Russian Parliament’s Grab for Sevastopol Demand Immediate Shift In U.S. Stance On Ukrainian Nukes

(Washington, D.C.): The hardline communist/nationalist dominated-Russian parliament today voted overwhelmingly for a resolution proclaiming the Ukrainian city of Sevastopol to be Russian territory. Sevastopol is the headquarters and main base of the Black Sea fleet — an asset that has already been the subject of virulent disputes between the two Soviet successor states. Such a statement seems calculated to intensify those disputes and perhaps inspire armed conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

It is not hard to see why the parliament would want to roil the waters with Ukraine. After all, the majority of its members are facing the imminent end of their claim to power in Russia following a sound repudiation by the electorate in last April’s referendum. This would hardly be the first time that communists have provoked overseas incidents as a means of defusing — or at least distracting — domestic dissatisfaction and of rallying nationalist sentiment.

Not Just Knuckle-draggers in the Parliament

While the parliament and President Yeltsin have been at odds on most matters — and Mr. Yeltsin may yet denounce the latest resolution — there have been ominous signs in recent weeks that the entire government of Russia is adopting a more aggressive stance toward Ukraine. Despite the announced preparation of a full-scale treaty of friendship between the two states and yet another agreement on how to resolve the dispute over divvying up the Black Sea fleet, Russian diplomats and presidential advisors are sending ominous signals such as:

• According to the Financial Times of London, "[A Western diplomat in Ukraine recently] said Russian officials were warning east European countries ‘not to bother building large embassies in Kiev because within 18 months they will be downgraded to consular sections.’"

 

• Russia has refused to enter into a treaty that would recognize the independence and present boundaries of Ukraine if it withdraws from the Commonwealth of Independent States.

 

• Leonid Smoliakov, Russia’s ambassador to Ukraine was quoted by the Financial Times to the effect that if the people of the Crimea — predominantly Russian nationals — express a desire for self-determination, that Moscow would support their choice.

 

• Presidential advisor Sergei Stankevich has reportedly warned Poland not to pursue closer ties to Ukraine. He has also described Ukraine and Belarus as being within the Russian sphere of influence.

 

• What is more, today’s RFE/RL Daily Report reports that Stankevich told the Russian journal Novaya ezhednevnaya gazeta on 7 July that:

 

"[He] believes that a new kind of union, with Russia at its center, could be resurrected in the not too distant future….All former republics, except the three Baltic states, may rejoin in the future and that Russia’s historical task is now to stabilize itself in its present borders and then conduct a gradual ‘economic and cultural expansion’ into the ‘near abroad.’" (Emphasis added.)

 

The Bottom Line

Against this backdrop, the parliamentary resolution should be seen, not as an isolated incident, but as part of a significant — and possibly growing — Russian threat to the sovereignty of neighboring Ukraine. The U.S. and Western reaction to that event, accordingly, takes on significance far beyond the immediate question of the resolution’s status and the future disposition of Sevastopol.

In the absence of a forceful and credible rejection of this action by the Clinton Administration and its allied counterparts — as part of a dramatically reconfigured overall approach toward Ukraine — Moscow will inevitably be reinforced in its perception that it can do as it wishes with the "near abroad." On 20 June, the Washington Post revealed that American policy-makers recognize the past error of their ways:

"Some U.S. officials admit candidly to having botched the Ukrainian situation, at least until the most recent Clinton initiatives [which were designed to reflect a more sensitive and accommodating attitude toward Ukrainian security concerns without altering American insistence that Ukraine eliminate its inherited nuclear arsenal]. A few even plead guilty to Ukraine’s central charge — that the United States has so far signaled, in effect, that it will not respond vigorously if Russia seeks to retake Ukraine.

 

"Our policy was not to get involved in bilateral issues [between Ukraine and Russia], but the Russians were throwing down the gauntlet to the Ukrainians and we didn’t say anything. You can see a lot of things the Ukrainians are validly concerned about." (Emphasis added.)

 

The Center for Security Policy believes that the time has come for a fundamental reorientation of U.S. relations with Ukraine. A secure, pro-Western and increasingly democratic and free-market-oriented Ukraine is in the long-term strategic interests of the United States.

Nothing could do more to encourage such a development, to correct any lingering misapprehensions about U.S. attitudes toward Russian aggression against Ukraine or to deter such aggression than for the Clinton Administration to endorse, rather than oppose the retention of an effective Ukrainian nuclear deterrent. (For a more detailed exposition of the arguments in favor of such a policy see the Center’s recent Decision Brief entitled, What Strobe Talbott Won’t Tell the Senate Today: Insisting on a Nuclear-Free Ukraine is Folly (No. 93-D 52, 24 June 1993) and the attached excerpts from Prof. John F. Mearsheimer’s extraordinary article from the Summer 1993 edition of Foreign Affairs Magazine, "The Case for a Ukrainian Nuclear Deterrent.")