Moscow
16 April 2008
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has protested a series of recent statements by senior Russian officials that appear to threaten the integrity and security of Ukraine. VOA Moscow Correspondent Peter Fedynsky reports the statements may be unintentionally consolidating Ukrainian resolve against Russia.
Nikonov urges people to remember what President Putin actually said; that if Americans deploy front-line missile forces on Ukrainian territory, then Russia will retarget its missiles. Nikonov notes the Russian president did not say retargeting will occur if Ukraine merely joins NATO.
Nonetheless, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry recently issued a protest against high level Russian statements characterized as openly anti-Ukrainian, which question Ukraine's territorial integrity and constitute direct interference in its domestic affairs.
An analyst at the National Institute of Strategic Studies in Kyiv, Vasyl Yablonsky, told VOA that high-level Russian threats do not represent the language of democratic European values, but rather a Russian imperial mindset that remains hesitant about the independence of Ukraine.
Yablonsky says even an innocent-sounding term like the near abroad, which Russians use to designate post-Soviet states, speaks volumes, as if those nations were not really abroad and not really nations. He adds that Moscow issues reminders that it controls post-Soviet space, where nothing is to be decided without Russia.
The Ukrainian analyst says perceived Russian threats represent a form of psychological pressure aimed at preventing Ukrainian NATO membership, but he says such statements tend to consolidate the Ukrainian nation.
A recent editorial about Ukraine in Russia's independent newspaper, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, notes that nobody likes the language of threats. It said it is not difficult to imagine what the citizens of a fraternal country feel if their neighbor openly considers ways to chop off a piece of their state.
A random passerby in Kyiv shared his feelings about the issue with VOA.
This Ukrainian asks how Russia will take Crimea from Ukraine. It is ours, he says, adding that Russia is doing Ukrainians a favor by saying such things, because they tend to rally us around our lands, and allows us to raise our spirit to protect those lands, which NATO will help us with.
Russian analyst Vyacheslav Nikonov says his country will do everything it can to avoid any precipitous actions, because they could threaten Russia's very existence. By way of example, he says he does not exclude local ethnic hostilities in Crimea, which Washington or Brussels could incorrectly interpret as Russian interference and prompt nuclear retaliation against Russia if Ukraine were to be a member of NATO.
He adds that Ukraine produced and continues to service much of Russia's strategic deterrent, which Moscow cannot do without.
For these reasons, says Nikonov, Russia will use all political means to see Ukraine become a sovereign, independent nation that does not belong to any blocs.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry protest note strikes a similar tone, saying Ukraine will use all necessary measures permitted by international law to protect its sovereignty and independence.