Bush Pledges to Back Ukraine

President Bush pledged Monday to help Ukraine join NATO and the World Trade Organization, and said the two countries would work together to foster reform in other former Soviet republics.

Some Russia experts warned that Bush’s tight embrace of Ukraine and advocacy of change elsewhere on Russia’s borders could trigger Russian fears of encirclement and worsen the strained relations between Washington and Moscow.

Bush played host at a luncheon for Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, who defeated a pro-Russian candidate in December and has vowed to move his country closer to the West while maintaining good relations with Russia. Bush called Yushchenko a “courageous leader” and “an inspiration to all those who love liberty.”

Yushchenko was the first head of state Bush called after his Jan. 20 inaugural address, in which he laid out his second-term goal of encouraging the spread of democracy throughout the world -- a doctrine that drew criticism from some overseas.

“We share a goal to spread freedom to other nations,” Bush told Yushchenko at a White House news conference Monday.

Bush said he looked forward to working with the Ukrainian president in places such as Lebanon and the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan, where the opposition took power in the wake of a popular revolt. He said the two also talked about Moldova and Belarus, two troubled former Soviet republics that border Ukraine.

A Bush administration official said the U.S. hoped Ukraine would play a positive role in the Trans-Dniester region of Moldova, which has an ethnic Russian and Ukrainian majority and a breakaway government. Ukraine has been reluctant to get involved.

The United States also wants nonviolent democratic change in Belarus, which Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has called an “outpost of tyranny.”

Bush’s more assertive posture toward the region will be on display in May, when he travels to Moscow to help President Vladimir V. Putin celebrate the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany. Russian officials initially were delighted that Bush accepted the invitation, but soured when they learned that he also would visit the Baltics and Georgia.

Before arriving in Moscow, Bush will stop in the Latvian capital, Riga, where he will meet with the leaders of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania about the growth of democracy there. Bush will cap a four-day trip with a visit to Tbilisi, Georgia, where a contested election led to the ascension of a pro-Western president at odds with Putin.

The Russian ambassador to the United States recently met with Rice to protest the added stops on Bush’s itinerary. The administration official played down the protest Monday, saying only that “the ambassador came in to register some views from Moscow on the president’s upcoming trip.”

A Russian Embassy spokesman declined to discuss the ambassador’s conversation with Rice, but questioned the notion that Moscow resented closer U.S. ties to Ukraine and other former Soviet republics.

“Please forget about Cold War stereotypes,” said Yevgeniy Khorishko, the press secretary for the Russian ambassador to the United States. “It’s up to the United States to discuss issues they want to discuss.”

However, Dmitri Simes, president of the Nixon Center, a Washington-based think tank, said Bush was “trying to engage in a delicate balancing act” with Moscow by mentioning Trans-Dniester, Belarus and possible Ukrainian membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which Russia opposes.

“One should not be surprised if the Russians should get the impression that first, there is a danger of encirclement, and second, that what was done in [the Ukrainian capital] Kiev and [the Kyrgyz capital] Bishkek might happen next in Belarus and -- who knows? -- Moscow,” Simes said.

If threatened, Moscow could become less cooperative on such issues as sharing intelligence on terrorism or nuclear nonproliferation, he said.

The administration official said Bush did not intend to send an anti-Russian message to Putin, but rather to signal strong support for Ukraine.

“We can improve what has been a relatively strained relationship between Kiev and Washington while also maintaining a productive relationship between Moscow and Washington, while recognizing that we have some differences of opinion,” the official said.

But for all of the talk of cooperation on Bush’s democracy agenda, it was clear that Bush and Yushchenko still disagreed on Iraq. Yushchenko plans to withdraw his country’s 1,650-troop contingent by the end of this year in response to widespread opposition in Ukraine.

“The president made clear to me in my first conversation with him that he campaigned on the idea of bringing some troops out,” Bush said. “He’s fulfilling a campaign pledge. I fully understand that.”

Yushchenko’s face is scarred, the result of what physicians have said was dioxin poisoning. Yushchenko has blamed unspecified political foes for the poisoning. A White House spokesman said Bush had expressed concern about the Ukrainian leader’s health.

Bush also said he would push for an end to trade sanctions against Ukraine. Yushchenko said he was grateful that his country would not be “left in solitude” to struggle to become a full-fledged democracy.

Suggesting that his presence in the White House symbolized dramatic progress, he said, “Our conversation began with my saying that, for Ukraine, it was a very long road to the Oval Office.”