James Sherr, leading expert with the British Military Academy’s Conflict Study Center, oxford lecturer, is versed in what is happening in the international arena as well as in the post-soviet countries. He is one of those western experts who know about Ukrainian events not only from the press. Mr. Sherr visited Kyiv last week and kindly agreed to an interview with the day (see today’s Ukrainian issue of Den’).
— A number of Ukrainians were shocked by Russia’s conduct during the presidential campaign here. The West kept its observers’ status. One is reminded of the Tuzla crisis when Ukraine had to rely only on itself. The question is, Does anyone in the West really want to support Ukraine?
Senior decision makers on the West don’t understand that when one country is openly putting unacceptable and illegal pressure on its neighbor, it’s essential that other countries publicly react, and we had not publicly reacted. But there were private discussions with Russia during Tuzla but you never heard anything about it. I have been in talks directly over the past few weeks in the West with those people who are privately making their views about Russian policy here very well known at senior levels in Russia. It is still the Western approach to handle Russia “sensitively”.
Failure of the West to publicly comment on Russia’s role has created not only misunderstandings in Ukraine — it has demoralized and confused people, and it has also fed some paranoias. Many Ukrainians, including the so-called experts, firmly believe that at various times Bush and Putin have struck deals about what happens here. I’d said in the past and I know that this had never happened.
People in Ukraine were confused by and disappointed in the outcome of the NATO summit in Istanbul this June. Ukraine was prepared to raise the level of cooperation with NATO, having adopted actually the entire legal framework for the military reform. NATO officials kept saying about headway being made by Kyiv in that domain, but the format of Ukrainian-NATO relationships remained unchanged. Don’t you think that the NATO stand is shortsighted under the circumstances?
The first reason is that the central subject of Istanbul was NATO after the Iraq War. Nearly all resources, all efforts, all thinking went into this question. The second reason there were no proper signals is because in Istanbul, as before, so many in the West have confused Ukraine with President Kuchma. Now it is clear the West made a major mistake in Istanbul. What it needed to say is that we look forward to inviting Ukraine to submit a Membership Action Plan as soon as Ukraine provides convincing demonstration that it takes seriously its undertakings about democracy and the MAP.
So, the mistake was made, but it’s important to understand why. The main reason is Iraq. But what is good about what has happened is that it has awakened people. Since September 11, 2001 the Bush Administration particularly has acted as if it had only one vital interest, the war on terror. A superpower cannot afford to think this way. No matter how serious the crisis is, it always has several vital interests. There are people at quite a senior level in the Bush Administration who understand that, but until these events in Ukraine they have not had enough influence. So now I think these people have strengthened not only in dealing in a more projective and more constructive way with Ukraine but with some other issues, too. What you have done here so far has helped us reestablish the balance in Western thinking and in our own policymaking communities. You should be proud of this.
