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30.07.2004 | Wall Street Journal: Кучма розігрує російську карту
Marc Champion - The Wall Street Journal Europe

Авторитетна газета коментує нову хвилю зовнішньополітичних маневрів офіційного Києва, кульмінацією яких стали зміни у Воєнній доктрині.


Газета відзначає вирішальний вплив виборчої кампанії на дії української влади.


Підтримка Кремля на виборах - основний приз, на який розраховують Кучма та Янукович.


Нижче подано текст статті мовою ориріналу.


 


Kuchma Is Playing the Russia Card --- Ukraine's President Chooses East Over West to Garner Votes in Coming Elections


By Marc Champion
988 words
30 July 2004
The Wall Street Journal Europe
A1
English
(Copyright (c) 2004, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)


Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma is playing the Russia card ahead of October's critical presidential elections, choosing East over West in an effort to secure votes.


In recent weeks, Mr. Kuchma and his officials have unveiled decisions that appear calculated to please Moscow and distance Ukraine from the West. The reversals of recent pro-Western policies, even if temporary, highlight Ukraine's deep divisions over its place in the world, as well as the delicate issue of how the European Union and North Atlantic Treaty Organization secure alliances along the EU's newly expanded borders.


Thursday, Ukrainian Defense Minister Evhen Marchuk told the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS that Ukraine had begun negotiations with the U.S. and Poland to withdraw its 1,650 troops from Iraq. A spokesman later said no date for a pullout had been set, but "there will be a decrease of troops." Russia opposed the U.S.-led war in Iraq.


During a visit to Ukraine by Russian President Vladimir Putin two days earlier, on Tuesday, Mr. Kuchma made public a July 15 decree removing the goals of joining the EU and NATO from Ukraine's draft military doctrine. Mr. Kuchma had just approved the draft in mid-June.


And earlier this month, Mr. Kuchma flip-flopped on another issue with geopolitical implications, reversing a February decision that Ukraine's 674 kilometer Odessa-Brody pipeline should carry oil only from East to West, favoring U.S. and other oil companies operating in the Caspian Sea. Instead, the pipeline, with a capacity of nine million barrels a year, is to start carrying Russian oil from Western Ukraine to Odessa on the Black Sea, where tankers would take it to markets in Europe.


If that stands, it would be "a blow toward Ukraine's energy independence, and toward Ukraine's economic integration with Europe," U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst told reporters in Kiev after the decision.


Analysts and opposition politicians agree all the moves are aimed at securing Kremlin support ahead of the presidential vote on Oct. 31. "It's not a change of Ukrainian policy, just a correction of priorities for this particular [election] period," said Oleksandr Sushko, director of the Center of Peace, Conversion and Foreign Policy, a Kiev-based think tank.


Ukrainian government officials insist that none of the recent decisions indicate any change in Ukraine's long-term goal of integrating with the West, and that the pipeline flow can be reversed again as soon as an extension has been built to pump the oil across the Ukrainian border to Poland.


But Mr. Kuchma's serial U-turns also reflect frustration with rebuffs he received at NATO's June 28-30 summit in Istanbul and at an EU-Ukraine summit earlier this month. Both institutions said Ukraine had no prospect of membership until Mr. Kuchma cleaned up his human-rights act and ensured free and fair elections in October.


Though seen as pro-Russian, Mr. Kuchma has been wary of letting Moscow dominate its smaller neighbor. At his meeting with Mr. Kuchma and Russian and Ukrainian businessmen in Crimea Tuesday, Mr. Putin accused "Western agents" of trying to drive the two countries apart.


Mr. Kuchma himself has said he won't stand for re-election in October, but his chosen candidate -- Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovic -- is trailing the main opposition candidate by about 10 percentage points in opinion polls.


Withdrawing troops from Iraq is a likely vote winner in Ukraine, where the deployment is unpopular. Meanwhile, courting Russia is seen as smart politics. "Getting the Kremlin's support is very important because Putin is popular in Ukraine and the Kremlin has [financial] resources to offer and control of media," Mr. Sushko said. About 20% to 25% of Ukrainians watch Russian television channels. In a poll earlier this year, Ukrainians picked Russia as Ukraine's foreign-policy priority over the EU by a 10-point margin -- though they also wanted to join the EU.


Most analysts believe Mr. Yanukovich, currently polling 19.1% of the presidential vote, would return to appealing to both East and West if elected. His main opponent, Viktor Yuschenko, more market-oriented and westward leaning, would win 28.8% of the vote, according to a survey of 1,200 Ukrainians conducted July 1-8 by the Democratic Initiatives Foundation and Socis polling companies. About 40 candidates are likely to run in the first-round election Oct. 31, accounting for the rest of the vote. In a runoff, 40.4% of those polled said they would vote for Mr. Yuschenko and 31.1% for Mr. Yanukovich. The poll's margin of error was three percentage points.


EU officials soft-pedaled Mr. Kuchma's decision to erase joining the EU as a goal in Ukraine's military doctrine, noting that the EU hasn't offered Ukraine the prospect of membership. But the pipeline reversal has met with more concern.


Efforts have been under way for several years to put together a consortium that would extend the pipeline from western Ukraine into Poland and fill it with oil from the Caspian oil fields. A person involved with the effort said Ukrainian frustration was understandable, but "our fear is that if the partners have been hesitant, they'll become even more hesitant now."


EU, Polish and Turkish officials rebuffed Ukraine over the decision. Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul noted that the oil tankers from Odessa would have to pass through the already-overcrowded Bosphorus Strait connecting the Black and Mediterranean seas, creating an environmental hazard. He asked Ukraine to "reassess" its decision after July 15 talks in Ankara with the EU commissioner for energy and transport, Loyola de Palacio. Shipments could start in the fourth quarter of this year, according to Ukrtransnafta, the Ukrainian state pipeline company.





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