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>Date:   Sat, 30 Oct 2004 08:12:27 -0600
>Sender: "David R. Marples" <David.Marples@UAlberta.CA>
>
>Colleagues,
>
>The attached article appears in today's (30 Oct) Edmonton Journal.
>
>Regards,
>
>David
>
>Dr. David R. Marples, Professor of History
>Department of History & Classics,
>University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada T6G 2H4
>Tel. 780-905-8859   Fax 780-439-9912

PUTIN: THE RETURN OF THE RUSSIAN IMPERIALIST?

David Marples

Russian president Vladimir Putin, firmly established in power after the 
2004 presidential election in Russia, has earned a reputation for careful 
diplomacy. He is the man who avoided participation for his country in the 
war in Iraq, and yet maintained friendly relations with US president George 
W. Bush. He is the leader who charmed British Prime Minister Tony Blair, 
despite clearly defined policy differences between the two countries.

However, his actions of the past three weeks have undermined four years of 
careful diplomacy. He has interfered blatantly in the contentious election 
campaign in Ukraine, while sanctioning the prolonged dictatorship of 
Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus.

The Belarus issue can be dealt with briefly. Putin did not intervene last 
weekend when citizens of Belarus went to the polls in a referendum to 
decide whether the president could seek a third term in office (his current 
mandate expires in 2006) and amend the current Constitution to do so.

The vote­more than 79% in favor­was largely engineered by a government that 
controlled the media, harassed opponents, and forced most voters to take 
part in an advance poll on 12 October, five days before the election. 
Sausages and beer were provided for voters, while the president~Rs portrait 
adorned most voting booths.

Alone among the major world powers, Russia recognized the vote as free and 
fair. Cynics observed that Putin himself may seek a third term in 2008 and 
could hardly criticize his western neighbor for similar sentiments.

In Ukraine, relations between current president Leonid Kuchma and Putin 
have been very warm for the past six months. Kuchma, bereft of 
international friends and shunned by the EU, has turned to Russia as a 
desperate resort. The Russian leader has responded with the unambiguous 
embrace of a bear for a honey pot.

In an earlier visit to Ukraine, he suggested that the two countries had an 
identical history and stressed the importance of Kyiv in Russia~Rs heritage. 
More recently the subtleties have been dropped in favor of an all-out 
attempt to drag Ukraine into the Russian sphere.

Two weeks ago, during a televised visit of Kuchma and his presidential 
nominee, Viktor Yanukovych to Moscow, Putin openly endorsed Yanukovych~Rs 
candidacy. Like Kuchma he stressed the significance of continuity of good 
relations, and the stability of the Ukrainian economy under Yanukovych.

Currently Putin is in Kyiv, this time for the commemoration of the 
liberation of Ukraine by Soviet troops from German occupation 60 years ago. 
However, the event has been brought forward by a week so that it precedes 
the 31 October election. Together with Kuchma, Putin, and Yanukovych (as 
well as Lukashenko and Ilkham Aliyev of Azerbaijan) are taking part in 
official ceremonies on a grand scale. No observer could miss the inference: 
that Russia and Ukraine will be in step, as long as Yanukovych wins the 
election on Sunday.

Ukraine meanwhile is replete in mass demonstrations­largely of students­in 
support of contender Viktor Yushchenko, who allegedly wishes to take 
Ukraine closer to the West, by means of the elusive and thus far 
unresponsive EU.

Putin is prepared to open the Russian border to Ukrainians. Thousands of 
Ukrainian expatriates in Russia have been encouraged to vote for 
Yanukovych. The two countries have every possibility of forming a union, 
just as Russia has done with Belarus.

But why would residents of Ukraine wish to base their future on a 
commitment to Russia? Why would they pay heed to Putin today, in contrast 
to the way they ignored Boris Yeltsin~Rs threats thirteen years ago during 
the dissolution of the Soviet Union?

The results of Putin~Rs policies­not to mention the callous disregard for 
democratic procedures by the Ukrainian authorities and Kuchma­have been to 
elevate Yushchenko to the rank of a national hero, one transformed ipso 
facto into a candidate for democracy and the preservation of independence. 
One Ukrainian writer has declared that a Yanukovych victory will turn the 
country into a thuggish dictatorship with the curtailment of hard-won freedom.

There is little real substance to Yushchenko~Rs campaign. Absent through 
illness for long periods, he has tried to emulate Kuchma~Rs early notion of 
a multi-vectored foreign policy that would hold dialogues with East and 
West. There is little to indicate how he would persuade the EU to permit 
Ukraine to join, or how he would end the endemic corruption that pervades 
political and economic life.

It is of no electoral consequence; more important is that Yushchenko is not 
a Russian puppet, nor is he likely to bow before pressure from Moscow, no 
matter what the issue.

What has Putin to gain from his intervention in Ukraine? At best, he would 
gain a reliable partner with important economic and security links to 
Russia. There would be no danger of a Ukraine in NATO or isolated from 
Russia through the economic curtain of the EU.

At worst, he has created new enemies among the Ukrainian electorate, and 
engendered a political divide within Ukraine at a time when it needs to be 
united. That political divide is between a Ukrainian-speaking West and 
Russian-speaking East, with the former in the Yushchenko camp and the 
latter for Yanukovych.





ROMAN SENKUS / POMAH CEHbKYCb
Director, CIUS Publications Program <www.utoronto.ca/cius>
Managing Editor,  www.encyclopediaofukraine.com

Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, Toronto Office
University of Toronto
1 Spadina Crescent, Room 109
Toronto, ON
M5S 2J5
Canada

tel. (416) 978-8669
fax (416) 978-2672  


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