Voice of Russia
December 14, 2013
Nuland’s cookies as illustration of West’s ‘policy of non-interference’ in Ukraine
Andrei Smirnov, Igor Siletsky
Moscow has urged the European Union not to interfere in the situation in Ukraine on the belief that the Ukrainians should themselves decide on the path they want to follow in the future. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has pointed out that the appearance of European and US politicians at the Kiev-held rallies amounts to heavy-handed interference in the affairs of the sovereign state. But signs are the West hates to reconcile with the fact that President Yanukovych has chosen not to sign an Association Agreement with the European Union. Kiev and Brussels have since sent signals that they will nonetheless sign the agreement during the next EU summit in 2014. The Voice of Russia experts have offered forecasts for the way the situation may develop.
Russian officials keep insisting that it is for Kiev to decide what countries it wants to get closer to. Moscow will accept any choice of Ukraine’s. President Vladimir Putin reiterated this stand of Russia’s when delivering his annual state-of-the-nation address to the Federal Assembly recently.
“We never dictate any terms to anyone. But if our friends feel like working together, we are prepared to go ahead with the effort at the expert level. Russia’s integration project is based on equality and valid economic interests. We will consistently advance the Eurasian process without ever trying to oppose other integration projects, including such a mature project as the European one, and will act on the assumption of our mutual complementarity”.
But the West has unfortunately proved impervious to the voice of reason, which follows from what we’ve seen in recent decades. Now Brussels has also accused Moscow of what the European Union itself has been engaged in, in Ukraine. The European Parliament drafted a resolution earlier this week, claiming that Russia is bringing unacceptable pressure to bear on Kiev. The resolution urges the EU countries to speak with Russia with a single voice and think up moves to counter Moscow. But despite the menacing tone, the resolution will have no consequences whatsoever, says the Director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the State University – Higher School of Economics, Timofei Bordachev, and elaborates:
“All EU moves are but a purely political pressure, since this is the only way to describe EU politician s’ recent addresses to Ukraine’s opposition rallies; whereas Russia has never done anything of the kind. Moscow has only given Kiev to understand that any Russian-Ukrainian free trade area would be impossible if Ukraine set up a free trade zone with the European Union”.
The recent handing-out of buns and cookies to protesters by the US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Victoria Nuland, has become a graphic illustration of the West’s “policy of non-interference”. First, she shook hands with and embraced the demonstrators and only then left for a meeting with President Yanukovych, whom she lectured for a couple of hours on the poor treatment of the opposition. Actually, any foreign politician who should be freaky enough to opt for this kind of itinerary would be just kept out of the president’s residence in Washington or any European capital.
The EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, proved more diplomatic and abstained from handing out rolls, but the Ukrainian leader also heard a lot of uncomplimentary comments on his home policy from her. Meanwhile, according to reports from Brussels, EU officials still hope to sign an EU-Ukraine association agreement during the forthcoming EU-Ukraine summit next year.
One shouldn’t be surprised if unrest comes up with a bang again as a result of provocations or backstage negotiations between western geo-politicians and the Ukrainian opposition, warns Deputy Director of the Centre for Ukrainian and Belarusian Studies at the Lomonosov Moscow State University, Bogdan Bezpalko, and elaborates:
“US and EU politicians have been overtly interfering in Ukrainian affairs, bringing huge pressure to bear on Victor Yanukovych in a most ostentatious way. I have seen this in numerous TV reports”.
But experts feel that the ongoing wave of protests will start subsiding sooner or later despite visits by US and EU politicians to Kiev. The opposition is running out of ideas of how they could boost the morale of protesters.
President Yanukovych, for his part, called, during his Friday’s meeting with the opposition, for ending the street protests and holding a detailed discussion in parliament of all the risks of EU integration, although he admitted that European integration has no alternative.
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