The accord signed on April 21 will extend lease of Black Sea Fleet’s key base until 2042
Since Victor Yanukovich became the Ukrainian President, analysts and watchers were expecting a thaw in ties between Kiev and Moscow, but even they have been knocked off by the pace in which things have moved.
Ukraine traded cheaper gas from Russia in swap for permitting the Russian navy to continue a long-term presence in the Crimean Peninsula. The accord, signed on April 21, will extend the lease of the Black Sea Fleet’s key base of Sevastopol until 2042—25 years further than the previous cessation deadline. In return, Ukraine got an instant cut rate on Russian gas until 2020, when the existing deal expires. The concession will cost Russia an approximate $3 or $4 billion a year at existing prices. And after 2017, it will apparently be offset by equivalent cuts in the fresh, higher rent for the naval conveniences at Sevastopol.
While the move has ruffled quite a few feathers both inside and outside Ukraine, the uneasiness at Brussels is worth analysing. While Ukraine emerged out as a sovereign nation in 1991, it has been an issue of concern for the superpowers who have been fighting over its geography and using Kiev as a chessboard all the while. The polls of January 2005, dubbed “The Orange Revolution” by the pro-western media, threw some new players in the game. However, the then President, Viktor Yushchenko’s, pro-west leaning was driven more by emotion and less by strategies. He, with the obvious insistence of Brussels, picked fight with Moscow, who promptly arm-twisted the former on gas. Meanwhile, his patrons, it appears, were too busy fighting among themselves.
EU and NATO membership was Yushchenko’s precedence, yet, the vacillating and futile political beliefs of the EU were quite off the mark from Ukraine’s European hallucination. The EU, to Kiev's dismay, was not successful in assimilating Ukraine into ‘Europe’. Similar to other foreign policy matters, the EU could not achieve a sole foreign policy perceptive towards Ukraine. The EU’s assessment of Ukraine in terms of the ‘EU Neighbourhood Policy’ produced profound disillusionment in the country. This was particularly vital for western Ukraine since people here consider themselves as a European nation, and definitely not as a ‘Europe neighbour’.
Victor Yanukovich, on the contrary, was pegged as pro Russian, but he persisted that Ukraine would carry out dealings with the EU, US and Russia. In that sense his foreign policy can be best explained as one of equilibrium between the West and Russia. However, the key matter here was the viability of this looked-for equilibrium.
Since Victor Yanukovich became the Ukrainian President, analysts and watchers were expecting a thaw in ties between Kiev and Moscow, but even they have been knocked off by the pace in which things have moved.
Ukraine traded cheaper gas from Russia in swap for permitting the Russian navy to continue a long-term presence in the Crimean Peninsula. The accord, signed on April 21, will extend the lease of the Black Sea Fleet’s key base of Sevastopol until 2042—25 years further than the previous cessation deadline. In return, Ukraine got an instant cut rate on Russian gas until 2020, when the existing deal expires. The concession will cost Russia an approximate $3 or $4 billion a year at existing prices. And after 2017, it will apparently be offset by equivalent cuts in the fresh, higher rent for the naval conveniences at Sevastopol.
While the move has ruffled quite a few feathers both inside and outside Ukraine, the uneasiness at Brussels is worth analysing. While Ukraine emerged out as a sovereign nation in 1991, it has been an issue of concern for the superpowers who have been fighting over its geography and using Kiev as a chessboard all the while. The polls of January 2005, dubbed “The Orange Revolution” by the pro-western media, threw some new players in the game. However, the then President, Viktor Yushchenko’s, pro-west leaning was driven more by emotion and less by strategies. He, with the obvious insistence of Brussels, picked fight with Moscow, who promptly arm-twisted the former on gas. Meanwhile, his patrons, it appears, were too busy fighting among themselves.
EU and NATO membership was Yushchenko’s precedence, yet, the vacillating and futile political beliefs of the EU were quite off the mark from Ukraine’s European hallucination. The EU, to Kiev's dismay, was not successful in assimilating Ukraine into ‘Europe’. Similar to other foreign policy matters, the EU could not achieve a sole foreign policy perceptive towards Ukraine. The EU’s assessment of Ukraine in terms of the ‘EU Neighbourhood Policy’ produced profound disillusionment in the country. This was particularly vital for western Ukraine since people here consider themselves as a European nation, and definitely not as a ‘Europe neighbour’.
Victor Yanukovich, on the contrary, was pegged as pro Russian, but he persisted that Ukraine would carry out dealings with the EU, US and Russia. In that sense his foreign policy can be best explained as one of equilibrium between the West and Russia. However, the key matter here was the viability of this looked-for equilibrium.
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