Sovietizing

Taras Kuzio at EDM gives some insights into the deep contradictions in the foreign policy of Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych, who has the wholehearted support of Russia's President Putin. An important part of Yanukovych's political program is devoted to "improving U.S.- Ukraine relations" - with Ukrainian troops deployed in Iraq, the most recent manifestation of this was his bringing of former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to Ukraine. However, Kuzio notes:

despite these U.S.-oriented activities, neither President Leonid Kuchma nor his chosen successor, Yanukovych, are "pro-American." Rather, they are pursuing a contradictory "multi-vector" foreign policy that combines this "pro-American" lobbying with a deep hostility toward the United States and the West.

Former Defense Minister Yevhen Marchuk has described the widespread use of anti-Americanism in the Ukrainian elections as a return to a "Cold War mentality" (bbc.co.uk/Ukrainian, November 10). Yushchenko concurs, saying, "There are ominous signs of neo-Soviet revival here" (The Guardian, October 27).

Yanukovych was represented at a November 9 National Press Club conference in Washington by Eduard Prutnyk, his adviser, and Aleksei Kiselyiov, his U.S.-based representative. When asked how they expected to improve relations with the United States while promoting Ukraine's biggest anti-American campaign since the Brezhnev era, both men blamed other candidates and disavowed any links between the campaign and Yanukovych. Stepan Havrysh, Yanukovych's representative to the Central Election Commission has made similar arguments (Wall Street Journal, October 26).

A U.S. Department of State official attending the press conference reacted with disbelief. As he pointed out, the 150 tons of anti-American posters found in Kyiv by the opposition were stored in a government-owned warehouse (see EDM, October 8). Yanukovych neither tried to block their distribution around Ukraine nor condemned their defacement of U.S. national symbols and President George W. Bush.

Such duplicity runs deep in the Yanukovych camp, as seen in four ways:

First, members of the Yanukovych government are directly involved in the anti-American campaign. Minister of Education Vasyl Kremen has revived the Brezhnev-era practice of ordering teachers to make their pupils write letters to the U.S. President complaining of "U.S. interference" (Ukrayinska pravda, October 20). These instructions build on a Soviet-style rhetoric that denounces Western criticism of rigged elections and democratic regression as "interference" in Ukraine's domestic affairs.