopolitical arena, where if all nations were allowed to exert what they deem their political rights, without due considerations for other nations’ rights and interests, the whole would have long degraded into a ‘wild lawless jungle,’ where might is right and right is might.

The two past world wars have illustrated the absolute fallacy of the erroneous doctrine of absolute rights in geopolitics, and those blindly pursuing what they see as their ‘exclusive sovereign rights without due respect for their ‘neighbors’ similar exclusive rights and interests’ risk repeating the deadly errors of the advocates of absolute rights in protecting one’s geopolitical interests that ignited the two world wars.     

To cut a long story short, it will be right here to draw an analogy with the situation between the United Kingdom and the United States. Like Russia and Ukraine, these two powerful western nations have a common history, language and, and, are, indeed, more or less from the same origin. However, since what has become today’s United States broke away from the British Empire almost 300 years ago, there have been several sinusoidal phases in their relationships, but there has never been a case, where Washington sided with enemies against London or acted in ways to torpedo its strategic interests on the global arena.

Indeed, the reverse has always been the case, as both London and Washington, as evident in the ongoing Iraq war, had and will even again go together, if and when necessary, against the collective will of the larger global community, to achieve their strategic geopolitical objectives and/or protect their countries’ national interests.

“Kremlin’s promise to improve ties in all spheres with Kiev, given the interdependence of the two countries, will allow pure political pragmatism, biological natural survival instinct and raw economic expediency to shape Ukrainian presidential candidates’ foreign policies towards Moscow.”

And, finally, there are charges — both from Kiev and its western masters — against Moscow for what they claimed to be a direct interference in the upcoming Ukrainian presidential election. While interfering in other countries’ domestic political affairs should be condemned in its entirety, one cannot argue against the fact this geopolitical instrument, widely known as ‘regime-change doctrine in hostile nations’ in the western political lexicon, was actually invented by western governments, especially the United States, as a weapon for changing the political courses of countries, whose leaders were/are executing policies that ran/run counter to their geopolitical interests.

The surges in the so-called colored revolutions — from Kiev to Tbilisi to Bishkek and down to the Balkans and further into recent history to include the fall of the Iranian presidency 30 years ago, are just few cases of the West’s professional use of the ‘regime-change tactics’ to intervene and change political courses at will in regions of its geopolitical interests.  

This brings us to the final issue: If other nations can use this regime-change policy, bad though it is, why can’t Moscow, hypothetically, also use it to change the political course in Ukraine, if it senses that such tactics will enable it to develop much better relations with its ‘brotherly neighboring state’ under a new and friendlier government in Kiev in the post-presidential election era. Besides, Moscow also has a right to have friendly neighbors, instead of the currently hostile ones — from the Baltic states to Tbilisi and Kiev — whose leaders seem to equate the current Russian leaders with their Soviet predecessors, whom they unjustifiably blame for all the Soviet actions — positive or negative — during the Cold War era. 

More importantly, the need to have friendly neighbors, in contrast to hostile ones, currently encircling Russia as ‘a NATO sanitary zone for the West’ also qualifies as Moscow’s issue of strategic importance that deserves urgent resolution. And, it seems the Kremlin, going by Medvedev’s blog message to his Kiev counterpart, where he noted that the time for developing normal relations with Ukraine is around the corner, has now fully recognized the exigency of finding a permanent solution to this issue.

Moscow seems now ready to do everything at its disposal to leverage all its political, economic resources and other capabilities to effect the type of change in Kiev that it feels will better serve the interests of the Ukrainian and Russian people, rather than staying aloof and allow the myopic nationalists in Kiev to continue to hold the two brotherly nations hostages and/or as ‘special lamb offerings’ to their western masters. 

The Kremlin has rightly calculated the time to enter the geopolitical race to return Ukraine to the Ukrainian people, and by extrapolation, to their Slavic brothers in Russia. For the Ukrainian politicians, the options for a better future are very few and seriously limited, as exposed by the current economic crisis, where Kiev’s expectations of fast-track economic aid from its western masters did not materialize, thus putting its economy on the brink of complete bankruptcy. On the other hand, its seriously strained relationships with Russia are preventing it from gaining from Moscow’s special $10bln economic stimulus for the CIS countries that has helped the likes of Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, etc. to fair significantly better during the ongoing economic turmoil.

This is why the Kremlin’s promises of better ties — political, economic and social, given the ‘interrelationships and interdependence of the two countries’ economies resulting from their common Soviet past, will allow pure political pragmatism, biological natural survival instinct and raw economic expediency to shape both Ukrainian presidential candidates’ foreign strategy policies towards Moscow during the election campaigns and the ordinary folks’ minds at the poll.

Against this background, Medvedev’s gambit, so far, seems to be the best option, compared with the rest choices available to Ukraine at this critical point in its contemporary history. It will, therefore, be foolhardy for Kiev to sacrifice this goldenly unique opportunity of establishing better bilateral relations with Moscow on a broad scale and across all issues of mutual benefit on the altar of illusory expectations of a fast-track, deeper integration into western institutions in the near foreseeable future.