Putin's Ukraine Misjudgements

9 December, 2004

The Ukrainian crisis provides significant insights into the foreign policies of the three main outside players - Russia- particularly Moscow, the United States and the European Union.

This is the biggest east-west confrontation since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and Moscow's reaction has been a throwback, sending western intelligence agencies in the region into an acute spin.

Analysts believe tensions escalated dangerously soon after the opposition took to the streets to protest at the bogus result of the presidential election. Specifically:

• Vladimir Putin advised Ukraine's outgoing President Leonid Kuchma to use force.
• He said he would send in Russian military support to help Kuchma.
• The Russian President offered military help to encourage the pro-Russian east of the country to secede if necessary.

Interference

Putin had already risked prestige in two heavy-handed visits to Ukraine shortly before the first round of polling. This could have had the counter-productive effect of pushing voters to support the pro-western candidate, Viktor Yushchenko.

The Russian President followed this up with a condemnation of outside interference in Ukrainian politics, saying 'we have no moral right to push a major European state into mass mayhem' - though he congratulated Yushchenko's pro-Moscow rival, Viktor Yanukovych, on his 'victory' even before it was announced, wrongly, as it turned out.

As the crisis developed, the Kremlin has accused the West of trying to stir up 'revolution'. It also suggested that outside forces were orchestrating street protests in Kiev in a tactic to encircle Russia.

Dilemma

The crisis will only dissipate if the Kremlin accepts the result of the fresh election scheduled by Ukraine's Supreme Court on December 26. Russian intervention is still possible.

Putin's belligerence, in private as well as public comments, has shocked the West. It reflects a basic dilemma he faces.

Despite accreting power to the presidency in Russia, he is essentially a weak leader, in thrall to his own military and security establishment.

Having portrayed himself as the man who will restore Russian pride and international standing, the humiliation of 'losing' Ukraine would be almost unbearable - particularly on top of the failure to quell the rebellion in Chechnya.

Force

Moscow regards Ukraine as less part of Eastern Europe than as an integral part of mother Russia. The country juts into central Russia while the Crimea is home to Russia's Black Sea fleet, prompting intense security concern.

In the old days of the Cold War, a telephone call from the Kremlin authorising the use of force by its East European surrogates was enough to prompt a bloody crackdown.

Not only have times changed, but earlywarning understands that more moderate voices at the Kremlin court are arguing that intervention would be madness.

They include Boris Gryszlov, the head of United Russia, Putin's political party which controls the Russian parliament, who visited Kiev to broker talks between the two sides, and the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov.

Their reasoning is that:

• It would plunge the world back into east-west confrontation.
• Russia would be isolated, militarily and politically.
• Russia's economy would be plunged into crisis as investors anticipate sanctions and retaliation from the West
• The huge export market in Europe for oil and natural gas would be endangered
• So would the export of other goods to the EU and the US.

The political problem for Putin in backing off on Ukraine is the loss of face after taking such a strong public stand.

This will seriously weaken his position within Russia, where his critics in official circles are already critical of his performance during the Beslan school siege and of his centralising of power in the Kremlin.

Humiliation

In the past Putin's bark has been worse than his bite.

He failed to match his aggressive rhetoric on issues like the fall of Milosevic in Serbia, Nato expansion into eastern Europe and Iraq.

But the loss of the Ukraine is an altogether different scale of humiliation.

Encouraging the eastern provinces of Ukraine to secede through referenda can be done peacefully, but may be highly counterproductive for the Kremlin.

It would set a disturbing example for other parts of the remaining Russian empire and would scarcely compensate for the loss of Kiev.

Nato

Better, once the dust has settled, to forge a good relationship with Yushchenko's government, which will always have to cooperate closely with its huge eastern neighbour on economic and other matters.

Having chalked up a lead of around 12 points in the true voting figures of the second round of the presidential contest, Yushchenko is likely to win by a landslide on December 26.

He has already said he is prepared to work with Russia. While his goal of EU membership - likely to prove a long haul - is non-negotiable, the sticking point for the Russians would be Ukrainian security co-operation with Nato.

Europe

Putin's only consolation is that the EU and the Bush administration hardly came out of the crisis smelling of roses either.

Not only did they make no effort to co-ordinate a common approach towards Ukraine before the crisis; they made no criticism of Putin's blatant meddling in the election, either.

At the recent summit with Putin in the Hague, EU leaders were mild in their criticism, so as not to endanger trade ties.

The EU foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, was despatched to Kiev where he appeared to back Kushma's transparent ploy to sidestep the issue of election-rigging by proposing a wholly new election.

US

The Bush administration's response was belated because of its continuing need, in its own eyes, to engage Russia in the war on terror and to secure co-operation on sensitive issues like Iraq and Iran's nuclear plans.

But its evolution pointed to a growing readiness to confront Moscow.

Prodded by the powerful chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Joseph Biden, who was in Kiev for the elections, the outgoing Secretary of State, Colin Powell, threatened 'consequences for our relationship' with Ukraine as well as for 'individuals responsible for perpetrating fraud' - presumably visa restrictions.

The Soviet ambassador in Washington was summoned for a dressing down.

Iraq

By the middle of this week, with the new election set, the Washington-Moscow rift erupted at a meeting of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) at which Powell expressed concern about the rule of law and press freedom in Russia, and the lack of Russian military withdrawal from Moldova and Georgia.

In reply, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, spoke of election monitoring in Ukraine becoming a vehicle for manipulation and destabilisation. Moscow opened a new front in the war of words with Washington by speaking critically of the elections in Iraq and of the ability of the government there being able to stop the country breaking up.

While the Bush administration has preferred to deal with Moscow in the past through private conversations, the Ukraine has provoked an older-style stand-off. Now each side has to determine whether it considers its interests best served by reverting to the past pattern or accepting confrontation on key issues as the shape of future relations.