UKRAINE, BELARUS AND MOLDOVA REACTIONS TO THE SHORT AUGUST RUSSIAN WAR

THE priority for Europe after Russia’s August war with Georgia was

to secure a ceasefire and a pullback of Russian forces

to start dealing with Russia’s other neighbours (Ukraine)….

Ukraine supports Georgia:

• Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine’s president flew to Tbilisi to support Saakashvili.
• Georgian battle tanks were modernised in Ukraine.
• Russian nationalists believe Crimea, which has a large ethnic Russian population, should be returned to Russia (new Russian passports have been diffused, just as happened in South Ossetia and Abkhazia).
• Ukraine, like Georgia, has tried to enter in the European Union and NATO.

Internal contrasts:

Tymoshenko (prime minister +RUSSIA) against Yushenko (president+ Georgia)

Both will contest a presidential election in 2010

Ms Tymoshenko	Mr Yushenko
1. Her usually pro-Western government blocked a parliamentary motion to condemn Russia’s aggression 2. The prime minister joined with the pro-Russian Party of the Regions, led by Viktor Yanukovich. 3. She has great popularity ratings (22,5% for her, against 5% for him) because she asserts her desire to guarantee Ukraine’s territorial integrity, without inflaming relations with Russia	1. He tries to impose restrictions on Russian Black Sea fleet 2.Mr Yushchenko pulled his own Our Ukraine party out of its coalitionwith the Tymoshenko block. 3. He accused Ms Tymoshenko of “high treason”, suggesting she was a Kremlin agent out to win Moscow’s support (and financial backing) for her presidential Purpose.

Three political options:

1. a fresh parliamentary election,
2. a face-saving truce between Mr Yushchenko and Ms Tymoshenko
3. a new coalition between Ms Tymoshenko and Mr Yanukovich.

USA

America’s preference called for orange unity: Ukraine should be united domestically first and united with other democracies. It seems that the Bush administration supported Ukraine’s NATO aspirations, but Mr Yanukovich pointed out that a majority of Ukrainians are against joining.

EU

At a European Union-Ukraine summit in Paris on September 9th, France’s Prime minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, offered to sign a vague “association agreement” next year. But unlike a similar agreements for the Balkan countries, this one would not carry any implication of eventual membership. Countries such as Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany oppose the chance to confer the candidate status to Ukraine.
Russian Federation

Ukraine will have to maintain reasonable relations with Moscow as well as the rest of Europe.

Because it is dependent on Russia for its oil and gas,

for uranium enrichment,

and as a market in which it can sell its own goods.

The Baltics, already in both the EU and NATO, are still wary.

Belarus, Europe’s “last dictatorship”, is using the war to refasten its relationship with the West, resisting Russian pressure to recognise South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Belarus’s president, Lukashenka, disposed to let a new parliament decide the matter, after an election at the end of September. It’s an attempt to ease Western sanctions on the country.

Indeed Mr Lukashenka seems also to have permitted the hosting of Russian nuclear missiles on his soil as part of the Kremlin’s response to America’s planned missile defences in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Moldova, like Georgia, has an enclave, Transdniestria,“protected” by Russian troops. Although Moldova has no aspirations to join NATO, it would be expected to get into the EU.

Its president, Vladimir Voronin, met his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, in late August. Mr Medvedev said there was a “good chance” of settling the dispute. But after the August war, the Moldovans fear, rightly, that this might be done only on Russian terms.