Pragmatism versus Democracy: Ukrainian-US relations under the presidency of V. Yanukovych

Abstract

The article highlights and analyses the development of bilateral relations between the United States and Ukraine during the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych (2010-2013). It is determined that from the beginning Kyiv and Washington sought to establish constructive and practical cooperation and depoliticization of the agenda of relations. During this period, priority was given to issues such as energy, nuclear safety, investment and trade, economic reforms, non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and health care. Despite the decline in the intensity of the bilateral dialogue, relations with the United States were considered by the Ukrainian leadership as one of the key foreign policy priorities within the framework of the balancing between Russia and the West. In turn, B. Obama's administration in 2010-2013. acted extremely passively in the post-Soviet space and did not offer its vision of Ukrainian-US relations, which was the result of a policy of restarting relations with the Russian Federation. At the end of this period, Ukraine de facto fell out of Washington's field of foreign policy attention. At the official level, the United States reproduced traditional rhetoric regarding strategic relations with Ukraine, trying to keep the Ukrainian leadership from rapprochement with Moscow and from an authoritarian rollback in domestic politics, but at the same time avoided any practical actions to counter Russia's pressure on Kyiv. The main obstacle to the development of bilateral relations between the countries under the presidency of V. Yanukovych was the gradual deterioration of the democratic situation in Ukraine, which could not but affect the attitude of the democratic US administration towards the new Ukrainian authorities. The turning point in this regard was the arrest in October 2011 of the former Prime Minister and opposition leader Yu. Tymoshenko. As a result, since mid-2011 Ukrainian-US relations have been on a downward trajectory, accompanied by constant criticism from Washington of the Ukrainian authorities' departure from democracy, and after the October 2012 parliamentary elections in Ukraine, which were marked by numerous violations, the United States suspended relations with Ukraine, which even lost the appearance of a strategic partnership. Instead, the Yanukovych administration attempted tried to use the participation of large American companies Chevron and Exxon Mobil in joint energy projects as a buffer against US criticism of the problems with democracy in the country, but to no avail.