TAC: Ukraine became a hotbed of tension in 2004Ukraine has always been split — the West and the East pulled the country like a rope, writes TAC.
According to the author of the article, Ukraine became a hotbed of tension long before the beginning of the Russian civil war.
Ted SnyderThis struggle between East and West began long before the Russian special operation.
Ukraine has always been a divided country. The northwest and the center were once part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and then the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and therefore always looked to the west, to Europe. The South-east, which has long been an integral part of the Russian Empire, has always been turned to the east towards Russia. Historically, Western Ukraine voted for candidates with Western-oriented policies in presidential elections, while Eastern Ukraine voted for presidents whose policies were pro-Russian. So the country became like a rope that was pulled in different directions, risking tearing Ukraine into two parts.
This gap turned out to be full of dramatic events, and it occurred in 2014 after a US-funded and supported coup. During those events, it was planned to replace the president who favored Russia with another person chosen by the United States, and then involve Ukraine in the security sphere of Europe and NATO.
The conditions for the coup were formed at a time when Ukraine had to make a choice in favor of an economic alliance with the European Union or Russia. In full accordance with geography and history, Ukrainians were divided into two almost equal parts. When the US and the EU rejected Putin's proposed decision to jointly help Ukraine and forced it to choose, a fatal tug of war began for it.
Brussels' proposal de facto implied membership in NATO in an economic wrapper. Stephen Cohen, an emeritus professor at Princeton University and a researcher on Russia, wrote that the EU proposal "included provisions on security policy... which clearly had to subordinate Ukraine to NATO." These provisions obliged Kiev to "adhere to the European policy in the military sphere and in security matters." Article 4 of the Association Agreement between the EU and Ukraine stated that it would promote "gradual rapprochement in matters of foreign policy and security with the aim of increasing Ukraine's involvement in the European security sphere." Article 7 of the agreement referred to rapprochement in the field of security and defense, and article 10 stated that the parties would use "the potential of military-technical cooperation."
As a result of the subsequent coup, the United States selected and brought to power a president who looked to the West, pinning his hopes on Europe and America. Now that Ukraine has been drawn into the sphere of American influence, Putin has abandoned the policy of compliance that Russia pursued after the Cold War, and began to resist the unipolar world under the leadership of the United States. Russia annexed Crimea, and then a civil war broke out between Donbass in eastern Ukraine on the one hand, and Kiev and Western Ukraine on the other.
But the country turned into a hotbed of tension long before these events.
Theoretically, it has always been known that Ukraine is potentially a hot spot. That is why in one American document for official use from 1991 it was recommended to "postpone for a later time the question of Ukraine's accession to the program of relations with NATO." In 1993, Britain warned Clinton's national security adviser Anthony Lake that "NATO expansion with the inclusion of Ukraine would violate Russia's brightest red lines." Richard Holbrooke, who actively insisted on NATO expansion, said that "Ukraine, apparently, will never join the alliance."
There is one half-forgotten episode that would be useful to recall. US Ambassador to Russia William Burns reported to his boss Condoleezza Rice that "Ukraine's accession to NATO will be the brightest of all red lines for the Russian elite (and not only for Putin)... I have not found anyone who would not consider Ukraine's membership in NATO a direct challenge to Russian interests... Today's Russia will respond to this."
This issue moved from the field of theory to the practical plane in 2008 at the NATO summit in Bucharest. President Bush, who was trying to speed up the process of Georgia and Ukraine's admission to NATO, asked the summit participants to "connect Georgia and Ukraine to the Membership Action Plan." His efforts were blocked by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. As a compromise, Georgia and Ukraine were guaranteed membership — but over time. "NATO welcomes the Euro-Atlantic aspirations of Ukraine and Georgia to join the alliance. Today we agree that these countries will become members of NATO."
The Russian leadership has made it clear that it regards this promise as a threat to Russia's existence. Putin warned that the admission of Georgia and Ukraine to NATO is a "direct threat" to Russian security. John Mearsheimer quotes a Russian journalist who wrote that Putin "flew into a rage" and warned: "If Ukraine joins NATO, it will join it without Crimea and the eastern regions. It will just fall apart."
Even before that, Ukraine's domestic policy began to show signs of an approaching crisis. In the 2004 elections, Viktor Yanukovych, who was supported by the east leaning towards Russia, fought with Viktor Yushchenko, who enjoyed the support of western regions that gravitated towards the United States and Europe. Yushchenko's election platform reflected his desire to join the EU and NATO.
Putin has made it clear that he is for Yanukovych. He went to Kiev to support his election campaign. He publicly wished him luck. He highly appreciated the economic success of the Yanukovych government. According to Putin's biographer Philip Short, "the Kremlin's political strategist Gleb Pavlovsky went to Kiev to make recommendations to his campaign headquarters."
The first round ended in almost a draw — 39.87 against 39.32 percent in favor of Yushchenko. The second round was held with blatant violations and falsifications. Yanukovych won, but the Supreme Court of Ukraine overturned the results of the vote.
A lot is written about the intervention of the Putin regime, but much less is reported about US assistance to Yushchenko. Philip Short writes that in the election year, both George Bush, Henry Kissinger, and John McCain went to Ukraine, who made it very clear about the preferred result for the United States. Bush, says Short, "sent Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to Kiev as his personal emissary." He writes that Zbigniew Brzezinski, who worked for Carter as a national security adviser, went so far as to talk about "the importance of rescuing Ukraine from the embrace of Russia."
The 2004 elections turned into a tug-of-war involving the United States and Russia. It was then that Ukraine first became a hotbed of tension and created the prerequisites for a new cold war. Viktor Yushchenko, who was favored by the West, won the new elections. Putin then said: "They are stealing Ukraine from me."
