1. THE RUSSIAN PROJECT OF UKRAINE VS. ITS EUROPEAN INTEGRATION

The official position of Russia including the position within the elites is not homogeneous enough to certify the fact of solid consensus on Ukraine. The fact of different views existing as to the appropriate instruments to be applied to relations between the EU and Ukraine is evidenced by discrepancies within Russian politics.  Officially, Russia is not opposed to Ukraine’s right to integrate into the EU. Moreover, in April 2005 the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during his visit to Bratislava stated that the EU and Russia have common interests in Ukraine such as Ukraine being a ‘stable and democratic’ nation.  Foreign Minister Lavrov also stated that the EU and Russia should not be competing for Ukraine. However, the reality of the situation does not reflect the declarations.

Ignoring extremes at either end of the Russian spectrum, the dominant view on the EU-Ukraine relations is that Ukraine’s integration into the EU does not comport with Russian strategic interests.  Moreover, this view applies not simply to the hypothetical and rather far off full-fledged membership of Ukraine in the EU but also to “integration without membership”, because such integration would lead to irreversible structural and institutional changes inside Ukraine thereby making Ukraine’s reintegration into a post-Soviet space dominated by the Russian Federation impossible.

Some of the irreversible stages would be a customs union with the EU on the Turkish model which Ukraine could hypothetically achieve in 5-7 years or even an intensified Free Trade Area (or “deep free trade” model proposed recently by CEPS study).  The possibility of creating a FTA is currently being discussed in expert circles and negotiations could begin this year immediately following Ukraine’s accession into the World Trade Organization. Such an intensified FTA could prevent economic reintegration between Ukraine and Russia if its framework would call for legal harmonization and adaptation of standards.

 Since 2003 Russia has acted to prevent Ukraine’s movement in this direction by implementing the Single Economic Space (SES) which foresees future deep economic integration leading to, at the minimum, a customs union with elements of an economic union.  This concept has two main dimensions.  First, to demonstrate to European partners the lack of seriousness and coherence in Ukrainian politics in area of European integration. The mere signing of the formative documents on the SES in September, 2003 already had, at the time, put pro-European declarations made by Ukrainian politicians in doubt.  Second, to create structural and functional obstacles to Ukraine’s integration into the EU (such obstacles could include the customs union described below).
Ukraine’s current position is to restrict implementation of the SES to the formation of an effective Free Trade Area between the four SES members.  The Russian position does not foresee such a scenario but rather sees formation of the customs union as the initial stage of SES integration. 

The logic behind such an approach is absolutely clear because the customs union itself signals a stage of economic integration that prevents members of the customs union from implementing its own sovereign foreign economic policy. This is an example of an instrument that blocks even the minimal stages of Ukraine’s integration into the EU such as Free Trade Area. 

The SES is certainly not the only instrument applied by the Russian Federation designed to prevent Ukraine from European integration.  Energy policy of the Russian Federation in its present content should be mentioned as well.

In this situation, the direct political influences that have been practiced in 2004 are moving to the past. It seems that at present Kremlin prefer to act in Ukraine by using more diversified instruments: through Russian political-business groups and their Ukrainian satellites that are strive for certain control in the Ukrainian markets.

At the same time, Russia still use direct political, practical and media support in some special cases, like in Feodosia in June 2006, where anti-NATO actions were attended by a number of Russian citizens, including members of Duma, and Russian media reported on these news as top ones. Such policies are usually used to achieve actual short-term goals of Russian foreign policy, such as preventing of Ukraine’s accession to NATO.

As Ukraine’s accession to the EU is a long term eventual option, long term prevention instruments are preferred.

2. RUSSIAN REFLECTION IN THE CONTEXT OF WESTERN-EUROPEAN VIEWS ON UKRAINE

Until 2004 Western Europe generally hasn’t distinguished Ukraine as a state clearly separate from Russia. The low interest in Ukraine for a long time was due to the perception that Ukraine is a Russian satellite that develops in the framework of direct Russian influence.

Since the Ukrainian independence, the conceptual approach of the European mainstream clearly put Ukraine together with other CIS countries aside of other Central-Eastern European states, which were put on the track of EU accession. The concept of Partnership and Cooperation Agreements offered to the post-Soviet countries foresees not integration but partnership and cooperation only (Ukraine signed such agreement in 1994). The maximum that could be reached within such cooperation framework actually is formation of Free Trade Area.

For a long time Ukraine has been percept by the European key players in the light of Russia, while Moscow skillfully took advantage of such perception. Having more advanced structure of relations with the leading EU states, Russia offered Ukraine to build its relations with Europe ‘through Russia’ or, at least, in tight cooperation with it.

It is a paradox, but the new impulse to move away from the traditional position on Ukraine has been given by the EU and NATO enlargement or more precisely – creation of new informal division of Europe into ‘old’ and ‘new’. Although, division into ‘old’ and ‘new’ Europe occurred as a result of different positions on US operation in Iraq and didn’t regard Ukraine in a direct way, the Western Europe got additional arguments for ignoring Ukraine’s ambitions of European integration.

First, the conflict with the United States engendered the situational alliance Paris-Berlin-Moscow that has also been joined by Madrid after the left took over in Spain.

Secondly, the position that the new EU and NATO member states took on Iraq, made some Western European political elites inclined to regard post-communist member states in the Union as a factor causing intensification of American influence in Europe. This situation means that any further EU enlargement towards the East would only consolidate the pro-US component in Europe, which actually is in constant conflict with the European approach.

Ukraine in these circumstances would have automatically got to ‘the American clientele’ and not only because Ukraine has deployed its troops to Iraq but also because it has been a subject of high interest expressed by the USA that supported pro-Western ambitions of Ukraine since its independence.

Such perception of Ukraine has been very beneficiary for Russia as Kremlin could use the anti-American phobias that exist in some Western-European establishments in order to promote its own neo-imperialistic ambitions on the post-Soviet space.

For a long time, the additional factor that supplemented negative or ignorant perception of Ukraine was the Ukrainian internal situation itself, caused by consolidation of authoritarian trends of Kuchma’s second presidency as well as by the constant chain of scandals that destroyed international standing of the Ukrainian authorities at that time.

It was only the Orange Revolution that significantly changed the situation mentioned above and compelled the Western European elites to have a new look at Ukraine. Today, perception of Ukraine in Western Europe releases from stereotypes, which for a long time had formed Ukraine’s image of being a part of Russia or its exclusive sphere for pursuing ‘the natural interests’.

EU’s Energy dependence on Russia was and still is an additional factor that identifies sensitivity of the Western-European elites to Russian mood. However, after the Russian-Ukrainian gas crisis at the end of 2005- beginning of 2006, more critical opinion on Russia could be observed where Russia is regarded as not a very reliable supplier that is inclined to apply energy instruments for reaching its political goals.

3. THE RUSSIAN FACTOR IN DOMESTIC POLITICS

The «Russian factor» is also measurable domestically.  The relationship with Russia has traditionally been the source of some of the sharpest political discussions in Ukraine, where ethnic Russians account for 17% of the population and an even greater percentage of ethnic Ukrainians orient themselves toward Russia (Russian-speaking, or, more precisely, Russian-cultural Ukrainians).  However, because the segment of Ukraine’s citizenry which is oriented toward Russia can vacillate considerably, calculating its exact size is impossible.  Using electoral divisions during Ukrainian elections held between 2004 and 2006 as a basis for calculating this figure reveals that 39-44% of the electorate voted for parties/candidates that support the idea of rapprochement to and special partnership with Russia .  The overwhelming majority of these citizens live in the eight states of Southern and Eastearn Ukraine (from Odessa to Kharkiv) and in Crimea.

Given that the «pro-Russian electorate» is significant in number, competition for its votes is one of the focal points of political campaigning.  Ideological clichés employed to mobilize this electorate include “Official State Language Status for Russian”, “special relationships with Russia” and “anti-NATO”  While a considerable number of political forces have long-since taken advantage of this rhetoric, only a few of them have achieved success in elections.

Towards the end of the 1990’s it seemed that this electorate was firmly oriented toward the Communist party of Ukraine and that it would not accept any attempts by big business and its political representatives to gain broad trust among their segment of the population. However in principle this situation changed during the electoral cycle of 2004-2006 when absolute political leadership in this sphere was seized by Victor Yanokovych lead Party of the Regions which represents the industrial capital interests of Southern and Eastern Ukraine. This shift revealed that «leftist» ideology and soviet nostalgia are not obligatory components for mobilization of the Russian-oriented electorate of the East and South.

Based on the results of the parliamentary elections of 2006 it is possible to establish that the Party of the Regions consolidated the Russian-oriented electorate of South and the East of Ukraine.  On the one hand, this consolidation provided the Party of the Regions a relatively easy victory (32%).  On the other hand however, consolidation of the pro-Russian vote made it impossible for other political forces which had relied on the support of this segment of the population to win seats in the Parliament (most notably, Block of Vitrenko and the opposition block “Ne Tak’).

In relation to European integration, it follows to reason that there has been a perceptible decline in support among the Russian-oriented electorate for continuing on a course that leads to membership in the EU.  While in 2004 the idea of Ukraine’s membership in the EU was supported by a majority of the population in each of the regions of Ukraine, presently, in regions where Party of the Regions won the Parliamentary elections, the amount of support for membership in the EU is low (20-30%) and yields considerably to the percentage of those opposed to membership (50-60%).  This trend certifies that in today’s electoral environment the notion has spread that European integration is in direct conflict with the idea of Ukraine’s rapprochement with Russia.  Fewer and fewer citizens here (as well as in all of Ukraine) believe in the idea of «multivectoralism» and the possibility of simultaneous integration both westward and eastward.

There is every reason to believe that the pro-Russian orientation of a considerable segment of the Ukrainian population will, in the future, influence the domestic policy situation in Ukraine. Such influence will be most apparent during political campaigns. In contrast, in between electoral cycles the political elite have a chance to decrease the influence of artificial stereotypes and to offer citizens of Eastern and Southern Ukraine a project for the future of Ukraine that even they would find attractive.
Only successful domestic reforms in Ukraine will make it possible to win support for the ideas of European and Euro-Atlantic integration of Ukraine among the Russian-cultural segment of Ukrainian society.