Ukraine Closes Road to NATO Membership
By Taras Kuzio,

Eurasia Daily Monitor, July 7, 2010
The Ukrainian parliament voted for a new law on “The Fundamentals of Domestic and Foreign Policy” that dropped the goal of seeking NATO membership. At 8 pm. on July 1, only 50 deputies from the Stability and Reforms coalition were present and yet 259 “voted” in favour, showing the widespread use of absent deputies voting cards.

The vote was timed to occur before US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, arrived in Kyiv on the following day. At a joint press conference, President Viktor Yanukovych stated: “We appreciate today the reaffirmation of the US position to guarantee the sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity and inviolability of Ukraine’s state borders.” He emphasized that “Ukraine as a European non-aligned country” is now a “non-bloc country.” Clinton stressed that the door to NATO membership remained open.

The July 1 vote came exactly eight years after then President Leonid Kuchma issued a decree that first announced Ukraine’s desire to join NATO. Two attempts to obtain a Membership Action Plan (MAP) at the Prague 2002 and Istanbul 2004 NATO summits failed. Parliament’s overwhelming approval of a 2003 law on national security that enshrined Ukraine’s desire for NATO membership, included the Party of Regions and was not opposed by then Prime Minister Yanukovych.

Ukraine’s new position is diametrically at odds with that of the Kuchma era where NATO played two roles. In 1994-1999, the NATO card was used to pressure Moscow to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Although Russia was one of five nuclear powers that gave “security assurances” to Ukraine in December 1994 in exchange for it renouncing nuclear weapons and joining the non-proliferation treaty (NPT), the Russian executive and parliament took until 1997-1999 to sign and ratify a treaty that recognised Ukraine's border - still to be delimited with Russia.

Ukraine joined NATO’s Partnership for Peace (PfP) in January 1994 and a Documentation and Information centre was opened in Kyiv in 1997, the second after Moscow. During 1994-2004, Ukraine became the most active CIS PfP member, developed extensive levels of cooperation with individual NATO countries, such as the UK and US, and sent troops to every peacekeeping mission under NATO. Ukraine entered a second stage in its relationship with NATO in 2000-2004. The Georgi Gongadze murder (“Kuchmagate”) and Kolchuga scandals (radars allegedly sent to Iraq) isolated Kuchma in the West and pushed Ukraine into Russia’s orbit. In addition, Washington established close relations with Moscow in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which led to fears echoed today in Kyiv that a US-Russian “reset” would result in Ukraine being left within Russia’s sphere of influence.

In order to balance against Russia and break out of isolation, Kuchma sought NATO membership, especially following Russia’s threat to annex the Tuzla Island in September 2003. And in March 2003, he ingratiated himself with the US by sending the third largest troop contingent to join the US-led coalition in Iraq.

Five factors have changed over the last eight years:

1.             In the post-Kuchma era, the Party of Regions evolved into an ideological party that represents the eastern Slavic-neo-Soviet political culture of Russophone eastern-southern Ukraine, particularly Donetsk and the Crimea.

2.             A counter-reaction to the Viktor Yushchenko era (2005-2010), specifically perceived as his single-vector pro-Western foreign policy and poor relations with Russia.

3.             Yanukovych, and the leadership of the Party of Regions, admires the rejuvenation of Russia under Vladimir Putin ignoring its authoritarianism and great power ambitions.

4.             In Ukraine, support for NATO membership has declined, while opposition has grown.

5.             The Ukrainian leadership is the first to not see Russia as a threat to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and pursue a single vector pro-Russian foreign policy. The rationale for a “NATO card” is now meaningless.

On the eve of the Clinton visit, Western commentators offered mixed appraisals of Yanukovych, although more were on the critical side. Former US Ambassador to Ukraine, Steven Pifer, pointed to the positive side of Ukraine’s parliament voting to approve the annual plan of military exercises with foreign troops, mainly NATO. But in the last five years, Yanukovych’s Party of Regions has withdrawn support for PfP exercises. This year’s positive vote could become a negative vote next year. Ukraine’s annual “Action Plans” in place since 2003, which differed little from MAP’s, have now become redundant as Kyiv no longer has any incentive to fulfill them, despite NATO’s optimism that cooperation will continue.

Finally, an optimistic scenario ignores Yanukovych’s strong endorsement for Medvedev’s European security treaty. It is a contradiction for Kyiv to reiterate its desire for continued high levels of cooperation under PfP, while also backing Russia in a revived Soviet style plan that replaces NATO with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and removes the US from Europe.

Such contradictions have always been present in Yanukovych since 2004 with  anti-American and anti-NATO campaigns launched by the Party of Regions.

Contradictions remain, leading to continued confusion in the West as to the nature of Ukrainian foreign policy.