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Returning Kiev to the West

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Ukraine on July 4 and 5 provides an important opportunity to reassure Ukrainians that the United States remains committed to Ukraine’s sovereignty and democratic evolution.

This signal is of critical importance because Ukraine’s hard-won independence and ability to pursue closer ties to Euro-Atlantic institutions are under threat. Many Ukrainians feel that the United States — and most of the West — has given up on their country.

When Viktor Yanukovych was elected president in February, many Ukrainians hoped that his victory would end five years of political infighting under former President Viktor Yushchenko and lead to increased stability, reform and national unity.

But these hopes have proven illusory. Rather than bringing greater stability, Yanukovych has pursued a series of policies that have exacerbated domestic tensions and set the stage for Ukraine’s drift back into Russia’s economic and political orbit.

In late April, the coalition headed by Yanukovych railroaded through parliament a 25-year extension of the agreement, due to expire in 2017, that allows Russia to base its Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol in Crimea. The extension of the basing accord until 2042 was accompanied by an agreement permitting the return of Russian intelligence officers to the Sevastopol base and the termination of Ukraine’s long-term intelligence cooperation with NATO.

The agreement was ratified without proper parliamentary oversight and in violation of a constitutional provision forbidding foreign bases on Ukrainian territory. It provoked a virtual riot in the parliament, complete with fistfights, egg throwing and smoke bombs.

In exchange for extending the base agreement, Russia agreed to cut by 30 percent the price of gas that it sells to Ukraine. But, given falling demand for gas, Russia had already begun renegotiating contracts in Europe and giving customers discounts.

The gas agreement, moreover, undermines Ukraine’s incentive to reform its inefficient and corrupt energy sector and commits the country to buy more gas in subsequent years than it may need. At the same time, it increases energy dependence and economic reliance on Russia, hardening Ukraine with a Russia-leaning foreign policy.

That appears to be the Kremlin’s goal. Several days after the conclusion of the energy agreement, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin suggested at a news conference in Sochi that Ukraine’s national energy company, Naftogaz, should be merged with the state-owned Russian energy giant Gazprom.

Such a move would put Ukraine’s strategic network of gas pipelines under direct Russian control, and, as Yuliya Tymoshenko — now the country’s opposition leader — has noted, would be tantamount to the “full absorption of Ukraine by Russia.”

The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama initially portrayed these steps as part of a “balancing act” on Yanukovych’s part. But there is a critical difference between balancing and subservience. Yanukovych’s policies will significantly weaken Ukraine’s hard-won independence and its ability to pursue closer ties to the Euro-Atlantic community.

The United States and the European Union have a strong stake in keeping open a European option for Ukraine. A reorientation of Ukrainian foreign policy back toward Russia would shift the strategic balance in Europe and have a negative impact on the prospects for democratic change on Europe’s eastern periphery, making it much more difficult for Georgia and Moldova to pursue their pro-Western course.

Finally, Ukraine’s turn toward Russia would set back prospects for democratic reform in Russia itself for years, if not decades, and make any serious “reset” of U.S.-Russian relations in the near term much more difficult.

Now is not the time to pursue a policy of benign neglect. Clinton’s trip should signal a firm U.S. commitment to build an independent and democratic Ukraine. She should make clear that Washington rejects a European security order based on spheres of influence.

Taras Kuzio is editor of Ukraine Analyst and a visiting fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. F. Stephen Larrabee holds the distinguished chair in European security at the RAND Corporation. © Project Syndicate

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