The Day has requested Volodymyr HORBACH, political analyst at the Institute of Euro-Atlantic Cooperation, expert on Ukraine’s foreign and domestic policies, chief editor of the website euroatlantica.info, to comment on the messages Victoria Nuland made during her three-day visit to Ukraine.
“Nuland’s visit is very important and, at this moment, symbolic. For she spent quite a lot of time in Kyiv, not to mention that she stayed behind in our city for several days during the revolution. In the foreign-policy terms, this symbolizes support for Ukraine by the United States, as our country is in confrontation with Russia. In the domestic-policy dimension, this is a certain encouragement for democratic procedures and the parliamentary elections in Ukraine.
“Therefore, her visit shows that the United States did not and will not leave Ukraine to its devices in front of its external and internal challenges and is adequately assessing the risks that Ukraine faces. First of all, it is the Donbas situation and the security problem. Secondly, it is the energy problem, Ukraine’s energy-related independence, the question of how to survive in winter, save energy resources, seek and expect new American investments, including private ones, in Ukraine’s energy sector. Thirdly, it is domestic democracy – how to hold the parliamentary elections in such a way that they will not result in the same situation we are having now, in other words, how to qualitatively improve parliament and the performance of its members, and restructure, to some extent, the parliamentary forces.
“Naturally, Nuland’s personal meetings with some political leaders and figures can be also regarded in the context of the election campaign as symbolic support for certain political forces and leaders.”
Incidentally, Twitter has shown many photos of meetings between Nuland and Poroshenko but no photos with Yatseniuk. What does this mean?
“It is interesting. In principle, experts believe that Yatseniuk stands closer to the US position, while Poroshenko is, so to speak, closer to the German position.”
Nuland brought or, to be more exact, presented $10-million-worth aid to reinforce the Ukrainian border but, in short interview, she did not say concretely what the US would do to make Russia withdraw its troops, weapons, and rebel fighters from Ukraine so that Ukraine could restore its control over the border and the Russian side could implement the Minsk Accords…
“Victoria Nuland is not a top-level governmental official, and she is perhaps not authorized to express opinions about the way the US can influence this situation. Maybe, the State Department has not yet worked out a clear-cut political decision to this effect. This can in fact explain Nuland’s restraint. Maybe, the State Department begins to understand that the Russian government’s behavior is not the result of some rational considerations and calculations and that it is impossible to influence Russia by way of purely economic sanctions, speaking in the language of the losses and higher prices Russia will have to pay. So far, Russia shows it is prepared to pay this higher price, and it was impossible up to this moment to really influence, financially and economically, the political and military position of Russia. To really influence Russia, one must apply a different variety of pressure to it – not only in terms of finances and economics. And it is obvious that the Obama Administration has not yet made a political decision to this effect.”
