Ukraine's leading English-language newspaper since 1995

Anatoliy Hrytsenko, Ukraine’s former defense minister UNIAN Russia’s foreign ministry issued a stern warning in response to a controversial NATO letter signed by Ukrainian leadership

ainian leadership asking to be considered for eventual membership in the alliance.

In a Jan. 22 statement, the foreign ministry said “the new radical expansion of NATO could lead to a serious military-political shift that would inevitably affect Russia’s security interests,” and the government would have to “take adequate measures in response.”

The statement mentioned a 1997 friendship, cooperation, and partnership agreement signed between the two countries.

“In this context the possibility of Ukraine’s integration into NATO will seriously complicate the multi-dimensional relations between Russia and Ukraine,” the statement said.

The NATO letter, signed surreptitiously by three members of Ukraine’s leadership in early January, caused outrage among opposition forces in Ukraine’s government after its existence became public on Jan. 15.

Parliamentary opposition forces blocked the speaker’s podium to show their condemnation and demanded that Speaker Arseniy Yatsenyuk withdraw his signature. The opposition claimed Yatsenyuk had no right to sign the document without parliamentary consultation and threatened him with a no-confidence vote.

As his response, Yatsenyuk argued he signed the letter in accordance with Ukrainian legislation.

Ukrainian leadership sent the Jan. 2 letter to NATO headquarters appealing for accession to the alliance’s Membership Action Plan (MAP) at the Bucharest summit scheduled for April 2-4.

The MAP would be a significant step towards membership since no participant has been denied full NATO membership. The three nations currently in MAP status, Albania (1999), Croatia (2002) and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (1999), are expected to become full NATO members during the Bucharest summit.

“We expect the level of our state’s readiness for new commitments will become the basis for a positive response at the Ukraine-NATO forthcoming summit in Bucharest in April 2008,” stated the letter signed by President Viktor Yushchenko, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and Yatsenyuk.

Ukraine’s NATO bid faces fierce opposition domestically. The Russian-oriented Party of Regions and Communist Party leaders claim Yushchenko’s push to join the NATO MAP violates the Ukrainian Constitution.

Keenly aware of the low public support for NATO accession and intensifying the anti-NATO mood, the opposition insisted MAP can only be pursued after a public referendum.

The Presidential Secretariat stated joining MAP does not entail NATO membership and therefore requires no referendum.

“We have a clear-cut position of the President of Ukraine, of the Ukrainian government, and of the Verkhovna Rada: when the actual question of Ukraine’s NATO membership is discussed, a consultative referendum shall be held,” Secretariat Deputy Chair Oleksandr Chaliy said during a Jan. 16 press briefing.

The Constitution does not require a referendum on this issue, he added.

As part of its public relations campaign, NATO supporters said MAP is merely a stage in accession that requires implementing a complex set of reforms.

“Accession to the MAP is in fact not a guarantee of NATO membership,” said Valeriy Chaly, deputy director general at the Kyiv-based Razumkov Center for Economic and Political Studies, estimating Ukraine’s chances of joining MAP during the Bucharest Summit at 50-50.

Anatoliy Hrytsenko, Ukraine’s preceding defense minister and close presidential ally, estimated Ukraine’s chances at 70 percent. Most NATO member-states support Ukraine joining MAP, he said.

“If armies, not states, had to join NATO, we would have been there already,” said Hrytsenko, explaining that the Ukrainian army has already undergone most reforms necessary for NATO accession.

In fact, “while the Ukrainian military has made significant reforms, it has not achieved Western standards,” a Western defense expert told the Post.

The amount and depth of the reforms required by MAP will stimulate Ukraine’s political, economic and security development, Western defense experts said.

The decision to join MAP will lead to responsible, transparent and efficient government activity, the experts said, not only limited to the defense and security spheres, but also in drafting national, foreign, economic and legal policies.

They stressed the need to conduct an intensified information campaign on Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration policy, noting a very low level of awareness regarding NATO and the stereotypes flourishing in Ukraine’s mass perception.

Most Ukrainians are ignorant of NATO, said Iryna Bekeshkina, academic director of the Democratic Initiatives Foundation.

If a sustained factual information campaign is not conducted, the eventual referendum will be subject to misinformation and mass manipulation, Bekeshkina said.

The sociologist cited two glaring examples.

When asked the question on how NATO makes decisions (only by consensus), only 14 percent responded correctly, according to a Democratic Initiatives Foundation poll conducted between Dec. 5 and 18.

A mere 16 percent correctly knew NATO did not start the war in Iraq according to the same poll.

Ukraine’s NATO opponents believe relations with Russia will severely deteriorate, but its ability to disrupt the Tymoshenko government’s initiatives are largely limited.

“‘Reviewing relations’ does not necessarily mean ‘worsening relations’,” said Oleksander Sushko, director of the Center for Peace, Conversion and Foreign Policy of Ukraine, a Kyiv-based think-tank.

“Participation in the MAP may stimulate a rationalization of relations with other countries, including Russia,” he said.

President Yushchenko met with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice concerning Ukraine’s NATO membership during this week’s Davos Economic Forum in Switzerland.