Russian diplomatic relations toward Ukraine(1991-2000)

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The hurried manner and unplanned agreement to create the CIS in December 1991 served to create disagreements and different interpretations of the role and functions of the CIS between its two key members, Ukraine and Russia. The signing of the Russian- Ukraine interstate treaty and finalization of the Black Sea agreement in May 1997 signaled the second and final stage of the disintegration of the USSR. The Soviet legacy within Ukraine is therefore paradoxical. In terms of national identity, it includes both modernization and profound distortion. Because the collapse of the Soviet Union was accomplished peacefully, there was no chance to completely erase the past and the ancient regime or to start with a clean state. Ukraine in 1991 depended on the Soviet Union not only for the establishment of its borders but also for its entire government system. From 1991-1999, Ukrainian leaders learned that Ukraine mattered to the West primarily in terms of the West’s relationship with Russia and that as a small power situated next to a great one, its options were limited. Ukraine would achieve its goals not if those goals were justified, but if Ukraine could successfully bargain for them with other states, thus formed the Ukrainian-Russian-U.S. triangle relations during this period. Russia and Ukraine have worked and fought for the reason of their own national interests, and the U.S. for fear that Russia’s concern about Ukraine and the “near abroad” strategy could sabotage it’s global strategy, it cooperates with NATO and EU to restrain Russia. Therefore, the frame work to understand those interactions and the developments between them, became the motive to give a further research to this topic.