James Sherr: ‘Yanukovych has miscalculated’

By Yuriy Onyshkiv

Interview excerpts from Kyiv Post, May 30, 2010

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has moved the nation’s foreign policy swiftly in the pro-Russian direction since his Feb. 25 inauguration. He’s criticized the Hero of Ukraine award that his predecessor, Viktor Yushchenko, bestowed on early 20th century nationalist leader Stepan Bandera. He’s signed the Kharkiv accords, letting the Russian Black Sea Fleet stay in Sevastopol until at least 2042. And Yanukovych has formally renounced the nation’s ambitions to join the NATO military alliance. Other blockbuster deals joining the nation’s energy, aviation and other industrial sectors are believed to be in the works.

The breakneck pace has caught the West, which had grown weary of Ukraine’s halting march towards democracy, flat-footed.

James Sherr, head of the Russian and Eurasian program at London-based Chatham House, is a key Western expert on Ukraine and Russia. In a recent interview, Sherr said the West is too bureaucratic and too diverse to respond so quickly to the Ukraine-Russia rapprochement. But he explains why Yanukovych miscalculated with concessions to Russia. Here are excerpts from the Kyiv Post interview:

KP: Were you surprised by the speed and scale of Yanukovych’s move in his foreign policy towards Russia?

JS: “Once the law of March 9 passed [stating that a coalition may consist not only of party factions, but also of individual deputies], the ‘art of the possible’ changed in Ukraine. The view that I had expressed - ‘Yanukovych will not be able to use power unless he shares it’ - ceased to be valid. Many of us also assumed that Viktor Yanukovych would return to the moderate, multi-vector policies of the [ex-President Leonid] Kuchma era. We expected him to reverse the more controversial policies of ex-President Viktor Yushchenko, but no more. After March 9, a coalition with the ‘swamp’ became possible, and forces that we assumed were old and dying returned to the center of the political scene.”

KP: How much further do you think Yanukovych will take Ukraine into Russia’s orbit? And what are the consequences?

JS: “With his opening moves – with the Kharkiv accords alone – Yanukovych has reversed the entire direction of Ukraine’s development since 1991… Yet in a geopolitical sense, I think that Yanukovych has miscalculated. With breathtaking navety, he assumed that if Ukraine gave Russia everything it reasonably could ask for, the pressure would stop. Instead, Russian pressure has intensified. We see this with the Naftogaz-Gazprom merger proposal. We see it with demands to acquire more and more assets in Ukraine’s energy system and the pressure on the gas transit system. It is already reaching a point where the businesses that support the Party of Regions, those upon whom Yanukovych depends, are feeling pinched.

But Yanukovych has already thrown his strongest cards away. First, he has conceded everything regarding the Black Sea Fleet. Second, he secured none of the quid pro quo he sought over energy (including the abandonment of the South Stream pipeline and a guarantee of minimal Russian gas trans-shipments across Ukraine’s pipelines to Europe).

Third, he has widened the field of internal opposition, alienating not only Tymoshenko’s most devoted supporters, but those, like [former Chief of Staff in Yushchenko’s Administration,Viktor] Baloha, who threw all of their efforts behind the formation of a centrist coalition with him, which he, unceremoniously has spurned.

And fourth, having assured Brussels that his top priority was to enter the European Union, he did not even have the courtesy to consult with the EU before concluding these extraordinary agreements. So when he gets into trouble with Russia, who will he mobilize? Who will rally behind him? Maybe no one, because he has rejected them, and they have walked away.

The approach to the accords has been improvised; everything has been done with breathtaking incompetence, belligerence and haste. That includes the all too sudden geopolitical shift: the astonishing brusque termination of intelligence collaboration with NATO, the de facto (if still unacknowledged) halting of defence and security sector reform, the return of the old guard to the Ministry of Defence, general staff and SBU [Security Service of Ukraine], the carte blanche given to Russian intelligence services, and most astonishingly, the preservation of all the deficiencies of the 1997 Black Sea Fleet accords, now extended to 2042. That’s an astonishingly cynical price to pay for what is likely to be a short-term boost in economic performance and internal popularity.”

KP: The West, namely Brussels and Washington, D.C., seems to be turning a blind eye to a lot of events in Ukraine. Why is this so? Have they turned their backs on Ukraine, or do they see recent events in Ukraine as positive developments?

JS: “The navety of Yanukovych and his partners is to forget that for Russia, Ukraine’s independence is an historical aberration. As long as Russia feels it holds the cards – and that is exactly the way it feels now – it will not let up the pressure until it feels it has succeeded in reducing Ukraine’s independence to a purely decorative state. Moscow seeks complete control of Ukraine’s energy sector and a veto over who, if anyone, can develop new energy resources. It seeks the integration of Ukraine’s defence and intelligence structures into Russia’s own. It also seeks unrestricted and unfettered operation of Russian capital inside Ukraine. Once you have all of those, what independence is left?

First, let’s understand that the absence of Western reaction thus far reflects a large degree of shock. Experts might have understood what the March 9 coalition law and the new coalition meant. But bureaucracies and the decision-makers of the EU, NATO and the U.S. absorb information much more slowly, and they are only beginning to adjust to the fact that events are taking a different course from what was expected. So, the pertinent question is what the Western reaction will be in six months time after a proper assessment is made.

So, much as I lament it and condemn it, Ukraine has been off the radar. And the Russians know this better than anyone else.

 They have concluded, cynically but entirely rationally, that they should use this moment to grab everything they can get. That’s not because they are confident in themselves. Quite the opposite. They know that despite modest recovery from the financial crisis, their underlying problems are serious. They have no clue how to address their modernization agenda, to measure up to the performance, adaptability and innovation of the BRIC [Brazil, Russia, India, China], and that the various insurgencies in the North Caucasus are tantamount to having a bit of Afghanistan in one’s backyard. Ironic, is it not, how the moments of convenience coincide: How Yanukovych, for internal reasons, and the Moscow tandem, for geopolitical reasons, seek to grab as much power as they can before the window of opportunity closes.”

KP: Do you see Ukraine crossing a point of no return in its rapprochement with Moscow?

JS: “In the literal sense, Ukraine has already reached a point of no-return. It no longer is possible simply to undo what has been done. The February elections and the Kharkiv accords have changed so much that the country will never simply be able to go back through the same door whence it came.

We can, and also must, engage the new authorities in any dialogue open to us, with the aim of focusing their attention on the implications and consequences of their actions. Let’s not exclude the possibility that they will evolve and, in their own interests, seek to abandon the basis of consultation, participation and even power.

If the opposition is to play this role, it will have to renew itself. Until it comes to terms with what went wrong between 2005 and 2010, it won’t be able to renew itself.

I am confident of one thing. The more Ukrainians know of Russia, the more they will conclude that it is not a healthy model for Ukraine. It is no longer the country in which, like Ukraine, money bought power and de facto privatized part of the state... I think that Yanukovych also doubts it. So instead of thinking about ‘points of no return,’ we need to think about what the West should propose to Ukraine once its authorities find themselves in a dead end. They will. The question then is whether Yanukovych’s opposition and Ukraine’s friends abroad have something to say.”

Kyiv Post staff writer Yuriy Onyshkiv can be reached at onyshkiv@kyivpost.com

PHOTO 

James Sherr