Russian Policy toward Ukraine during Elections

Abstract: The Orange Revolution (1) in Ukraine in November-December 2004 that propelled Viktor Yushchenko to power as Ukraine's third president will lead to Ukraine and Russia undertaking divergent trajectories in domestic and foreign policies. In 1999, Leonid Kuchma was reelected to a second term. Under Kuchma, the oligarchs continued to accumulate power and influence and were set to establish an oligarchy if Viktor Yanukovych had won the 2004 elections. This is different from Russia, in which Putin was made acting prime minister by then president Boris Yeltsin, a position that propelled him to Russia's presidency in 2000 and 2004. Under Putin, the oligarchs were removed from politics and those who refused to stay away from politics were subjected to repression. The first part of this article surveys Russian policies toward Ukraine under Kuchma. Since the rise of Putin in 1999-2000, Russia's intervention in Ukrainian elections has grown, culminating in its blatant interference in the 2004 Ukrainian elections to support Yushchenko's main opponent, Yanukovych. The second part of this article discusses Russian policies toward Ukraine after Yuschenko was elected president. Key words: media policies, Orange Revolution, Russia, Ukraine elections, Viktor Yushchenko, Vladimir Putin, Yulia Tymoshenko, Yushchenko poisoning Russian Policy toward Ukraine under Kuchma Gleb Pavlovsky, a close adviser to Putin, began operating on the Ukrainian scene in the 1999 election and considerably expanded Russia's subsequent activities in alliance with Russophile oligarchs. The main focus for Pavlovsky was pro-Western politicians, such as former Prime Minister Yushchenko, who led Our Ukraine, and other anti-Kuchma group leaders, such as Yulia Tymoshenko and Socialist leader Oleksandr Moroz. In November 2000, fragments of tapes covertly recorded in President Kuchma's office over the course of three years by presidential guard Mykola Melnychenko began to be released. One tape incriminated Kuchma in the murder of opposition journalist Heorhiy Gongadze. For five months, Kuchma's position was tenuous. But he clung to power and removed the Yushchenko government in April 2001. Yushchenko then went into opposition where he created his bloc, Our Ukraine. Russian political technologists imported anti-American conspiracies into Ukraine, alleging that the United States was behind Melnychenko and Kuchmagate. One of these was the Brzezinskiplan, which claimed Kuchmagate was a U.S.-backed provocation that aimed to topple Kuchma and replace him with Yushchenko. It was a convenient way to sidetrack the numerous allegations of executive misconduct found on the tapes. Yushchenko's supporters and the anti-Kuchma opposition that sprung up during Kuchmagate were allegedly anti-Russian nationalists financed by the U.S. government through foundations, such as Freedom House, the International Republican Institute, and the National Democratic Institute, all of which were allegedly involved in overthrowing Serbian President Slobodan Milosovich. Radio Liberty's Ukrainian-language service was also sharply attacked for rebroadcasting allegations found on the tapes. (2) Evidence of the plan promoted by the oligarch-controlled television station Inter and rebroadcast by Russian Public Television to back this conspiracy included Yushchenko having an American-Ukrainian wife and the United States granting of asylum to Melnychenko in April 2001. A documentary titled PR that developed this conspiracy theory was made for the March 2002 elections. The main group with whom Pavlovsky is working in Ukraine is the oligarchic Social Democratic Party--United (SDPUo). The SDPUo also has their own think tank, the Centre for Political and Conflict Studies (TPKS), headed by Mikhail Pogrebynsky, who has been a close ally of Kuchma since he was first elected in 1994. Pogrebynsky's think tank defended Kuchma from the allegations made on the Kuchmagate tapes, and backed up claims of a Brzezinski plan. …