The Eagle and the Trident

U.S.—Ukraine Relations in Turbulent Times

Steven Pifer

• Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780815730620
• Topic: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Subtopic: Russische Politik

An insider's account of the complex relations between the United States and post-Soviet Ukraine

The Eagle and the Trident provides the first comprehensive account of the development of U.S. diplomatic relations with an independent Ukraine, covering the years 1992 through 2004 following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The United States devoted greater attention to Ukraine than any other post-Soviet state (except Russia) after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Steven Pifer, a career Foreign Service officer, worked on U.S.-Ukraine relations at the State Department and the White House during that period and also served as ambassador to Ukraine. With this volume he has written the definitive narrative of the ups and downs in the relationship between Washington and newly independent Ukraine.

The relationship between the two countries moved from heady days in the mid- 1990s, when they declared a strategic partnership, to troubled times after 2002. During the period covered by the book, the United States generally succeeded in its major goals in Ukraine, notably the safe transfer of nearly 2,000 strategic nuclear weapons left there after the Soviet collapse. Washington also provided robust support for Ukraine's effort to develop into a modern, democratic, market-oriented state. But these efforts aimed at reforming the state proved only modestly successful, leaving a nation that was not resilient enough to stand up to Russian aggression in Crimea in 2014.The author reflects on what worked and what did not work in the various U.S. approaches toward Ukraine. He also offers a practitioner's recommendations for current U.S. policies in the context of ongoing uncertainty about the political stability of Ukraine and Russia's long-term intentions toward its smaller but important neighbor.

CHAPTER 1

Establishing Relations

On the evening of December 1, 1991, Larry Napper, one of the State Department’s foremost Soviet experts and destined to be the last director of its Office of Soviet Union Affairs, walked the streets of Kyiv. He had accompanied Assistant Secretary of State for European affairs Thomas M. T. Niles to observe the independence referendum that the Ukrainians had held earlier that day. The results of the vote streamed in, and they sent a resounding message. In the end, with a large turnout, more than 90 percent of the voters had opted for an independent state. Independence won even in Crimea, garnering 54 percent of the vote in the only part of Ukraine where ethnic Russians constituted a majority of the population. As Napper tracked the incoming vote tally and watched the reaction of Ukrainians in the capital, he quietly admired their inspirational act of self-determination and thought to himself: “It’s clear; the jig is up for the Soviet Union.” Washington now had to prepare urgently for the final collapse of its Cold War rival and the emergence of the New Independent States, including Ukraine. And, after that happened, the U.S. government needed to get about the business of establishing a relationship with the new nation.

Ukraine’s Long and Complex History

At its height in the early eleventh century, Kyivan Rus’ was the largest state in Europe. It entered a period of decline and fragmentation in the latter part of that century, culminating in collapse after the Mongol invasion. The Golden Horde sacked Kyiv in 1240. The city would not become a major population, political, and commercial center again until the 1800s.

Parts of present-day Ukraine fell under the dominion of various other entities in the centuries after 1240: the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Ottoman Empire, Muscovy, the Crimean Khanate, Poland, the Russian Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire.¹ As a result, the western regions of what is present-day Ukraine were affected by the political, religious, and cultural influences that swept across Central Europe; what is now eastern Ukraine was not similarly affected. This history produced a country of regional differences. Ethnic Ukrainians and Russians constitute the largest groups today, but Crimean Tatars, Belarusians, Bulgarians, Hungarians, Jews, Poles, and Romanians also make up sizable parts of the population. The Cossacks created a Hetmanate in what is now central Ukraine in 1648, which enjoyed a brief period of independence but did not develop the institutions of a contemporary state. Following the 1654 Treaty of Pereyaslav, much of modern Ukraine became part of the Russian Empire, while parts of western Ukraine found themselves in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, then the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and later again Poland. Crimea and the south remained a part of the Crimean Khanate until conquered by the Russian Empire in the late eighteenth century. The bulk of Ukraine would remain a piece of the Russian Empire or the Soviet Union from 1654 until 1991, with the exception of the brief period from 1918 to 1921 in the chaotic aftermath of World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution.²

The twentieth century was not kind to Ukraine or its people. World War I and the Russian civil war between the Reds and the Whites were followed by the Great Famine under Joseph Stalin—Ukrainians called it the Holodomor (killing by starvation)—in which millions died. And few parts of the Soviet Union suffered more during World War II than the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, which lost some 15 percent of its population.³

One of the remarkable things about Ukraine is that the national identity stayed alive for so long—hundreds of years—absent a physical nation-state. As noted, for much of the time after the Golden Horde’s sacking of Kyiv, Ukraine was a part of the Russian Empire, which further solidified the intertwined historical, religious, and cultural links between Ukrainians and Russians, links that dated back to when both claimed the Kyivan Rus’ as their starting point. Those historical ties affected the views of both the Ukrainians and the Russians. Russians came to think of Ukraine as an integral part of their country, often referring to Ukrainians as “little Russians.” Indeed, when Russian president Vladimir Putin visited Kyiv in 2013 to mark the 1,025th anniversary of the Kyivan Rus’s acceptance of Christianity, he pointedly said that Ukrainians and Russians were all one people. Putin’s comment, like the term “little Russians,” infuriated Ukrainian nationalists, who liked to point out that it was a grand prince of Kyiv who founded Moscow in 1147.⁴

Views in Ukraine were more diverse. Those in the western part of the country tended to look toward Europe. The west was where Ukrainian nationalism was strongest, and those holding the memory of the Holodomor often continued to regard Moscow as an adversary. In eastern Ukraine, where a higher proportion of the population was ethnic Russian—though Crimea is the only part of modern Ukraine in which ethnic Russians constitute a majority—the population had a more positive view of Russia and of Russians, and they tended to see their identity linked more closely to Russia. Language reflected Ukraine’s mix: Ukrainian was more common in the west, while Russian—the language of the Soviet Union—was heard more frequently in the east and south. The number of those who regarded Russian as their first language far exceeded the number of ethnic Russians, but most people in Ukraine, if they could not speak both languages, had a basic understanding of the other language. As will be seen, however, regional, linguistic, and ethnic differences were swamped by the scale of the vote in favor of independence in 1991.

In the early 1990s, many saw Ukraine as divided into two parts: the west and center was one region, the east and south (including Crimea) the other. This division was based partially on language, though most Ukrainians were practical when it came to bridging language differences; it was not uncommon to hear two people in conversation on the street in which one spoke Russian and the other responded in Ukrainian. The perceived east-west difference also reflected the fact that the bulk of ethnic Russians, some 17 percent of the population in 1991, resided in the east and south. The east-west divide has some value for understanding Ukraine, but it is a useful prism only up to a point. In the years after 1991 the line between east and west began to blur; for example, political parties based in the east began to make some inroads in the west and center in the 2000s, and vice versa. Although residents of the eastern areas such as Donetsk and Luhansk wanted good relations with Russia, polls in April 2014 showed that a large portion of the population in the east wished to remain part of Ukraine.

An Empire Collapses

In the run-up to its quiet end, the Soviet Union underwent dramatic changes during Mikhail Gorbachev’s time in the Kremlin. Perestroyka and glasnost—restructuring and openness—were his watchwords when he became general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1985. They foreshadowed his willingness to allow greater political space and a degree of democracy and autonomy internally. The external changes in Soviet policy from 1985 to early 1991 were even more striking: conclusion of a treaty banning all U.S. and Soviet land-based intermediate-range missiles; withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan; acceptance of German unification and agreement to withdraw Soviet forces from the former German Democratic Republic; allowance of greater latitude for Warsaw Pact countries to determine their own political course, including no longer insisting on a leading role for the communist parties in those states; and then the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact itself.

Gorbachev did not intend to bring down the Soviet Union, but the forces he unleashed did so. In the Caucasus, the dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh weakened Moscow’s hold. The strongest push for independence arose in the three Baltic states—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—whose incorporation into the Soviet Union had never been recognized by the United States. As the Baltic states pushed for greater sovereignty and ultimate independence, so did other Soviet republics. That included Ukraine, where Volodymyr Shcherbytskiy, head of the Ukrainian Communist Party and a conservative opponent of Gorbachev’s reforms, had resigned in 1989. The democracy movement, including the pro-independence Rukh Party, won an impressive 25 percent of the vote in the March 1990 election for the Verkhovna Rada (the Supreme Council of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, which would become Ukraine’s parliament; it is also referred to simply as the Rada). On July 16, 1990, the Rada adopted a declaration of state sovereignty, one month after a similar declaration had been approved by the Congress of People’s Deputies of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, under the chairmanship of Boris Yeltsin. Among other things, the Rada’s declaration asserted the primacy of Ukraine’s laws over those of the Soviet Union.

If anything, most of Washington was slow to pick up on the strength of the centrifugal forces gaining momentum within the Soviet Union. In the spring of 1991, however, debate began within the U.S. government on the future of the Soviet Union and the appropriate policy. Views differed in interagency discussions. It was not clear at the White House that the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse, and it leaned toward supporting Gorbachev. President George H. W. Bush valued personal relationships with foreign leaders and had developed a close and productive relationship with Gorbachev, including on issues important to Bush, such as German reunification and reducing strategic nuclear arms. The White House view was also shaped by the unfavorable impression that Yeltsin had left in a September 1989 visit to Washington. There was little enthusiasm among those closest to Bush for encouraging the secession train. The Pentagon, in contrast, saw geostrategic advantages in the weakening of the Soviet center and a shift of power to the republics. Defense Department officials, including Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, believed Gorbachev’s authority was ebbing, favored engaging Yeltsin, and regarded an independent Ukraine as a positive development, one that could serve as a check on Russian power. Some even seemed open to the idea of a nuclear-armed Ukraine, the better to serve as a block on possible Russian ambitions. A breakup of the Soviet Union, moreover, could push any conventional military threat 600 miles back from NATO territory. Secretary of State James Baker and his team recognized that change was under way but worried that a Soviet collapse could follow the violent course of the Yugoslavia breakup and lead to a much messier situation; the fate of thousands of Soviet nuclear weapons was high among their concerns.⁵

The U.S. government had eyes on the ground in Kyiv. Foreign service officers Jon Gundersen and John Stepanchuk (from the State Department) and Mary Kruger (from the U.S. Information Agency) arrived in the Ukrainian capital in February 1991 to establish a consulate general. Earlier attempts to open a consulate there had been derailed, first in 1979 by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and then in 1986 by the explosion at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant, just sixty miles north of Kyiv. The three arrived with a mandate to report on developments and gently encourage democracy and market economy reforms but to do nothing that would be seen as encouraging Ukrainian independence. Their reporting, however, reflected the growing popular sentiment for independence and for Ukraine’s reestablishing itself as a sovereign state free of the Soviet Union. Since the consulate had no classified communications ability, Gundersen and Stepanchuk made regular trips to Moscow, where they could draft and send classified reporting at the embassy. They found the embassy skeptical about developments in Ukraine and what they might portend for the future of the Soviet Union, but they continued to believe the political trend in Ukraine was very clear. As questions regarding the Soviet Union’s future grew, the consulate managed a stream of visits by congressional delegations and former senior officials, including Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and Zbigniew Brzezinski.

At the State Department, Napper saw two possible policy courses. The U.S. government could conclude that Gorbachev was finished—either because he would ultimately turn out to be at heart committed to the Soviet system, or because he would be overthrown by Soviet hardliners—and turn the focus of American attention to Yeltsin and leaders of the other republics. (In Ukraine, that would be Leonid Kravchuk, then chairman, or speaker, of the Rada.) Alternatively, Washington could stick with Gorbachev and the Soviet Union while engaging the republics—with the exception of the Baltic states, which were a separate issue—in other ways, for example, by establishing consulates. By the summer, many within the U.S. government had come around to the idea of some level of engagement with the republics. The United States’ ability to shape events within the Soviet Union was limited, however. The prevailing wisdom recognized that and argued for riding things out and seeing what would happen.

Bush paid his last visit to the Soviet Union at the end of July 1991. Following a two-day stop in Moscow, he traveled to Kyiv on August 1. Hundreds of thousands lined the streets of the president’s motorcade route, giving him an enthusiastic welcome. Bush met briefly at Mariinskyy Palace with Kravchuk (as Rada speaker, he was the nominal head of state of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic). Kravchuk had been born in 1934 in a Polish town that became part of Ukraine after World War II. He joined the Communist Party at an early age and rose as an apparatchik through the ranks, ultimately becoming a member of the Politburo and ideology secretary. Smart, and with good political instincts, he had a sense that things were changing, particularly after the July 1990 declaration of state sovereignty. He adapted accordingly. In the first part of 1991, he sought to be seen as the leader of a new, if not necessarily independent, Ukraine. At the same time, he showed caution, eschewing any anti-Russian lines in public.

Kravchuk told Bush that he was proceeding on the basis of Ukraine’s declaration of state sovereignty, cited the difficult economic issues that Ukraine faced, and welcomed the establishment of a U.S. consulate in Kyiv. He indicated his desire to press for greater autonomy though did not raise independence. Acting prime minister Vitold Fokin asked for most-favored-nation trading status. He also sought investment, including in the privatization of Ukraine’s industries. Bush said he saw a new opening for relations between the United States and Ukraine, though he added that Washington would “deal officially with the center [Moscow].” But he expected more direct dealings with Ukraine and other republics, as would be allowed by the union treaty that the Soviet republics were in the process of working out.⁶ Moscow, which had become increasingly nervous about political developments in Ukraine and had tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade the White House to drop the Kyiv visit, sent Soviet vice president Gennadiy Yanayev to take part in the meeting. Consulate head Gundersen was tasked to pull Yanayev away for a few minutes so that Bush and Kravchuk could have a private word.

Following his meeting with Kravchuk, Bush stuck with a cautious approach in his speech to the Rada, reflecting White House concern that a sudden or violent breakup of the Soviet Union could adversely affect U.S. interests, in particular the security of Soviet nuclear weapons. Nearly one-quarter of the seats were empty, though Kravchuk told the president that it was a relatively large gathering for the body. While expressing support for “the struggle in this great country for democracy and economic reform,” Bush dismissed as a “false choice” having to pick between “supporting President Gorbachev and supporting independence-minded leaders throughout the USSR.” He warned, “Americans will not support those who seek independence in order to replace a far-off tyranny with a local despotism. They will not aid those who promote a suicidal nationalism based upon ethnic hatred.”⁷ His speech won polite applause in the Rada, but Ukrainian nationalists panned it, and William Safire in the New York Times dismissingly dubbed it the “chicken Kyiv” speech.

Less than three weeks later, on August 19, eight senior Soviet officials (including Yanayev), constituting a self-proclaimed State Committee for the State of Emergency, claimed to have assumed power after asserting that Gorbachev had taken ill in Crimea. The attempted coup lasted just four days, falling apart in almost comical fashion. Gorbachev returned to Moscow as Soviet president. But the failed coup triggered reverberations throughout the Soviet Union, weakening the center and Gorbachev’s authority. On August 24, the Rada declared independence.⁸

Not yet fully convinced that Gorbachev’s days were numbered, Washington waited for what would happen next. State Department officials saw Kyiv as central. If Ukraine indeed broke away, other republics would follow, and the Soviet Union would fall apart. If Ukraine stayed, the Soviet Union might have a chance to survive. The White House believed the U.S. government should not intervene in any overt way. Bush sought to carefully modulate his relationships with Gorbachev and Yeltsin, as the former’s influence waned while the latter’s was on the rise. Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia were the exception. Bush quietly encouraged Gorbachev to recognize their independence. The Kremlin did so in September.

Kravchuk traveled to Washington on September 25. He told Bush at the White House that Ukraine had begun developing its own governmental institutions and expressed confidence that the public would endorse independence in a referendum set for December 1. He noted that Ukrainian structures had assumed authority as the Soviet Union was “virtually disintegrating.” Ukr...