Leverage for Russia

Vengeful verdict

by Anna Arutunyan at 13/10/2011 21:25

Ukraine’s move to jail former prime minister and opposition figurehead Yulia Tymoshenko over her controversial gas deal in 2009 will turn into a geopolitical “disaster” for the country, analysts said, bolstering Tymoshenko’s position as an opponent to President Viktor Yanukovych – and giving additional leverage to Russia, which has been seeking a takeover of its Naftagaz transit system for years.

Tymoshenko was sentenced to seven years in prison by Kiev’s Pechersky District Court Tuesday for abuse of office over a 2009 gas deal with Russia.

The agreement, which Tymoshenko brokered with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that January, ended a weeks-long price dispute that resulted in power outages in Europe after Russia cut off gas supplies to Ukraine.

The deal was seen as too expensive for Ukraine, but critics say it has been used by Yanukovych to attack Tymoshenko – who came in just a few percentage points behind him in the 2010 presidential elections – in a politically-motivated trial.

But an outcry coming from Europe, the United States and Russia looks likely to leave Yanukovych with more problems than he set out to fight.

Not only will Tymoshenko’s popularity grow after the highpublicity debacle, but by alienating potential western partners Ukraine will be more vulnerable to a Russian takeover of its gas transit system, analysts said.

The European Parliament slammed the court ruling and postponed a vote on an Association Agreement on free trade between Ukraine and the EU on Tuesday, jeopardizing closer western integration for Ukraine.

Apparently recognizing the problem, Yanukovych expressed regret about the ruling in a remark that appeared to suggest a possibility that Tymoshenko could successfully appeal her sentence.

“It is certainly a regretful case, which today is thwarting Ukraine’s European integration,” Yanukovych was quoted by the Kiyv Post as saying. “It raises concerns in the European Union and I want to say: we are well aware of why this is so. Today the court took its decision in the framework of the current criminal code. This is not the final decision.”And while talks on the agreement should go on, Yanukovych’s regrets were not enough, the EU’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, told Parliament Wednesday. “Frankly this is not enough,” Reuters quoted her as saying. “It does not excuse the authorities from the responsibility to guarantee a process fully in line with international standards.”Prime Minister Vladimir Putin made weightedcriticism of the ruling in what experts said appeared to be a bid to keep his options open.“To be honest, I can’t quite understand why she got those seven years,” he said in televised remarks Wednesday.

Tymoshenko “is not a friend or relative for me. Moreover, she is rather a political opponent” because she “has always been a person of Western orientation.”

As for the gas contracts, “Tymoshenko didn’t sign anything, the contracts were signed at the level of economic entities, Gazprom and [Naftogaz] of Ukraine,” Putin said.

Leverage for Russia

Analysts said the ruling – and the fact that Yanukovych has faulted the court system – appeared to be a clear miscalculation of the consequences.

“There was a serious underestimation of the consequences, and Tymoshenko de facto provoked them to arrest her,” Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs magazine told The Moscow News. “But by the time the trial started, there was no way back for the authorities. They had to go to the end or lose face. Now, to release or amnesty her would be shameful for the government.”

More importantly, the ruling will not attain the results it was aiming for, he said.

“There were two aims: to liquidate a strong domestic opponent, and more importantly, to review the gas agreement,” Lukyanov said. “There will be no immediate effect from this, of course, but it could have been used as an argument – at least that was the plan.”

Instead, the ruling only built up Tymoshenko’s political credentials – leading to media comparisons to Russia’s jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Yanukovich “thought that he could [silence] a major opposition figure in Ukraine and marginalize her,” Alexander Rahr, a Russia expert with the German Council on Foreign Relations, told The Moscow News.

But he wound up doing the opposite. And now Tymoshenko, whose fiery campaign against Russian interference in 2004 earned her the nickname “Orange Princess,” is getting increasing support not just from the EU, but from Russia as well, Rahr said.

“This will turn into a disaster for Ukraine,” Rahr said. “Very soon she will become a leader of a united opposition.”

Russia has plans for Ukraine, he said, and the scandal will give it additional leverage to pressure the country into joining the Customs Union with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan and the Eurasian Union – touted as Putin’s pet geopolitical project to restore the Soviet Union.

“By this winter relations with the EU could become so terrible that Ukraine would have no choice but to reorient itself towards Russia,” Rahr said. “That could mean a sell-out of Naftogaz to Gazprom,” a takeover of Ukraine’s transit system that Russia has been seeking for several years.

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