Kyiv, Ukraine — Ukraine intends to build transport and energy infrastructure facilities in Afghanistan, as well as help repair military equipment produced in the USSR, said the President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych at the meeting with Hamid Karzai, the Afghani President. The meeting took place in the framework of the 2012 NATO Summit in Chicago.

Ukraine also aims to continue providing NATO with air transport support to finish the peacemaking campaign in Afghanistan by 2014, mentioned the Ukrainian leader. In addition to the listed intentions, President Yanukovych supported the security transition in Afghanistan by 2014, as outlined in the Lisbon Roadmap.

As a nation contributing to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), Ukraine also supports the 2014-2024 strategic partnership that involves the USA and NATO and is set to help establish peace on the territory of the Central Asian country.

Addressing the summit, Ukrainian leader also expressed the country’s readiness to join the Danish initiative Coalition of Committed Contributors. The so-called 3C-initiative will help fund Afghani security forces after 2014. So far 23 nations joined the initiative, reported Stephen J. Flanagan, PhD, at the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Europe and Eurasia hearing on April 26, 2012.

Ukraine has already joined the Central Asia Counternarcotics Initiative, countering threats of stability from Afghan and Pakistani violent extremist groups which use drug trafficking to fund their activities.

Currently, 22 Ukrainian peacekeepers are stationed in Afghanistan. The team from Ukraine features mine clearance experts, medics, army aviation advisors, and staff officers. It was recently announced that Ukraine planned to add to its ISAF mission a dog handler who specializes in mine and explosives detection.

Ukraine sent its first ISAF representatives to Afghanistan in May of 2007. A team of 10 to 30 Ukrainians (depending on the stage of the mission) performed tasks along with the peacekeepers from Denmark, Croatia, Georgia, and Lithuania. Among other peacekeeping jobs, Ukrainian team helped construct a mosque in a refugee camp in Chaghcharan.

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Oscar Aubert, political scientist and expert on West Europe, Russia and CIS, has stated that Ukraine and Russia are in a good place to further bilateral ties.

Aubert said: “Russia and the Ukraine have a long shared history. Russia sees Ukraine as part of its own identity. But Russia’s political elite has no wish to restore the USSR, and it clearly understands that this would be impossible. However, the Ukraine remains the elephant in the room. Its closest neighbour and transit to mainland Europe, the Ukraine plays a major strategic role in Russia’s role in and relations with the rest of Europe.

“Meanwhile, the defining objective of Ukraine since the collapse of the Soviet Union has been to adopt a truly independent course from Russia and ‘return to European civilization’, whilst Russian interests in Ukraine remain manifold.

“In 2009 Russian President Dmitry Medvedev declared that for Russia, Ukrainians since the dawn of time have been and remain ‘not only neighbours, but a brotherly people’. Therefore he regarded it as an obligation on Ukraine’s part to maintain ‘tight economic cooperation’ and ‘solidly kindred, humanitarian ties’ with Russia.

“In more practical terms, Russia has not managed to construct a single coherent conception of how to bring its interests to bear on the reality that Russia and Ukraine are now two sovereign states.

“In a recent Chatham House paper, Alexander Bogomolov and Oleksandr Lytvynenko argue that for Russia, “maintaining influence over Ukraine is more than a foreign policy priority.

“Russia’s socio-economic model limits its capacity to act as a pole of attraction for Ukraine. As a result, Russia relies on its national myths to devise narratives and projects intended to bind Ukraine in a ‘common future’ with Russia and other post-Soviet states. These narratives are translated into influence in Ukraine through channels such as the Russian Orthodox Church, the mass media, formal and informal business networks, and non-governmental organisations.

“Russia’s soft power project with regard to Ukraine emphasises cultural and linguistic boundaries over civic identities.” ”This project they speak of underlines the importance of the Ukraine to Russia. Late year Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin met with Ukrainian Prime Minister Nikolai Azarov in Novo-Ogaryovo to discuss the need to develop the investment component in trade and economic cooperation between Russia and Ukraine.

“The return of Vladimir Putin as President will be positive in securing closer ties between the two great nations, with Mr. Putin keen to target energy as a key component of any future agreement. Mr Azarov has said himself that Kiev is ready to seek compromise and “win-win solutions” in the gas issue.” Oscar Aubert is a sociologist, political scientist, an expert for West Europe, Russia and CIS

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Srdja Trifkovic, Foreign Affairs Editor of Chronicles and Executive Director of  The Lord Byron Foundation for Balkan Studies, in a recent article, has claimed that Western media reporting on Russia is “bias” and “stereotypical”, and has said that the “West” should put more trust in Russia.

Trifkovic said: “Most Western media professionals tend to subscribe, consciously or not, to a neo-liberal world outlook in general and to the tenets of multiculturalism in particular. The result is notable media favouritism of allegedly disadvantaged, non-Western, traditionally non-Christian societies.

“Behind the veneer of all-embracing diversity, however, we find a carefully calibrated scale of acceptance or rejection of “the Other” depending on the cultural and political preferences of the media professionals themselves. The result is moral and intellectual relativism, which enables the media elite to pick and choose, which group or nation will be approved for the status of sympathy or victimhood, and which will be denied the benefit of the doubt.

“The image of Russia in the Western media indicates that Russia has been relegated to the latter category.”It sounds paradoxical,” said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, referring to the Western attitude toward Russia, “but there was more mutual trust and respect during the Cold War.” His correct hint is that the Western opinion-makers detest post-Soviet Russia – the state that no longer is subservient, as it had been in the 1990s, but reviving its statehood and identity – more than the Cold War leaders of the West detested the USSR.

“The problem of bias, stereotypical reporting and quasi-analysis is by no means new. The collapse of Russia’s institutions and social infrastructure under Yeltsin was accompanied by Western approval of the key engineers of the disaster (Anatoly Chubais, Yegor Gaidar, Boris Nemtsov, Vladimir Ryzhkov…). Their small political factions, lionized by the Western media, were duly supported by the quasi-NGO network funded in part by the Western taxpayers.

“Various anti-Russian stereotypes notably prevailed over common sense and journalistic integrity at the time of Mikhael Saakashvili’s attack on South Ossetia in August 2008, with the mainstream media pack attacking Russia’s “aggression” and criticizing Western “passivity.”

“While never missing an opportunity to hector Russia on democracy and criticize her human rights record, the Western media have been and still are notably silent on the discriminatory treatment of large Russian minorities in some former Soviet republics.

“In other words, the verdict depends on an actors’ status in the ideological pecking order of the media elite itself, not on his words and actions as such – in line with the Leninist dictum that the moral value of any act by anyone is determined by that act’s contribution to the march of history. V.V. Putin’s high approval rating is thus cited as further “evidence” of his manipulative populism and “proof” that democracy remains underdeveloped in Russia.

“The similarity of reactions to Russia on the right and left ends of the Western media spectrum reflects the perception that Russia belongs to a tradition that is unworthy of multiculturalist tolerance.

The problem stems not from any misunderstanding of the Russian mindset and tradition, but, on the contrary, from an accurate assessment by the media class that Russia as such is an obstacle to the realization of their political, economic, and ideological preferences in the modern world. The sin of the Russians, in the eyes of the Western media elite, is that they are still defined by their ethnic, cultural and religious identity.

“The problem exists. For it to be solved we need a paradigm shift in the West that would pave the way for a “Northern Alliance” of Russia, Western Europe and North America, as all three face similar geopolitical and demographic threats in the decades ahead. We need to rediscover and cherish the commonalities of the spiritual traditions, history and culture of the extended European family, from Anchorage via Berlin to Vladivostok.”

Srdja Trifkovic is Foreign Affairs Editor of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, and Executive Director of The Lord Byron Foundation for Balkan Studies.

Image Courtesy of   http://www.flickr.com/photos/utenriksdept/

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