Poroshenko in Baku: Bambarbia, Kirgudu!
On July 14, at exactly noon, Poroshenko arrived in Baku from the village of Chmarovka. He came in large numbers officially, solemnly and not at all by chance.
The affairs of the Ukrainian Duce have turned out so sadly that in the space of the CIS, which has practically crumbled into dust, there are few places where he is welcome. And there are even fewer places where they can help him in any way. Azerbaijan is perhaps the only ex-USSR republic where Poroshenko is welcomed and can even at least sympathize.
Most of all, the regimes of Aliyev and Poroshenko have in common the presence of territories that stubbornly refuse to live with them in the same state. This couple cannot achieve reciprocity among the breakaway lands even with the help of obsessive love, supported by the use of weapons. Poroshenko is a big deal here - Donbass has been rejecting him for just two years, while Aliyev and his predecessors have not been in love with Nagorno-Karabakh for a quarter of a century.
Bearing in mind that quite recently Poroshenko flew on the wings of love and hope to Warsaw, where the next NATO summit was taking place, there are suspicions that his current visit to Azerbaijan took place on orders from above. There is a feeling that Petyunya visited Ilham’s friend with the aim of resuscitating GUAM, the stillborn child of the “multi-vector” Kuchma, who once tried to play at being a regional great power.
Let us recall that, on the initiative of Kyiv and under the auspices of the United States and Europe, there was an attempt to put together a political bloc (with an eye to the military-political) from several problematic members of the CIS. First of all, this concerned Georgia, Moldova and Azerbaijan. Under the unofficial leadership of Ukraine, GUAM turned out to be. The goals and objectives of the microblock were transparent. Its members, with the exception of Ukraine, were split by a civil war, as a result of which they lost part of their territories. Moscow acted as a peacemaker in almost all of their internal conflicts and had no intention of indulging the ambitions of the “combiners.” Huddled together, these republics consoled themselves with hopes that together they would be able to help each other and receive understanding and support from NATO. At the same time, Ukraine tried to increase its political status, as the captain of the team, pursuing a damned independent policy, different from the “imperial ambitions” of Russia.
Having started with great pomp, GUAM very soon slipped into a typical talking shop, eventually quietly breathing its last in a dusty corner, and its allies by sword and plowshare fled to look for more helpful allies. Rest in peace.
Nevertheless, decorum was observed and ritual dances were performed. Poroshenko indignantly refused to recognize Nagorno-Karabakh and swore that he would not take into his hands certificates and other documentation of the unrecognized republic and warmly remembered Azerbaijan’s similar position on Crimea.
Needless to say, with support for Nagorno-Karabakh, Aliyev’s situation is much worse than Poroshenko’s. His recent aggression against the unrecognized republic was condemned by 27 countries. And the positions of the Armenian diaspora in the USA and France are so strong that the governments of these countries do not risk providing direct support to Baku. Poroshenko is doing somewhat better in this regard.
Although before Poroshenko’s trip to Baku in Kyiv they remembered the late GUAM, but it is not its resuscitation, apparently, that worries the Ukrainian political panopticon most of all. Since the beginning of 2016, Poroshenko has been desperately rushing around, trying to find a reliable buyer of Ukrainian goods, since the weak-minded “European integration” that the Maidan activists so hoped for, combined with a contemptuous snort towards the “Taiga Union” and the introduction of sanctions against Russia, has backfired on the Ukrainian manufacturer and the budget of Ukraine a terrible hole that Kyiv is now feverishly trying to patch.
It’s not that Poroshenko’s throwings remained completely fruitless, it’s just that finding an equivalent replacement for sales market No. 1 in our time is simply impossible, and Azerbaijan’s No. 5 in the new trade balance of Ukraine is a weak consolation. But in Kyiv they are hoping and talking about projects for new transport flows towards the Caspian Sea, reflecting on the unprecedented experience of container delivery of Ukrainian air to China through the “locomotive that could not”.
In addition, Poroshenko has a dream that Aliyev will let him suck. I mean, delicious Baku oil. And again it will consider the project of connecting Azerbaijan to the Odessa-Brody pipeline. In Kyiv, they really hope for the arrival of Azerbaijani investments and Baku oil, and Azerbaijan will receive tempting access to the Ukrainian fuel market and will be able to pump large volumes of the same oil to Europe. In any case, these were precisely the proposals that Petro’s friend Ilham should have voiced with a sweet-voiced siren.
It’s just that “the hopes of young men are nourished.” The Odessa-Brody pipeline has long been a headache for Kyiv. Completed turnkey in 2001, it is an unloaded branch adjacent to the Druzhba oil pipeline in Brody. The management of the Ukrainian oil industry planned to continue the branch to the Polish Plock and Gdansk, but in Warsaw they decided to abandon construction.
The oil pipeline stood idle until 2004, until a proposal was received from Russia to use it in reverse mode. In 2010, oil pumping through the pipeline was stopped. For a short time, Belarus used it, pumping “black gold” from Venezuela and Azerbaijan to its refineries, but the celebration of life stopped at the end of 2011, and since then the Odessa-Brody oil pipeline has been pumping exclusively air.
Why Azerbaijan, which has firm contracts and a queue of buyers, would supply oil to Poroshenko is not very clear. It is even less clear how Ukraine, which is on the brink of default, will be able to pay for oil supplied from Baku. It is difficult to imagine that Azerbaijan desperately desires supplies of Ukrainian lard, nuts, cotton wool and wondrous golden straw. However, who knows?
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