2013 Back in the USSR: The Rise and Demise of the Eurasian Union CASEY MICHEL FOR CENTRAL EURASIA STANDARD OCTOBER 2013 In the mid-2000s, after the Orange Revolution reignited the push for democracy in
Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin elucidated what has gradually become his guiding
principle among former Soviet states. Speaking to reporters, Putin observed that, in his opinion,
“The collapse of the Soviet Union was the biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”1
While there are a wealth of counterfactuals for this claim – either World War, or Vietnam’s
twenty-year insurgency, or the ossification of African and South Asian colonialism – Putin’s
point carried a certain poignancy, and an arguable truth. Coming but a few years after the postSoviet sphere experienced the 1998 ruble crisis, the 1999 Tashkent bombings, and the close of
the Tajikistani Civil War, to say nothing of the economic stall desiccating Ukraine, Moldova,
Belarus, and Kazakhstan, Putin’s commentary arrived at an opportune time. However, while his
thought may have been limned with supporting arguments, his sentiment revealed not an
interpretation on the past, but a notion for the future. As the Kremlin’s authoritarianism
consolidates, and while the nascent democratic movements within Kazakhstan and Belarus
remain tamped out, it appears Putin has entered his third term with a lone, over-arching goal: the
reformation of a resurrected, Russo-centric Soviet Union. Such idea would arrive in the guise of
the Eurasian Union, a grouping to wrap former satellites and colonial outposts once more into
Moscow’s orbit. However, fourteen months from the date set for the Eurasian Union’s launch, it
grows readily apparent that the Eurasian Union will not simply fail to approach the breadth and
boon provided for citizens within the Soviet Union, but that the union may falter before it can
even begin. Kazakhstani nationalism, economic imbalance, and Chinese encroachment all
threaten Putin’s project – but the greatest threat to the Eurasian Union’s feasibility remains, as it
1
Claire Bigg, “World: Was Soviet Collapse Last Century’s Worst Geopolitical Catastrophe?” Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty, 29 April 2005, http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1058688.html (accessed 13 Oct. 2013).
Page | 1 always has, the direction of Ukraine. Not only is Ukraine the second-largest post-Soviet market,
but the cultural and historic links between Kiev and Moscow remains, at least for the latter, an
unassailable reality.2 As James Sherr wrote, “Russia is unlikely to reemerge as the dominant
factor in Central or southeastern Europe unless it reincorporates Ukraine into a Russian empire.”3
Moreover, without Ukraine, The National Interest notes, “The Eurasian Union is an unattainable
dream for Mr. Putin.”4 And as we move toward November’s Association Agreement signing
between Ukraine and the European Union, it appears more and more likely that the Eurasian
Union will be forced to stumble on without Ukraine as a member, and will thus see its current
ills that much more pointed, and that much more pronounced.
The Eurasian Union, to be sure, is not the first attempt at consolidation of the non-Baltic
post-Soviet space. With the Soviet Union remaining extant in mid-1991, Mikhail Gorbachev
attempted to coordinate a successor Union between nine of the remaining Soviet republics,
retaining delimited power as the nominal head. However, the aborted August 1991 coup negated
any attempt at flushing a further union of the Soviet state, effectively crumbling one of the
world’s two superpowers. During the Belavezha summit in late 1991, in which Russia’s Boris
Yeltsin, Belarus’s Stanislav Shushkevich, and Ukraine’s Leonid Kravchuk consigned the USSR
to history, Ukraine forestalled any further Slavic union – setting a pattern of independence the
state has since maintained.5 Indeed, it was Ukraine’s marked ability to stall any development
within the subsequent Commonwealth of Independent States –Yeltsin’s foremost attempt at postSoviet consolidation – which helped keep the CIS impotent in political, security, and economic
2
As President Vladimir Putin recently observed, “[Ukraine and Russia] are one people [narod].”
James Sherr, “Ukrainian Security Policy: The Relationship between Domestic and External Factors,” XX, 246.
4
Anton Barbashin and Hannah Thoburn, “The Kremlin’s Collapsing Eurasian Sandcastle,” The National Interest,
11 Sept. 2013, http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/the-kremlins-collapsing-eurasian-sandcastle-9042 (accessed
13 Oct. 2013).
5
Roman Solchanyk, Ukraine and Russia: The Post-Soviet Transition (New York: Bowman & Littlefield, 2000), 63.
3
Page | 2 spheres.6 While Belarus and the Caucasian and Central Asian states, outside of Georgia and
Uzbekistan, have largely remained receptive to Moscow-led internationalization, it is Ukraine
that has remained at a diplomatic distance, foreswearing allegiance to Moscow’s inventions and
opting for retention of independence from the country’s former colonizer. Thus, attempts at
restructuring the Soviet Union have fallen largely flat.
However, despite the historic track record of failed post-Soviet initiatives – see the
inefficacy of the CIS, or the failed security initiatives of the Collective Security Treaty
Organization7 – Putin has attempted to steer this Eurasian Union in a different tack, and has
managed to convince both Belarus and Kazakhstan to entrench themselves firmly in such a plan.
Interestingly, the original notion of a Eurasian Union came not from Moscow but from
Kazakhstani President Nursultan Nazarbayev, in 1994.8 Of course, with its massed Russian
populations in northern Kazakhstan – the country entered its independence as the only Soviet
republic in which the nominal ethnicity was a minority in its own country – Nazarbayev’s
statements were as much an appeal to economic salience as an attempt to tamp the nationalistic
bursts seen near Petropavlovsk and Pavlodar. (It is a testament to Nazarbayev’s diplomatic
maneuverings that Kazakhstan has retained its territorial integrity – made all the more difficult
with luminaries such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn calling for Russian annexation of northern
Kazakhstan.9) Thus, it came as little surprise that the path toward the Eurasian Union involves
Russia and Kazakhstan, as well as Belarus, for whom Russia is its lone ally and main benefactor.
Moreover, the three states have retained comparable governing strategies. None have ever
6
Ibid.
Vadim Kozyulin, “Uzbekistan Leaves CSTO: What Next?” PIR Center, 2 July 2012,
http://pircenter.org/en/news/2259-uzbekistan-leaves-csto-what-next (accessed 9 Sept. 2013).
8
Olga Shumylo-Tapiola, “The Eurasian Customs Union: Friend or Foe of the EU?” Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, http://carnegieendowment.org/2012/10/03/eurasian-customs-union-friend-or-foe-of-eu/dyir#
(accessed 13 Oct. 2013).
9
Anatoly M. Khazanov, After the USSR: Ethnicity, Nationalism and Politics in the Commonwealth of Independent
States (University of Wisconsin: London, 1995), 168.
7
Page | 3 experienced a national election found free and fair by reputable election monitors; none maintain
a pluralistic media market; none feature a thriving democratic movement, or anything
approaching critique of leadership structure. Alexander Lukashenko is widely reputed as “the
last dictator of Europe,”10 having remained in power for nearly two decades, and Nazarbayev,
according to EurasiaNet, has finally managed to cull any stabs at democratic development.11
Putin, meanwhile, has transformed Yeltsin’s initial attempts at political pluralism to a “managed
democracy” methodology, appointing regional officials, falsifying electoral results, and
maintaining state- and siloviki-based control, through select usage of coercion and kompromat, of
resource-based industry.12 The parties comprising the Eurasian Union, as has become readily
apparent over the previous decade, present autocratic and stultified attempts at population and
economic management.
The Eurasian Union appears a natural fit for the three autocracies, presenting political
reinforcement and eased access to management principle and justification. The unified voices, to
populations both domestic and exogenous, appear, theoretically, that much stronger. However,
the formation of the Eurasian Union stands not simply as a political fortification for the neoBrezhnevist approaches employed by Nazarbayev, Putin, and Lukashenko; the nominal reason
for its formation remains, indeed, economic. While the Eurasian Union has not yet unfurled in
technical approach, the three countries currently employ a Customs Union to serve as a precursor
to the political union. Decreased tariffs, free-trade zones, liberalized visa regimes – the Customs
10
Brian Bennett, “The Last Dictatorship in Europe: Belarus Under Lukashenko,” Foreign Affairs, Sept./Oct. 2012,
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/135272/brian-bennett/the-last-dictatorship-in-europe-belarus-underlukashenko (accessed 9 Oct. 2013).
11
Joanna Lillis, “Kazakhstan: Is Opposition Politics Officially Dead?” EurasiaNet, 19 Sept. 2013,
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/67522 (accessed 13 Sept. 2013).
12
Nikolay Petrov and Michael McFaul, “The Essence of Putin’s Managed Democracy,” 18 Oct. 2005,
http://carnegieendowment.org/2005/10/18/essence-of-putin-s-managed-democracy/1ul9 (accessed 9 Oct. 2013)
Page | 4 Union arose in purported interest of easing economic integration of the three nations.13 (The first
attempt at this union arose in 2003, when “President Putin tried to integrate Ukraine into a new
Single Economic Space” alongside the three other member-states, with the SES serving as
precursor to the eventual Customs Union. As before, Ukraine prevaricated, accepting “no …
more than a free trade area.”14) After the Customs Union came into existence on Jan. 1, 2012, the
three states have agreed to dozens of economic agreements pertaining to both capital and labor.
Moreover, the Customs Union, in Feb. 2012, also oversaw the creation of a new regulatory body,
with the Eurasian Economic Commission standing “responsible for the implementation of the
agreements” within the Customs Union.15
To be sure, there have been tangible economic benefits to the recent formation of the
Customs Union. According to the Carnegie Endowment, “trade within the union amounted to
$62.7 billion in 2011 … a 32 percent increase over the previous year.”16 Likewise, per Moscow,
“borders between the customs union members have been eliminated,”17 easing travel and
vocational access for cross-border nationals and migrant workers. Mirroring itself on the EU’s
Schengen Zone, Moscow has hoped that the Customs Union’s ease of travel will serve as appeal
not simply to those within the country, but also to those remaining on the periphery – especially
Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, and Tajikistan, nations in which a plurality of GDP comes from
13
Rilka Dragneva and Kataryna Wolczuk, “Russia, the Eurasian Customs Union, and the EU: Cooperation,
Stagnation or Rivalry” Chatham House, August 2012,
http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/Research/Russia%20and%20Eurasia/0812bp_dragnevawolc
zuk.pdf (accessed 13 Oct. 2013).
14
Barbashin Hannah Thoburn, “The Kremlin’s Collapsing Eurasian Sandcastle.”
15
Shumylo-Tapiola, “The Eurasian Customs Union: Friend or Foe of the EU?”
16
Ibid.
17
Ibid.
Page | 5 remittances from migrant workers, almost all of whom opt to work in either Russia or
Kazakhstan.18
Still, much as remained reality during the Soviet period, Russia once more seems to stand
as a first among equals. As has become apparent over the past 22 months, the formation of the
Customs Union – and the eventual creation of the Eurasian Union – was slanted to favor Russia,
rather than an equitable, tripartite approach to the situation. As the lone member of the World
Trade Organization in the Customs Union, Russia has been able to all but dictate terms of the
common external tariff. Likewise, while the three nations agreed to share a joint account for
customs revenues, Russia retains a remarkable 87.97 percent of such funding, with only 7.33
percent heading to Kazakhstan and 4.70 percent going toward Belarus. It also remains to be seen
if the latter will see the benefits as a transit route promised by the Customs Union’s formation,
and stands likely that Belarus will have to pay a far higher proportion for improving its sanitary
and phyto-sanitary standards.19 But no nation has struggled as much with the Customs Union as
Kazakhstan. The country’s foremost concern stems from its inability to join the WTO; while
Astana was on track to join the organization in 2013, adjustments dictated by the Customs
Unions have forced the final country’s final WTO membership until at least 2014, if not beyond.
As Chatham House noted in its overview of the Eurasian Union, “The WTO looms large over the
[Customs Union]”20 – a reality made all the starker by the fact that Russia opted to join the WTO
as an individual entity, rather than as part of the Customs Union bloc as originally proposed.
Nazarbayev hasn’t avoided the topic, either; as he recently noted in Minsk, “Kazakhstan's WTO
18
“Developing Countries to Receive Over $410 Billion in Remittances in 2013, Says World Bank” The World Bank,
2 Oct. 2013, http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2013/10/02/developing-countries-remittances-2013world-bank (accessed 2 Oct. 2013).
19
Dragneva and Wolczuk, “Russia, the Eurasian Customs Union, and the EU: Cooperation, Stagnation or Rivalry.”
20
Ibid.
Page | 6 accession is a very serious issue. … They insist we join from the positions we defended before
joining the Customs Union. In this case we will have a problem with the Customs Union in
Kazakhstan.”
Price hikes and inflation have also hampered Kazakhstan’s burgeoning economy, and
while the Customs Union allowed exports to Russia to grow by 40 percent from 2010-2012,
Russia also increased its exports to Kazakhstan by 55 percent in the same time period.
Kazakhstan’s 2012 trade imbalance with Belarus stood even starker, with Astana importing
nearly six times as much net product from Minsk as it exported. According to a 2012 World
Bank report, Kazakhstan lost “about 0.2 percent in real income per year as a result of
participation in the [Customs Union],” due to increasing external tariffs, which jumped on
average nearly 50 percent. “Consequently,” the report continues,
we estimate that the [Customs Union] has depressed real wages by 0.5% and depressed
the real return on capital in Kazakhstan by 0.6%. Kazakhstan trades less with the rest of
the world and more with Russia, Belarus, and the rest of the CIS, resulting in less
imported technology from the more technologically advanced European Union and other
countries – leading to a loss of productivity gains in the long run.21
Clearly, for Kazakhstan, the Customs Union thus far has been a net loss economically. While
Putin’s economic and security support has benefitted Nazarbayev’s continued consolidation of
power – especially following both the country’s 2010 OSCE chairmanshipand the 2011
21
“Kazakhstan in the Customs Union: Losses or Gains?” World Bank, 18 April 2012,
http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2012/04/18/kazakhstan-in-the-customs-union-losses-or-gains (accessed
13 Oct. 2012).
Page | 7 Zhanaozen massacre, as a new International Crisis Group report states22 – it is clear that the most
dynamic economy in Central Asia is suffering due to the formation of the Customs Union.
And it’s not as if this economic malaise hasn’t gone unnoticed. As recently reported,
Kazakhstani nationalism, long a latent force in the country, has seen a recent uptick due to the
Customs Union’s formation (and coming in conjunction with increasing Russian xenophobia
toward Caucasians and Central Asians23). “In Kazakhstan, the topic of the Customs Union has
turned into a symbol of Russia and all that is Russian,” said Vasiliy Misnik, who works with an
Almaty think-tank.24 Added Mukhtar Tayzhan, a noted Kazakh nationalist, the Customs Union
“is like letting a [Kazakh] schoolboy and a [Russian] professional boxer into the ring.”25
Nazarbayev has reassured the populace that no political power will be ceded to the Customs
Union – but as the ICG report made clear, Nazarbayev will only remain in power for so much
longer. Reports of colon-based surgeries over the past two years have called Nazarbayev’s health
into question26, and the opacity of the impending transition process will only enflame the
questions on the country’s economic and political future than much more, especially with the
recent sacking of son-in-law Timur Kulibayev, Nazarbayev’s purported heir, from the head of
the country’s sovereign-wealth fund.27 The same can also be said for the country’s currency
regime: While Nazarbayev staked much of his entire reputation on the formation and success of
22
“Kazakhstan: Waiting for Change,” International Crisis Group, 30 Sept. 2013,
http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/asia/central-asia/kazakhstan/250-kazakhstan-waiting-for-change.pdf
(accessed 30 Sept. 2013).
23
Maria Antonova, “Moscow polls expose growing xenophobia in Russia,” Agence France-Presse, 6 Sept. 2013,
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hurv0262sYnWCBh_dhEAXUiVVPg?docId=CNG.a5f0056bfe7ea58b5b941ab94abf40a8.651 (accessed 9 Oct. 2013)
24
Joanna Lillis, “Kazakhstan: Debating the Fruits of the Customs Union,” EurasiaNet, 11 Oct. 2013,
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/67622 (accessed 11 Oct. 2011).
25
Ibid.
26
Andrew Kramer, “Kazakh Chief Is Said to Be in Germany After Surgery,” New York Times, 20 July 2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/21/world/asia/21kazakhstan.html?_r=0 (accessed 9 Oct. 2013)
27
Robin Paxton, “ANALYSIS-Kazakh leader reinforces power with oil sackings,” Reuters, 23 Dec. 2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/23/kazakhstan-succession-idAFL6E7NN0QP20111223 (accessed 9 Oct.
2013).
Page | 8 the Kazakhstani currency, the tenge, the president’s successor may feel no such attachment to the
tenge – or to the independent tack Nazarbayev has massaged over the past two decades.
As if the country’s forthcoming political transition didn’t craft enough questions on the
matter of the Eurasian Union, recent Chinese inroads have strained Kazakhstani-Russian
relations all the more. Not only is China far and away Kazakhstan’s largest energy benefactor –
President Xi’s recent Central Asian swing all but solidified Beijing as the main economic force
in Central Asia,28 with reports staking that China maintains ownership and maintenance of nearly
50 percent of Astana’s crude oil29 – but the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in
Bishkek solidified the Chinese directive in the region.30 While China seems momentarily willing
to acquiesce to Russian security demands in the region, with Moscow extending military
contracts in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, Beijing’s growing economic hegemony in the region will
only continue to threaten Russia’s hold, and the Eurasian Union’s future. As it is, China seems to
express little concern within the economic components of the Eurasian Union’s formation.
However, as Putin’s Customs Union continues to chip away at Kazakh sympathies for its
northern neighbor, the appeal of Chinese economic clout will only grow that much stronger
within Kazakhstan – a further boon to the multi-vector policy, much like the one in Kyiv,
employed in Astana.
Before turning to Ukraine, it is worth noting that the Customs Union’s recent expansions
have, while adding momentum to the Eurasian Union’s continuing development, presented even
more obstacles than they may otherwise abnegate. Kyrgyzstan, for instance, has maintained that
28
“Xi builds up power in Central Asia,” Radio Free Asia, 2 Oct. 2013,
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/CBIZ-01-021013.html (accessed 9 Oct. 2013).
29
Georgiy Voloshin, “Kazakhstan looks favorably on Chinese campaign for Central Asian oil,” Global Times, 5
June 2013, http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/23/kazakhstan-succession-idAFL6E7NN0QP20111223
(accessed 9 Oct. 2013).
30
“Eurasian Leaders Gather for SCO Summit in Bishkek,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 12 Sept. 2013,
http://www.rferl.org/contentlive/shanghai-cooperation-organization-sco-putin-rohani-bishkekliveblog/25104471.html (accessed 13 Sept. 2013).
Page | 9 it is willing to join the forthcoming Eurasian Union, but the difficulties the country has
encountered in terms of passing the necessary road-map have highlighted the political schisms –
having already undergone a pair of revolutions in the past eight years – running rampant in
Bishkek, and between the country’s northern and southern regions.31 Likewise, many in the
country fear that joining “the Customs Union … could kill [Kyrgyzstan’s] shuttle trade
altogether[.]”This shuttle trade, consisting of small-scale cross-border exchange, was, according
to an economist at Bishkek’s University of Central Asia, recently worth “almost twice
Kyrgyzstan’s GDP.”32 Tajikistan has also announced its intention to join the Customs Union,
though much of that enthusiasm, presumably, was predicated on the security Russia’s 201st
Division provides, as well as the support Putin will lend President Emomali Rakhmon during the
November presidential election.33 That being said, it can also be argued that Tajikistan and
Kyrgyzstan have little option but to bend to Moscow’s will in joining the Customs Union –
according to the World Bank, the nations boast the two highest remittance-to-GDP ratios in the
world, at 48 percent and 31 percent, respectively.34 Armenia presents a similar path: When
Russia jumped military expenditures in Azerbaijan in 2013, Yerevan reversed tack from
initialing the EU’s Association Agreement and instead announced in early September that it
would join the Customs Union.35 But while Putin presented Armenia President Serzh Sargsyan’s
support as evidence of the Customs Union’s appeal, he likewise punted any immediate potential
of wooing Azerbaijan, whose oil wealth presents far more appeal to Moscow than anything
31
Chris Rickleton, “Kyrgyzstan: Is Bishkek Stalling on Customs Union?” EurasiaNet, 17 Sept. 2013,
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/67510 (accessed 9 Oct. 2013).
32
Ibid.
33
“Russian Army Base Deal with Tajikistan Key to Regional Security – Lawmaker” RIA Novosti, 7 Oct. 2013,
https://www.google.com/search?q=russia's+201st+tajikistan&oq=russia's+201st+tajikistan&aqs=chrome.0.57j62.65
15j0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 (accessed 7 Oct. 2013).
34
“Developing Countries to Receive Over $410 Billion in Remittances in 2013, Says World Bank” The World Bank.
35
“Armenia says will join Russia-led customs union,” 3 Sept. 2013, http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/03/usarmenia-russia-customsunion-idUSBRE9820U520130903 (accessed 9 Oct. 2013).
Page | 10 Armenia currently provide. Furthermore, the more Azerbaijan witnesses the methods Russia
employs to woo Ukraine, the less likely Baku will be to cede power, if not economic
sovereignty, back to Moscow.
Indeed, Russia’s recent treatment of Ukraine presents a striking example of the form of
external politics the forthcoming Eurasian Union will employ in the geopolitical arena – a path
of intransigence, of belligerence, of strong-arm sticks and scant good-faith effort. The recent
economic blockade of Ukraine’s Roshen chocolates,36 for instance, parallels recent blockades of
Moldovan wine,37 Lithuanian dairy,38 and Dutch tulips.39 (Kazakhstan also recently barred
Ukrainian poultry, tying its economic blockade to Russia’s.40) Rospotrebnadzor, Russia’s
consumer standards agency, hasn’t simply blithely and obliquely barred Ukrainian-produced
Roshen from entering its markets, but, according to Ukrainian officials, Rospotrebnadzor’s
inspectors have likewise stalled their promised inspections.41 It has become, per Georgetown
Adjunct Professor Anders Aslund, a “trade war.” As Aslund wrote,
On July 24–25, the Russian Customs Committee labeled 40 large Ukrainian companies as
“risky,” subjecting them to minute checks. On July 27–28, Putin went to Ukraine
to celebrate the 1025th anniversary of the christening of Kievan Rus and refused to talk
to Yanukovych, even while standing beside him. … On August 14, Russian customs
36
Akhmed Rakhmanov, “Ukraine, Russia battle in chocolate war,” 23 Sept. 2013,
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/813326.shtml#.UlwP3zuceSo (accessed 9 Oct. 2013).
37
“Russia, unhappy with Moldova’s EU drive, bans its wine and spirits,” 10 Sept. 2013,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/10/us-moldova-russia-wine-idUSBRE98916M20130910 (accessed 9 Oct.
2013).
38
“Russia Suspends Dairy Imports From Lithuania,” 7 Oct. 2013, http://www.rferl.org/content/russia-lithuaniatrade-dairy-ban/25128943.html (accessed 9 Oct. 2013).
39
Adam Taylor, “The Tense Backstory to Russia’s Proposed Ban on Dutch Tulips,” 9 Oct. 2013,
http://www.businessinsider.com/russias-proposed-ban-on-dutch-tulips-2013-10 (accessed 9 Oct. 2013)
40
“Kazakhstan Bars Ukraine Poultry Imports – Interfax,” Wall Street Journal, 20 Aug. 2013
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20130820-703826.html (accessed 9 Oct. 2013).
41
“Ukraine wants to ask Russia to accelerate arrival of Rospotrebnadzor’s inspectors to check labs and companies,”
9 Oct. 2013, http://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/169814.html (accessed 9 Oct. 2013).
Page | 11 authorities classed all Ukrainian producers as “high risk,” which subjected all their
deliveries to onerous checks, thus barring most Ukrainian imports from Russia. 42
While Gennady Onishchenko, previously charged with spearing these blockades, was recently
relieved of his duties, there’s been little economic shift between Russia and Ukraine, with
Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov saying that trade between the two nations having
recently dropped 25 percent . The more serious threats, however, stemmed not from increased
border checks or even the foreswearing of continued interaction with the Customs Union – and
potentially a consequent default43 – but, rather, from presidential aide Sergei Glazyev. Not only
was Glazyev the purported author of a leaked memo detailing the “large number of economic
and political subversive measures that Russia could undertake,”44 but, in late September,
Glazyev also noted that the ethnic Russians of eastern and southern Ukraine will likely have
legitimate grievances if Ukraine signs November’s Association Agreement. As The Guardian
reported, Glazyev observed that “Russia could no longer guarantee Ukraine's status as a state and
could possibly intervene if pro-Russian regions of the country appealed directly to Moscow.”45
Treatments of chocolate and overland traffic is one thing – threatening the purported protection
of nationals, as was staked in the Georgian incursion in 2008, presents a marked ratcheting of the
Kremlin’s hostility.
Such economic belligerence, unfortunately, has become all too constant within the
Kremlin’s approach following the beginning of Putin’s third term. But while the treatment of
Moldovan pinot noir and Lithuanian cheese stands as pure antagonism, the recent threats and
42
Anders Aslund, “Ukraine’s Choice: European Association Agreement or Eurasian Union?” Peterson Institute for
International Economics, Sept. 2013, http://www.piie.com/publications/pb/pb13-22.pdf (accessed 9 Oct. 2013)
43
Roman Olearchyk, “Russia adds pressure to Ukraine with predictions of default,” 23 Sept. 2013,
http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2013/09/23/russia-adds-pressure-to-ukraine-with-predictions-of-default/ (accessed
9 Oct. 2013).
44
Aslund, “Ukraine’s Choice: European Association Agreement or Eurasian Union?”
45
Shaun Walker, “Ukraine’s EU trade deal will be catastrophic, says Russia,” 22 Sept. 2013,
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/22/ukraine-european-union-trade-russia (accessed 21 Sept. 2013).
Page | 12 moves against Ukraine seem to stem from something deeper, and reek that much more of
desperation. As Rutgers Professor Alexander Motyl observed, “Russia is going to lose out if the
Association Agreement is signed, because Ukraine will be further embedded into the west. This
will be a disaster for the [Moscow-led] Eurasian Customs Union, because they’re mutually
exclusive.”46 Non-Ukrainian experts also note that, “For Putin, [Ukraine’s] move [toward
Brussels] threatens to wreck dreams of a continent-spanning economic bloc to rival the European
Union.”47 And while the purpose of this paper is not to observe how or why Ukraine has come to
the seeming decision to sign the Association Agreement rather than any accession into the
Customs Union, it is worth noting that, in but a cursory glimpse of the treatment Russia has
offered Ukraine over the prior two decades, Moscow has no one to blame but itself if and when
Ukraine moves closer to the EU, and further from the Eurasian Union.48 Much like Russia’s
failure to wrap Ukraine more firmly into the CIS, Moscow’s prior and current treatment of Kyiv
– the diplomatic condescension, the economic aggression – has all but guaranteed that Ukraine
will move toward Europe. As Yaroslav Bilinsky wrote,
Over the years, the objectives of Russian foreign policy toward Ukraine, whether
expressed in the Lukin Doctrine … the harsh Surikov Report … or the seemingly more
moderate Karaganov Report … have become rather clear: to destabilize Ukraine by
46
Tom Washington and Andrey Biryukov, “Russia sees diminishing influence in Ukraine,” 9 Oct. 2013,
http://interfaxenergy.com/natural-gas-news-analysis/russia-and-the-caspian/russia-sees-diminishing-influence-inukraine/ (accessed 9 Oct. 2013).
47
Stepan Kravchenko and Daryna Krasnolutska, “Putin Leads Assault on Ukraine Favoring EU Over Russian Ties”
BloombergBusinessweek, 11 Oct. 2013, http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-10-10/putin-mounts-assault-onukraine-favoring-eu-link-over-russia-tie (accessed 11 Oct. 2013).
48
“By upping the ante and revealing his intentions, Putin has done everyone, and especially Europe, a great service,”
wrote Motyl. “Ask yourself this question: Will the human and civil rights of Ukraine’s 40 million–plus citizens be
better off with or without the agreement, inside or outside the EU’s front yard? The answer should be obvious. The
agreement will provide Ukrainians with a certain cover, a shield against the predations of the Yanukovych regime.
No agreement, in contrast, will mean both the absence of such a shield and, far worse, Ukraine’s likely drift into the
Putin-dominated Customs Union, where human and civil rights are violated as a matter of course.” “The EU Faces
Ukrainian Integration and History,” World Affairs, 27 Sept. 2013,
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/alexander-j-motyl/eu-faces-ukrainian-integration-and-history (accessed 27
Sept. 2013).
Page | 13 economic, political and diplomatic, but not necessarily military, means, and to force its
government to actually surrender Ukrainian independence to a Russian-dominated new
[organization], which has already been accomplished in Belarus through Lukashenko.49
While Bilinsky was writing about the CIS at the time, such passage can also thread the recent
narrative about Moscow’s attempts at forcing Ukraine into its orbit.50 It is a method that, as the
Carnegie Endowment reported, has turned “[t]he atmosphere within the [Customs Union] …
tense.”51 Russia’s recent intransigence – relying on coercion rather than base appeal – has only
heightened that tension. And while Belarus, despite recent flares over potash and oligarchs,
remains firmly in Moscow’s camp, the aggression recently displayed will only deter those
remaining outside the Customs Union’s camp, such as Moldova and Ukraine, and turn them that
much more leery of moving back toward the former Soviet center.
Indeed, as Ukraine moves further toward Brussels – with the status of Yulia Tymoshenko
remaining the lone obstacle to further cohesion – perhaps the largest question standing pertains
not simply to the Eurasian Union’s growth, but to its wholesale feasibility. The European Union,
for all of its myriad issues, rests upon decades of experience and expertise, helmed by the finest
economists and political scientists Europe has seen over the past five decades. The Eurasian
Union, meanwhile, stems as the brainchild from a man whose background lies within the KGB,
and whose mantra is all the more reflected in recent treatment of Ukraine, Moldova, and the
Caucasus. Moreover, as the economics of the Customs Union come to light, and compound upon
themselves, it’s clear that Kazakhstan, the most dynamic and promising economy within the
forthcoming Eurasian Union, has come out on the short end of the agreement. As nationalistic
49
Yaroslav Bilinsky, Endgame in NATO’s Enlargement: The Baltic States and Ukraine, (Santa Barbara: Praeger,
1999), 37.
50
As Bilinsky added, “The absolutely last thing Russia wants is Ukraine’s effective entry into European political
and security structures, such as the EU and NATO” (30).
51
Shumylo-Tapiola, “The Eurasian Customs Union: Friend or Foe of the EU?”
Page | 14 impulse spikes, and as China continues its highly successful fiscal approach in the region,
Kazakhstan will likely further question its participation in such a customs regime. (The recent,
massive race riots in Moscow will likewise present pause among large swaths of Kazakhs.52)
And questions, moreover, are made all the starker when the country transitions from the Eurasiacentered Nazarbayev leadership to someone entirely different.
The impact of Kazakhstan’s relationship to the Eurasian Union, however, will pale
relative to the importance of Ukraine’s relationship therein. In observing the relations between
Kyiv and Moscow, Michael Mandelbaum wrote, “If Moscow absorbed Ukraine or attempted to
do so, Russia would again become a multinational empire, harboring a large, resentful subject
nation with poor prospects for construction of a stable [democracy].”53 Fortunately, the
likelihood of Russia’s absorption continues to wane, with Putin seemingly unable to resort to
anything other than punishment and coercion in treatment of Ukraine. As such, and as Brussels
and the International Monetary Fund partner to aid the economic integration of Ukraine into the
EU54, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych marches that much closer toward the West. And
the EU is that much better for it. As Lancelot Lawton wrote at the outset of World War II, “On
the solution of the Ukrainian problem will depend the fate of Europe.”55 Nearly 75 years later,
the sentiment remains. With Ukraine, Russia reclaims the plurality of its lost empire, and Europe
suffers all the more. But in wrapping Ukraine into the European Union, Brussels can preclude
the resurgence of Moscow’s imperial ambitions, both economic and territorial – and Ukraine can
finally rejoin the European community it has gone centuries without.
52
Dmitry Zaks, “Hundreds held after Moscow rocked by race rioting,” 14 Oct. 2013,
http://news.yahoo.com/thousands-riot-russia-over-migrant-blamed-murder-184024928.html (accessed 14 Oct. 2013)
53
Yuri Shcherbak, The Strategic Role of Ukraine, (Cambridge: Harvard, 1997), 4.
54
Katya Gorchinskaya, “Ukraine can get EU cash if it secures IMF loan,” Kyiv Post, 2 Oct. 2013,
http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/ukraine-can-get-eu-cash-if-it-secures-imf-loan-330031.html (accessed 9
Oct. 2013)
55
Yuri Shcherbak, The Strategic Role of Ukraine, (Cambridge: Harvard, 1997), 3.
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