A FRIEND TURNED FOE
By Sergei Markedonov
Russia Profile
May 28 2008
Russia
Kiev Will Be Undertaking Major Foreign Policy Efforts in the Caucasus
The trend of the Southern Caucasus’ "internationalization" is presently
being intensely discussed in Russian expert circles, as well as
in the three former republics of Soviet Transcaucasia. However,
all conversations about external players are, as a rule, limited to
examinations of EU policies or the American geopolitical project
"The Greater Middle East." Meanwhile, the Southern Caucasus
is attracting the attention not only of European and overseas
politicians, but also from its closest "non-Caucasian" neighbors,
as well as Russia’s strategic partners in the CIS. Much less is known
about their priorities and interests in the Caucasus. Nevertheless,
this does not diminish the ambitions of new potential players in the
"Caucasian game." In the last few years, clear priorities for the
Caucasus were declared by Ukraine, which has a reputation as one of
the main rivals of the Russian Federation in the post-Soviet area.
On May 15th, the General Assembly of the UN considered a resolution
proposed by Georgia concerning temporarily displaced people from
Abkhazia. The highlights of the resolution include the unconditional
recognition of property rights for all temporarily displaced Georgian
nationals from Abkhazia, and the unacceptability of any demographic
changes in the region if they were caused by the consequences of
the armed conflict of 1992-1993. The Georgian draft resolution was
passed by a vote of 14 to 11. Ukraine was among the 14 nations voting
"for" it.
Two weeks prior to the UN vote, Ukraine clearly designated the region
of the Caucasus as one of its foreign policy priorities. The same
day, the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs distributed a joint
statement by Presidents Mikheil Saakashvili and Victor Yushchenko,
concerning Russia’s role in the resolution of ethno-political conflicts
in Abkhazia and in South Ossetia. Immediately afterwards, officials in
Kiev released the same joint statement. "The Presidents of Ukraine and
Georgia have examined the present situation regarding the regulation of
the Georgian-Abkhazian and Georgian-Ossetian conflicts. They expressed
their concern about the attempts by the Russian Federation to place
the territorial integrity of Georgia in doubt, by means of increasing
the status of its relations with Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Thus,
the self-proclaimed republics are actually pushed toward separation
from Georgia," said the statement.
In recent years, Ukrainian leaders have activated the Caucasian
direction in their foreign policy; however, Russian experts explain
this either within the framework of NATO (Kiev and Tbilisi –
companions-in-arms for North Atlantic integration and allies in the
fight against Moscow’s defensive regime) or with GUAM (the Organization
for Democracy and Economic Development consisting of Georgia,
Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova) as a kind of anti-CIS. Meanwhile,
Ukraine’s foreign policy aspirations in the Caucasus were declared
long before the "Orange Revolution," and even before the formation
of GUAM. Ukraine’s policy in this direction has its own, objective
motivation, one which only indirectly relates to the North Atlantic
Alliance. The latter is viewed as a potential "pusher" of Ukrainian
ideology on how "the Caucasus and the Black Sea regions should
be built up." Like Georgia, Ukraine has numerous ethno-political
"skeletons in the closet."
Contemporary Ukraine is a "nationalizing state," that has existed
within its present borders only since 1954. The process of forming
a political and ethnic identity by its citizens is still far
from over. That is why Kiev is excessively sensitive to problems
of separatism, be it Georgia, Azerbaijan, or Moldova. While the
territorial integrity of Georgia is the focus of attention among
Russia’s political and expert elite, Ukrainian "national unity" is the
object of major discussion among Russian citizens. Far from all of the
people who carry a Russian passport recognize Ukraine’s independence.
The year 2008 marked the 15th anniversary since Ukraine and Georgia
signed their "Treaty of friendship, collaboration, and mutual aid." At
the time of its singing in 1993, it became one of the first Eurasian
documents signed by new independent states without aid from "the
hand of Moscow." In the second half of the 1990s, Georgia repeatedly
turned to Ukraine with requests to move Ukrainian "blue berets" into
the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict zone. In June of 1998, President Leonid
Kuchma discussed this matter with Edward Shevardnadze in Yalta. At that
time, the Ukrainian leader signaled his readiness to send peacekeepers
into the conflict zone, though he made Ukraine’s involvement in the
operation contingent on some very serious conditions.
Official Kiev expressed its readiness to direct Ukrainian peacekeeping
forces into the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict zone, though invariably
emphasizing that this solution would only be acceptable with a
corresponding resolution of the UN Security Council. According to the
Ukrainian constitution, the country’s armed forces can only participate
in peacekeeping operations under the aegis of the United Nations. At
the same time, military reforms in Ukraine were traditionally viewed
as a sort of pattern for Georgia. Georgian officers were educated
at the Academy of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and received practical
training in the country’s military units. Ukraine and Azerbaijan were
drawn together by the problem of separatism.
"Ukraine supports the preservation of the territorial integrity
of Azerbaijan, and therefore its position on the problem of
Nagorno-Karabakh contradicts the positions of Armenia and Russia,"
said a well-known Kiev expert Boris Parakhonsky. Moreover, in the
1990s, Kiev and Baku expressed a mutual interest in a wide spectrum of
issues of economic collaboration (from the transport of oil through
Ukraine to the acquisition of gas and oil equipment produced in
this country). In the 1990s, Kiev limited its "political services"
to Baku to rhetorical matters (declaration of support for Azerbaijan’s
territorial integrity, readiness for diplomatic mediation).
The level of Ukrainian foreign policy activity in the Caucasus
increased after the successful realization of two color revolutions
in 2003-2004. The Maidan victors began to view Saakashvili not only
as a strategic partner and ally, but also as an "ideologically close"
politician. As for Azerbaijan, the foremost concern was not ideology,
but pragmatics. Azerbaijan is a member of GUAM, and is a state that is
ready for "equidistance" from both the United States and Russia. At
the same time, Azerbaijan is an important fuel and energy factor in
GUAM, without which no "democracy" can move forward, in the literal
sense of the word. Because of this, the program of Yulia Timoshenko’s
government (first edition, early 2005) contained the following points:
"… to activate collaboration in all spheres within the framework
of GUAM; to activate Ukraine’s participation in the regulation of the
‘frozen’ conflicts in Transnistria and in the Southern Caucasus."
On August 12, 2005, the Presidents of Georgia and Ukraine signed
a declaration "In defense of freedom and democracy in the region,"
known as the Borjomi Declaration. Members of the emperor’s family
would sometimes vacation in the palace built in Borjomi by the
Russian Tsar Nicholas II, and in the 1930s, it was Joseph Stain and
the leaders of the Comintern. "It is doubtful that even in their worst
nightmares, they could have imagined that one day the Presidents of
independent Georgia and Ukraine would be signing a declaration and
exchanging opinions on how to protect freedom and democracy in the
region and in the rest of the world," said Mikheil Saakashvili at a
joint press conference after the signing of the document. Thus GUAM
was "reanimated" and new life was breathed into it. From then on,
the question of "the Ukrainian alternative" to Moscow was intensively
discussed not only in Kiev, but also in the European capitals and the
United States. They began to push Ukraine to the role of a "frozen
conflict" mediator, especially since the "Orange power" itself was
prepared to take on this role.
In the course of his visit to Tbilisi in March of 2007, the Ukrainian
president expressed his readiness to send Ukrainian "blue berets"
to South Ossetia and to Abkhazia "within the framework of a mandate
that would be acceptable to both sides of the conflict." During
the GUAM summit in Baku in June of 2007, Victor Yushchenko labeled
the Armenian troops in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and around this
unrecognized enclave as "invaders." Such labels are rarely as frankly
used by either the United States or the EU. He also expressed his
readiness to send Ukrainian "blue berets" to the front line (which
is what people commonly call the "ceasefire line") in Karabakh.
It is hard to consider either the first or the second proposal
as realistic for several reasons. Firstly, Georgia is the only
party in the conflict that is ready for the "Ukrainization" of the
conflict regulation. South Ossetia is not ready, and Abkhazia even
less so. The statements of activists about their readiness to join
in a possible anti-separatism operation by Tbilisi and the official
Kiev’s declarations merge into a single informational and propaganda
background in the minds of the Abkhazian elite and in its mass
conscience. The second problem for the Ukrainian peacekeepers is the
approval of Verkhovna Rada, necessary for their dispatch into "hot
spots." Unlike Russia, the chain of command in Ukraine is not rigidly
vertical, and therefore Victor Yushchenko cannot "move regiments"
to the Caucasus simply by a strong-willed decision, without approval
from the Parliament.
It is doubtful that populism and the absence of realism will become a
serious interference for Victor Yushchenko in advancing his Caucasian
interests. Especially since any one of his successors, one way or
another, will carry out a similar policy. It is possible that it will
be more pragmatic, more cautious, and have more cold calculation. But
whether we like it or not, the Caucasus will be one of the regions
where Kiev will be applying foreign policy efforts. This region
interests Ukraine in both political and economic contexts, and in the
context of "fear of separatism." In President Victor Yushchenko’s
Decree â~D- 105 (February 12, 2007), "On the strategy of Ukraine’s
national security," several threats are clearly defined, such as the
"escalation of ‘frozen’ and the appearance of new regional conflicts
near the borders of Ukraine." Thus, Ukraine will accomplish its
"thrust into the Caucasus."
What matters most is that these efforts hold more realism and
less ideology. Today, some experts in Kiev are already saying that
the realization of Ukraine’s national interests is not completely
synonymous with a confrontation with Russia. It would be best if this
is the approach that prevails in the implementation of Ukraine’s course
in the Caucasus. After all, in August of 2005, it was Victor Yushchenko
himself, who during his press conference in Borjomi literally stated
the following: "Both Ukraine and Georgia desire purely friendly
relations with our neighbors, and our mutual understanding consists
of acknowledging that Russia is a large country and we need to respect
its internal processes."
Sergey Markedonov, PhD, is the head of the Interethnic Relations
Department at Moscow’s Institute of Political and Military Analysis.
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