Ukraine: Europe’s Linchpin: Preserving Independence

Five years after independence, Ukraine watches the nationalist turn in neighboring Russia with unease bordering on alarm. Much of the Russian political spectrum, obsessed with reclaiming great power status and reuniting the former Soviet republics, recognizes that Ukraine is the key to its plans and openly espouses reabsorption. President Boris Yeltsin, instrumental in the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, has, in his quest for votes, adopted much of the nationalist agenda; he has dismissed his Western-oriented foreign minister, Andrei Kozyrev, cracked down on the rebellion in Chechnya, and pursued formal union with Belarus. Continued progress in Ukraine toward democracy and free markets will be more difficult no matter who triumphs in Russia’s presidential election in June. A victory for Gennadi Zyuganov, the Communist Party boss and the leading presidential contender, would give Ukraine’s communists a second wind and could well throw Ukraine back into the instability that preceded reform.

With a landmass equal to France, a population of 52 million, a location at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, large agricultural and high-tech industries, and extensive natural resources, Ukraine is crucial for the stability of the continent, and uncertainty there would reverberate throughout Europe. An independent, democratic, and reform-oriented Ukraine can provide a model for Russia’s development, prevent the emergence of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) as a political and military alliance under Moscow’s control, and promote stability in Central and Eastern Europe. The next year’s events in Ukraine will determine whether the continent continues on its path toward integration or faces a new confrontational divide.

Regardless of the outcome of Russia’s presidential contest, Ukraine has ample reason to suspect Moscow’s long-term intentions. Russia has refused to negotiate the exact borders between the two states. The Duma has not annulled its 1993 resolution declaring Sevastopol a Russian city, nor has it canceled its order to review the 1954 transfer of Crimea from Russia to the Ukraine. Most recently, it proclaimed illegal the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In fact, many Russians believe that Ukraine’s leaders, not its people, have been the impediment to closer relations, if not union, between the two countries.