President Bush is considering a visit to Ukraine this month to express his disapproval of Russia’s faltering democratic reforms in advance of his visit to St. Petersburg next month.
A senior administration official told The Examiner that a trip to Kiev is contingent on formation of a coalition government by Ukraine’s Orange reform movement. That would clear the way for Bush to deliver a high-profile speech on democracy on June 21 and perhaps give his blessing to NATO accession talks for the former Soviet state.
“That will be annoying to Russia,” said Nikolas Gvosdev, editor of National Interest magazine. “It’s embarrassing — the president stands up in Kiev, there’ll be orange flags, there’ll be talk about democracy.”
Such a visit “will likely cause immense irritation” in Russia, said Tammy Lynch, senior research fellow at Boston University’s Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology & Policy.
“Any visit by a U.S. president to a former Soviet republic is generally received badly in Russia,” she said. “This is because Russia views these countries as its sphere of influence.”
She said there is a 50-50 chance that Ukraine will have formed a coalition government in time for a visit by Bush, who will be in the region for a planned visit to Austria.
Last month, Vice President Dick Cheney told an audience in Lithuania that Russia was using its vast energy supplies to “blackmail” its neighbors, a move he said was “counterproductive and could begin to affect relations with other countries.”
Cheney also accused Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government of backsliding on domestic democratic reforms.
“In Russia today, opponents of reform are seeking to reverse the gains of the last decade,” he said in the Bush administration’s sharpest rebuke of Moscow.
“In many areas of civil society — from religion and the news media, to advocacy groups and political parties — the government has unfairly and improperly restricted the rights of her people,” he said.
