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Insight: In Ukraine standoff, echoes of U.S.-Russia Cold War tensions
By Warren Strobel and Matt Spetalnick February 12, 2014 1:10 AM
Anti-government protesters are seen at the barricades in Kiev February 11, 2014. REUTERS/Stringer
WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - After Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Ukraine last
July, U.S. diplomats got a private recap of the message he delivered
behind closed doors to the country's leaders. Ukraine, Putin warned,
would not be allowed to stray from Moscow's orbit.
Putin's
blunt talk was an unexpected sign of how hard Moscow would fight
Western influence on Ukraine, U.S. officials say, prompting Washington
and European capitals to step up their engagement with Ukrainian
government and opposition forces.
Seven
months later, the United States and Russia are locked in a Cold
War-style test of wills over the strategically located country of 45
million that has been racked by anti-government protests and sporadic
violence.
U.S.-Russia tensions
and mutual accusations of meddling are making it more difficult to find
a solution in Ukraine, where the U.S. fears violence may escalate, and
is one of the clearest signs yet that U.S. President Barack Obama has
made scant progress improving relations with Washington's former
adversary.
In Ukraine, former
U.S. officials and analysts say, Russia holds most of the cards,
including close proximity, energy supplies that Kiev depends on and a
promised $15 billion bailout it has used to woo Ukrainian President
Viktor Yanukovich away from an EU trade deal.
Obama,
reluctant to act assertively in what Russia has long considered its
sphere of influence, has limited direct leverage and few good options.
But
Washington has decided to use the Ukraine crisis to take a stand, at
least diplomatically, against what the White House regards as a
"worrying and troubling" pattern of Russian behavior toward its
neighbors, a senior U.S. official said.
"Ukraine
is going to be a test" of improved U.S.-Russian relations, said the
official, who was not authorized to talk publicly. The administration
has a realistic understanding of what is possible with Russia, after
early enthusiasm about the possibility of working together. "We
understand the shape and the dimensions of the Russia we're dealing
with, and it makes it tougher to find that cooperation."
The
more activist American policy was unintentionally on display last week
in the leaked secret recording of a phone conversation between Assistant
Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine
Geoffrey Pyatt.
The two are
heard speaking intensely about the formation of an interim,
reform-minded government and treating Moscow like an adversary. "You can
be pretty sure that if (a deal for a new government) does start to gain
altitude the Russians will be working behind the scenes to try to
torpedo it," Pyatt says.
U.S.
officials have not directly blamed the leak on Russia, which has denied
its involvement. But the audio clip was first posted on Twitter by
Dmitry Loskutov, an aide to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry
Rogozin, a diplomatic source said.
The
leak also revealed U.S.-European tensions over how assertive to be in
the crisis, with Nuland dismissing what American officials regard as the
EU's cautious approach with profanity.
U.S.
officials say the damage to trans-Atlantic relations was fleeting, and
that polls taken in the days since show a rise in Ukrainians' approval
of the United States.
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Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images
The troubles began last fall with an economic dispute: President Viktor Yanukovich was faced with a stark choice between joining the EU and joining the Russian Federation. The agrarian, western part of Ukraine wanted to link across borders with Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria for easy access to European labor. The prosperous, industrial eastern part of the country aimed to stay with Moscow and 1,000 years of tradition.
Yanukovich sided with the Kremlin and his close ally, Russian President Vladimir Putin. In November and December, there were peaceful mass rallies in Kiev’s Independence Square protesting Yanukovich’s decision. In January, the rallies turned violent and flared with bonfires ready-made for TV coverage.
The opposition was never united, however, and has factionalized. Some of its members are hatred-filled extremists who scream anti-Semitic, racist rubbish; others are ineffective dreamers.
The three major players in the opposition are hostile to each other. The boxing champion and leader of the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform party (UDAR), Vitali Klitschko, is seen as glamorous and naive. The Fatherland Party leader, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, is viewed as a dutiful tool of the U.S. and billionaire philanthropist George Soros. The ultranationalist leader of the All Ukrainian Union “Freedom” Party, Oleh Tyahnybok, is seen as dangerous. The U.S. State Department reportedly favors the weakest of the three opposition leaders, the “liberal” Yatsenyuk.
‘A controversial judgment’
Independence Square is now reportedly
a smoke-stained encampment of thousands of masked men in camouflage
with truncheons, brass knuckles and iron chains, tending open fires and
living in tents in winter temperatures. The whole area, a frozen
battlefield bracketed by Soviet architecture, has been sealed off and
surrounded by well-armed police.
The Kremlin has widely disseminated the opinion that the protesters are funded and encouraged by Obama administration toadies, such as Soros, a known supporter of the president and liberal causes. The Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, has complained of outside provocations and lack of Western media attention to the violence. “Why don’t we hear condemnations of those who seize and hold government buildings, who burn, torch the police, use racist and anti-Semitic and Nazi slogans?” he said.
.....The Kremlin has widely disseminated the opinion that the protesters are funded and encouraged by Obama administration toadies, such as Soros, a known supporter of the president and liberal causes. The Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, has complained of outside provocations and lack of Western media attention to the violence. “Why don’t we hear condemnations of those who seize and hold government buildings, who burn, torch the police, use racist and anti-Semitic and Nazi slogans?” he said.
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