Paul
Goble
Staunton, July 30 – When one
government wants to send a new ambassador to another country, it requests what
is called agrément from the government of that country, a process by which the
government of the latter has a chance to weigh in on the individual the sending
country would like to dispatch.
That often introduces delays in the
appointment of ambassadors, but it has a great advantage in that it not only
reinforces the idea that the two governments are dealing with each on at least
in principle on the level of equality but also blocks the appointment of
individuals whose careers suggest they will be incapable of working with the host
government.
Sometimes governments ignore this
requirement of diplomatic life because they have such power over the country to
which they are making an appointment that they don’t have to care what the host
nation thinks. That was the case with the Soviet regime in naming ambassadors
to bloc countries, most of whom were party officials rather than diplomats.
But sometimes, governments do it in
a “hybrid” way. That is, they have their parliaments approve someone as
ambassador even before the host country has had the chance to give or withhold agrément. That is what the Putin regime is trying to do
now with regard to an appointment of its ambassador to Kyiv.
For that reason and many others,
former Ukrainian foreign minister Vladimir Ogryzko says in his view Kyiv should
refuse to give its blessing because “the presence or absence of an ambassador
of Russia in Ukraine will change nothing” and the Kremlin’s candidate is both “strange”
and unacceptable (dsnews.ua/politics/vladimir-ogryzko-o-novom-posle-rf-ya-by-ne-daval-babichu-29072016181200).
Mikhail Babich, the man Moscow wants
to send to Kyiv, “has never worked in diplomatic posts,” “Delovaya stolitsa”
points out. He served instead in the KGB forces, headed state enterprises in
Russian regions and was head of government in Chechnya before Ramzan Kadyrov.
For the last five years, he has been plenipotentiary in the Volga Federal
District.
The way in which Moscow is acting
clearly is designed to present Kyiv with a fait
accompli, but Ogryzko points out that Kyiv doesn’t have to accept this
obvious denigration of Ukraine’s status as an independent country.
What matters more, the Ukrainian
diplomat says, is that “in general nothing depends on who is the ambassador of
the Russian Federation in Ukraine. Whatever status the diplomatic
representation of Russia in Ukraine has, all decisions relative to the
relationship between Ukraine and Russia are taken by one man, Vladimir Putin.”
Thus, he continues, “the presence or
absence of a Russian ambassador in Ukraine changes nothing.” Indeed, Ogryzko says,, “diplomatic relations
with the Russian Federation are nonsensical. That country annexed part of
Ukraine and has attacked another part … If this depended on me,” he says, “there
wouldn’t be diplomatic relations” between Moscow and Kyiv.
But it is important to remember why
Moscow is doing this: it is trying to provoke Kyiv into rejecting its candidate
so that the Russian authorities can launch a new propaganda barrage denouncing
Ukraine for failing to be cooperative, even though the cooperation they want is
one of the victim of aggression with the aggressor.
Regardless of who the Russian
ambassador it, “the Russian embassy [in
Kyiv] has been [and will be] a center of the Russian special services,” who
occupy about “60 to 70 percent” of the jobs there. No diplomat should be talking to these people
as if they were diplomats, Ogryzko says.
This case reflects a deeper problem:
“Russia has never considered Ukraine a separate and independent state!
Therefore it sends not ambassadors but ‘deciders,’” regardless of their
background. That has to change if things
are to move forward in a positive way; agreeing to Moscow’s candidate won’t
help that.
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