Taras Kuzio’s Blog

Ukraine and NATO

Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych is flying to Brussels this week in an attempt to convince NATO and the EU of Ukraine’s continued sincerity in its desire to join both organizations. After all, Ukraine is not Russia, the title of Leonid Kuchma’s 2004 book.

A prime concern for those who follow Ukrainian politics is to what extent Ukraine’s foreign policy will change following the return of the “Blues” to government? Will Ukraine continue to pursue a course of integration into the West (WTO, NATO and EU) or will it stagnate backwards to the Kuchma era’s multi-vectorism?

During Kuchma’s second term I wrote an article which tried to explain multi-vectorism entitled “Ukraine’s Foreign Policy: Neither Po-Western or Pro-Russian, But Pro-Kuchma”. I followed this with an academic article entitled “Ukraine’s Foreign Policy: Neither East nor West”. Both titles encapsulate the eclectic meaning of multi-vectorism.

My concern, and that of US policy makers whom I meet, is that Ukrainian foreign policy has indeed returned to “multi-vectorism” which translates as “pro-Donetsk” (just as it used to be “pro-Kuchma”). Ukraine is still a long way off from having a foreign policy that pursues state, rather than personal, interests.

The problem Prime Minister Yanukovych has is that he is unlikely to convince anybody in Brussels of Ukraine’s sincerity in seeking NATO and EU membership. NATO was ready to invite Ukraine into its Membership Action Plan (MAP) if it had a government in place committed to reform. In US and NATO eyes, this translated into an Orange – not a Yanukovych - government. Ukraine will therefore not receive a MAP at NATO’s Riga summit in two months time and its relationship with NATO will therefore return to that of the Kuchma era when it had a cooperative relationship. Ukraine has blown its best chance of getting on the NATO membership path.

What of the EU? Here, as someone from traditionally EU-sceptical Britain, I can be more critical of the EU. In fact, I always thought that Britain and Ukraine were very similar, with both being wary of deep integration into the EU and CIS respectively.

The return of the “Blues” to government will change little in the EU-Ukraine relationship as the EU has never risen to the challenge of Orange Ukraine. The EU is so mired in its own crisis that it has no time for Ukraine. Countries like Albania, Macedonia and Turkey have been given vague future offers of EU membership which have never been offered to Ukraine.

The only reason for offering membership to former Yugoslavia is the fear of a return to the conflicts of the 1990s. As I have asked at scholarly seminars, including at an EU think tank in 2003, to the shock of those present, does this then mean that Ukraine mistakenly did not have a civil war?

Diplomatic niceties will be made in Brussels during Yanukovych’s visit but these will be devoid of substance. This will be because NATO does not know what do with Ukraine while the EU does not know what to do with itself.