What this translates into is five policy changes that are revolutionary not only compared to the Viktor Yushchenko presidency, but also to the Leonid Kuchma era of 1994-2005. Yanukovych is more of a revolutionary than Viktor Yushchenko, who ruled from 2005 to Feb. 25 of this year, ever proved to be.
The first policy huge policy shift is that the Yanukovych administration is more willing to listen to Russian demands, such as were laid out in the August 2009 open letter by President Dmitry Medvedev to Yushchenko, and has therefore acquiesced in Russian influence over the appointment of cabinet ministers to the security forces and education fields. Russia, therefore, has direct influence over a large area of the Ukrainian government, particularly Education Minister Dmytro Tabachnyk and Security Service of Ukraine head Valeriy Khoroshkovsky.
Second, Yanukovych is the first president who is openly dismantling the Ukrainophile national identity that was promoted over the last two decades and has always been closely associated with Ukraine’s independence. A recent poll asked which culture the authorities are promoting and the majority response was Soviet and Russian. The ideological basis for the educational and national identity policy that this administration promotes consists of a mix of neo-Soviet, Russophile, and Eastern Slavic worldviews that are alien to the majority of Ukrainians. This is coupled with a strong view on the supremacy of Russian over the Ukrainian language.
Third, the Yanukovych administration is the first to not perceive Russia as a threat to Ukrainian sovereignty and the country’s territorial integrity. Thus, counter-intelligence activity by the SBU in Odesa and Crimea against Russian subversion and support for separatism, which led to the expulsion of two Russian diplomats and 14 FSB intelligence officers last year, has been reversed.
No longer viewing Russia as a potential threat – even after its de facto annexation of Georgian territory – Yanukovych agreed last April to extend the stay of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet at Ukraine’s Sevastopol port by an additional 25 years, until 2042-47. It would have been difficult to remove Russia under the 1997 treaty by 2017 – it will now be near impossible without violence to remove Russia even if the opposition wins the 2012 elections and annuls the treaty.
Fourth, this is the first president to not seek membership in the NATO military alliance, a step that arises out of the third policy factor. Thus, Ukraine is theoretically the first post-communist country to only seek EU membership – rather than following Eastern European and Baltic states who first sought NATO membership and then took up EU membership. But, Ukraine is not Austria, Ireland, Sweden or Finland. Ukraine’s image in Brussels and Strasbourg of a country where democratic regression is underway is not one that is seen as seeking to introduce European values.
Speaking at Harvard University, the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, said: “Ukraine does not see itself in the EU but sees itself as part of Europe’s identity” (www.pravda.com.ua, Sept. 28).
Fifth, these four policy factors translate into the inevitable failure of the administration to fulfill its claimed objectives of domestic reforms and EU integration. Western academic studies have long pointed out that Eastern European and Baltic states who have adopted parliamentary constitutions have been the most successful in undertaking democratization and European integration. But in Yanukovych’s favor, Ukraine’s Constitutional Court overturned the 2006 parliamentary constitution on Oct. 1 and returned the country to the 1996 presidential system.
Western studies have also pointed to the impossibility of a country conducting deep reforms without first undertaking national integration and yet, the Yanukovych administration’s four policies highlighted above are only serving to deepen Ukraine’s regional divisions.
Finally, Western studies have shown that national identity was, and remains, crucial in post-communist states in providing support for reforms and promoting integration into Europe. Of Ukraine’s two national identities, ethnic Ukrainian and Eastern Slavic, as exemplified by Yushchenko and Yanukovych respectively, the former is more supportive of reforms and European integration and the latter far less so.
Taras Kuzio is an Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation visiting fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations, School of Advanced International Studies at John Hopkins University in Washington, D.C. He edits Ukraine Analyst. This article draws upon his work in progress, A Contemporary History of Ukraine.
