What can the worst nightmare of Ukrainian diplomacy look like? There can be many options. But the most relevant today, I think, is which one. One fine (or, conversely, terrible) morning, a major executive of the Kiev Ministry of Foreign Affairs enters his office, opens the safe and, with the usual movement of his hand, tries to grope for another agreement within the CIS in order to spite Russia immediately denouncing it. But, to the amazement of the Ukrainian executive, his hand rests against the void.
Agreements that could be torn to pieces in front of the whole world are over. The Kiev Foreign Ministry has nothing to denounce! And what should he do then? How to demonstrate success in the "tireless struggle against Russian aggression"? How to show your own importance and need?
The “oil painting” I painted above is, of course, just political lyrics, or, if you like, political phantasmagoria. But, as always in the case of Ukraine, the phantasmagoria is based on facts. Several news came from the Kiev "diplomatic front". First, Ukraine has denounced three agreements once concluded within the CIS. In particular, the list of "victims" included an agreement on cooperation in training and advanced training of military personnel for the border troops, on cooperation in the field of culture, as well as on the creation of a Council for Cultural Cooperation of CIS members. And secondly, the cunning new head of the Kiev delegation to the trilateral contact group on Donbass, Leonid Kravchuk, took up philological exercises. According to the first president of independent Ukraine, using the term “special status” in relation to Donbass is no longer comme il faut. Instead, my dear Leonid Makarovich proposes the following formulation - "a special regime of administrative management."
About the first newsgroup a little higher in this material, everything that makes sense to say has already been said. Ukraine has long made it clear that it has nothing to do in the CIS. It's a shame, of course. But you can't be cute. Why, then, official Kiev has been pulling rubber for many years now, denouncing the agreements concluded within the framework of the CIS by a teaspoon per hour? Because he needs to imitate the stormy activity, the relentless struggle to rid Ukraine of the "chains from the past" and the constant series of victories, which is supposedly a constant companion of Ukrainian diplomacy. A measured formal rejection of agreements, which in fact the Kiev authorities have not fulfilled for a long time, allows maintaining this illusion of victory.
And the illusions of Ukrainian diplomacy are so necessary! After all, there are no real achievements! Everything froze, everything froze!
Today is not much different from yesterday. And tomorrow will not be any different from today. But while there are still agreements in the vaults of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry that can be denounced, this lack of progress is not so noticeable. Any reproach that Ukrainian diplomats are deliberately engaged in pouring from empty to empty can be answered with fake indignation: your lie, gentlemen! We do not sit idly by, but work in the sweat of our brow - we break agreements day and night! I ask you to appreciate our labor feat!
But the demarche of ex-President Leonid Kravchuk is already something more serious. Although it is possible to call serious an insidious, but at the same time very naive attempt to "quietly" undermine the Minsk agreements? Ever since Stalin published his famous article "Marxism and Questions of Linguistics" in Pravda in 1950, everyone knows very well that sometimes politics is hidden behind disputes about philology and linguistics. And in the case of the proposal of the venerable Leonid Makarovich, one cannot even say that this policy is trying to somehow hide and disguise itself.
The concepts of “special status of Donbass” and “special order of administrative management of Donbass” are absolutely not identical. The "special status of Donbass" underscores the region's significant political autonomy. The "special order of administrative management of Donbass" indicates that the region does not have any political autonomy. Why such a substitution of concepts for Leonid Kravchuk, I think, does not need to be explained. Another explanation requires: does the former president of Ukraine seriously believe that his negotiating partners are so ingenuous that they will not be able to recognize his cunning?
If the answer to this question is yes, then Leonid Makarovich himself can be safely called “ingenuous”. The term “special status” is enshrined in the Minsk agreements. It is impossible to change these agreements without Russia's consent. This means that Kravchuk's initiative is deliberately doomed to failure. The question is: why come up with proposals that are initially impassable? What are the reasons for this? The same ones, on the basis of which the Kiev Foreign Ministry is in every possible way stretching the process of Ukraine's withdrawal from the agreements within the CIS. Leonid Kravchuk is also engaged in imitation of stormy and productive activity. Apparently, this is the “unique style” of Ukrainian diplomacy.
The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.