Russia and Ukraine. The chance to become Europe

President Yanukovych is just right to sympathize - which a person lives in stress for a year, well, and makes impulsive decisions. The voltage that has been accumulated in the Ukrainian leader all recently related to the well -known ambiguity - or, if you want, multi -vector - his policies, and therefore the provisions, found a way out of the last Thursday.

At first, the glad, not managing to choose from six proposed options, did not vote for a bill, which opens Yulia Tymoshenko, the possibility of going for treatment abroad. In other words, she did not fulfill one of the main conditions preceding the EU consent to sign an agreement with Ukraine on the association, which was supposed to take place at the end of this week in Vilnius.

Then on Thursday the Ukrainian government announced the suspension of work on the contract, explaining this step by the need to return to the development of economic relations with the CIS.

It was by economic renosals, according to Ukrainian Prime Minister Azarov, that this decision was dictated, which caused crowded protests throughout Ukraine - that Europe requires too much. Here, the IMF for the resumption of financial cooperation has risen a whole list: it insists on an almost twofold increase in housing and communal services, freezing salaries, pensions, social programs and subsidies to agricultural producers, a sharp reduction in budget expenditures.

This, says Azarov, became the "last straw."

Start the Ukrainian authorities to act according to the IMF recipes, permanent Maidan - with “small architectural forms” in the form of tents and awnings prohibited by Kiev courts on the same Thursday, or without them - it would be provided with them. It would not seem enough.

And this is just a year and a half before the presidential election.

Western donors were abandoned, even despite the fact that Ukrainian authorities need their money. And not the word how.

In fact, Ukraine is in a pre -bankrupt state, and its financial system rests on an honest word, supported by Western inflows. It is enough to say that out of $ 26.4 billion, about $ 10 billion, the IMF had met with Kiev, with which Kyiv met this year. The same ten billion - or about 5.6% of GDP - the country had to pay creditors this year. As a result, by the fall, Ukrainian STRs decreased to about $ 20 billion. Approximately the entire Ukrainian pure external debt is estimated at the same amount.

In general, the default smells. On September 21, Moody's first among the big three reduced the Ukrainian sovereign rating to the “garbage”, after which the same thing was done by S&P and FITCH - November 1 and 8, respectively .

The only alternative to default in the absence of access to new loans is a sharp devaluation of hryvnias with the inevitable mass emergence of small architectural forms on the areas of Ukrainian cities. This scenario Kyiv, obviously, would not have been arranged either.

And then Russia, which did not want to drop gas prices, increased pressure, using customs and veterinarians to a fullest. Ukrainian oligarchs are not satisfied , forced to stop industries about and dismiss people .

In general, the consent of “to give in to rude pressure” of Moscow, having turned to her face, in this alarming environment looks like a systematic solution to Yanukovych’s main task - to keep Ukraine from economic collapse and social upheavals, so that in March 2015 it is guaranteed to re -elect for the next term.

The terms of the transaction, which, apparently, were announced to him by Putin during a dramatic “secret” meeting on November 9, are not yet known to the general public. But the child also understands that the loyalty of Kyiv will go to Moscow at a high price. In a Sunday interview, Azarov said the main thing: the Kremlin is ready to go to a review of the gas contract from 2009, which in Ukraine was not called otherwise than a bondage.

The veil of agreements the other day was raised by the leader of the Ukrainian opposition faction "Fatherland" Arseniy Yatsenyuk. So he claims that in the near future it will be announced to increase the discount on Russian gas for Ukraine in the amount of $ 150 per thousand cubic meters. In general complexity, the Ukrainian oppositionist knows, Yanukovych spent $ 20 billion from Putin, some of which will go to finance the upcoming election campaign of the current Ukrainian president.

In general, I did not surprise.

Be that as it may, I think that the Kremlin is well aware that the current indisputably brilliant victory in the battle for Ukraine is only a tactical success that does not guarantee a strategic victory. And that on the very day when the hetman mace will be in the hands of Viktor Andreevich for the second time, nothing will prevent him from starting to unfold the ship of Ukrainian politics in a western direction.

Moreover, the demand for such a turn is still in Ukrainian society and the Ukrainian elite. Yes, integration with the West is a serious challenge for Ukrainian oligarchs who are used to living by concepts and would not want to lose an extensive Russian market and resources. But these people, who to a certain extent form the policy of their government, today have a serious request for Western type democracy with its institutions and security guarantees.

Everything here is corny and pragmatic: so that they do not take earned by overwhelming work, not turned into an outcast, and more than exposed to bars by the arbitrariness of a person with a mace, independent courts, effective law enforcement agencies and effective officials, controlled by society and limited by law are needed. In other words, everything that is in Europe, and which, alas, is not enough in modern Russian reality.

It would be nice to learn this simple thought to the Kremlin. In this sense, in Russia, if it seriously claims to the role of the Center for Attraction for countries as Ukraine, there is no other way except to become a real Europe. The vulgar purchase of neighbors loyalty is the method is too costly and extremely unreliable.

Photo by ITAR-TASS/ Zurab Javahadze