Yesterday morning Moscow was rocked with two terrorist acts within an hour, which claimed 35 human lives and left about 50 people injured. Vladimir Markin, a spokesman of the Investigation Committee at Russia’s Prosecutor-General’s Office, told journalists that two powerful blasts had thundered at Moscow Metro stations Lubyanka and Park Kultury. Criminal proceedings have been instituted under Article 205 of the Russian Federation’s Criminal Code (“terrorist act”). Meanwhile, a report of Russia’s Federal Security Service Public Relations Center says that “tentatively, both explosions were committed by female suicide bombers.”
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev believes the explosions are the continuation of terrorist activities. He has announced at an extraordinary meeting that Russia will continue “operations against terrorists without compromises and to the end.” It is the deadliest attack in the Moscow subway since February 6 and August 31, 2004, when 50 people were killed and 170 wounded. For this reason, many are afraid this is the beginning of a new wave of terrorist acts.
President Viktor Yanukovych of Ukraine has offered condolences to his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev over the Moscow Metro bombings. It is, naturally, a major tragedy that people were killed in a neighboring state. However, the Ukrainian leadership should also think about its own country and remember that we in fact do not have a border with Russia, which can be said to be able to effectively keep not only illegal migrants but also terrorists away from this country.
What looks rather illogical in this context are Yanukovych’a latest statements about this country’s non-aligned status. “Today Ukraine should not make a choice in favor of one of the collective security systems that exist on this continent. Any decision [of this kind] will only increase danger to our national security and heighten tension in international relations,” he said last Thursday at the ceremony dedicated to the 18th anniversary of creation of the SBU.
Ukraine set course on joining the world’s only collective security system in the Law of Ukraine “On the Fundamentals of National Security of Ukraine” (June 19, 2003) that envisages EU and NATO membership while upholding neighborly relations and strategic partnership with the Russian Federation. Incidentally, Yanukovych, then Prime Minister, took part in the elaboration of the bill which was approved by the entire Party of Regions faction.
Yanukovych also took part in the preparation of a book that envisaged Ukraine’s NATO membership in 2008. However, one of the leaders of the opposition United Democratic Movement Solidarity Boris Nemtsov does not exclude that after thouse acts of terror “repressions towards the opposition will start again. There will be more censure, political search, it there will be more special police units to disperse marches and demonstrations, but this will not save us from terrorism.”
Needless to say, a statesman’s role is in guiding the people and, in this case, explaining to it which collective security system best suits the national interests, guarantees sovereignty and territorial integrity. It is very bad for the political leadership of a given country to fail to measure up to the statesman’s standard, fail to act with an eye to long-term prospects. It is very bad when politicians, being aware of the national interests, are incapable of implementing them. This was the case with the Orange political leadership; they were for Ukraine’s membership of the European and Atlantic structures, but instead of making every effort to bring Ukraine closer to NATO and EU, the leaders of the Orange Revolution got carried away fighting their inner political war. Five years were wasted that way, so that Ukraine couldn’t even get the Membership Action Plan that precedes NATO membership.
However, the issue of national security and territorial integrity remains on the agenda even with the relations between the political leaders of Ukraine and Russia getting better — something the new government is banking on. The big question is whether the new president of Ukraine fully comprehends the Ukrainian national interests and how Ukraine can benefit from an “active participation in the discussion of a new European policy in the security sphere,” considering that there is only one most effective collective security system: NATO.
