Kharkiv Agreements of 2010: Visions of Political, Media and Expert Circles in Ukraine

Abstract

The main visions of the political, media, and expert circles in Ukraine concerning the conclusion of the Kharkiv Agreements in 2010 – the pact between Ukraine and the Russian Federation on the stay of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation Navy on the territory of Ukraine are determined. It is alleged that circles close to the President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, saw them as a sign of the beginning of an era of intense Ukrainian-Russian relations, including the issue of cheaper gas, which would help to overcome the crisis in the economy and provide a lower price for gas for both industrial and household consumers. Instead, the agreements in the opposition were seen as a betrayal of Ukrainian national interests, the creation in the Black Sea region of a destabilizing center in the form of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Navy, and the beginning of Ukraine’s integration into the Russian geopolitical space. At the same time, the Ukrainian side was unable to persuade the Russian to sign new gas agreements to revise the price of «blue fuel» in essence, rather than through a discount system. Opposition criticism was also not effective under these circumstances: although the topic of prolongation of the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet base in Sevastopol became one of the tenets of their anti-government rhetoric, however, the unification of the opposition had not yet grown into an institutionalized movement, acquiring such features only on the eve of the parliamentary elections in 2012. Instead, the Russian side took full advantage of the Ukrainian concessions of 2010. It is the preservation of the Black Sea Fleet on the Crimean Peninsula that allowed the Russians to prepare the ground for its annexation and for the nourishment of the Russian chauvinist ideology about Sevastopol as a «Russian city». Keywords: Kharkiv Agreements of 2010, politicum, mass media, expert environment, visions, the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation Navy, gas, Ukraine, Russian Federation.