What Went Wrong with Yushchenko's Visit

MOSCOW, Russia -- The visit of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko to Russia, scheduled for March 21st, did not take place.

Yushchenko introduces new Foreign Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk
Kommersant has learned that it was cancelled at the last minute by Moscow, where it was suspected that the visit would do more to shore up Yushchenko's position against Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich than to strengthen bilateral relations.

“What visit? There was no visit by the president of Ukraine planned for Wednesday,” the Kommersant correspondent was told in the Russian presidential administration in response to a question about the Ukrainian president's schedule in Moscow.

Sources who took part in preparations for that visit say, however, that everything was ready for it and it was to take place on March 21 and 22.

The initiative for the visit came from the Ukrainian side. Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko had insisted that his time in Moscow be filled with as many meetings as possible and on the highest levels.

Besides negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Ukrainian president had wanted to meet with Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov and editors-in-chief of the major Russian media, to speak at Moscow State University and to visit Solovetsky Monastery.

The arrangements were made for that expansive visit, although, sources say, only with great difficulty. The biggest problem was with the main document for the visit, the Russia-Ukraine 2007-2008 action plan.

The most serious disagreement over it concerned a settlement for Transdniestria, the Russian Black Sea Fleet's presence on Ukrainian territory and a number of economic issues.

After several months of wrangling, the countries had not come up with an acceptable formulation for the plan. The idea of building a natural gas pipeline from Bogorodchany to Uzhgorod, strongly favored by Kiev, was rejected.

But a draft plan being pushed by Russia to implement heating and power projects, which has previously elicited a strongly negative response from the Ukrainian, and an agreement to develop a plan for the study of the Russian language in Ukraine and of Ukrainian in Russia were included in the plan.

After the plan was already agreed upon, the Ukrainian delegation insisted that it be signed by the countries' foreign ministers.

That meant that it would be signed on the Ukrainian side by Acting Foreign Minister Vladimir Ogryzko, whose candidacy for that office was rejected again by the Supreme Rada on Tuesday.

Ogryzko told Kommersant on Monday, “I am flying to Moscow. The president has included me in the delegation.”

Moscow would thus have indirectly supported Yushchenko's candidate, which it clearly did not want to do. Russian government sources told Kommersant that Moscow does not especially like Ogryzko and considers him anti-Russian in the main, as was his last boss, former Ukrainian foreign minister Boris Tarasyuk.

“In the course of one working consultation, Mr. Ogryzko ostentatiously demanded a Russian-Ukrainian translator, although he speaks perfect Russian,” one source recalled.

That and the expansive scale of the visit, without real content, led the Kremlin to suspect that the Ukrainian president's visit to Moscow was most necessary to him for domestic political reasons.

With tensions high between the president and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, the president would earn important political points from a warm reception in Russia right now.

The Kremlin has no desire to give Yushchenko a boost in his struggle with Yanukovich, who is much closer to it. Therefore, the decision was made to cut back the Ukrainian president's trip to a strictly working visit.

At 5:30 p.m., Moscow time, on Monday, Kommersant was told in the administration of the Ukrainian president that “the plan for Viktor Yushchenko's trip to Moscow has been fully conciliated and the president's visit will take place on March 21 and 22.”

At around 7:00, however, according to information that Kommersant obtained from persons close to Yushchenko, the Ukrainian presidential administration received a call from the Kremlin in which it was suggested that the visit be delayed.

The suggestion was not only unexpected in Kiev, it was a shock. That was all the more true since the Ukrainian advance group was already in Moscow smoothing out the last details of the visit. The Ukrainian presidential administration called Russian Ambassador Viktor Chernomyrdin at once.

The same sources say that the Ukrainian president and Russian ambassador spoke after 9:00 (Yushchenko was busy until then). Their conversation took place behind tightly closed doors and the only thing that is known about it is that the only thing hey agreed on was to hold off rescheduling the visit until Yushchenko spoke with Putin on Tuesday.

That information was confirmed by the Ukrainian presidential administration yesterday at 12:30 p.m. “A telephone conversation between President Yushchenko and Mr. Putin will take place at 2:00 and then everything will be clarified,” a spokesman said. Later, Kommersant was informed by the same office that the conversation between the president would take place at 5:00.

But it was already known by noon that Yushchenko's visit would not take place on March 21 and 22. A high-placed Russian source told Kommersant that the visit had been planned for those days, but “several events took place in recent days that made the Kremlin change its plans.”

A week before his scheduled trip to Moscow, Yushchenko showed ostentatious support for U.S. plans to locate elements of an antimissile system in the Czech Republic and Poland.

He also made an important statement on the role of NATO in Kiev's foreign policy, without saying a word about the role of Russia in it.

To lower tensions, Yushchenko promised to meet with large group of Russian and foreign journalists in Kiev and devote the entire session to relations with Russia.

According to information obtained by Kommersant, that press conference was supposed to take place yesterday morning, but it was cancelled the day before.

That was not the only agreement the Ukrainian president failed to implement. The same Russian source told Kommersant that Yushchenko had requested that a telephone conversation with Putin be arranged for him.

“The Kremlin agreed to it, they agreed on a time, and half an hour before that time, they called from the Mr. Yushchenko's administration and said that, unfortunately, Viktor Andreevich [Yushchenko] would be unable [to hold that conversation],” the source recalled.

They too was likely to push the Kremlin toward the conclusion that it would be expedient to change the date of the visit. Moscow is not making the decision into an issue. “Nothing terrible has happened,” one source said. “We'll call each other, come to an agreement and in two weeks or so the meeting can take place.”

The change of plans was confirmed for Kommersant by the Ukrainian presidential administration yesterday evening. When asked about the reason, a spokesman replied: “in connection with the tragedy in the mine in Kuzbass, Viktor Yushchenko suggested to Vladimir Putin that their meeting be delayed.”

That explanation is not very convincing and looks more like an attempt by the Ukrainian administration to save face.

By delaying Yushchenko's trip, the Kremlin has made it unambiguously clear that he will not strengthen his position at Moscow's expense; that privilege is reserved for politicians who take account of Moscow's interests.

Late last night, the telephone conversation between Yushchenko and Putin finally took place. Immediately afterward, the Ukrainian president's press service announced that Yushchenko would introduce a new candidate for foreign minister to the Rada on Wednesday.

That will be deputy head of the presidential secretariat Arseny Yatsenyuk. So Yushchenko has given up Ogryzko, who irritated Moscow.

But Yatsenyuk is also faithful to the president and a supporter of Ukraine's Euro-Atlantic integration.

Source: Kommersant