Visiting NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer pledged he would do his best to persuade all NATO members to support the idea of extending to Ukraine a Membership Action Plan (MAP) last week in a visit to Kyiv that was meant to demonstrate that NATO chiefs are not prepared to be cowed by Russian sabre-rattling. However, while in Ukraine Mr. de Hoop Scheffer stopped short of speculating on Ukraine’s chances of receiving a MAP in the very near future. “That is difficult for me to speculate. As you know, in Bucharest there was not yet a consensus on the Membership Action Plan. I will try to do the best I can to forge and create that consensus, but guarantees I cannot give, unfortunately,” he told reporters.
A NATO summit in Bucharest in April declined to grant an MAP to Ukraine and fellow ex-Soviet republic Georgia, but agreed to review the issue at a meeting of foreign ministers in December. Mr de Hoop Scheffer’s two-day visit to Ukraine was marked with anti-NATO protests as many in this post-Soviet country still see the alliance as a warmonger doing the bidding of American imperialism – a Soviet-era legacy that is clouding the debate over Ukraine’s NATO flirtation and fuelling Cold War-style rhetoric among Russophile Ukrainians and Kremlin hardliners alike. Ukrainian officials who favour membership in the alliance have made little headway in the battle to win the population over to NATO, and in a tactile admission that much work remains to be done Mr. de Hoop Scheffer commented that his visit amounted to an “outreach programme” to “debunk” myths about the alliance.
Closer to NATO
During last week’s Kyiv summit President Viktor Yushchenko and Mr. de Hoop Scheffer discussed the steps Ukraine’s government must now take in order to be offered a step-by-step procedure by NATO leading to eventual membership. This will include increased interim military co-operation between Kyiv and Brussels. Although Ukraine is not currently a member, it is already contributing troops to all NATO peacekeeping operations worldwide. Ukraine, with its heavy cargo aircraft and air transit corridors, provides substantial assistance to the air supply effort for NATO’s combat operations in Afghanistan.
Ukraine also plans to contribute fighting forces to a NATO quick reaction combat element intended to travel to the world’s hot spots at short notice. President Yushchenko pointed to Ukraine’s troop commitments to NATO operations, calling them, “proof of the seriousness of our intentions towards NATO. This shows that Ukraine is not just a beneficiary but is also making a unique contribution to world security,” he stressed.
Opening up Ukrainian airspace
Other recent expansions to Ukrainian co-operation with the alliance include a Ukraine military helicopter modernisation programme and flight crew training to NATO standards in cooperation with Britain and France, Mr. Yushchneko’s office said in a statement released following the Kyiv NATO delegation meeting. Earlier last week in Brussels, Hungarian Defence Minister Imre Szekeres, together with his counterparts from other NATO members, signed an agreement on the exchange of air traffic data with Ukraine. Under the agreement, Ukraine will connect its air traffic control and monitoring network to NATO’s through a base near the Hungarian city of Veszprém. So far, NATO has signed similar agreements with Austria, Finland and Georgia.
Mr. Yushchenko has made NATO and EU membership the cornerstone of his foreign policy since he came to power amid the 2004 Orange Revolution street protests. He has pledged that the final decision on membership would be put to a referendum. Ukraine has in recent months intensified its efforts to obtain an offer from NATO to begin an accession programme, with the goal to receive the NATO offer “by the end of the year,” Mr. Yushchenko has repeatedly stated.
The tug-of-war continues
Opponents of Ukraine’s NATO candidacy within the alliance have often argued that public opinion in Ukraine does not support the move. However, most of the eastern European countries who joined the alliance over the past fifteen years of expansion also registered low levels of public support in the initial stages of the membership process. The real reason why Ukraine’s NATO ambitions have proved so divisive among member countries is the opposition it has drawn from Russia, which regards Ukraine as within its inner sphere of influence and has repeatedly warned NATO off pursuing its interest. While some members, notably America, Canada and the new east European members, are strong advocates of Ukrainian membership, western European members led by France and Germany are keen to avoid a bruising clash with Russia which could lead to energy security and economic instability.
Russian opposition has been consistently vociferous since Ukraine’s Orange coalition leaders applied for a NATO MAP in January 2008, with then President Putin threatening to point nuclear warheads at the country and Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov calling for Sevastopol naval base to be returned to Russian control. Last week Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov took the opportunity of a visit to Crimea to comment that Ukraine would face the collapse of its defence industry ties with Russia and suffer reduced bilateral trade if it joined NATO.
Painful separation lies ahead
“I couldn’t say for whom such a break-up would be more painful, for Russia or for Ukraine. I think it would be painful for both nations,” Mr. Ivanov commented at a ceremony to mark the 225th anniversary of Sevastopol port on the Crimean peninsula, the traditional home of Russia’s Black Sea fleet. Crimea is increasingly becoming the emotive symbol of Russia’s efforts to cling onto their dominant role in the region. The majority ethnic Russian population of the peninsula continues to look to Moscow for their political orientation and are regard to decision to hand Crimea to Ukraine, taken in 1954 by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev as a quirk of history.
Other Russian leaders have bemoaned the rift between two nations which were once seen as indivisible Slavic siblings. “Even if Yushchenko manages to draw Ukraine into NATO, they will withdraw from the alliance within half a year. This whole scenario was fabricated in the West to bring Russia and Ukraine into a quarrel with each other,” said Russia’s leading nationalist politician Vladimir Zhirinovskiy. “NATO has been focused on one single objective: to struggle against the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union no longer exists but the alliance still exists and keeps extending towards our borders. NATO membership will hurt Ukraine badly,” he warned.
Soothing Russian fears
Mr. Yushchenko has repeatedly moved to soothe Russian concerns by stressing that his government’s efforts towards a NATO membership accession programme “are not aimed at Russia or any one else but are motivated by an essential quest for national security.” He has also promised to uphold Ukraine’s constitutional commitment not to allow foreign military bases on its territory and stated that NATO will not establish bases in the country. Mr. de Joop Scheffer gave fresh assurances in Kyiv that membership did not imply hosting military bases or sending soldiers to fight in far away lands. He also suggested that any financial losses incurred through an end to arms trade co-operation with Russia would be more than compensated for. “Ukraine’s ailing defence industry would benefit from joining the alliance rather than lose competitiveness,” Mr. de Joop Scheffer said.
The irrepressible Mr. Zhirinovskiy responded to these latest attempts to mollify Russian concerns with his trademark statesmanship, claiming, “Yushchenko deceives us by saying that there won’t be NATO military bases in Ukraine. So does the NATO General Secretary. It’s not the country that NATO needs, but its territory. The main priority for NATO is air defence and control of Ukraine’s skies and the approaches to the Russian border. NATO’s aim is to base troops in Ukraine. Otherwise it’s like saying that a country will take part in the Olympic Games but won’t send a team. Otherwise why does NATO need you? ”
Carrots and sticks
While in Crimea Mr. Ivanov also warned Ukrainians that they would likely lose their right to travel to Russia without a visa if their country joins NATO. “I am sure that visas will be introduced if Ukraine joins NATO. This will affect millions, even tens of millions of people in Russia and Ukraine. Maintaining close family ties will become more difficult,” Mr. Ivanov said. “This will happen not because of some crafty designs of ‘malicious Moscovites’, but because NATO will force Ukraine to implement a visa regime for Russians,” he added.
Also last week Mr. Zhiranovskiy warmed to the visa theme, commenting, “A visa regime will necessarily be introduced. This is one of NATO’s requirements – to close all borders with non-NATO members. They will force Ukrainians to build a real border with barbed wire, check points and visas. All this will badly damage Ukraine’s existing economic ties with Russia. There will be unemployment; millions of economic migrants from Ukraine’s west who currently work in Russia won’t be able to enter our country,” he said.
Infamous Putin-Kuchma deal
Threats to remove Ukraine’s right to visa-free travel in Russia mark the culmination of the Kremlin’s u-turn on Ukraine, which saw them promise lavish and unprecedented visa and registration freedoms to all Ukrainians during the run-up to the 2004 presidential elections in a bid to garner support for their hand-picked pro-Russian candidate, only to see the ploy backfire when ordinary Russians objected to the spectacle of Ukrainians in Russia acquiring far more freedoms than they themselves enjoyed. In October 2004, Vladimir Putin, then the President of the Russian Federation, and his Ukrainian counterpart Leonid Kuchma signed a deal under which Ukrainians were allowed to stay in Russia for up to 90 days without being registered, unlike any other foreigners or indeed Russians. The move was seen by some as an attempt to bribe Ukrainians by giving them in practice more rights in Russia than Russians themselves.
These exceptional terms were cancelled in early 2007 but Ukrainian and Russian passport holders can currently travel in each other’s countries without a visa. Ukraine currently ranks second among ex-Soviet countries behind Uzbekistan, in terms of the number of economic migrants working in Russia. Russian statistics state that some 51,500 Ukrainians work in Russia officially – twice as many as in 2007. The number of illegal migrants is thought to have dropped due to Russia’s tough new migratory regulations. Human rights watchdog groups claim that many of these economic migrant Ukrainians fall victim to labour exploitation in Russia. “Migrants are often not paid or paid much less than promised. They are often not allowed to make calls, their bosses take their documents away and force them to work 24 hours a day, and their housing is awful,” said Vladyslav Dubyna of Ukraine’s Interior Ministry Department to Combat Human Trafficking.
Nevertheless, millions of Ukrainians with families in Russia will have been alarmed by the suggestion that they may soon face an arduous visa application process to visit one of the few countries which until now does not require any additional barriers to visit.
