Returning Russian President Vladimir Putin will increase pressure on Ukraine to join Moscow’s economic and political integration project, but could be distracted by domestic problems such as protests against his rule, analysts said.
After securing an emphatic win in elections on March 4, Putin is widely expected to use political and economic levers to fix Ukraine in Russia’s orbit, much as he did during his first two terms from 2000 to 2008.
“We should get ready for Putin’s tough style, to the style of constant pressure,” said political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko.
Putin has also shown his disdain for the concept of Ukraine as a nation.
At a NATO conference in 2008, the respected Russian daily Kommersant quoted a diplomatic source as overhearing Putin tell then-U.S. President George Bush: “You understand, George, that Ukraine is not even a state!”
Also, in early 2011, Putin said Russia didn’t need Ukraine’s contributions to win World War II.
Ukraine should be prepared to Putin’s attempts to pursue his goal of creating a Eurasian Union
The Russian strongman has also made no secret of his desire to tighten links between the two countries, pushing Ukraine to join a Customs Union, sell a stake in its gas pipelines and merge their state energy companies.
Dmitry Trenin, director of the Moscow-based Carnegie Moscow Center said Putin is “a known quantity” both domestically and abroad and, therefore, he does not expect Russian foreign policy toward Ukraine to change in any way. “Putin never left. Russia’s foreign policy under the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev is the policy of Putin,” Trenin added.
Fesenko said that Ukraine should be prepared to Putin’s attempts to pursue his goal of creating a Eurasian Union – first touted late last year – by bringing together former Soviet republics. According to the analyst, it will be Ukraine’s “major geopolitical challenge in the short run, if Putin is not distracted by domestic problems.”
The main domestic problem Putin has had to deal with in recent weeks is a series of unexpected protests – attracting crowds of tens of thousands. The protesters have demanded a rerun of parliamentary elections, an end to corruption and even Putin’s ouster. Even if the movement succeeds in forcing some concessions from the president, a lessening of pressure on Ukraine seems unlikely.
In an appearance last month on Inter TV channel, Aleksey Navalny, a popular blogger and one of the protest leaders showed that his view of Ukraine differs little from Putin’s. He said that Ukraine, Russia and Belarus should “maximize” integration, reminding many that Russian liberalism often ends when it comes to Ukraine, according to Ostap Semerak, a Ukrainian opposition lawmaker in Yulia Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna faction who attended the Russian opposition rally in February.
Sociologists said the protests are unlikely to spread across the region to Ukraine, like during the color revolutions in the mid-2000s or the Arab Spring last year.
Although Putin is expected to continue to pursue closer integration of Ukrainian and Russian economies, analysts are skeptical about the success of these efforts.
Oleksiy Haran, a professor of political science at the Kyiv Mohyla Academy, said Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych will not be pulled in the Customs Union with Russia as it poses an immediate threat to the domestic businesses of Yanukovych’s major backers.
“Strategically, Russia’s goal remains the same – to obtain control over Ukraine’s [gas] pipeline, and over Kyiv’s policies,” he said.
Oleksandr Lytvynenko, deputy director of Ukraine’s National Institute for Strategic Studies, a presidential think tank, said Ukraine needs to develop a strategy to develop its own economy and political links in order to withstand Russia’s pressure better. “Russia is pursuing its [geopolitical] agenda. And if we do not want to do something, then we should find counter arguments, but not scream how bad Russia is,” he said.
Volodymyr Ohryzko, Ukraine’s foreign minister in 2007-2009, said that one way to avoid pressure from Russia is to go forward with integrating Ukraine closer to the European Union and NATO.
The EU has, however, ruled out signing a planned political-association and free-trade deal with Ukraine while opposition leaders such as former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko remain in jail.
Kyiv Post staff writer Yuriy Onyshkiv can be reached at [email protected]
