Belarus – Ukraine: In a security vacuum

Summary

In 2018, the Belarusian-Ukrainian relationship became relatively relaxed, as it was before 2014. There were fewer aggravators in political dialogue, which marred bilateral relations in 2017 when Alexander Lukashenko had to assure his counterpart Petro Poroshenko that Belarus would not ever pose any security threats to Ukraine (West 2017 army exercise). Minsk continued to largely collaborate with Russia in terms of UN GA security policy. Kiev was deeply unhappy about that and tended to dismiss Belarus’ mediation offers.

Last year, both sides managed to establish new institutional forms of cooperation for optimized trade and economic relations. The Gomel Forum of the Regions of Belarus and Ukraine held in October was the most ambitious event that engaged most of the regions of both countries.

Trade and economic cooperation showed positive dynamics, and both national leaders start talking about the achievement of a new, higher level of trade turnover in the medium term.

Trends:

• Trust relations between the leaders of the two states were maintained at a high level;
• Media skirmishes were fewer in comparison with 2017;
• Both countries sought to expand trade and economic cooperation, remove trade barriers and jointly approach third countries’ markets;
• Kiev was still seriously concerned about Russia’s pressure on the leadership of Belarus insisting on greater integration.

Political dialogue

In 2018, political dialogue stabilized and became more predictable in comparison with 2014–2017. Alexander Lukashenko managed to establish trust-based relations with Petro Poroshenko, and convinced the Ukrainian leadership to stop reacting too nervously to his diplomatic stunts aimed at demonstrating his loyalty to the Kremlin. The presidents had two telephone talks in the first half of the year, and met in person when Poroshenko went to Gomel for one day in October 2018.

The foreign ministers stepped up their communication as well. Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine Vasyl Bodnar visited Belarus in February to schedule inter-MFA consultations in 2018–2019. The consular departments held consultations in September.

Bilateral contacts promoted the shaping of short- and medium-term programs and roadmaps. Personal efforts of Ukrainian Ambassador to Belarus Igor Kyzym, who was appointed in 2017, contributed greatly to stepping up bilateral contacts.

The Forum of the Regions of Belarus and Ukraine can be regarded as the main political event of 2018. Its format was proposed by the Belarusian government, which has experience of holding such large events with Russia. It took quite a lot of time to prepare for the Forum, since Ukraine was to involve its regions and the businesses community. As a result, the Ukrainian official delegation to the Gomel Forum numbered over 700 members, authorized representatives of ministries, regional authorities and companies among them.

In 2018, the parties also initiated an expert forum aimed at strengthening cooperation of the expert communities and diplomats of the two states. The program of the forum included two organizational sessions (in November in Kiev and in December in Minsk).

The Ukrainian embassy organized Days of Ukrainian Culture in Belarus. The program included concerts, film shows and other social and cultural events.

Throughout the past year, the countries were negotiating the broadcasting of the Ukrainian UA/TV channel in Belarus. Poroshenko said during the Forum of the Regions that the broadcast agreement had been reached, but the channel was not officially available in Belarus last year.1

Security

Alongside the OSCE and Russia, Ukraine continued to use Belarus as a venue for meetings of the Tripartite Contact Group on the resolution of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.

In the UN, Belarus voted against Ukraine’s resolutions on the situation with human rights in the Crimea and militarization, which caused certain tension in Belarusian-Ukrainian relations. As usual, Ukrainian media criticized Belarus for its pro-Russian vote, but the government of Ukraine did not put an emphasis on the unfriendly behavior of Minsk. Ukraine’s resident representative to the UN Volodymyr Yelchenko made a number of unofficial statements, proposing to think about another, truly neutral venue for the talks on Ukraine given Minsk’s vote in the UN. This is a very sensitive issue for the Belarusian leadership, so its reaction was quite emotional.

Following the open act of the Russian military aggression against Ukrainian warships in November 2018, Minsk had to weasel its way out, assuring the Kremlin of its commitment to the allied obligations and forcedly responding to the objective facts of the conflict. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus Vladimir Makei made a generalized statement, saying that the parties to the conflict understand their responsibility for regional security, and wouldn’t make steps that might aggravate the situation. He also advised external actors to refrain from statements that would lead to an escalation of the conflict. This can be interpreted as a request not to accuse Russia of the act of military aggression.

No wonder Kiev rejected all peacemaking and other mediation initiatives to resolve the Russian-Ukrainian conflict offered by Lukashenko and Makei.

Despite Kiev’s repeated requests, Minsk did not provide official information regarding the abduction of Ukrainian national Pavlo Gryb by Russian security services in Belarus in 2017 and his transfer to Russia. What is worse, Gryb, who is held in a remand prison in Krasnodar, began to experience serious health problems, and the incarceration conditions threaten his life.

This resulted in a certain tension in Belarusian-Ukrainian dialogue. The Foreign Ministries even exchanged invectives in October. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin said that Ukrainian nationals were not completely safe in Belarus, where Russian security services made themselves at home. The Belarusian Foreign Ministry called it “horror stories.”

Klimkin also claimed that “Belarusian and Russian security services have a black list of citizens of other states” and the embassy of Ukraine in Belarus checks the list before Ukrainian delegations go there. Klimkin reminded that there had been similar abductions of Ukrainian citizens in Belarus, in particular, detentions of journalists.2

The Foreign Ministry of Ukraine had to respond to public statements made by the Belarusian authorities about 160,000 Ukrainian refugees in Belarus, which was an obvious manipulation of the facts by Minsk for image building purposes.

The trials of Ukrainian national Pavlo Sharoyko in Belarus and Belarusian national Yuri Politika in Ukraine continued in 2018. In May, the Supreme Court of Belarus sentenced Sharoyko to eight years in prison for espionage. Contrary to expectation, Sharoyko and Politika were not exchanged, probably because Politika’s trial is not over.

The joint Belarusian-Ukrainian demarcation commission achieved progress, which was one of the positive results of cooperation. At the 17^th meeting held in June, the commission gave a start to the demarcation of the Belarusian-Ukrainian border in the exclusion zone of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 2019, and adopted a long-term plan for the demarcation of the state border in 2018–2026.

At the 1^st Forum of the Regions, the sides signed the agreement on readmission, which helps substantially to regulate migration in the region.

Ukraine welcomed the second batch of Belarus’ humanitarian aid for residents of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions sent in June 2018.

Trade and economic relations

Trade remained a priority for the Belarusian leadership. Minsk traditionally has a significant surplus in trade with Ukraine. During the Forum of the Regions, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko spoke highly of the economic component of bilateral relations and called Belarus a strategic trading partner.

The intergovernmental Belarusian-Ukrainian commission for trade and economic cooperation was active as always. Its 26^th session co-chaired by Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus Igor Lyashenko and Vice Premier, Minister of Regional Development, Construction and Housing of Ukraine Hennadiy Zubko was held on October 11 in Gomel. The first session followed the change of the government team of Belarus and the appointment of a new curator, who replaced Vladimir Semashko. The parties signed a memorandum that served as a basis for the agenda of the Forum of the Regions of October 25–26.

The program of the Forum also included the 7^th session of the Belarus-Ukraine Business Cooperation Advisory Council and several sectoral events. The total amount of the signed contracts was over USD 100 million. Nine agreements on cooperation between regions and cities of the two states were reached.

Joint ad hoc groups for education, science, tourism, environmental protection, industry, agriculture and river and road transport held a series of meetings.

In 2018, the mutual trade turnover totaled USD 5.465 billion, having increased 119.2% from 2017. Belarus’ exports totaled over USD 4 billion (a 20% increase from 2017), oil products constituting the largest proportion. Imports from Ukraine reached USD 1.4 billion (a 14.8% year-on-year increase).3

An important step-ahead decision made by the heads of state in October in Gomel was the plan to form a joint Belarusian-Ukrainian task group for interregional cooperation and an anti-dumping investigation group. The latter is particularly important to Kiev with a view to increase its presence in the Belarusian market. In late 2018, the Eurasian Economic Union (of which Belarus is a member), took seven anti-dumping measures and initiated three investigations in relation to Ukrainian commodities. Prohibitive measures were applied against certain types of commodities, which leads to a significant reduction in the amounts of Ukrainian products on the Belarusian market (mainly rolled metal and metal products).

In turn, Ukraine conducted five antidumping investigations, looked into a number of contracts, and applied two antidumping and two protective measures against Belarusian commodities. From 2015 to 2017, some imports from Belarus increased dozens and even hundreds of times (for example, roofing slates and cement), so Kiev is trying to figure out whether Minsk redirected them to Ukraine, or Russian goods go to Ukraine being marked as Belarusian bypassing the embargo and sanctions.4

Conclusion

Despite the institutional strengthening of trade and economic cooperation and the new peak indicators of trade, the strategic partnership of Belarus and Ukraine did not cover security issues in which Minsk continued to adhere to its pro-Russian line. Only the close personal contacts between the heads of states prevent political tensions from aggravating and Ukraine even often ignores open manifestations of unfriendly policies in the public domain and in diplomatic practice.

The Ukrainian leadership disregarded new peacemaking initiatives generated by the Belarusian president. Nevertheless, Kiev does not refuse to hold meetings in the format of the Trilateral Contact Group in Belarus.

In the future, the interest of both Alexander Lukashenko and Petro Poroshenko in bilateral economic development may help to work out more thoughtful and systemic trade policy, including in removing trade barriers and joint cultivating the markets of third countries.

It is also important to take into account new challenges for Belarus related to the so-called Russian ‘tax maneuver’ in the oil sector and the Kremlin’s pressure to achieve deeper integration in the Union State. The tax maneuver affects the trade component, whereas Belarus-Russia integration is perceived by Kiev as a possible threat to its national security that might originate from Belarus. In this situation, Kiev and Minsk will have to communicate closer to withstand Russia’s influence on their relations.