The article provides details of the behind-the-scenes negotiations
between USA, EU, Russia and Ukraine on the Trade Deal.
USA delegated the negotiations with Ukraine to its partner, the EU.
The USA would focus on the IMF conditions.
Russia exerted all kinds of pressure on Ukraine and Yanukovych.
Yanukovych is portrayed as willing to do a deal with the highest offer from either Russia or EU.
I guess either one would allow him and his familia to continue looting.
The EU screwed up. The USA enters the fray after Crimea, to save the day.
I guess that’s why it took so long for the USA to send in its aircraft carrier.
That’s one version of events.
It also casts new light on both the “leaked” telephone call of Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland making obscene comments about the EU screwing up in its negotiations with Ukraine, and on the info about Merkel’s alleged ties to the Stasi. The first demonstrating to the world how frustrated USA was with the EU. The second putting more pressure on Merkel to resolve the deal.
Stefan Lemieszewski
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http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702304585004579417531612266214-lMyQjAxMTA0MDAwNDEwNDQyWj
Wall Street Journal
3Mar2014
Behind the West's Miscalculations in Ukraine
U.S. Had Let Europe Take Lead in Guiding Westward Drift of Former Soviet Republic
By Adam Entous in Washington and Laurence Norman in Brussels
GRAPHIC
Troops under Russian command fire warning shots and order an approaching
group of unarmed Ukrainian troops to turn back from the Belbek airbase,
which the Russian troops are occupying.
Getty Images
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The U.S. ambassador was waiting in the office of then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in November, anxious for a decision that would cinch closer ties with the West, when he ran across a staffer bearing unwelcome news.
"I can't believe it. I just came from seeing the president. He's told me we're going to put the European project on pause," Mr. Yanukovych's chief of staff, Serhiy Lyovochkyn, told U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, according to a person who was present.
The ambassador asked how the president intended to explain the turnabout to 46 million Ukrainians expecting a new pact with the European Union.
"I have no idea," Mr. Lyovochkyn said. "…I don't think they have a Plan B unless it's a dacha on the outskirts of Moscow."
The exchange made clear the U.S. would have to come up with its own Plan B. For the previous two years, the Obama administration had sought to let Europe take the lead in guiding the westward political and economic drift of the former Soviet republic, with the U.S. in a supporting role.
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Graphic
Ukrainian troops at bases in Crimea are surrounded by Russian forces.
WSJ's Jason Bellini explains what that means, and gives #TheShortAnswer
on what you need to know about Crimea.
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Now, the U.S. has been drawn front and center at a far more difficult time—after blood has been shed, battle lines drawn and Russian ire provoked.
Locked today in the very East-West standoff the administration had hoped to avoid, "The U.S. is now in the lead," a senior U.S. official said.
Many European diplomats felt that while the U.S. portrayed itself as acting tough in recent weeks, the Americans had left them alone on the Ukraine issue for far too long, preferring to prioritize Washington's own ties with Moscow.
GRAPHIC
Mr. Biden met Ukraine's Viktor Yanukovych in 2009 Associated Press
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The White House decision to rely on Europe to cement ties with Ukraine was shaped by a foreign-policy doctrine meant to give international partners more responsibility for the world's challenges, U.S. officials said. By divvying up responsibilities, these officials said, the U.S. could focus on issues at home after more than a decade of costly wars abroad.
There also was initial skepticism within the Obama administration that Mr. Yanukovych was serious about moving toward Europe. Few administration policy makers believed Ukraine should be an American responsibility because the issue was more important to Russia and Europe than to the U.S.
GRAPHIC
Strategically, the Obama administration decided to take a back seat to Europe
because of concerns that assuming the lead in Ukraine might backfire if Russia
saw the European Union pact as a part of a superpower "Great Game" competition.
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Even with Russian troops streaming into Crimea, administration officials said Monday it wasn't clear if the outcome would have been any different had the U.S. taken a bigger role from the start. "The truth is Yanukovych left, and the new government is much more Western leaning. This is not a win for Russia," a senior administration official said.
Talks between the EU and Ukraine date to the breakup of the Soviet Union, but in recent years they have focused on a sweeping trade and political pact known as the Association Agreement. In 2012, Ukraine and the EU initialed an agreement that, once final, would draw them closer.
The U.S. thought the Ukrainian leader might be bluffing about signing the Europe pact until mid-2013, when Mr. Yanukovych began taking more concrete steps.
To bring Mr. Yanukovych closer to the West without provoking Russia, the U.S. and the EU settled on an informal division of labor, U.S. and European officials said.
The EU's job was to get the pact signed by a November 2013 deadline. The U.S. would work with the International Monetary Fund to get Kiev to agree to tough economic reforms.
The last thing the Obama administration wanted was another flashpoint with Russia. Relations between the two countries were already fraught over Russian President Vladimir Putin's support for the Assad regime in Syria and the decision to grant asylum to alleged National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden.
Russia began pressuring Ukraine to resist the pact by reducing Russian imports from Ukraine during the first three months of 2013. Russia followed with a targeted trade war to hurt Ukrainian oligarchs who favored European engagement.
Unease was growing within the U.S. administration. The EU wasn't paying enough attention to Kiev's economic troubles and pressure from Russia, government analysts privately warned policy makers, U.S. officials said.
Anxiety in Brussels surfaced in September, when Armenia, which had negotiated a similar trade and political deal with the EU, backed out and instead pledged to join the Russian customs union under pressure from Moscow.
EU officials saw Armenia, which also faced economic and political pressure from Russia, as a warning sign and stepped up contacts with Ukraine. EU leaders expressed confidence the Ukraine deal would be signed, believing Mr. Yanukovych wouldn't reverse course after coming this far.
At an October meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States in Minsk, Mr. Yanukovych made his last strong defense of the European pact. He also had a brief meeting with Mr. Putin that day, and U.S. officials believe that was when a more forceful Russian campaign began.
European divisions over Ukraine, with EU member states worried about antagonizing Russia, weakened the bloc's ability to influence Kiev's decisions, some diplomats said. Many member states believed the roadblock to a final agreement wasn't Russian pressure, but Kiev's refusal to meet European demands that it release—at least temporarily—imprisoned former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to receive medical treatment in Berlin.
[ cont’d in Part 2 ]
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