Ukraine fears becoming Russia's next target
Kyiv Post
Sep 01 2008, 11:15
Kyiv (AP) - With Russian troops stationed deep in Georgia, fears run high that Ukraine may be the next victim of a Kremlin drive to reclaim dominance in the former Soviet Union.
Many here believe Moscow has its sights on Ukraine's strategic Crimea peninsula on the Black Sea once a jewel of Russia's empire.
Officials both here and in the West worry how far Russia might go to stop Ukraine's drive to join NATO and to regain control of Crimea.
Analysts say war between the two nations is highly unlikely. While Georgia is a small nation of 4.6 million, Ukraine is roughly the size of France, with a population of 46 million.
Russia also relies on Ukraine for transporting its gas to European consumers, and Russia is Ukraine's energy supplier and top trading partner.
"There is no way on earth that these two countries will go to war," said Geoffrey Smith, strategist at the Renaissance Capital investment bank in Kiev.
Short of war, however, the Kremlin has many ways of using economic and military might to pressure Ukraine's Western-backed government.
Russia drew harsh criticism from the United States and Europe last week for recognizing two separatist Georgian territories as independent states following a short but devastating war. Russian troops still control a key Georgian Black Sea port and other locations deep inside the country.
The conflict plunged relations between Moscow and the West to a post-Cold War low and the European Union is considering sanctions against Russia.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner suggested last week that Russia might next target Ukraine and its neighbor Moldova, a tiny, impoverished ex-Soviet republic which is plagued by its own separatist conflict in the Trans-Dniester region.
"It is not impossible. I repeat, it's very dangerous," Kouchner told Europe-1 radio. "There are other objectives that we can assume are objectives for Russia, in particular Crimea, Ukraine and Moldova."
Ukrainian leaders also are alarmed.
"The decision taken by the Russian leadership poses a threat to peace and stability both in our region and in Europe," President Viktor Yushchenko said Wednesday. Only NATO can guarantee Ukraine's independence, he said.
Since he came to power four years ago, Yushchenko has made joining NATO his top goal, sought to create a Ukrainian Orthodox church independent of Moscow, and enforced the use of the Ukrainian language at the expense of the Russian all steps that anger Russia.
Crimea carries an immense emotional resonance for Russians: It was part of the Russian empire for centuries, a beloved tourist destination and home to the proud Russian naval base in the port of Sevastopol.
But in 1954, the Crimea was handed to the Soviet republic of Ukraine by leader Nikita Khrushchev, who had lived and worked there for years. After the 1991 Soviet breakup, it remained part of independent Ukraine.
Back then, Russia was fighting its own separatists and struggling with a collapsing economy and was too weak to protest.
But by sending troops to Georgia, an economically and politically revived Russia demonstrated a willingness to use military force outside its borders to achieve its aims.
The Kremlin has not officially laid claims to Crimea, but Moscow's powerful mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, whose views often reflect popular sentiments, has warned that it still isn't too late for Ukraine to return "what doesn't belong to it."
Crimea, like Georgia, is a tinderbox of political and ethnic problems. Nearly 1.2 million of its 2 million residents are ethnic Russians, many of whom believe Crimea should be Russian.
Russia has a lease that gives it control of the Sevastopol military base until 2017 and has hinted that it does not want to leave when the lease runs out.
Konstantin Zatulin, a member of the Russian parliament from the Kremlin's dominant United Russia Party, has warned that if Kiev is not friendly toward Moscow, it will pay a price.
"This will heat up the situation," Zatulin told the Russian daily Izvestia. "In Ukraine, in the Crimea and in Russia there will be political forces, who will be developing the thesis of the need to reconsider borders and the fate of Crimea and Sevastopol."
Several Western leaders rushed to Ukraine's support.
"We have not forgotten our commitments to you. Nor shall we do so," said British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who flew to Kiev last week. U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney is expected to visit in September.
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EU fears Russia may target Ukraine after Georgia
Kyiv Post
Aug 29 2008, 13:03
PARIS, Aug 27 (Reuters) - Russia might have its eye on other neighbouring countries such as Ukraine and Moldova after its armed forces stormed Georgia, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Wednesday.
Russia's armed forces overpowered Georgia's troops earlier this month after Tbilisi tried to retake control of the breakaway region of South Ossetia.
Russian troops continue to occupy parts of Georgia, and Moscow recognised South Ossetia and another rebel region of Georgia, Abkhazia, as independent states on Tuesday, prompting strong criticism from France and other Western powers.
Asked on Europe 1 radio whether Russia would now regularly choose to confront the West rather than cooperate with it, Kouchner said: "That is not impossible."
"I repeat that it is very dangerous, and there are other objectives that one can suppose are objectives for Russia, in particular the Crimea, Ukraine and Moldova," said Kouchner, whose country holds the European Union's rotating presidency.
EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said the EU should signal clearly its support for Ukraine's efforts to join the bloc in the light of a possible threat from Russia.
""Ukraine could be the next political pressure point for Russia...Therefore it is important from a stability point of view to send a positive signal that it is possible for Ukraine to progress towards the Union," Rehn said in Helsinki.
RUSSIAN ANGER
EU leaders are due to hold a long-scheduled summit with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko on September 9 in the French Alpine town of Evian.
Like Georgia, Ukraine has a pro-Western president who wants his country to join NATO, a move away from Moscow's sphere of influence which has angered the Kremlin. It also has a large Russian-speaking population, but is much bigger than Georgia.
The Crimea, in southern Ukraine, hosts Russia's Black Sea fleet at the port of Sevastopol under a lease that runs until 2017, and most people who live there are ethnic Russians.
Yushchenko has angered Moscow by suggesting Kiev may not renew the lease.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned another former Soviet republic, Moldova, on Monday not to make the same mistake as Georgia by trying to seize back control of its breakaway pro-Russian region, Transdniestria.
The 27-nation EU is holding an emergency summit next Monday and is still considering how best to respond to Russia's actions in the conflict and to its decision to recognise Georgia's rebel regions.
EU envoys on Tuesday asked planners to look at options for a civilian monitoring mission in Georgia, but agreed it would be premature to send armed peacekeepers into the region.
"However that would not be ruled out as part of a global settlement in accord with the United Nations," said one diplomat. Any such settlement could be difficult if it needed the backing of the Security Council where Russia has a veto.
