Blogging diplomacy highlights the gaping cleft in Russian-Ukrainian diplomacy
MOSCOW, Russia — To say that the current Russian-Ukrainian bilateral relations are at their worst levels since the ill-managed breakdown of the Soviet Union added 15 new sovereign states to the global political map in the early 1990s will be a huge understatement. Indeed, the antipathy in the obviously strained bilateral intergovernmental relationships have been now become so personal that top Russian political leadership cannot even bear the presence of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko.
The Ukrainian leader is rightly blamed by the Moscow political elite for the downturn in the diplomatic relationships between the two largest Slavic nations that had blossomed before the Orange Revolution, sponsored by the West, finally propelled Yushchenko into the Ukrainian presidency in 2005. The situation is now so bad that both leaders cannot even talk on the phone to one another, not to talk of private meetings, etc., to iron out their differences that have reached unprecedented dimensions. A breakdown in official, and more importantly, personal communications among leaders is always dangerous for intergovernmental relations. This old political axiom is best illustrated by the current state of the Russia-Ukrainian relationships and the open antagonism between the two countries’ top political leaderships.
Indeed, the only communication route now available to both presidents is Internet blogging, a strategy used by IT savvy Russian President Dmitry Medvedev earlier this month, when he pasted a lengthy dissertation on the current state of the Russian-Ukrainian relations, where he placed most, if not all the blames for the ‘spiral degradation’ of their bilateral ties squarely on Kiev, and personally on Yushchenko’s openly anti-Russia foreign policy strategies. From his side, the Ukrainian leader also retaliated tit-for-tat by sending a similarly lengthy letter via the Internet to the Kremlin, where he tried to parry all the issues raised by Medvedev, and naturally blaming Moscow for ‘its imperialistic ambitions, complete disrespect for Ukraine’s sovereignty’ and a myriad of other traditional charges frequently levied by Yushchenko’s sponsors in Brussels and Washington against Moscow, such as the ‘Kremlin’s continuous consideration of the former Soviet region as its backyard area of special geopolitical influence.’
Who to blame for the escalating tensions in the Moscow-Kiev relations will definitely depend on whom one is asking in Russia, Ukraine and in 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, etc.,’ 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.
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 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 hateful, 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 validation, 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 pastoral mission in the country in July? 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 embargoes slapped against such states by UN or any other international organizations, etc. 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 conventional wisdom, 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, dictionary meanings. Borrowing from the political theories on government, suffice it to say here that the rights of one nation are limited by other’s 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 right here to draw an analogy with the situation between the United Kingdom and the United States. Like Russia and Ukraine, both of these two powerful western nations have a common history, speak one language and have largely one religion, 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, there have been several up-and-down, 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 national interests.
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, to change the political courses of countries, whose leaders were/are executing policies that ran/run counter to their geopolitical interests. The surges in so-called colored revolutions — from Kiev to Tbilisi to Bishkek and down to the Balkans and further into history to include the fall of the Iranian presidency about 30 years ago, are just few cases of the West’s expert 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 tactic will enable it to develop much better relations with its ‘brotherly neighboring state’ under a new and friendlier government in Kiev. 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, and unjustifiably blame them for all the Soviet deeds 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 disposable to leverage all its political and economic resources and other capabilities to effect the type of political change in Kiev that it feels will better serve the interests of the Ukrainian and Russian people, rather than stay aloof and allow the myopic nationalists in Kiev to continue to hold the two brotherly nations hostages or as ‘special lamb offerings’ to their western master.
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 few, 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 compete bankruptcy, whilst its strained relationships with Moscow prevented it from gaining from Moscow’s $10bln economic stimulus for the CIS countries that helped the likes of Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, etc. to fair significantly better than Kiev 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 born by their joint 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 during the upcoming election. Against this background, the Medvedev’s gambit, so far, seems to the best option, compared to the rest choices, on the table for Ukraine at this critical point in its contemporary history. It will, therefore, be foolhardy for Kiev to satisfy this goldenly unique opportunity of establishing better bilateral relations with Moscow on a broad scale and across all issues and spheres of mutual benefits on the altar of illusory expectations of fast-track, deeper integration into western institutions in the near foreseeable future.
By Christopher Kenneth
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