As Yulia Tymoshenko lost a vote of no confidence last week, the last vestiges of the Orange Revolution left the Supreme Rada with her. Viktor Yanukovych is now left with the difficult task of replacing her, but on some level he must feel relieved that he is now firmly in charge. The worst may be yet to come.
Ukraine is in a location that ensures it will always be of interest to bigger powers than itself. Sandwiched between a giant which sees the country as almost part of itself (hence the nickname ‘Little Russia’) and an EU which is obliged to leave the door open to all European countries, Ukraine is also a stakeholder in the Black Sea and close and involved enough in the Caucasus to send weapons to there, as it did during the 2008 war between Saakashvilli and Putin.
For a little while more, it will also serve as a transit route for Siberian gas on its way to heat homes and power businesses in Europe. This has guaranteed that Moscow will have an economic as well as strategic interest in Ukraine, but will soon change. The South Stream gas pipeline, due online in 2015, will bypass Ukraine and give Russia a freer hand in dealing with Kiev.
This wouldn’t restrict Ukraine so much if it had somewhere else to turn, but it doesn’t. Its economy shrank by 15% last year, which won’t exactly do much for its prospects of joining the EU. Brussels won’t ever shut the door completely, but membership, which seemed an imminent possibility when Viktor Yuschenko became President in 2005, now looks a long way off. Germany hates having to bail Greece out; it’s not going to accept a potentially worse case into the Union any time soon. A few loans will likely be forthcoming from Europe, but not in the volumes that would be required to steady the ship. Nor is the cavalry coming over the hill. The majority of country is dead against joining NATO, so there is no prospect of economic benefits as a result of becoming a US ally.
So while he won’t make the country a Russian vassal, Yanukovych will need a lot of help from Moscow. This won’t be too bitter of a pill to swallow for him; his support base is overwhelmingly in the Russian-speaking areas in the east of the country, centred on Donetsk. He speaks far better Russian than Ukrainian. But he is no agent of the Kremlin, so will seek good terms for his country.
One mechanism for achieving this could be the Customs Union of which Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan are members. Realistically, membership would cede economic control to the Kremlin to a degree, but it would also make gas cheaper, an essential factor in the recovery of heavy industry in the east of the country. Russia would be only too delighted to welcome its little brother into this club. And Ukraine has other hands to play. It could get some decent loans or subsidies if the lease on the Russian naval base in Crimea was extended. Then there is Abkhazia and South Ossetia. It cost Russia $50m to get the Pacific micronation of Nauru to recognise them, and while that payoff wouldn’t be scaled to size (if it was, Ukraine could expect to receive $1,437,209,000,000), Kiev would still reap lucrative rewards if they followed suit. The most that could be offered to Russia would be accession to the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation, but Yanukovych will avoid this if at all possible, because it would destroy any grudging acceptance he has in the west of the country.
So here’s what will happen. Yanukovych will make a few gestures, like giving the Russian language official status, retracting Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera’s Hero of Ukraine award and dropping any suggestion of ever joining NATO. Medvedev and Putin will reciprocate with some loans and investment, and small gestures will go on like this for a while. But eventually, Moscow will demand something more concrete, and in the absence of a miraculous economic recovery, Kiev will be over a barrel and obliged to provide.
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