'Velvet Revolution' Crisis Between Ukraine and Belarus

ISTAMBUL, Turkey -- Hundreds of Belarusian opposition activists and youth-movement activists from Russia and Ukraine held a demonstration in downtown Minsk, Belarus on 26 April, the 19th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, in order to threaten Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka. His government has been described as "the last true dictatorship in Europe". Riot police dispersed the demonstration and arrested some young protestors and two journalists.



The incident in Minsk, which caused an international crisis, brought Ukraine and Belarus "in the revolution list" face to face. While Ukraine wants Belarus to release those arrested immediately, the Russian opposition harshly criticized the Kremlin. Moscow has announced that it is closely watching the developments. Liberal circles describe the arrest of youth activists as "a warning to the Belarusian opposition, which wants a velvet revolution". Belarusian velvet revolutionists, who are organized abroad due to internal pressures, are also supported by Ukrainian youth.

Five Ukrainian, 14 Russian and 13 Belarusian youth activists, who were arrested on April 28, were sentenced to jail for 8 and 15 days. Starting a "hunger strike" at the prison, five Ukrainian demonstrators said that the police subjected them to violence. Belarusian youth activists, who were arrested, also started a strike.. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry requested a medical check-up in order to determine whether or not the young demonstrators had been subjected to violence or torture.

Belarusian officials accuse the youth activists, who organized a demonstration without permission, of making "provocations". Russian journalist Irina Halipova, who has been to Minsk, implied that Moscow might have backed the incident. She claimed that the youth group participating in the demonstrations in Belarus had returned to Moscow the same day and planned to gather in front of a court, where a case against an arrested Kremlin opponent businessman Mihail Hodorkovski; is taking place. However, this was prevented in "far abroad". Among the youth activists, who went to Belarus, there are members of the youth-movement activists of the Russian liberal party SPS and a youth organization called "Walking without Putin".

While it is wondered where the next Western-backed velvet revolution in the former Soviet republics will be, the US Secretary of State Rice had described Belarusian President Lukashenka's government as "the last true dictatorship in Europe". Lukashenka, who has been in office since 1994, rules with "an iron hand" in his country in order to prevent a "velvet revolution". Through a referendum, he has guaranteed his stay in office until 2012.

Source: Zaman Online

Ukraine Ranks 57th in E-Readiness Survey

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine ranked 57th in an annual survey of the world's Web-savviest nations by aggressively rolling out broadband and wireless Internet connections. As compared to the previous survey, Ukraine gained 3 places.

The United States and Switzerland boosted their rankings in the survey. The United States, which had slipped to sixth place in late 2003, recovered to rank No. 2 in late 2004, according to an annual study published on Wednesday by U.S. computer company International Business Machines (NYSE:IBM - news) and the intelligence unit of British magazine The Economist. Switzerland climbed to fourth place from No. 10.

Denmark remained No. 1 in taking advantage of the Internet, both connecting citizens securely over broadband and wireless networks as well as using its near ubiquitous hook-ups for Internet banking and government services such as tax returns.

Denmark has also established a government Web site that pulls together ministries and other organizations, in which citizens and companies can access public services.

This year's study put more emphasis on security: laws and technology that protect users against viruses and fraud, a factor that hurt many users.

"Today's top performers may well lag behind in one or two years if they don't embrace the latest Web innovations." Korsten said. "It's a tough, continuing battle out there," he added.

Countries such as Singapore (11th place), Austria (14) and Spain (23) fell several places, while Australia (10), New Zealand (16), Israel (20) and Japan (21) and most eastern European states climbed several spots.

Mexico (36) gained several positions after major government investment in Internet community centers and a rising number of Web cafes, reminiscent of initiatives in Sweden five years ago.

Of the 65 countries surveyed, Azerbaijan remained at the bottom of the list with just 2.72 points, up from 2.43, only slightly worse than Pakistan with 2.93 points.

Source: Computer Crime Research Center

Yushchenko Gets Audio Recording Incriminating His Predecessor

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has received audio recordings incriminating his predecessor, Leonid Kuchma. Ten CDs containing 700 hours of recorded conversations, have been handed over, via a presidential agent, by Alexander Goldfarb, chair of the Civil Liberties Foundation, set up by the Russian media tycoon Boris Berezovsky.

Speaking Tuesday to the Novosti-Ukraina news agency, Goldfarb said the handover had been preceded by lengthy negotiations, with foundation officials trying to arrange it in such a way as not to be accused of meddling with Ukrainian politics again. The possibility of such accusations being brought against the Foundation seemed a likely one as the "political and legal potential" of the incriminating materials was quite high.

The recordings were made in Leonid Kuchma's office from November 1999 through September 2000. Only half of the recorded conversations have been transcribed by now, Goldfarb said. He would not reveal the name of the agent to whom the recordings had been handed over, identifying him only as a high-ranking Ukrainian government official. He said it was up to the Ukrainian side to decide when and how the details should be made public.

It was Major Nikolai Melnichenko, of the government's bodyguard service, who had been recording Kuchma's conversations with senior government officials and influential politicians. The recordings got into the spotlight after a Ukrainian journalist, Georgy Gongadze, had gone missing on September 16, 2000.

His body was found in the woods outside the capital, Kyiv, a month-and-a-half later. Suspicions were then raised that President Kuchma might be involved in a conspiracy to kill the investigative journalist.

Source: RIA Novosti

Hard Times for Akhmetov and Pinchuk

KIEV, Ukraine -- The richest man in Ukraine Rinat Akhmetov left Ukraine. The second richest man, Victor Pinchuk seems to be destined to face the same fate since he’s selling his property in Ukraine.

Both are ex-oligarchs. Having saved their incomes, plants and steamers, TV channels and newspapers, they lost the most important thing. They have no impact on the authority. Not anymore.

The story began with the rumors that Akhmetov stayed too long in Moscow. Then this information was marginally proved in his football club.

The source has informed that FC “Shakhtar” employees couldn’t reach their boss by phone and know nothing about his whereabouts either. The official phones of FC “Shakhtar”, his press-service in particular, have been dead for two days already, says Donetsk web-site Ostriv.

Later on, Interfax-Ukraina managed to find out that Akhmetov was in Spain. At the same time Akhmetov’s company “System Capital Management” makes no comments saying Akhmetov can be in three countries at the same time, that’s of common practice.

It’s interesting that just before the disappearing of the most influential oligarch in Ukraine the stock-holders of the Central and Southern ore mining and processing enterprises has taken up surprisingly unexpected decision to channel the bulk of the income to dividend payments of more than 800 million UAH. At the same time the stock-holders of “Northern ore mining and processing enterprise” agreed to spent 95% of the year income on dividend payments.

Not bad, huh? Probably Akhmetov decided to “cut the crop” preferring cash in the situation you plants might be taken away any moment.

Northern ore mining and processing enterprise is a part of “Ukrrudprom” which privatization was to be reviewed by the new authorities.

Though FC “Shakhtar” press service claims Akhmetov is on a business trip there are enough reasons to think this leave will be prolonged. He is not likely to play the role of Ukrainian Khordokovsky.

Obviously the law machinery is ready to pose Akhmetov a number of certain questions. He was alarmed by the detention of his closest companion-in-arm Borys Kolesnykov. It’s a fact of common knowledge that Akhmetov’s brother together with FC Shakhtar” ex-head Zhygan Taktashev and Akhmetov’s assistant Serhiy Kyi are figurants in Kolesnikovgate.

But it wasn’t just Akhmetov who had problems. His nearest competitor in The Richest Top 10, Victor Pinchuk, is going on to get bad news, just one after another.

On a Wednesday Government meeting Yulia Tymoshenko cancelled the decisions that led to state property loss in the insurance company Oranta.

The thing is that as a result of additional emissions Victor Pinchuk got the control over the company. Now this resolution is cancelled. It’s a trifle for Pinchuk, but an annoying one. But together with the land taken away in Koncha Zaspa and in the Crimea, with “the stolen dream” of the museum of contemporary arts, with the problems with the land in Boryspil, it is a tendency.

Russian Vedomosti writes that the part of Pinchuk’s empire is on sale now. Some Russian businessmen were addressed with the offers.

The stock-holder of a Russian metallurgic company told he was offered to buy “Ineripe” for $1 billion. “It was more expensive before”, - said the businessman in surprise.

According to the source close to “Interipe” Pinchuk offered to buy his metallurgic business to a number of Russian companies.

These companies refuse to comment on that but some employees confess they were offered Pinchuk’s property.

The employee of a large investment bank told Vedomosti that he was addressed by the clients who got offers from Pinchuk adding that the price was 3 times less that the one estimated by the bank taking into account the risk factor.

Russian investment banker who works with Ukrainian companies says that Pinchuk’s metallurgy business is $1.5 billion worth. One of Russian businessmen estimated it $2.5-3 billion.

”Interipe” makes no comments on the situation. They just told Pinchuk read Vedomosti but he was reluctant to talk about that.

According to the periodical, Pinchuk seems to be going to sell not just his metallurgy business. Two sources close to Pinchuk told he was going to sell Ukrsotsbank and Alfa-Bank.

By the way, mass media wrote that Kyiv department of Alfa-Bank was looking for the clients to buy Nikopol ferroalloy plant.

Well, Akhmetov and Pinchuk are really in trouble. Everything “saved, working hard” is going away. They do not want to be ordinary citizens, even the richest ones. You cant’ privatize anything for nothing, for instance a 144 hectare Japanese garden.

Political scientist Kostyantyn Bondarenko tried to ennoble Pinchuk. First he assumed Pinchuk as well as Akhmetov would leave the country, having sold their actives. Then he added: “The authorities want them to repeat Gusinsky’s and Berezovsky’s fate”.

I wonder who will play Berezovsky’s role?

Source: Ukrayinska Pravda

Gorbachev: Russia won't follow Ukraine

MOSCOW, Russia -- Russia won't follow Ukraine's democratic "Orange Revolution," former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev said Friday.

Gorbachev told an audience at Moscow Lomonosov State University that he believed the scenario of the Ukrainian revolution from November to January was unlikely to be replayed in Russia, according to an Interfax news agency report.

"I believe the chances for such processes to develop are little," Gorbachev said. But then he added, "I think something of the sort might happen here as well. This is possible if the government continues to act like this. The country has been stirred up, and protests have broken out in different regions."

The ex-Soviet leader criticized the Russian parliament and the law replacing social benefits with monetary compensation. "There is no opposition in the parliament today, and United Russia (the faction of President Vladimir Putin) has thrown aside all restraint. Proposals to have medical and educational services be made (only) half-paid (by the state) have been considered, which is against the constitution," he said.

"The people's patience can't be endless, though the Russian people are super-patient," Gorbachev said.

Source: UPI

Yushchenko Has Fired 18,000 Officials To-Date

KIEV, Ukraine -- In an interview with the newspaper "Ukraina Moloda" (Young Ukraine), president of Ukraine Victor Yushchenko reported that 18 thousand officials were removed since the new administration has come to power.

According to Yushchenko he is glad that almost all new appointments are the right candidates. He does not exclude the possibility of mistakes. "When the question is about such large employees’ rotation, one cannot do without mistakes. I would not make a tragedy out of it," said Yushchenko.

In general, according to the president, the question of appointments is almost closed. "New appointments remain to be made in the spheres of education and medicine, in Ministry of Internal Affairs. Not all the chiefs of regional departments of the Security Service of Ukraine have been replaced," said Yushchenko.

Source: ForUm

Corruption "A Function of the State" in Kuchma's Ukraine, Expert Says

WASHINGTON, DC -- During its short term in office, the new pro-reform government of Ukraine has moved quickly and aggressively to root out widespread corruption in the country, according to an expert on Ukraine. Roman Kupchinsky, Coordinator of Corruption Studies for RFE/RL, told a recent briefing audience that the large number of high-level cases reveals the staggering range and scale of corruption in Ukraine. The criminal prosecutions demonstrate, Kupchinsky said, that "corruption was the function of the state."

When discussing corruption during his campaign for the presidency last winter, current Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko vowed to "lock up the criminals." Kupchinsky noted, however, that the government's ability to meet this promise may be more difficult than anticipated, because many of the criminal activities "may be linked to leadership in Russia." Since Russia does not extradite its citizens for trial, Ukrainian prosecutors and courts may ultimately be stymied. Nonetheless, Kupchinsky thinks that the prosecutions will proceed. "The Ukrainian street wants blood," he said, "It believes that the root of corruption was [former President Leonid] Kuchma," and other officials within his regime.

"Everything exploded with the departure of the Kuchma regime," Kupchinsky said, when reviewing the criminal cases brought within the last two months. One example noted by Kupchinsky was the Georgiy Gongadze case, which has galvanized the opposition to Kuchma since the young journalist's decapitated body was found in fall 2000. The case to prosecute his kidnappers and murderers in part revolves around secret recordings made by Mykola Melnychenko, the former head of former President Kuchma's bodyguard detail. Kupchinsky said that, "if accepted as genuine by the Ukrainian courts, these recordings will open a huge Pandora's box" that could provide evidence to charge Kuchma, at the least, "as an accessory to kidnapping in the Gongadze murder." The case has already seen the death of a key witness, former Minister of Interior Yuriy Kravchenko, of an apparent suicide on the day he was to be interrogated by the prosecutor in the Gongadze case, Kupchinsky said.

Other cases brought by Ukraine's Prosecutor General include the arrest on extortion charges of Boris Kolesnikov, the head of the county council of the Donetsk region and a political ally of the defeated presidential candidate former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. Kupchinsky said that Kolesnikov's arrest "might destroy the chances of the [new] opposition in the 2006 parliamentary elections," which Kolesnikov had hoped to lead and would have far-reaching effects for other corruption cases. The investigation into the poisoning of then-candidate Yushchenko now includes named suspects who belong to the Russian Club in Kyiv and have links to neighboring Russia, Kupchinsky said.

Prosecutors have also announced indictments in cases of large scale money laundering, fraud, the misappropriation of international loans and government subsidies, as well as illegal privatizations conducted without public tenders or rigged tenders during the Kuchma era. Kupchinsky said there will also be "blowback" from the investigation of various "[natural] gas schemes" that made available over $600 million dollars for influence peddling and illegal campaign slush funds.

The proliferation of criminal cases opened by Ukraine's Prosecutor General has convinced Kupchinsky that his own earlier research on the extent of corruption in Ukraine "far underestimated the reality of what is being discovered today." Even so, he believes enough progress will be made rooting out corruption that the critical 2006 parliamentary elections will be difficult to undermine or "falsify." The "overall climate in Ukraine is changing for the better," Kupchinsky said.

Source: Radio Free Europe

Slight Drop For Yushchenko In Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine -- Fewer adults in Ukraine are satisfied with Viktor Yushchenko, according to the Ukrainian Barometer released by Interfax. 58.5 per cent of respondents say they have confidence in their president, a 4.4 per cent drop since February.

Yushchenko won last December’s presidential election in Ukraine, with 51.99 per cent of the vote in an unprecedented third round against Viktor Yanukovych.


Yuschenko (l), Lytvyn (c) and Tymoshenko (r)
On Apr. 25, the president’s office issued a decree, establishing Ukraine’s goal of joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU). The document refers to NATO and the EU as the "guarantors of Europe’s security and stability."

The confidence rating is lower for Supreme Council speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn at 52.5 per cent, and prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko at 50.5 per cent.

In March, Yushchenko called for the formation of a single electoral coalition to contest next year’s parliamentary election. The group would conceivably include the president’s Our Ukraine (NU) party, the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc and the People’s Party of Lytvyn.

Polling Data

Do you have confidence in the following politicians? (Positive responses only)

President Viktor Yushchenko
Apr. 2005 - 58.5%
Feb. 2005 - 62.9%

Supreme Council Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn
Apr. 2005 - 52.5%
Feb. 2005 - 58.3%

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko
Apr. 2005 - 50.5%
Feb. 2005 - 50.4%

Methodology: Interviews to 1,798 Ukrainian adults, conducted from Mar. 30 to Apr. 8, 2005. No margin of error was provided.

Source: Ukrainian Barometer/Interfax

Minister of Internal Affairs Could Question Kuchma

KIEV, Ukraine -- The Minister of Internal Affairs (MIA) Yuriy Lutsenko does not exclude the possibility that ex-President Leonid Kuchma will be questioned by the police.

In a comment to journalists, Lutsenko said: "We are worried about the transfer of land property and a huge facility in downtown Kyiv to Kuchma's charity fund."

"Therefore it could happen that Kuchma himself will be invited for questioning. He, according to some documents, personally took part in the formation of the fund and the transfer of the land ownership."

Kuchma's "Ukraine" fund is operating in a former MIA building on Shovkovychna St. in Kyiv, two blocks away from the Parliament and the Secretariat of the President.

Lutsenko added that the MIA continues to investigate the transfer of money to the fund from various sources. According to the minister, even the fact that Kuchma returned the money that FC Dynamo Kyiv donated does not void the illegality of this money transfer being done without informing the club's stockholders.

Ukrayinska Pravda requested a comment in Kuchma's office at the "Ukraine" fund, but was informed that the ex-President is absent until the end of the day.

Source: Ukrayinska Pravda

Cracks in Decaying Shell of Chernobyl Reactor Threaten Second Disaster

MOSCOW, Russia -- A leading Russian scientist has claimed that the sarcophagus entombing Chernobyl's broken nuclear reactor is dangerously degraded and he warned that its collapse could cause a catastrophe on the same scale as the original accident almost 20 years ago.

Professor Alexei Yablokov, President of the Centre for Russian Environmental Policy, said the concrete and metal sarcophagus was riven with cracks, already leaking radiation and at risk of collapse unless repairs were undertaken and work on a replacement urgently begun.

"If it collapses, there will be no explosion, as this is not a bomb, but a pillar of dust containing irradiated particles will shoot 1.5 kilometres into the air and will be spread by the wind." Depending on how the wind is blowing, Russia or Belarus would bear the brunt of such a dust cloud. Ukraine, where Chernobyl is located, would also be affected.

The sarcophagus is designed to keep a lid on what is left of the nuclear reactor that exploded with such dire consequences during an unauthorised test in April 1986 and is supposed to stop the mass of unspent nuclear fuel that lies beneath from entering the atmosphere.

It is estimated that only between 3 and 15 per cent of that fuel actually escaped during the explosion meaning that most of it is still trapped inside. Dr Yablokov, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and a one-time adviser to former president Boris Yeltsin, said nuclear reactions were actually taking place - spontaneously - inside the sarcophagus as rain and snow fell on the unspent fuel through cracks in the decaying shell.

He said experts had "seen a luminescence characteristic of chain reactions inside the giant building". adding: "Who could predict what might happen if hundreds of thousands of tons of concrete, which was hastily poured 19 years ago, tumbled down on the ruined nuclear reactor?"

His gloomy assessment corroborates that of the Ukrainian officials who manage the decommissioned power plant.

Earlier this year Julia Marusych, the head of information at Chernobyl, admitted on Russian TV that the sarcophagus was in appalling condition: "The construction is unstable, unsafe, and does not meet any safety requirements."

The sarcophagus was hastily thrown together after the explosion as a desperate attempt to contain the world's worst nuclear accident. Many of the workers who toiled on it have since died of cancer and the sarcophagus itself began showing signs of serious stress in the early 1990s.

Built to last 50 years,experts were forced to reduce its recommended lifespan to just 20 years meaning a replacement is due in 2006.

Some repair work was carried out earlier this year but progress is slow due to the fact that construction workers can only be in its vicinity for short periods because of radiation levels.

Sceptics claim that warnings about its deterioration are designed to persuade Western donors to stump up the $1bn bill. A donors' conference takes place in London on 12 May and the Ukrainian government hopes to raise $300m.

That task has been complicated, however, by recent revelations that private firms have embezzled some $185m of Chernobyl money, some of which was earmarked for a new shelter.

The first catastrophe

26 APRIL 1986:

1.23am: Reactor number four at Chernobyl nuclear power plant begins to fail. Explosion blows 1,000-ton cover off the reactor and 31 people die immediately.

5am: Fire caused by explosion is put out by firefighters who are not warned of radiation. Many later die.

Evening: Officials arrive at site and order evacuation of nearby town of Pripyat.

27 APRIL:

Disaster is hidden until workers at Forsmark nuclear plant in Sweden are found to have radioactive particles on clothes. Swedish search for the source of radioactivity leads to the USSR.

28 APRIL:

Soviet leadersadmit accident happened but full scale is not explained. First Soviet media reports: Chernobyl is fourth item in Moscow Radio's evening bulletin.

1 MAY:

Despite clouds of radiation overhead, authorities encourage locals to turn out for May Day parade in nearby Kiev.

JUNE-NOVEMBER:

Large sarcophagus made of steel and concrete is hastily constructed.

Source: The Guardian

Yushchenko at the Kennedy Library

BOSTON, MA -- Viktor Yushchenko's speech before a joint session of Congress and his award at the President John F. Kennedy Library surpassed honorary status. Each event was a symbolic, demonstrative act indicating that a country exploited for three hundred years is now recognized in its own right as a sovereign nation on the world stage.

No doubt the Kremlin and Russophiles bristled knowing that the United States welcomed someone from "Little Russia" in such a respectful, extraordinary manner. Ukraine has finally moved outside the political, economic and psychological shadow of its cold, dark, northern neighbor.



The Boston Globe quoted Ukrainian-American Stephanie Majkut who succinctly reflected, "I'm finally seeing freedom in Ukraine. We're finally going to get the Russians off our back. We won't be persecuted anymore."

Caroline Kennedy, daughter of the former president, presented Yushchenko the Profile in Courage Award noting, "for those of us who are free, he has reminded us that we can never take our freedom for granted. And for people with no voice in their own government, President Yushchenko and the Ukrainian people have given them hope."

As the representative for the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church of North and South America and delegate of His Eminence, Metropolitan Michael Javchak Champion, at the ceremony, I heard President Yushchenko say, "I could not calmly watch as the hopes of [Ukraine's] citizens were replaced by disillusion, as millions of people were forced to look for work abroad, as oligarchical clans stole the national wealth . . . with every cell of my body, I felt that millions of honest people were behind me, that we could win, that we would undoubtedly win."

He continued, "Ukrainians today are ready to relive the words of John F. Kennedy: 'Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.' We have the same desire to free Ukrainians from poverty and encourage justice and the rule of law. We want to make Ukraine one of the leaders of democracy."

"This is so historic," said Arnie Arnesen, a guest, long time friend and 1992 Democratic nominee for New Hampshire governor, now a nationally renowned radio and television commentator (www.ArnieArnesen.com).

Arnie, the most intellectually honest commentator in America, who takes Democrats to task equally with Republicans, was so moved by the event that she took an orange daisy from one of the many vases at the reception to dry and keep with the program booklet. I removed the orange ribbon from my lapel pinned with a trident to give to Arnie so that it would be kept with her flower.

"This is an amazing day," repeated my friend of Italian and Norwegian heritage. "Amazing, historic day." The following day Arnie had the UAOC as a guest on her radio program to discuss the ceremony and Ukraine's emerging geopolitical role in Europe and the world.

The Profile in Courage award shares the name of President Kennedy's 1957 book. The Kennedy Library presents the award to a select few who demonstrate rare courage and conscience in times of moral and political danger. Although it can be taken for granted that an event featuring a world leader receiving such an award is historic, this was different, especially when it comes on the eve of the recipient addressing a joint session of Congress.

During the reception, held in an enormous room with huge glass walls, it was difficult not to see the parallel between American and Ukrainian history at this point in time. Through the glass guests enjoyed a stunning view of both the harbor and the City of Boston. Several miles away among the streets where a large, modern city had grown patriots like Paul Revere furthered the cause of liberty. Now on this night many came to honor a man who risked his life to further freedom in Eastern Europe.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy observed at the ceremony that President Yushchenko's "story is the story of honor, decency, and the will of the people triumphing over fraud, deceit, and intimidation. Because of his great courage, the rule of law prevailed against the oppressive rule of the powerful over the powerless. At a critical moment in his nation's history, he took a strong and courageous stand for what he knew was right. He risked his life, and nearly lost it, in the ongoing struggle for democracy in Ukraine."

It has taken a long time, but Taras Shevchenko's hope as expressed in a poem has been met; Ukraine finally has its George Washington. Shevchenko is no doubt smiling from heaven. The next time President Yushchenko visits Shevchenko's grave he may wish to bring orange flowers.

Source: Brama

Ukraine or Turkey? European Opinions

KIEV, Ukraine -- According to a recent opinion-poll by TNS Sofres in the "big six" EU countries (Germany, UK, France, Italy, Spain and Poland), 55% support Ukraine's accession to the European Union. At 77%, Poles are the most eager to include Kiev in the EU "club", followed by 62% of Italians and 60% of Spaniards. In Germany, however, just 41% of the population backs Ukraine's accession bid. The study also reveals that those highly in favour of Turkey's EU membership had dropped considerably, ranging from 55% in Poland to 36% in Germany .



A closer look shows a growing divide between EU leaders and their citizens, with the former favouring Turkey and the latter Ukraine. On average, 58% of people in Europe say Kiev should be given the green light because it is natural part of Europe's geography, history and culture. 88% in Poland agreed with this statement, followed by 63% in France and 60% in Spain. UK citizens are less keen to consider Ukraine part of Europe's history and culture at just 44%, while Germans have a balanced opinion, with 50% agreeing and 39% disagreeing. The overall impression is that the President Yushchenko's "Orange Revolution" has boosted positive feelings to Kiev. However those against accession flag Ukraine's troubled economy, which would certainly complicate Europe's own woes. Others highlight the lack of rule of law in the Kiev political system.

As for Turkish membership, public opinion is really rather negative - in contrast to the political path taken by EU leaders. And this as Ankara limbers up to accession negotiation while EU leaders offer Kiev nothing more than a potential common market in the framework of the EU neighbour policy. The TNS research showed that the favourable share towards Turkey's membership is quite far from that one concerning Ukraine. In fact, except for Poland, the other members' outcomes are behind the 50% of the population, reaching only the 36% and the 37% in Germany and in France.

So what is changed since the last enlargement? Germany, the age-old motor of the European enlargement, seems to have lost its strength and the willingness to promote a new European project, with about 9 millions of jobless and widespread economic stagnation. Hence, it is unlikely that Schröder, with the 60% of the population against to the Turkish membership, will risk putting forward proposals aimed to a wider Kiev integration into the EU. Germany not only helped shoulder the burden of the Eastern enlargement but it is also paying for reunification. In corroboration of that, it is not surprising that some of the EU elite count on the negative outcome of the referendum for the constitution in France in order to block the Turkish access to EU.

In the short term, Ukraine's accession looks rather unlikely, bearing in mind that the Balkans region is the first priority on the EU agenda. In the meantime, Yushchenko must work on reinforcing both the rule of law and the economy while tying the "Kiev issue" to a current member such as Poland. Warsaw was a key partner during the "orange revolution", with major backing not only from the political elite but also from the entire population. The key question remains: "can Poland take the place of Germany in promoting a new enlargement?".

Source: Tiscali Europe

Rebellion in the Backyard Puts Paranoid Moscow on the Defensive

LONDON, England -- Russia's residual neighbourhood watch scheme in what was once the Soviet Union's tightly policed backyard took another knock last week when Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Moldova joined forces in a new "union of democratic states". Mikhail Saakashvili, the Georgian president who has been a thorn in Moscow's side since Tbilisi's 2003 "rose revolution", said the grouping would "not act as a counter-balance or a reproach to anyone". But then he offered a reproach anyway. Friendship based on independence and freedom, he said, was very different from belonging to "an alliance like the Warsaw Pact or an empire like the Soviet Union".



The timing was probably not coincidental. Along with a host of world leaders, the US president, George Bush, will be in Moscow on May 9 to mark the 60th anniversary of Nazi Germany's defeat. Mr Bush, who backed Ukraine's pro-democracy "orange revolution" last year, will also visit Georgia, where the US launched a $50m military training programme at the weekend and where it has become Mr Saakashvili's principal ally.

It is no accident, either, that the US leader will visit Latvia which, like Lithuania and Estonia, escaped Moscow's clutches in the 1990s and joined Nato and the EU. They are now viewed as role models by several post-Soviet states.

Last week's fleeting Kremlin visit by the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, was meant to smooth the way for Mr Bush's meeting with President Vladimir Putin. But her comments on regional issues, coupled with the latest machinations of Moscow's unforgiving former satellites, exacerbated Russian geopolitical paranoia.

Denouncing the Belarus government of President Alexander Lukashenko as Europe's last dictatorship, Ms Rice said it was "time for a change". She hinted that forthcoming elections there could be the next target for the US "soft power" pro-democracy pressure tactics perfected in Serbia in 2000.

Unfortunately for Mr Putin, benighted Belarus is just about the only Russian neighbour that still follows an unequivocal pro-Moscow line. Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, told Ms Rice to mind her own business. Russia's once unchallenged influence in central Asia is also slipping. The US has established military bases in the area since September 11. And, as recent upheavals in Kyrgyzstan suggest, regime change can be catching.

In this atmosphere, the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States' summit in Moscow on May 8, which includes Ukraine and Georgia, could prove a schismatic, even terminal meeting. In a country historically fearful of encirclement and fragmentation, these accelerating neighbourhood trends are seen by many Russians as externally threatening and domestically destabilising.

In his Cold Peace: Russia's New Imperialism, Janusz Bugajski said that Moscow's neighbourhood botch stems from internal weakness as much as foreign policy bungling. Russia "gained an empire before it became a state or a coherent nation", he wrote. Contrary to its vital interests and despite reduced capabilities, Russia continued to brandish regional ambitions like "phantom limbs", Bugajski argued.

But while the result has been repeated humiliations, rising hardline nationalism, and falling confidence in an increasingly dictatorial Mr Putin, Russia's leader retains several trump cards. Mr Rice admitted the US needed a "strategic partnership" on nuclear proliferation, the Balkans and the Middle East, and terrorism.

And then there are Russia's vast energy resources, on which the west increasingly relies. As at their Bratislava tete-a-tete in February, Mr Bush can be expected to balance "freedom's cause" with pragmatic calculations when he meets Mr Putin. According to Anatol Lieven, an analyst, "Putin may be an uncomfortable partner but the west is unlikely to get a better one."

Washington hopes the democratic revolutions in the "post-Soviet sphere" will ultimately spread to Russia itself. But it knows such a transformation runs the risk of a disastrous, post-Putin relapse into unrestrained authoritarianism and an anti-western siege mentality.

Source: The Guardian

Kiev Continues To Re-define Relations With Russia

KIEV, Ukraine -- While Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko cancelled her visit to Russia this month, Defense Minister Anatoliy Grytsenko and National Security and Defense Council Secretary Petro Poroshenko did make it to Moscow. Despite the exchange of diplomatic pleasantries, Ukraine is attempting to re-negotiate the parameters of Russian-Ukrainian relations in seven areas.

Perceptions. First, exactly what are "anti-Russian" policies? Poroshenko was at pains in Moscow to persuade his hosts that Ukraine's Euro-Atlantic integration and the GUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldova) group are not "anti-Russian." Poroshenko explained, "Ukraine's Euro-Atlantic integration can in no way carry an anti-Russian component".


Viktor Yushchenko (l) and Vladimir Putin (r)
But Russia is unlikely to believe such explanations, as it views Ukraine's movement toward the EU and NATO as leading to a severe national-identity crisis and a threat to its security. Moscow fears that "Russian national sacred places" and "its national roots" in Ukraine will be "torn away".

The leaders of Russia and Ukraine base their respective statehoods on two clashing ideological views. As Russian President Vladimir Putin declared in his March 25, 2005, state-of-the-nation address, the disintegration of the multi-national Soviet Union was a "geopolitical catastrophe." Meanwhile, Ukraine's statehood, as outlined in its 1996 constitution, is a major beneficiary of the collapse of the USSR.

Russia is also insensitive to Ukraine's perspective on Soviet history. While a new Stalin cult is being revived in Russia, Ukraine blames Stalinism for the 1933 famine that led to millions of deaths. Russia's Ambassador to Ukraine, Viktor Chernomyrdin, suggested that perhaps Ukrainians should instead blame Georgia, Stalin's birthplace.

Belarus. Ukraine and Russia are increasingly at odds over U.S. and Western policy toward Belarus and over OSCE election-monitoring missions. In his April 19 state of the nation address, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenka described the post-Soviet democratic revolutions as "sheer banditry disguised as democracy." Visibly angered by this claim, Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk praised his country's non-violent protests and added Ukraine's concerns to those of the international community over human rights abuses in Belarus. During the Yushchenko-Bush White House press conference in early April, Belarus was mentioned as a country ripe for democratic revolution.

On April 20 U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with seven Belarusian oppositionists at the NATO summit in Vilnius, where she described Belarus as "the last dictatorship in Europe". Ukraine's views on Belarus thus resemble those of the United States and the EU. Russia, however, criticized Rice and backed Lukashenka's regime.

CIS Rivals. Ukraine offers CIS members an alternative to Russian leadership. It was not coincidental that on the heels of the NATO summit, Ukraine took the lead at the GUAM summit in Chisinau while Lukashenka joined Putin in Moscow.

"Lost" Ukraine. The Yushchenko-Tymoshenko team is not naive enough to believe that Russia will accept the "loss" of Ukraine, as Moscow interprets Yushchenko's presidential victory. The editor of Russia's Profil magazine pointed out, "For the Kremlin, the hohol [a derogatory name for Ukrainians] state has become, if not the biggest nightmare out there, then definitely an obsessive one".

Ukraine now has Russia on the defensive, and Moscow does not know how to respond to Kyiv's desire to join NATO. "The possibility of Ukraine eventually joining NATO is of great concern to Russia," observed Viktor Kremeniuk of the USA and Canada Institute, as "that would spell the end of Russian dominance in the post-Soviet sphere". According to Sergei Markov, one of the Russian advisors to Yushchenko's rival in the Ukrainian presidential race, Russia may now resort to underhanded techniques such as promoting anti-NATO sentiments (e.g. "This issue could bring Yushchenko down!") or resorting to KGB-style disinformation. Already Ukrainians suspect that the political "black lists" of officials allegedly about to be arrested are fakes drawn up by Russia.

Harboring Criminals. Fourth, as long as Russia is seen as a haven for indicted Ukrainian officials, Kyiv is less than willing to play by Russia's rules in the CIS. At the summit of CIS interior ministers, Ukrainian Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko and his delegation -- all decked out in orange ties -- refused to sign any documents.

The reason is Russia's official refusal to search for Ihor Bakay, former head of the Directorate on State Affairs, attached to the executive, who is wanted in Ukraine on multiple criminal charges and the theft of over a quarter of a million dollars. Chernomyrdin has confirmed that Bakay has Russian citizenship. As Ukraine does not recognize dual citizenship, Kuchma's promotion of Bakay to a senior position within the executive was a major breach of Ukrainian legislation.

Black Sea Fleet. Ukraine is applying the rule of law both domestically and in its relations with Russia. Tarasyuk is demanding that corrupt activities by the Black Sea Fleet end, that the Fleet abides by previous agreements, returns property, and allows Ukrainian officials access to all regions of Sevastopol. When Ukraine points to violations of agreements, Russia complains about "unfriendly acts" by Kyiv, Tarasyuk lamented. But, he warned, "agreements must be observed. This rule applies to the Russian side also".

Free Trade. What Russia portrays as a "free-trade zone" in the CIS Single Economic Space is, according to Kyiv, actually a customs union. Ukraine is interested in a free-trade zone but rules out joining any customs union other than the EU.

Sevastopol. Russia is returning to its 1990s rhetoric to support territorial claims on the Crimean port of Sevastopol. Again, the issue relates to whether Sevastopol was transferred to the Ukrainian SSR along with the Crimea in 1954.

Tarasyuk warned that any Russian citizen agitating for separatism in Ukraine or acting as political agents in the 2006 elections could be declared persona non grata. "Any official must keep within certain limits while visiting other countries," Tarasyuk said. He went on to remind Moscow "about the limits of hospitality and the norms of international law".

For this to happen, Moscow would have to first treat Ukraine as an independent state, which is unlikely to happen under Putin.

Source: Jamestown Foundation

NTN Asks For Broadcast License During Court Hearing

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukrainian broadcast journalists from Ukraine's independently owned NTN television station today asked the Yushchenko administration to respect the rule of law and grant NTN its broadcast license during the station's April 28 court hearing. The court hearing will determine NTN TV's broadcast status, following the Yushchenko administration denying NTN its license despite both a Ukrainian arbitrage and appellate court decision ruling in the station's favor.


NTN Editor-in-Chief Nataliya Katerynchuk
"Ukrainian President Yushchenko's government has launched a politically motivated attack on NTN television by denying the station its broadcast rights, despite a licensing body and two Ukrainian courts mandating the approval," said Boris Iliyashenko, Managing Director and Editor, NTN TV Company. "It appears that the Yushchenko administration's displeasure with one of the owners has prompted the Ukrainian authorities to attempt a re- nationalization of NTN and to interfere in the station's licensing procedure."

NTN (owned in part by Eduard Prutnik, a former advisor to Viktor Yanukovych -- Yushchenko's opponent during the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election) applied for an increased broadcast license following the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election and was approved by two licensing organizations -- the State Committee on Communications and Information and the Ukrainian Council on Television and Radio. The Ukrainian Council on Television and Radio reversed its decision, however, after facing heavy-handed pressure from the Yushchenko administration, and refused to extend the station's broadcast license or renew the already existing license. Despite rulings in favor of NTN's licensing from a Ukrainian arbitrage and appellate court, mandating that the licensing bodies recognize NTN's existing broadcast license and approve an increased licensing application, the Ukrainian Council on Television and Radio continued to refuse and the Ukrainian attorney general initiated procedures against NTN for non-licensing, which would result in the station's re-nationalization.

"President Yushchenko's administration must not treat NTN differently from other Ukrainian television stations, which received licenses in the same process that NTN did," said Nataliya Katerynchuk, Editor-in-chief, NTN TV Company. "Preferential treatment of some television stations and politically motivated interference against others is contrary to President Yushchenko's statements during the 'orange revolution,' when he voiced his support for a free Ukrainian media."

Ukraine's privately owned NTN television station was founded in 2004. Reporters Without Borders "cautioned Ukraine's new authorities against any attempt to seek revenge against news media with ties to the old regime" following an April 2, 2005 NTN protest against the Yushchenko administration's actions. NTN's April 28 court hearing will determine whether the Ukrainian attorney general must recognize the station's broadcast license.

Source: NTN TV

GUUAM: Ukraine Aspires To Leadership Role In Revitalized Organization

KIEV, Ukraine -- Following Viktor Yushchenko's election late last year as Ukrainian president and Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin's espousal of an unequivocally pro-Western foreign policy orientation, many observers anticipated that the long-awaited summit of the GUUAM alignment in Chisinau on 22 April would herald a new era in that body's activities.

Speaking for the three other presidents of member states who attended the summit, Yushchenko redefined GUUAM's priorities, highlighting democratization and eventual membership of NATO and the EU. But at the same time, the discussions between participants revealed at least one major strategic disagreement.

GUUAM first evolved in 1997 as GUAM -- the brainchild of the then presidents of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Ukraine (Eduard Shevardnadze, Heidar Aliyev and Leonid Kuchma) -- on the basis of their shared pro-Western orientation, mistrust of Russia, and the desire to profit jointly from the export of at least part of Azerbaijan's Caspian oil via Georgia and Ukraine. Moldova's inclusion, formalized on the sidelines of a Council of Europe summit in Strasbourg in October 1997, resulted partly from concern over the anticipated impact of the revisions adopted in May 1997 to the 1990 Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe; those amendments increased the amount of weaponry Russia is allowed to deploy in the Transcaucasus, Ukraine, and Moldova. Moldova was also interested in the TRACECA project to create a coordinated transport corridor from Central Asia via the Transcaucasus and Ukraine to Europe. In April 1999, Uzbekistan was formally accepted as a member of GUAM, but its participation has never been anything but half-hearted, and in June 2002 Tashkent "suspended" its membership until further notice.

Moscow's Fears

From the organization's inception, Moscow has harbored fears and suspicions that its primary rationale is to undermine the CIS and Russia's claim to a leading role within that body. Two ongoing trends have fueled those misgivings. The first is discussions of a possible military-security component for GUUAM in the shape of either a joint peacekeeping battalion or a security force to guard the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan export pipeline for Azerbaijan's Caspian oil. (The defense ministers of the GUUAM member states have met more regularly than have the presidents.)

The second is the keen interest, and later financial support, given to GUUAM by the United States, which in late 2000 allocated $45 million to the alliance's five members to be spent as they considered appropriate. Senior officials from GUUAM member states have consistently sought to allay Moscow's concerns. For example, speaking in May 2000 in Washington, Moldovan Ambassador to Washington Ceslav Ciobanu stressed that "our organization was never designed to be oriented against any other country."Yushchenko's election as Ukrainian president, and the close convergence of geopolitical interests between Ukraine and Georgia, engendered hopes that the organization could be revitalized, with Ukraine as the largest committed member playing a leading role.

While GUUAM's members made no secret of their desire for closer cooperation with Euro-Atlantic and European structures, the advantages of closer economic cooperation were touted as the locomotive for GUUAM's development. In August 2000, Yushchenko, then Ukrainian prime minister, proposed creating a GUUAM free-trade zone. That idea was endorsed by all five presidents at a meeting in September 2000 on the sidelines of the UN Millennium Summit in New York.

In June 2001, the five GUUAM presidents met in Yalta and adopted a GUUAM charter outlining the organization's basic goals and principles, which included economic cooperation, developing transport links, strengthening regional security, and cooperating in the fight against organized crime and international terrorism. But they did not sign Yushchenko's proposed agreement on establishing the free-trade zone, which Uzbekistan's President Islam Karimov termed "premature." Karimov did not attend the next summit, in Yalta in July 2002, at which the other four countries gave the green light for the free-trade zone. By that juncture, Moldova too was signaling its disenchantment with GUUAM; President Voronin was quoted by Caucasus Press on 19 July as saying GUUAM's future prospects are unclear.

The planned free-trade zone and transport corridors figured on the agenda of the next summit, in July 2003. But only two of the five presidents attended -- Karimov stayed away in line with Uzbekistan's "suspended" membership, and the presidents of Azerbaijan and Moldova were absent due to illness. And only the Ukrainian parliament ratified the agreement on establishing the free-trade zone.

For much of 2004, GUUAM appeared to have lost momentum: a summit planned for Batumi in June was postponed indefinitely for reasons that were never made clear. But GUUAM leaders did agree in September 2004 to establish an interparliamentary assembly.

Revitalizing GUUAM?

Yushchenko's election as Ukrainian president, and the close convergence of geopolitical interests between Ukraine and Georgia, engendered hopes that the organization could be revitalized, with Ukraine as the largest committed member playing a leading role. On 18 April, Azerbaijani presidential-administration official Novruz Mamedov predicted that the summit would give GUUAM its "second wind," while Georgian National Security Council Secretary Gela Bezhuashvili told Caucasus Press the same day that member states have agreed to coordinate their efforts to secure membership of NATO and the EU.

Addressing this month's Chisinau GUUAM summit, President Yushchenko advocated transforming GUUAM into "a large-scale regional organization" committed to democracy, economic development, and regional security and with its own headquarters and secretariat. Although Yushchenko did not say so, the security dimension would serve to underscore the difference between GUUAM and the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization, the activities of which GUUAM might otherwise risk duplicating. "The idea is to create a coalition of states on the basis of GUUAM that would become the stronghold and guarantee of democratic reforms and stability in the Black Sea-Caspian region," Interfax quoted Yushchenko as saying -- a formulation that implies that Uzbekistan no longer figures in the equation.

Yushchenko also unveiled at the Chisinau summit a new seven-point initiative aimed at resolving the long-running Transdniester conflict. That step-by-step peace proposal would entail holding free and democratic elections in Transdniester under the aegis of the EU, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the United States, and Russia, and the replacement of the Russian peacekeeping forces in Transdniester with international military and civilian observers. Yushchenko hinted that that model might subsequently be applied to other unresolved conflicts on the territory of GUUAM member states, meaning those in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Nagorno-Karabakh.

But Yushchenko's peace plan failed to win the support of other participants; Romanian President Traian Basescu objected that holding elections in Transdniester under the auspices of international organizations would serve to legitimize the existing separatist regime. At the same time, Basescu called for the swift withdrawal of all Russian troops from Transdniester and expanding the current five-sided format for mediating a solution to the conflict. Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin for his part said he was not informed in advance of Yushchenko's proposal, according to the "Neue Zuercher Zeitung" on 25 April.

The presence at the Chisinau summit of both Basescu and Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus served to highlight the possibility -- to which Yushchenko alluded -- that other states might apply to join GUUAM. In the past, Romania, Bulgaria, and Latvia have also been mentioned as potential new members.

But in the final analysis, the organization's potential and future influence, and hence its attractiveness to outsiders, might depend largely on its members' success in resolving long-running territorial conflicts that will otherwise continue to drain those countries' modest economic resources.

Source: Radio Free Europe

Ukraine Court Rules to Nationalize Russian Company’s Stake in Aluminium Giant

KIEV, Ukraine -- Kiev’s economic court ruled to return to state ownership a controlling stake in the Zaporozhye Aluminium Smelter which is owned by Russia’s SUAL group. Simultaneously, a Ukrainian state property fund official said that an 18-percent stake in Ukrtatnafta, which belongs to companies affiliated with Russia’s Tatneft Oil Company, will also be returned to state custody.

It has been little more than a month since the meeting between Ukraine’s President Viktor Yushchenko and Russia’s top businessmen. As MosNews reported, Yushchenko promised Russian companies a favorable investment climate. But the recent actions by the Ukrainian authorities are in complete contradiction to the president’s statements, Russia’s Kommersant daily notes.



The conflict surrounding Zaporozhye Aluminium Smelter began after its privatization in February 2001 when 68.01 percent of the smelter’s shares were bought by Russia’s AvtoVAZ-Invest (AVI). Immediately after the auction AVI’s competitor, Ukrainian VTF KrAZ, went to court with a demand to revise the results of the auction. Ukraine’s Supreme Arbitration Court ruled that the deal was lawful back in 2001, but until recently a court order prohibited the new owners from investing in the plant’s modernization.

At the end of February the prosecutor’s office of Zaporozhye region ruled that the shareholders failed to fulfill the privatization conditions by not investing in the plant’s modernization. This was enough for the economic court to rule that the deal should be broken up and the controlling stake in Zaporozhye Aluminium Smelter should be returned to state custody. After that, the head of the Ukrainian state property fund said, the smelter will be re-sold to Ukrainian entrepreneurs.

The head of the state property fund also said that Ukraine plans to return to state custody the 18-percent stake in Ukrtatnafta which belongs to AmRuz and Sea Group, both affiliated with Tatneft. The nationalization of this stake will deprive the Russian oil company of control over Ukraine’s largest oil processing plant.

Kommersant reports that the next candidate for nationalization claims may be Russian Aluminium (RusAl) which owns a 30-percent stake in the Nikolaev Alumina Plant.

Source: Mosnews

Boullioun Announces Lease of Boeing 737-300 to Ukraine International

BELLEVUE, Washington -- Boullioun Aviation Services Inc., one of the world's premier aircraft operating lessors, today announced a medium-term lease with Ukraine International Airlines for a 1997-vintage Boeing 737-300 aircraft. This lease marks Boullioun's first transaction with Ukraine International.

Boullioun delivered the aircraft, equipped with CFM56-3C1 engines, on Friday. With its arrival, Ukraine International's fleet grows to nine modern Boeing 737 aircraft. Ukraine International provides passenger and cargo transportation from its base in Ukraine to 20 international destinations throughout Europe.



"Thanks to steady growth in passenger and cargo traffic, we continue with our ability to steadily add aircraft while maintaining our commitment to operating the most modern and highest quality fleet in the region," said Richard Creagh, Deputy President of Ukraine International. "We were fortunate that Boullioun Aviation's portfolio focus matched well with our needs, and we appreciate Boullioun's assistance in helping us add another modern Boeing 737 to our fleet."

"While much of the focus in today's market rests on the carriers in Asia, Eastern Europe also provides a positive area for growth for the airline industry, and a source of opportunity for aircraft lessors," said Boullioun President and CEO Robert J. Genise. "We're always pleased to play a part in the success of a trailblazing carrier such as Ukraine International, and we wish it continued success in its growing market."

Boullioun, founded in 1986 by aviation industry veteran E.H. "Tex" Boullioun, leases aircraft worldwide to airlines. Boullioun's portfolio contains 115 owned or managed aircraft with a total market value over US$3.7 billion. The company has 11 aircraft on firm order valued at nearly US$700 million, plus options. Since 1995, Boullioun has, on behalf of itself and third parties, placed 205 aircraft on lease with 88 airlines, concluded sale and leaseback and other back-to-back transactions involving 57 aircraft, and sold 74 aircraft to airlines and investors.

Boullioun is owned by WestLB AG of Dusseldorf, Germany. With assets of more than 267 billion Euros and AA-/Aa2 credit ratings from Standard & Poor's and Moody's Investors Service, respectively, WestLB is one of the largest commercial banks operating on an international scale.

Source: PR Newswire

Turchynov: Order to Crush the Orange Revolution Came with Kuchma’s Consent.

KIEV, Ukraine -- Following is an interview conducted by Ukrayinska Pravda with Alexander Turchynov, the head of Ukraine's intelligence security service - SBU (formerly known as the KGB).

What do you know about the facts cited in the famous New York Times article, that the SBU actually saved the revolution from the bloody finale when the Interior Ministry troops were raised in alarm and given an order to march on Kiev.

Certainly, everything written there is an exaggeration. Not everyone who portrayed their actions that way actually honestly performed their duties. On the other hand, efforts made by many honest officers to avoid bloodshed were crucial. They understood what would be the consequences if the first shot were fired, because we were also making serious preparations for resistance on our side …

Chervonenko claimed that opposition even had arms.

I don’t want to say that we were arming people, but there were military units ready to carry out orders issued by the Committee of National Salvation. I knew very few people who were ready to die for Kuchma, Medvedchuk or Pinchuk. On the other hand, there were a lot of patriots who were actually ready to sacrifice their lives to save democracy in Ukraine.

The Interior Ministry troops stopped only when the military people intervened: when the top brass of the Ukrainian army warned that they were ready to put themselves between the people in the square and the Interior Ministry troops moving on to Kyiv.

Only then did the former government and those who were trying to carry out its criminal orders stop.

Who, do you think gave the order to the commander of the Interior Ministry troops Popkov to march to Kyiv?

The order was given with Kuchma’s direct consent.

Who gave the order?

Popkov was acting under the Interior Ministry orders, so Mr. Bilokon must have been the one to give him orders.

What information do you have on whether there really were Russian Special Forces in Kyiv during the Revolution?

No, there were no Russian special forces. Crimean and Donetsk SWAT teams deployed at important positions and guarding, among other places, the Presidential Administration building were taken for Russian Special Forces.

Regarding the Melnychenko case, how do you, as the head of the Intelligence Service see the situation: his recordings were made with a stationary eavesdropping system in the President’s office left there from the Soviet times or he had a dictaphone or something else?

Analyzing the quality of the recordings our experts tend to agree that Melnychenko was recording using a device concealed in a remote control such as either TV or air conditioning control. Our experts come to this conclusion by analyzing the recordings by dynamics of volume change, by picking up such noise as a pencil rolling on the table, etc. That’s why we believe that kind of technology was most likely used.

It is clear that no one crawled under a sofa. If Melnychenko had to crawl under the sofa every time, that would have raised many questions among his colleagues. And such a sophisticated device as the one in the remote could have a duplicate, could be easily changed and charged again and again.

As far as the stationary devices go, which was reported were installed even during Soviet times, the secret service that “swept” all rooms in the Presidential Administration building after the incident didn’t find anything. Maybe the Department of State Security found some devices but we have no information on this.

What is the guarantee in terms of technical protection that a story similar to Melnychenko’s won’t repeat again?

Offices of high-ranking officials are “swept” periodically. The Department of State Security, which is also entrusted with protection of the President is responsible for this. The SBU is responsible for protection of information from intelligent services of other countries that might be interested in what is discussed on the Bankova Street.

The problem is that these days there are a lot of technical devices that can be used by foreign countries to collect information without crossing the state borders. It is the so-called radio-intelligence.

Have you found anything of the kind?

They are hard to find, because we are talking about powerful devices, satellites. Today the international intelligence community has made a significant progress. Now to collect information one does not need an agent in the high official’s office. To match the challenges of high technology we must have adequate financing, scientific potential. Even with our limited financing, compared to other countries, I believe we have a high level of technical protection of information.

Is SBU listening on other countries?

We are working within the law, which regulates the SBU’s activity.

Last week the speaker of the parliament Volodymyr Lytvyn claimed again, that he is still under surveillance and that somebody is still eavesdropping on him.

As soon as I heard about it on Friday I sent Mr. Lytvyn a letter asking him to pass the available information on to us, so that we could open a criminal case and conduct an investigation. That kind of surveillance is illegal because nobody can authorize it, because any kind of eavesdropping on any Member of Parliament has to be authorized by the resolution of the Supreme Rada.

Second, I asked the speaker of the Supreme Rada, who had made these allegations before, to strengthen his protection detail, to include the SBU specialists who were ready to neutralize any kind of surveillance and any technical devices. I am waiting for his answer, because without his consent I cannot dispatch any SBU officers to him.

Mr. Melnychenko says he sent you a letter with the description of possible provocations that Mr. Berezovsky is planning. You said you would check the facts in the letter. So, what is your conclusion?

We are still working on those facts. As far as I know the prosecutor’s office has called some people from Berezovsky’s entourage as witnesses. It is very important to hear from Mykola Melnychenko himself; I would advise him to finally come to Ukraine, because it is only here where we can really protect his life. His testimony in particular would allow us to make progress in the case of Gongadze.

Why isn’t he coming? Why wasn’t he interviewed in America?

There are a lot of personal factors. I think there are certain circles that want Melnychenko silent. They are the ones who are interested in that case never solved. Attempts have been made to hinder the investigation. From time to time, statements appear in the press that Melnychenko needs to be arrested.

You are talking about Mr. Sivkovych’s statements?

Several people make such public statements, which make Melnychenko unwilling to come back. A conflict that broke up between him and Berezovsky is not conducive at all… I am convinced though, that nowhere on this planet his life could be protected better than in Ukraine.

Do you think Berezovsky is planning some kind of escapade or he really wants to help?

I’ve never in my life had an opportunity to talk to him. I can only guess by reading the press. He declares that he wants to help solve this case but it is hard to evaluate all the scope of his intentions.

You were the person who visited the scene of Kravchenko’s suicide. Recently information has surfaced that it may not have been suicide.

Why?

They say the position of the body was wrong…

Only people who didn’t visit the scene could make statements like that. There are facts that that make us positive it was suicide: among them the place where Kravchenko’s body was found, absence of signs of violence. He was quite a strong man and it would have been very hard to overpower him and make him play along to stage this crime.

But is it possible for anyone to shoot himself in the head twice? They say it is impossible because of the pain shock.

Why impossible? When you are experiencing terrible pain, even if you are not trying to end your life you have a desire to stop this pain. That’s what Kravchenko did. Besides, there are cases when people shot themselves three times with a rifle and the wounds were quite serious.

Bullets that were extracted agree with the position of the body. Bloodstains confirm that the body was not moved. There is no evidence to claim that someone held him or that he was forced in any other way.

His daughter was walking outside and saw no other movements except when Mr. Kravchenko went to that shack. His house, like others in this elite neighborhood were under protection of special guards. No other movements of people were noticed – and it was early enough for everybody to see.

Moreover, imagine if you wanted to stage a suicide, do you want to make it that complicated? When someone stages a suicide they do not plan such things as the first shot that goes through soft tissues and doesn’t touch the brain. A shot like that would have caused an unforeseen reaction of the victim, great amount of blood and a danger for the likely killer. In that case the first shot would have been made straight in the temple. They wouldn’t have made it so complicated that the press now cannot stop talking about it for two months.

Did examination prove that Kravchenko wrote his death note himself?

Yes it did.

Was everything that was in the note made public?

Everything that was on a piece of paper in his pocket was read out by the Interior Minister.

The Prosecutor General Piskun stressed on your role in the operation when he was commenting on the arrest of Gongadze’s killers. What was your role in that operation, and what kind of operation was it?

Somewhere in the middle of February after a conversation with Georgiy Gongadze’s wife the President summoned the Prosecutor General and me and ordered the SBU to get involved in the investigation. We intensified our inquiry, got involved in investigation and in field operations.

We had a clear goal – to uncover all participants in this crime and to arrest them. We already had enough information about Pukach and his subordinates’ involvement in this case. They were the ones who were last seen pushing Georgiy in the car and driving away.

As soon as one of them was arrested the other two made an attempt to get away but were quickly apprehended by the SBU. We put them under complete surveillance and found out where they all were. Had we put this question off, at least one of the suspects could have left the country. It was a standard field operation; it was carefully organized and carried out on time. There was no shooting, no special effects …

Those people were arrested in Kyiv?

Let’s say it was there.

Mr. Pukach was then in Ukraine?

According to the information that we possess he disappeared at the end of last year.

Is he at least alive right now?

We hope he is.

Last week they reported he was in Israel. Do you think it is true?

We think he might be in any country but under a different name.

Do you think there is a chance the case of Gongadze may ever be finished, now that Mr. Kravchenko is dead and Mr. Pukach has disappeared probably forever?

I hope we will find him faster than those who are not interested in this case ever be finished. There is enough evidence to say that there are people interested in this case never be solved. If you add tapes and Melnychenko’s evidence to all this, the court will be able to pass a verdict and to punish the guilty.

Earlier in your life as a politician you directly named people who ordered Gongadze’s murder. You named Kuchma. Do you still believe that?

When I was a politician I was not a person responsible for legal definitions of an accusation. As a politician I could do that. I believe as a politician I spoke frankly and I had enough evidence to make that political statement. Now, until charges have been filed and the case is sent to the court, for me to make statement like those would mean disrespect to my office.

Have you ever been offered bribes in your new job? Interior Minister and Minister of Transport claim they have been offered.

Nobody offered me bribes. If they did they wouldn’t have left this office room!

Were any of your subordinates offered bribes?

We have a very efficient internal security system and we uncover those who break the law and those who disgrace SBU officers. People like these are brought to justice.

Mr. Chervonenko reported there was a special operation with the SBU to arrest a person ordering a murder of the head of the Odessa seaport, and this operation failed because the information about it was leaked …

I am not familiar with this statement of Mr. Chervonenko. If we were conducting the operation that person would have been arrested.

Has anybody been arrested by you for bribery since the new administration took office?

The trick is that any person can report bribery but it is very difficult to prove. You either need to be present when the money changes hands or one of the sides has to cooperate with the SBU to document the crime. And those who would agree to cooperate would have to give precise evidence in the court; they would have to say that “really I was given a bribe after a certain persuasion and by agreement with another person, or that I myself gave a bribe.” Many are put off by their reluctance to testify in the court or even by their name being mentioned in a criminal case. In spite of these difficulties we have investigated certain cases and have made arrests.

Is there any news about a story of extortion by aides of the Members of Parliament? In certain political circles it is rumored that aides to Mr. Shkil and Mr. Omelchenko were lobbying certain officials and for that they demanded payments.

I have to tell you honestly, there is no criminal connection between those aides and the MPs. We had those people under surveillance and were waiting for high officials to take bait. It was a classical SBU operation. Everything was ready for money to change hands – we knew the time and recorded all the particulars.

The charged filed against people who have been implicated in this crime are irrefutable and they practically admitted their guilt.

How was it possible that aides to two different MPs got involved in one case?

Not only these people. There was also a third organizer. Certain fictitious ID cards from the Cabinet of Ministers were used in the operation…

Mr. Shkil claims that his aide arrested in this case was 22 years old. How could such a young person pass for a lobbyist for government positions in the Cabinet of Ministers?

Those who supervised this group of criminals wanted businessmen to have an illusion of real access to power. They had identity cards, offices, access to government communication channels, etc. That’s why parliamentary aides were involved; they have small salaries but can move freely within government and parliament buildings.

I can only say this: despite the fact that these people were aides to MPs from my parliamentary block I gave the order to apprehend them because I don’t divide people into “mine” and “not mine”. Everyone should be treated equally before the law. Those who are in power are tempted more than the opposition.

Regarding the case of transit server in the Central Election Committee, who is going to be charged for that crime?

The peculiarity of this case is that all main participants in this case – heads of the CEC (Central Election Committee), its officials and high-level administrators – they were all first or second class government employees.

According to the Criminal Code we can investigate these cases once the fact of the crime has been established. When it comes to filing charges we are not allowed to charge government employees of the first or second class. That’s why we are transferring this case to the Prosecutor General’s office on Monday. They will have to file charges against the high-ranking officials in the Central Election Committee.

How was the transit server used from the point of view of technology? Was the information really channeled to the Presidential Administration?

Whether that data was sent to the Presidential Administration or any other building is immaterial. The data that arrived at the CEC server was handled improperly. There was an unauthorized access to the CEC data; high-ranking government officials were able to “adjust” it because the number of people who worked with it was limited.

There was no need to lay cables to the Presidential Administration or to the Presidential candidate’s headquarters. This information could easily be fed into a computer in the same CEC building and then sent and received on line. The “adjusted” data was entered in the CEC server again.

To hide the fact of the unauthorized access to that server and to delete evidence an attempt was made to destroy the server after the first round of elections.

Wait a moment, how were we going to have the second round of voting?

The second round was conducted with a new server. The SBU had to adjust its operations to it. Then they changed the method by which they were going to fix the elections. In the second round of voting they understood that using the server was too cumbersome and too conspicuous – falsifications were happening during counting, not during voting.

That’s why in the second round the method of falsifications was changed: they perfected their falsification techniques on the level of electoral districts and riding committees.

Has the SBU investigated the former deputy head of the SBU Mr. Statsiuk?

We are conducting investigations of certain SBU officials who are implicated in abuse of their office. It is normal – we need to cleanse ourselves. For the time being I am not going to name anybody who is being investigated.

When you just came to the SBU you said that you opened a case of illegal eavesdropping under Kuchma. Have you found recordings of your conversations in the archive?

There was no need for that. My eavesdropped conversations I could read every day on the pages of the website Agency of Tomorrow’s News. They would take my conversations, change them a little to make them funny and to create discord among the opposition members. At that time I asked the SBU to stop that, because they were not only eavesdropping but also publishing it on that website. The SBU’s reply was: because the site was anonymous they could not find anyone who was collecting that information.

Now we have done a lot to investigate it: we interviewed hundreds of people, also in different regions, and now have a clear picture of how they organized this illegal wiretapping. Because some high-ranking officials are implicated we are submitting this case to the Prosecutor General’s office, which is going to make a decision on those people.

Who from the new administration is wiretapped now?

Everyone is equal before the law and if anyone is implicated in a criminal case, then by the court’s decision we can do that. Unfortunately, today there is no established order in how this is done. Earlier only the SBU had access to the necessary technical devices – now police, tax agency, border guards, Department of State Security, Agency of Correctional Facilities and others have them as well. That makes it hard to control them.

Moreover, these days anyone can buy abroad the equipment used to wiretap mobile telephones. There are many big companies who manage their own security and have acquired, though illegally, these devices. Besides, anyone engaged in intelligence gathering activity has access to the equipment used in these operations.

The problem is that devices used to wiretap mobile telephones are very difficult to detect. They are designed to receive and not to transmit any waves – it works like an aerial. That’s why I cannot say that nobody listens to anybody. I can only confirm that the SBU is not engaged in wiretapping illegally.

Is anybody eavesdropping on you?

There are a lot of people who would like to eavesdrop on me but my office and communication lines are checked regularly.

Source: Ukrayinska Pravda

Educating Zvarych

KIEV, Ukraine -- With tensions mounting (as per the Orange Revolution) among supporters and opponents of last year's so-called revolution, a high-ranking government official came under increasing pressure to resign over disclosures that he has lied about degrees he claims to have earned during the 1980s at two prestigious US universities.

Around the capital, journalists, politicians and anti-government demonstrators were talking about the future of Justice Minister Roman Zvarych, whose academic credentials were questioned in an investigative report which appeared on the nation’s most popular Internet site, Ukrainska Pravda, on April 14.

The article, titled “One More Fake Professor?,” indicated that Zvarych did not did graduate from Columbia University in 1981 with a degree in philosophy, as indicated on his official resume.

To date, no one has been unable to find any evidence that Zvarych has ever received any degree from Columbia University, NYU, or any other US university.

On April 15, the justice ministry refused comment by telephone requesting a written query to be addressed by e-mail. Justice ministry spokeswoman Elena Iskorostenkaya again refused comment on April 16 and April 17, as did Vitaly Chepynoga, spokesman for the cabinet of ministers.

While mainstream Ukrainian media have virtually ignored the story, thousands of Internet users have commented on the imbroglio. Most of the comments appearing on the nation’s largest civic portal, Maidan have been overwhelming critical of Zvarych.

The English version of the Justice Minister's resume on the government website says that he graduated in 1981 from Columbia University, where he studied philosophy. the Ukrainian version of his resume says he worked as a professor at New York University from 1983 to 1991.

In an interview appearing in the daily tabloid Fakty on March 25, Zvarych said he received a full scholarship to Columbia University, covering tuition, room and board.

“I received a master's degree in philosophy,” he said in the desultory 3,500-word interview.

“I never practiced law in the United States, only in Ukraine. By the way, I never finished university because I applied for a doctoral program. I didn’t finish that either, but began teaching at Columbia as a teacher’s assistant. I had my own courses, conducted seminars and the like. New York University offered to make me a professor. I didn’t have the title of professor, just the rank. These are different things. I taught different subjects at NYU for seven years: law, ethics and intellectual history,” he said.

Zvarych, who has lived in Ukraine since 1991, renounced his US. citizenship in 1993 and was granted Ukrainian citizenship two years later. His ideological opponents in Ukraine have branded him an “American spy,” whereas he is known among American residents in Kiev for his anti-American sentiments and support for the US-led invasion of Iraq.

His apparent reluctance to become the first minister to step down from the new government comes at a time when President Viktor Yushchenko is under fire for failing to act on promises made during last fall’s presidential campaign to ensure that the nation’s new authorities tell the truth.

In an interview appearing on April 16 in the weekly Zerkalo Nedeli, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said Zvarych has attended few of the 15 cabinet meetings held so far.

“Yet it is not the government’s problem; it is the individual minister’s problem. We have very proficient deputy ministers in the justice ministry. They have made minister’s absence go unnoticed.”

In February, Zvarych threatened to resign from government after the cabinet decided to ban the re-export of oil. The threat was aired television channel 5, which is controlled by National Defense and Security Secretary Petro Poroshenko.

Oil transit - a company that re-sells Russian oil to Slovakia - was affected by the new ban. Zvarych's wife works for Oil Transit.

Source: Ukrayinska Pravda

Ukraine’s Zenit Carries Spaceway F1 Satellite Into Orbit

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine’s Zenit-3SL vehicle successfully blasted off from the sea-launch platform Odyssey on Tuesday, carrying DIRECTV’s Spaceway satellite into orbit, the RIA-Novosti news agency quoted the Russian flight control center as saying.

The satellite will stay in orbit for 12 years.



Sea Launch’s Zenit-3SL vehicle is to lift the 6,080 kg Spaceway F1 satellite to geosynchronous transfer orbit, on its way to a final orbital position at 102.8 degrees West Longitude.

Spaceway, Sea Launch’s third mission for DIRECTV, is one of four Boeing-built Ka-band satellites that DIRECTV has scheduled for launch over the next three years as part of a historic expansion of programming capacity that will enable DIRECTV to deliver more than 1,500 local and national High Definition channels and other advanced programming services to consumers in the United States by 2007.

Source: Mosnews

Chernobyl's 19th Anniversary is Commemorated in Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine -- Hundreds of mourners laid flowers and lit candles early Tuesday before a monument in Ukraine's capital to mark the 19th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, which spewed radiation over much of northern Europe and claimed thousands of lives.

As the country slept on April 26, 1986, a test at the then-Soviet Chernobyl nuclear power station went horribly wrong, causing Reactor No. 4 to explode and catch fire.

"The Chernobyl plant that was regarded as Ukraine's pride has become a symbol of the biggest ever manmade disaster," the plant's management said in a statement Tuesday, a day that is now observed worldwide as a memorial to victims of radiation catastrophes.

An area roughly half the size of the U.S. state of Colorado was contaminated by the accident, forcing the resettlement of hundreds of thousands of people and ruining some of Europe's most fertile farmland.

Ukraine has registered 4,400 deaths. In all, seven million people in the former Soviet republic's of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine are believed to have suffered health problems. Many were the firefighters, cleanup workers, soldiers and scientists sent in to help deal with the tragedy.

"They protected us like heroes of war," said Ganna Romanova, 75, a survivor of the disaster. "We must not forget them and we must tell our children about their feat."

In Kiev, some 130 kilometres south of the Chernobyl plant, hundreds of Ukrainians filled a small chapel dedicated to the disaster's victims at 1:23 a.m. as bells tolled 19 times to mark the exact time of the explosion.

Many victims have complained that their governments are doing too little to help them. In the Russian city of Novovoronezh, some 500 kilometres south of Moscow, a group of Chernobyl victims launched a new hunger strike, saying that recent social reforms stripped them of some necessary benefits, Russia's NTV reported. Specialists from Novovoronezh's nuclear power plant were dispatched to Chornobyl to help after the accident.

The most frequent Chernobyl-related diseases include thyroid, blood and other cancers.

Yuriy Andreev, the head of the Chernobyl Union, an action group that represents victims said that the Ukrainian government has decreased funds for victims every year.

"In 1992, we were receiving 12 per cent of (national) budget expenses, in 2000 - 3.3 per cent and in 2005 only 2.3 per cent," he said. Similar complaints have been made in Belarus, whose authoritarian leader has even encouraged farming to resume in areas near contamination zones.

Ukraine shut down Chernobyl's last working reactor in December 2000, but the decommissioning works continue. A Russian-Ukrainian consortium has recently started reinforcing the crumbling concrete-steel shelter hastily constructed over the damaged reactor. Meanwhile, the price tag for building a new shelter has increased by hundreds of millions of dollars.

Cash shortages continue to raise concern. Last week, the state-run company responsible for maintaining the site and decommissioning the plant warned it is facing a dangerous cutoff of energy supplies due to a debt of $6 million US in unpaid bills for gas, electricity and overdue wages.

Also Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister Mykola Tomenko urged investigators to scrutinize "enormously big sums" paid to consultants and experts for environmental safety work at Chernobyl. Prosecutors have already launched on criminal case against an unidentified person for alleged misappropriation of funds.

Source: CBC News

Yushchenko Turns Focus to Southern Ukraine and Crimea

KIEV, Ukraine -- Anatoliy Matvienko's confirmation as prime minister of Crimea on April 20 follows an April 4 Odessa court decision to overturn the 2002 mayoral elections and confirm Eduard Hurfits as mayor. Both cases represent a strategic breakthrough by President Viktor Yushchenko's team, as the predominantly Russophone Southern Ukraine and Crimean regions had voted for his opponent, Viktor Yanukovych in the 2004 presidential elections.

Hurfits, a member of Yushchenko's Our Ukraine bloc, won the 2002 Odessa mayoral election, but the courts awarded the job to his opponent, Ruslan Bodelan, who backed then-president Leonid Kuchma. Bodelan is the head of the Regions of Ukraine Odessa branch, thus his replacement represents a second blow to Yanukovych, the head of Regions of Ukraine. The head of the party's Donetsk oblast branch, Borys Kolesnykov, was arrested on April 6.

Crimean Prime Minister Serhiy Kunitsyn initially refused to resign, but was eventually enticed with the ceremonial position of presidential adviser. People's Democratic Party (NDP) leader Valeriy Pustovoitenko, who had backed Yanukovych, complained that NDP member Kunitsyn's resignation was a case of "political repression."

In reality, Kunitsyn was made an offer he could not refuse. As the Kyiv Weekly wrote, Kunitsyn had complained, "Every week 100 inspectors arrive from Kyiv. They said to me, either you leave or we'll lock you up..." Files detailing Kunitsyn's corrupt background, records that are likely available for most members of Crimea's ruling elites, were used to force his hand.

Kunitsyn's replacement, Matvienko, is a surprising choice, as he heads the pro-democratic Sobor Party, which merged with the Republican Party in 2002. Sobor was a member of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's bloc in the 2002 elections.

Western scholars and policymakers usually lump Southern and Eastern Ukraine into one monolithic Russophone geographic unit, yet the reality is more complex. The Yushchenko team understands the different regional dynamics at work in Ukraine and is strategically targeting Southern Ukraine ahead of the March 2006 parliamentary elections.

Yushchenko's strategic move into Southern Ukraine comes after his successful election campaign in Central Ukraine, the region that often decides the outcome of Ukrainian elections. Controlling Southern Ukraine could increase Yushchenko's base from the 52% he obtained in the 2004 elections to two-thirds in the next parliament.

Southern Ukraine is less industrialized than Eastern Ukraine and therefore less russified, with the exception of the Crimea. A Ukrainian Barometer poll gave Yanukovych 30.8% support in Southern Ukraine and the Crimea, only slightly more than Yushchenko's 27.4%.

In the largely agricultural Kherson oblast, Yushchenko and Yanukovych came neck-and-neck in all three rounds of last year's elections. In Odessa and Mykolaiv oblasts, which are more industrial, Yushchenko obtained approximately one-third to Yanukovych's two-thirds of the votes in all three rounds.

In the Crimean Autonomous Republic, Yushchenko's 12-16% votes were far lower than Yanukovych's 69-82%. Nevertheless, these were far better than Yushchenko's vote in Yanukovych's home base of Donetsk, where he obtained 5% or less in all three rounds.

This discrepancy between Donetsk and the Crimea was also reflected in the March 2002 parliamentary elections, which explains why the Yushchenko camp is targeting Southern Ukraine and the Crimea ahead of next year's parliamentary race.

As in Odessa, the political situation in the Crimea is now changing in Yushchenko's favor. Yushchenko's election led to the disintegration of the pro-Kuchma Stability faction in the Crimean parliament, which had numbered 85 out of 100 deputies. As Stability faction leader Borys Deych explained, "The Crimea cannot live as a separate part of the state. Everything that is happening in Ukraine spreads to the Crimea".

As in the Ukrainian parliament, many former pro-Kuchma centrists in the regions are also reluctant to oppose Yushchenko. Deych confided, "We are not in opposition to the new authorities" and we "declare our support for the president's course." The former pro-Kuchma People's Union "Stability" (38), coupled with the newly created pro-Yushchenko Power in Unity (15), gives Yushchenko a majority of 53 out of 100 Crimean deputies. Matvienko became prime minister with 61 votes. The Power in Unity faction is headed by Anatoliy Burdyuhov, chief of a department at the National Bank of the Crimea.

Ukrainian observers attribute Matvienko's rise to the most-powerful position in the Crimea to two strategies. First, it gives Tymoshenko's Bloc (which includes her own Fatherland Party as well as Sobor) a strong position from which to compete against Yanukovych's party in 2006.

Of the two pro-Kuchma forces in the 2002 elections, only Regions of Ukraine remains a potentially significant force in Southern Ukraine and the Crimea. The Communists (KPU) and the Social Democrats (SDPUo) have both disintegrated as political forces throughout Ukraine, after coming in first and second in the Crimea in 2002.

The KPU is down from 20% in 2002 to only 5% today while the SDPUo's support has collapsed even more from 6% to only 1.2%, according to a new Razumkov Center poll (Ukrayinska pravda, April 20). The SDPUo is the only party that looses potential voters when the name of its leader, Viktor Medvedchuk, is mentioned.

Second, Matvienko's appointment will encourage the Tymoshenko bloc to cooperate with Yushchenko's new People's Union "Our Ukraine" party in the 2006 elections. Yuriy Kostenko's Ukrainian People's Party, which has refused to join People's Union, had hoped to go into the elections with Sobor.

Source: Eurasia Daily Monitor

Chernobyl Nuclear Accident - April 26, 1986

KIEV, Ukraine -- On April 26 1986, the No 4 reactor at the Chernobyl power station blew apart. Facing nuclear disaster on an unprecedented scale, Soviet authorities tried to contain the situation by sending thousands of ill-equipped men into a radioactive maelstrom. In an extract from a new book by Russian journalist Svetlana Alexievich, eyewitnesses recall the terrible human cost of a catastrophe still unfolding today.

When a routine test went catastrophically wrong, a chain reaction went out of control in No 4 reactor of Chernobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine, creating a fireball that blew off the reactor's 1,000-tonne steel-and-concrete lid. Burning graphite and hot reactor-core material ejected by the explosions started numerous other fires, including some on the combustible tar roof of the adjacent reactor unit. There were 31 fatalities as an immediate result of the explosion and acute radiation exposure in fighting the fires, and more than 200 cases of severe radiation sickness in the days that followed.

Evacuation of residents under the plume was delayed by the Soviet authorities' unwillingness to admit the gravity of the incident. Eventually, more than 100,000 people were evacuated from the surrounding area in Ukraine and Belarus.

In the week after the accident the Soviets poured thousands of untrained, inadequately protected men into the breach. Bags of sand were dropped on to the reactor fire from the open doors of helicopters (analysts now think this did more harm than good). When the fire finally stopped, men climbed on to the roof to clear the radioactive debris. The machines brought in broke down because of the radiation. The men barely lasted more than a few weeks, suffering lingering, painful deaths.

But had this effort not been made, the disaster might have been much worse. The sarcophagus, designed by engineers from Leningrad, was manufactured in absentia - the plates assembled with the aid of robots and helicopters - and as a result there are fissures. Now known as the Cover, reactor No 4 still holds approximately 20 tonnes of nuclear fuel in its lead-and-metal core. No one knows what is happening with it.

For neighbouring Belarus, with a population of just 10 million, the nuclear explosion was a national disaster: 70% of the radionucleides released in the accident fell on Belarus. During the second world war, the Nazis destroyed 619 Belarussian villages, along with their inhabitants. As a result of fallout from Chernobyl, the country lost 485 villages and settlements. Of these, 70 have been buried underground by clean-up teams known as "liquidators".

Today, one out of every five Belarussians lives on contaminated land. That is 2.1 million people, of whom 700,000 are children. Because of the virtually permanent presence of small doses of radiation around the "Zone", the number of people with cancer, neurological disorders and genetic mutations increases with each year.

EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS

Lyudmilla Ignatenko, Wife of fireman Vasily Ignatenko

We were newlyweds. We still walked around holding hands, even if we were just going to the store. I would say to him, "I love you." But I didn't know then how much. I had no idea. We lived in the dormitory of the fire station where he worked. There were three other young couples; we all shared a kitchen. On the ground floor they kept the trucks, the red fire trucks. That was his job. One night I heard a noise. I looked out the window. He saw me. "Close the window and go back to sleep. There's a fire at the reactor. I'll be back soon."

I didn't see the explosion itself. Just the flames. Everything was radiant. The whole sky. A tall flame. And smoke. The heat was awful. And he's still not back. The smoke was from the burning bitumen, which had covered the roof. He said later it was like walking on tar.

They tried to beat down the flames. They kicked at the burning graphite with their feet ... They weren't wearing their canvas gear. They went off just as they were, in their shirt sleeves. No one told them.

At seven in the morning I was told he was in the hospital. I ran there but the police had already encircled it, and they weren't letting anyone through, only ambulances. The policemen shouted: "The ambulances are radioactive stay away!"

I saw him. He was all swollen and puffed up. You could barely see his eyes.

"He needs milk. Lots of milk," my friend said. "They should drink at least three litres each."

"But he doesn't like milk."

"He'll drink it now."

Many of the doctors and nurses in that hospital and especially the orderlies, would get sick themselves and die. But we didn't know that then. I couldn't get into the hospital that evening. The doctor came out and said, yes, they were flying to Moscow, but we needed to bring them their clothes. The clothes they'd worn at the station had been burned. The buses had stopped running already and we ran across the city. We came running back with their bags, but the plane was already gone. They tricked us.

It was a special hospital, for radiology, and you couldn't get in without a pass. I gave some money to the woman at the door, and she said, "Go ahead."

Then I had to ask someone else, beg. Finally I'm sitting in the office of the head radiologist. Right away she asked: "Do you have kids?" What should I tell her? I can see already that I need to hide that I'm pregnant. They won't let me see him! It's good I'm thin, you can't really tell anything.

"Yes," I say.

"How many?" I'm thinking, I need to tell her two. If it's just one, she won't let me in. "A boy and a girl."

"So you don't need to have any more. All right, listen: his central nervous system is completely compromised, his skull is completely compromised." OK, I'm thinking, so he'll be a little fidgety.

"And listen: if you start crying, I'll kick you out right away. No hugging or kissing. Don't even get near him. You have half an hour." He looks so funny, he's got pyjamas on for a size 48, and he's a size 52. The sleeves are too short, the trousers are too short. But his face isn't swollen any more. They were given some sort of fluid. I say, "Where'd you run off to?" He wants to hug me. The doctor won't let him. "Sit, sit," she says. "No hugging in here."

On the very first day in the dormitory they measured me with a dosimeter. My clothes, bag, purse, shoes - they were all "hot". And they took that all away from me right there. Even my underwear. The only thing they left was my money.

He started to change; every day I met a brand-new person. The burns started to come to the surface. In his mouth, on his tongue, his cheeks - at first there were little lesions, and then they grew. It came off in layers - as white film ... the colour of his face ... his body ... blue, red, grey-brown. And it's all so very mine!

The only thing that saved me was it happened so fast; there wasn't any time to think, there wasn't any time to cry. It was a hospital for people with serious radiation poisoning. Fourteen days. In 14 days a person dies. He was producing stools 25 to 30 times a day, with blood and mucous. His skin started cracking on his arms and legs. He became covered with boils. When he turned his head, there'd be a clump of hair left on the pillow. I tried joking: "It's convenient, you don't need a comb." Soon they cut all their hair.

I tell the nurse: "He's dying." And she says to me: "What did you expect? He got 1,600 roentgen. Four hundred is a lethal dose. You're sitting next to a nuclear reactor."

When they all died, they refurbished the hospital. They scraped down the walls and dug up the parquet. When he died, they dressed him up in formal wear, with his service cap. They couldn't get shoes on him because his feet had swollen up. They buried him barefoot. My love.

Sergei Vasilyevich Sobolev, Deputy head of the executive committee of the Shield of Chernobyl Association

There was a moment when there was the danger of a nuclear explosion, and they had to get the water out from under the reactor, so that a mixture of uranium and graphite wouldn't get into it - with the water, they would have formed a critical mass. The explosion would have been between three and five megatons. This would have meant that not only Kiev and Minsk, but a large part of Europe would have been uninhabitable. Can you imagine it? A European catastrophe.

So here was the task: who would dive in there and open the bolt on the safety valve? They promised them a car, an apartment, a dacha, aid for their families until the end of time. They searched for volunteers. And they found them! The boys dived, many times, and they opened that bolt, and the unit was given 7,000 roubles. They forgot about the cars and apartments they promised - that's not why they dived. These are people who came from a certain culture, the culture of the great achievement. They were a sacrifice.

And what about the soldiers who worked on the roof of the reactor? Two hundred and ten military units were thrown at the liquidation of the fallout of the catastrophe, which equals about 340,000 military personnel. The ones cleaning the roof got it the worst. They had lead vests, but the radiation was coming from below, and they weren't protected there. They were wearing ordinary, cheap imitation-leather boots. They spent about a minute and a half, two minutes on the roof each day, and then they were discharged, given a certificate and an award - 100 roubles. And then they disappeared to the vast peripheries of our motherland. On the roof they gathered fuel and graphite from the reactor, shards of concrete and metal.

It took about 20-30 seconds to fill a wheelbarrow, and then another 30 seconds to throw the "garbage" off the roof. These special wheelbarrows weighed 40 kilos just by themselves. So you can picture it: a lead vest, masks, the wheelbarrows, and insane speed.

In the museum in Kiev they have a mould of graphite the size of a soldier's cap; they say that if it were real it would weigh 16 kilos, that's how dense and heavy graphite is. The radio-controlled machines they used often failed to carry out commands or did the opposite of what they were supposed to do, because their electronics were disrupted by the high radiation. The most reliable "robots" were the soldiers. They were christened the "green robots" [from the colour of their uniforms]. Some 3,600 soldiers worked on the roof of the ruined reactor. They slept on the ground in tents. They were young guys.

These people don't exist any more, just the documents in our museum, with their names.

Eduard Borisovich Korotkov, Helicopter pilot

I was scared before I went there. But then when I got there the fear went away. It was all orders, work, tasks. I wanted to see the reactor from above, from a helicopter - to see what had really happened in there. But that was forbidden. On my medical card they wrote that I got 21 roentgen, but I'm not sure that's right. Some days there'd be 80 roentgen, some days 120. Sometimes at night I'd circle over the reactor for two hours.

I talked to some scientists. One told me: "I could lick your helicopter with my tongue and nothing would happen to me." Another said: "You're flying without protection? You don't want to live too long? Big mistake! Cover yourselves!" We lined the helicopter seats with lead, made ourselves some lead vests, but it turns out those protect you from one set of rays, but not from another. We flew from morning to night. There was nothing spectacular in it. Just work, hard work. At night we watched television - the World Cup was on, so we talked a lot about football.

I guess it must have been three years later. One of the guys got sick, then another. Someone died. Another went insane and killed himself. That's when we started thinking.

I didn't tell my parents I'd been sent to Chernobyl. My brother happened to be reading Izvestia one day and saw my picture. He brought it to our mum. "Look," he said, "he's a hero!" My mother started crying.

Aleksandr Kudryagin, Liquidator

We had good jokes. Here's one: an American robot is on the roof for five minutes, and then it breaks down. The Japanese robot is on the roof for five minutes, and then breaks down.

The Russian robot is up there two hours! Then a command comes in over the loudspeaker: "Private Ivanov! In two hours, you're welcome to come down and have a cigarette break."

Nikolai Fomich Kalugin, Father

We didn't just loose a town, we lost our whole lives. We left on the third day. The reactor was on fire. I remember one of my friends saying, "It smells of reactor." It was an indescribable smell.

They announced over the radio that you couldn't take your belongings! All right, I won't take all my belongings, I'll take just one belonging. I need to take my door off the apartment and take it with me. I can't leave the door. It's our talisman, it's a family relic. My father lay on this door. I don't know whose tradition this is, but my mother told me that the deceased must be placed to lie on the door of his home.

I took it with me, that door - at night, on a motorcycle, through the woods. It was two years later, when our apartment had already been looted and emptied. The police were chasing me. "We'll shoot! We'll shoot!" They thought I was a thief. That's how I stole the door from my own home. I took my daughter and my wife to the hospital. They had black spots all over their bodies. These spots would appear, then disappear. They were about the size of a five-kopek coin. But nothing hurt. They did some tests on them. My daughter was six-years-old. I'm putting her to bed, and she whispers in my ear: "Daddy, I want to live, I'm still little." And I had thought she didn't understand anything.

Can you picture seven little girls shaved bald in one room? There were seven of them in the hospital room ... My wife couldn't take it. "It'd be better for her to die than to suffer like this. Or for me to die, so that I don't have to watch any more."

We put her on the door ... on the door that my father lay on. Until they brought a little coffin. It was small, like the box for a large doll. I want to bear witness: my daughter died from Chernobyl. And they want us to forget about it.

Arkady Filin, Liquidator

You immediately found yourself in this fantastic world, where the apocalypse met the stone age. We lived in the forest, in tents, 200km from the reactor, like partisans.

We were between 25 and 40; some of us had university degrees or diplomas.

I'm a history teacher, for example. Instead of machine guns they gave us shovels. We buried trash heaps and gardens. The women in the villages watched us and crossed themselves. We had gloves, respirators and surgical robes. The sun beat down on us. We showed up in their yards like demons.

They didn't understand why we had to bury their gardens, rip up their garlic and cabbage when it looked like ordinary garlic and ordinary cabbage. The old women would cross themselves and say, "Boys, what is this - is it the end of the world?"

In the house the stove's on, the lard is frying. You put a dosimeter to it, and you find it's not a stove, it's a little nuclear reactor. I saw a man who watched his house get buried. We buried houses, wells, trees. We buried the earth. We'd cut things down, roll them up into big plastic sheets. We buried the forest. We sawed the trees into 1.5m pieces and packed them in Cellophane and threw them into graves.

I couldn't sleep at night. I'd close my eyes and see something black moving, turning over - as if it were alive - live tracts of land, with insects, spiders, worms. I didn't know any of them, their names, just insects, spiders, ants. And they were small and big, yellow and black, all different colours.

One of the poets says somewhere that animals are a different people. I killed them by the ten, by the hundred, thousand, not even knowing what they were called. I destroyed their houses, their secrets. And buried them. Buried them.

Vanya Kovarov 12

I'm 12 years old and I'm an invalid. The mailman brings two pension cheques to our house - for me and my grandad.

When the girls in my class found out that I had cancer of the blood, they were afraid to sit next to me. They didn't want to touch me.

The doctors said that I got sick because my father worked at Chernobyl. And after that I was born. I love my father.

Ivan Nikolaevich Zhykhov, Chemical engineer

We dug up the diseased top layer of soil, loaded it into cars and took it to waste burial sites. I thought that a waste burial site was a complex, engineered construction, but it turned out to be an ordinary pit. We picked up the earth and rolled it, like big rugs. We'd pick up the whole green mass of it, with grass, flowers, roots. It was work for madmen.

If we weren't drinking like crazy every night, I doubt we'd have been able to take it. Our psyches would have broken down. We created hundreds of kilometres of torn-up, fallow earth.

There was an emphasis on our being heroes. Once a week someone who was digging really well would receive a certificate of merit before all the other men. The Soviet Union's best grave digger. It was crazy.

Source: Action Ukraine Report

Ukraine Negotiates with Denmark Joint Project for Production of Pork

KIEV, Ukraine -- Agrarian Policy Ministry of Ukraine is negotiating with Denmark a joint project for production of pork in Ukraine, AP Minister Olexandr Baranivsky told reporters on April 22. According to him, the core of the project is to create impetus for Ukrainian banking sector to invest funds into creation of Ukrainian pig farms under Danish technologies.

"We want by the end of year to have constructed a farm under Danish technologies in each oblast. We are preparing information for the President on the issue and we hope for his support. Denmark is the pioneer in this field", Baranivsky said, adding that for a start the President's approval was needed for organisation of acquaintance trip to Denmark of Ukrainian governors and bankers.

Baranivsky believes that thanks to the experience of Danes, it is possible to introduce in Ukraine up-to-date technologies for production of cheap meat. "The farm is operated by 3 or 4 people and produces thousands of tonnes of pork", he said.

The Thankless Task of Promoting Democracy

KIEV, Ukraine -- In democracy promotion, nothing fails like success. No sooner did the Orange Revolution give Ukraine a second chance at democracy last November than criticism began that America had improperly meddled in Ukraine's internal affairs. The apparent transition in another former Soviet republic, Kyrgyzstan, has begun that misguided debate again.

Meanwhile, when America's efforts at promoting democracy do not replace a dictator in a matter of months or years, Congress demands some ill-chosen proof of success - the number of newspapers printed, say, or civil society groups founded, or candidates on the ballot - that themselves are not the same as meaningful political change.

Attitudes like this have made democracy promotion a lose-lose proposition in American politics. To be sure, the Bush administration has greatly increased financing for efforts to nurture democracy in the Middle East. But it has left the rest of the democratizing world behind. The National Endowment for Democracy, for example, recently saw its budget double to $80 million, but all the increase was earmarked for Middle East democracy efforts. At the same time, democracy-building programs in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union by different agencies have been slashed under Bush's watch.

Part of the problem is that whenever a democracy promotion program does what it is supposed to - that is, help strengthen local forces to have a voice against a repressive government - accusations of improper meddling immediately fly. Critics on both the left and the right - from the conservative Patrick Buchanan to left-leaning writers in The Guardian in Britain - assert that the United States is rigging elections and engineering coups, à la Latin America in the cold war, and accuse the U.S. Agency for International Development of unseemly interference.

The National Endowment for Democracy is constantly being accused of serving as a CIA front rather than being recognized for what it does: doling out fairly small grants to television stations that show debates over public policy and groups that monitor election returns. Consequently, U.S. programs are straitjacketed, and the government disingenuously cloaks its policy as "neutral" or "technical assistance."

In fact, little about "democracy" or democracy promotion is value-neutral, nor should it be. Promoting democracy is not about imposing a president or political system in America's image. But democracy involves representative government, and that directly challenges the power of the autocratic leaders who try to fix elections, close newspapers and jail opposition leaders. As a result, democracy promotion meets loud criticism from those whose power is threatened.

Some forms of U.S. democracy promotion are inappropriate - and we've seen enough of that over the past half-century to make many of us deeply suspicious of any American fingerprints on revolution abroad. But as I saw in researching Western democracy promotion efforts in the former Soviet Union in 2002 and 2003, such inappropriate programs are not what led to the resignation of Kyrgyzstan's president, Askar Akayev.

Western governments offered seed money to nongovernmental organizations and newspapers, which understandably could not rely on capital from the Kyrgyz, half of whom live below the poverty line. Western dollars enabled courageous local journalists to write what they wanted, including criticisms of American policy, and allowed groups to organize as they were inspired. Indeed, many of the nongovernmental leaders with whom I met throughout the former Soviet Union wanted more open support from the United States to defend them from their own government's harassment.

It's important to remember that none of the changes under way - in Kyrgyzstan, Egypt, Lebanon and beyond - could happen without the courage and dedication of local activists. The U.S. government is not implanting democracy; it is helping seeds grow that must already be there. In Kyrgyzstan, that came in the form of providing the only independent printing press, rather than telling journalists what they should print. It entailed funds for computers and meeting spaces for nationwide coalitions of civic groups, not writing their speeches.

More important, none of the activities that the United States supports - like independent newspapers, free elections or active civic groups - are illegal in the countries where America provides democracy assistance. The U.S. government must even obtain permission from the local government to provide any specific assistance program at all. That is hardly the stuff of subversion. The primary democracy promotion efforts that the United States undertakes in most of the world - not the military brand that receives the most attention in Iraq and Afghanistan - simply asks fledgling democracies to make good on their word to their people, and enforce the democratic laws on their books.

The best lesson we can learn from the last decade is to have realistic expectations about how long it takes for democracy to develop. And when Western support produces some good, it shouldn't be a cause for retreat.

Eastern Churches Should Break With Moscow

WASHINGTON, DC -- In Washington last week, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko received a hero's welcome as he concluded a new strategic partnership with the United States and gave a historic address to a joint session of Congress. Throughout his visit, especially during talks with President George W. Bush, Yushchenko adhered to his main theme: the commitment of both countries to democratic values. While they discussed numerous issues of common concern, there was one item conspicuous by its absence from the agenda: religion. In Ukraine -- and elsewhere in the Orthodox world -- a struggle for freedom and independence is still being waged against the Russian Orthodox Church.

In his controversial book The Clash of Civilizations, Samuel Huntington identified a fundamental divide between the areas represented by Catholicism and Protestantism in the West, and the Orthodox Church in the East. As recent events have shown, however, a more correct line can be drawn, with the Russian Orthodox Church representing the authoritarian status quo on one side, and the rest of Europe -- including the other Orthodox traditions -- representing freedom and democracy on the other.


Ukrainian Orthodox Patriarch Filaret With Viktor Yushchenko During Orange Revolution
During the recent democratic revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine, the local branches of the Orthodox Church acted in full concordance with liberal democratic values, supporting the desire of people in these countries for political freedoms. However, they were resisted at every turn by the nationalistic Russian Orthodox Church, which is tightly tied to a Russian state that is still trying to reassert control over its former dominions.

Though not widely known, the structure of the Orthodox Church is highly conducive to local, responsive decision-making. Since the famous 1054 split with Roman Catholicism, the Ecumenical Patriarch (who has continued to reside in Constantinople/Istanbul over the intervening millennium) enjoys only a primus inter pares relationship with the autonomous patriarchs of individual countries. Over time, each national Orthodox Church thus became closely tied to the needs and desires of their people. However, as Ottoman political control receded over the 19th century, the influence of the Russian Patriarchate grew in keeping with the expansion of Tsarist and later Soviet power. While many churches were able to regain effective independence during the widespread clamoring for freedom that accompanied the fall of the Berlin Wall, pro-Russian elements have resisted such efforts.

In contrast, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, based in Istanbul, has acted as the leading voice in favor of freedom and democracy in the Orthodox world. A prominent promoter of interfaith ties and environmental issues (he has, somewhat unusually, been labeled "the green patriarch"), Bartholomew I has taken a special interest in the anti-authoritarian movement that has steadily gained steam in Orthodox countries over the last two decades. Standing at the center of coordination among all the Orthodox, he strongly supported the independence of the church in Estonia, which led to a major split within the Orthodox Church (between Russian and Greek churches). Today he is the key to the independence of the Georgian and Ukrainian churches, as well.

In Georgia, when the pro-reform movement took off in 2003, the independent Georgian Orthodox Church supported Mikheil Saakashvili, the young democratic reformer who successfully attained the presidency of the Georgian state. The Russian Church, however, has continued to oppose Saakashvili and his reforms, most notably by encouraging the separatists in Georgia's Abkhazia region to unite their church with the Moscow Patriarchate. (The Russian church is also supporting the criminal separatist regime in Moldova's breakaway region of Transnistria).

In Ukraine, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP), joined with Uniate Catholics, who practice the Orthodox rite but profess loyalty to the pope, as well as with evangelical Protestants, in supporting the Ukrainian people's right to a free electoral choice. These churches were instrumental in inspiring and assisting the throngs of Ukrainians who took to the streets last year to protest election fraud, protests which ultimately led to the recognition of the victory of reformist candidate Viktor Yushchenko in the presidential elections. Meanwhile, the Moscow Patriarchate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church threw its full weight behind government candidate Viktor Yanukovych in a propaganda campaign that included the lending of icons to anti-Yushchenko marches and the dissemination of anti-Yushchenko leaflets at church services.

In the aftermath of Ukraine's peaceful revolution, there have been calls for unification of the two branches; at a special sobor (assembly), the UOC-KP asked Yushchenko and Bartholomew I for their assistance in ending the division and providing true independence for Ukraine -- politically and theologically. During a recent visit to Kyiv, however, Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated the well-known position of the Moscow Patriarchate, which would allow the unification of the Ukrainian churches only if they continued in 'canonical unity' with the Moscow Patriarchate, which means continued influence not only from the church leadership, but from the Russian government.

However, there is to be no exterminating the freedom bug caught by nearly the entire Orthodox movement. If the Moscow Patriarchate continues to support repressive regimes and separatist regions throughout the former Soviet Union, it will only add to its increasing isolation from a 'Western civilization that now extends to the borders of Russia.

Ukraine Asks Russia to Begin Preparations for Withdrawing Black Sea Fleet

KIEV, Ukraine -- After canceling her scheduled visit to Moscow last week, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko explained her reasons to the BBC. Not only was she infuriated at Russia's unwillingness to drop criminal charges against her, part of Moscow's interference in last year's Ukrainian presidential election, but also there were other, more important reasons of national pride.

These explanations go to the heart of Russian-Ukrainian relations, which are now understood by Moscow and Kyiv in totally contradictory ways. A journalist at Kommersant has again confirmed that Russian President Vladimir Putin actually did say that Russia and Ukraine were the equivalent of East and West Germany.


Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko
In other words, Russia sees the world not only divided into the former Soviet "near abroad" and the rest of the world, but the "near abroad" is also understood in two components: the not-foreign Eastern Slavs (Ukraine, Belarus) and the semi-foreign remainder of the CIS. Russia has traditionally looked upon Ukrainians and Belarusians as peasant bumpkins who did not possess the wherewithal to run effective states and would therefore return to Mother Russia sooner or later.

As Tymoshenko pointed out, Ukraine will no longer accept such a designation. In effect, Ukraine under President Viktor Yushchenko is demanding that Russia treat it as a "far abroad" state, like Poland, rather than as a not-foreign "near abroad" state such as Belarus. To Russia, this distinction is a radical threat to its national identity, as the proposition is coupled with a geopolitically perceived threat of Ukraine seeking to join NATO.

Tymoshenko told the BBC that it was time Russia stopped treating Ukraine as "inferior" and learned to respect Ukraine as an independent country. "I know the Russian political elite got used to Ukraine suffering from an inferiority complex, but I want this to disappear from our relationship."

President Yushchenko has called for Ukraine-Russia relations to be "understandable, honest, and open" in the post-Kuchma era. After having "achieved real sovereignty and freedom [only] a few months ago," Ukraine should not devalue its sovereignty by integrating into the CIS Single Economic Space, according to Yushchenko.

Not only have Ukrainians managed to preserve their state, but they even had the gall to successfully undertake a democratic revolution. Russia now looks bad in comparison to Ukraine, and some Russians feel embarrassed at how much better the "younger brothers" are doing.

In an ironic article, gazeta.ru argues that khokhly, the Russian derogatory name for Ukrainians, have become the catalysts of progress in Russian domestic and foreign policy. The article cites numerous examples, such as: Russian authorities granting Russian citizens the right to be present in the city of their temporary residence for 90 days without registering with militia, after this right was spontaneously awarded to Ukrainian citizens; Russian President Vladimir Putin copied Yushchenko's summit with Russian oligarchs earlier this year.

Ukraine's newfound national assertiveness and shedding of the inferiority complex that plagued the country under Kuchma is also due to support given to Ukraine by the United States. Diplomatic support from President Bill Clinton was crucial in helping Ukraine stand up to Russian territorial demands between 1994 and 1999.

Such demands persist. Rodina deputy Viktor Alksnis called for the Crimea to be returned to Russia during a recent visit to the peninsula. Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov attended the November 28, 2004, separatist congress in Donetsk organized by defeated Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych. In October 2003 Russia made territorial demands on the island of Tuzla off the western coast of the Crimea.

In recent weeks, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk startled Moscow with two statements related to the 1997 Black Sea Fleet agreement.

First, from now on Russia should abide by the agreement, infringements of which have become "systematic," Tarasyuk complained. In March 2005 Russian Special Forces landed in the Crimea to undertake a military exercise, a step that was strictly illegal, as only Russian forces based in Ukraine have a right to undertake such exercises. Buildings and land in Crimea are rented and leased, activities that breach the 1997 Agreement and contribute to corruption. Safety of navigation is not ensured and the legal regime for entry and exit of ships is not followed. First Deputy Foreign Minister Volodymyr Ohryzko, who headed a working government group on implementing the accord, agreed that Russia is regularly infringing the Agreement.

Second, Tarasyuk gave advance notice that Ukraine will not be extending the 20-year agreement that expires in 2017. Ukraine wants Russia gone as soon as possible to facilitate its joining NATO, and Moscow seems to be anticipating relocation. Tarasyuk quoted Russian officials who stated their intention to build an alternative base in Novorossiysk where they would transfer the Fleet within three years. National Security and Defense Council secretary Petro Poroshenko has emphasized the non-negotiability of any extension of the Fleet agreement beyond 2017. Ohryzko also backed Tarasyuk in hoping that Russia withdraws its Fleet out ahead of 2017.

As Ukraine's diplomatic self-assurance increases, Tarasyuk will likely add to his list of notices for Moscow.

Migrant Women Trapped in Europe's Sex Industry

KIEV, Ukraine -- The money Rosa was earning in a Turkish shoe factory was not enough to support the three children she had left behind in Ukraine.

Then her new friend in Turkey, Katerina, told her she could earn $700 a month as a casino waitress in Bosnia and convinced Rosa to come home with her to Moldova and then make their way to Bosnia.


Europe's Sex Industry
"I began to think of all the things I could do to change my life to help my children, my family."

As the time came to leave Moldova, Katerina said she had a problem with her passport and would join Rosa in Bosnia a week later. At the station, she introduced Rosa to a Romanian man who would accompany her.

Rosa felt something was wrong when she said goodbye and Katerina just turned away.

"I pushed my feelings aside," said Rosa, who declined to give her real name. "I don't usually trust anyone, but I told myself that sometimes you have to have faith."

Rosa paid Katerina $300 to get her a job but a criminal gang had already paid Katerina $700 to make Rosa their slave.

She was smuggled across Europe in cars and once in a fold-away bed on a train, was sold and resold, beaten, raped and forced to work in brothels.

She was afraid to escape because her captors had kept her passport, home address and photos of her children.

Rosa was freed months later in Britain when police raided a sauna she was working in. But her captors are still at large.

Poverty, war, open borders and domestic violence are prompting increasing numbers of people from eastern Europe and beyond to seek work in the wealthy West.

With governments tightening limits on immigration, women desperate for work in bars, shops and hotels have come to rely on crooks to spirit them across borders using false identities.

The profits are huge and the money the traffickers wave in potential victims' faces would certainly outweigh the salaries they can expect by staying at home," said Richard Danziger, head of the counter-trafficking unit of the International Organization for Migration in Geneva.

On the wrong side of the law in a foreign land, some of the women find themselves forced into prostitution. They are powerless to resist their captors. Many have sex with up to 30 men a day for months on end.

OUT OF SIGHT

The trade in people for forced sex has mushroomed into a $12 billion industry to rival drug trafficking and gun-running. Because the victims are locked in rooms or moved around in secret, it is almost impossible to trace them.

It also makes quantifying the problem virtually impossible. Five years ago, the British government estimated that as few as 140 or as many as 1,400 women had been smuggled into the country and forced to work as prostitutes.

Social workers say the problem has grown alongside lurid Internet sites and flyers plastered on the walls of phone booths fuelling a demand for unprotected and risky sex that few women would willingly supply.

"There is definitely too much work to deal with," said Anna Johansson of the London-based Poppy Project, which helps women trying to leave prostitution. "We're getting referrals from Birmingham, Sheffield, Liverpool, from all across the country."

Many women contract chlamydia, syphilis and sometimes HIV because they are forced to have unprotected sex. They are often left with painful scars and some become sterile. Most suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Almost all those we work with have flashbacks and nightmares and cannot sleep," said Johannson. "They can be extremely frightened of strangers and find it hard to go out alone."

She said one woman had approached the Poppy Project after leaping to freedom from a second-storey window, breaking bones in her foot.

Another's hopes were raised when a client promised to help her and bought her from her captor, then locked her away in an apartment and visited her at night twice a week on the way home to his wife.

FROM SOHO TO SUBURBIA

Last month, three east European men were jailed for up to 18 years under new British trafficking laws after they lured a 15-year-old Lithuanian girl to Britain on the promise of a summer job, then sold her for 4,000 pounds ($7,586).

Three months later she turned up barefoot at a northern England police station after eluding her "owner" in a nightclub.

But renewed efforts to stamp out the trade may be pushing it further underground, from red-light districts such as London's Soho to houses and apartments in the suburbs, many of which are unknown to the police.

"Women here are not advertised. Access is gained by word of mouth," said Johansson. "That's quite dangerous as the authorities are not that likely to come across them."

Campaigners say anti-immigration policies could be making things worse. Sending victims straight home means they cannot testify against their owners in court, and can expose them to more danger by landing them back where they were kidnapped.

"You can't break the problem of trafficking by sending people back to where they were trafficked from," said Mary Cunneen, director of Anti-Slavery International.

Last year a woman helped put her captors behind bars for nine years. Fearing reprisals if she returned to her small village in Moldova, she applied for asylum in Britain.

"She applied in February last year but there has still been no response," said Johansson. "The chance of her being re-trafficked is high, but this has not been recognised."

Kuchma's Oil and Gas Scheme

KIEV, Ukraine -- “Five years ago, my fellow journalists told me that the Ukrainian President “had his percentage from everything in Ukraine, including the sale of narcotics” Verification of these statements about the previous Government and Administration of Ukraine in terms of the sale of narcotics has yet to be confirmed. Recent exposure of corrupt practices in the regulation of the oil industry makes it easier to prove these statements.

The level of graft and corruption in the oil and gas market comes close to 100 USD million. The official profit of NAK Naftegaz Ukraine is equal to 1 million hryvnias, and the defacto profit has recently passed the 1 billion USD figure. The difference between these two figures is in the pockets of the elite of the former Presidential administration.

The same scheme of official and unofficial profits existed in the oil industry in Ukraine. Deceptive slogans about the establishment of the “Vertical Integration of Oil Companies” earned the former President of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma, and the management of oil companies some serious money for their patronage. Under the project titled “VINK” interested parties were able to earn more than 20 million USD.

At the present moment, the Constitutional Court is examining the matter where the former President gave the order for the transfer of 43% of shares of Ykranafta [Kremenchyg] and 25% of shares of NPZ “Gapchina” [DRogobich] to HAK Naftegaz.

This decision by Kuchma was opposed by 52 deputies from the political fractions “Our Ukraine” and the Socialist Party of Ukraine. According to the authors of this presentation to the KC Constitutional Court the order of the ex-President was supposed to stabilize the petroleum market when it actually lined the pocket of large petroleum product manufacturers and the pockets of oligarchs and their clans.

The consequences of this order still influence the market for lubricants and do not allow it to work under normal conditions, which are destroying the Kremenchkomy NPZ.

The deputies strongly support the fact that the order by Kuchma “Measures to increase the effective management of trade” from the 16th of July 2004 [including the changes from the 14th of September 2004] is not constructive.

According to the views of Valentina Semniyk, the act of the former President was a closed privatization by taking shares from competing firms and creating a monopoly in the market.

According to section 5, paragraph 116 of the relevant legislation, the management of government assets cannot be given to other organizations even with the involvement of Cabinet Ministers and the President.

“Each branch of government has its own functions. The management of government assets – is the responsibility of Cabinet. Under Leonid Kuchma this principal was broken with the interests of business clans being involved in the process”, said Alexander Grudma.

The concrete see such example of this ‘management’ one only has to look at one of the most obvious examples – the establishment of the so called vertical integration oil company on the base of ZAO Ukrtatnafta”.

On the 16th of July, President Kuchma signed the decree “Of Actions of Effective Management of Oil Trade” and “Increased effectiveness of management of oil trade”. These decrees meant the handover of authorized capital funds to the businessman Ihor Kolomoisky the owner of Ukrneft, 43.054% of the shares of Ukrtatnafta and 25% of the shares of NPZ Galachinka.

From which from and through which the Dnipropetrovs’k businessman was able to convince the head of the Ukrainian government to give his company 2 Ukrainian NPZ is not understandable. It is obvious that the owner of “PrivatBank” wanted to create in Ukraine a company similar to the Oil companies in Russia. With no consideration to the fact that both Ukrnafta and Ukrtatnafta are both government owned companies.

So as to explain the matter in more simple terms, how Ihor Kolomoisky planned to actually earn the money to set up VINKa, we need to look at some basic figures. The total output of petroleum refining plans in Ukraine during 2004 was approximately 21.2 million tones. From this amount 87% of crude came from Russia, 3.4% from Kazakhstan, and 9.6% from Ukraine.

The link to realization of this idea is outlined below.

Raw materials were sold to NPZ, this was then sold onto companies which were selling the petroleum in wholesale amounts, such as AZS. The processing of raw crude would bring a profit of 5 to 7 USD per tonne. The processing plants and wholesalers would then earn an additional 10 USD profit on this figure. In line with this process, the retail sellers of the petroleum would earn no less than 5 USD profit on every tonne of diesel or petrol.

Several companies, including TNK, Lukoil and Alliance, who are owners of these petroleum processing plants along with AZS, are able to earn profits from each link to this chain.

In terms of Ukrtatnafta, the company earns a profit of 23 million USD during 2004 [information provided by the Agency Ukrainian News]. We estimate that the factory earns approximately 3.4 USD per tonne on the processing of petroleum.

The rest of the funds went to the ‘Western Oil Company” which is controlled by a representative of the management of HAK Naftogaz Ukraine. In August 2004, this company was involved in the supply to petroleum to enterprises and suppliers of oil by products.

In this manner the joining of both Ukrnafta and Ukrtatnafta brought Ihor Kolomoisky not just higher profits but a way to pay less tax. This method allowed a lowering of prices on hydrocarbon fluids to its own factories. It also lowered the level of VAT paid [less than the lowest price, the tax did not increase the price] and a range of other tax obligations. As none of the firms were interested in lowering the price on the finished product, the increase in profits also was a welcome benefit.

In any case, the plan by the owners of “Privatbank” was not legally realized. Even though Kuchma ordered the transfer of assets from fund of petroleum processing companies to “Ukrnafta”, the government shares in “Ukrtatnafta” and NPZ “Galichina” was reconsidered. Cabinet was ordered to give the shares to “Neftegaz Ukraine”.

According to one of the shareholders of NPZ Galchina, Ihor Eremeeva, this happened after previous manager of NAKa ‘went to see Kuchma’ and explained the profitability of such a scheme.

“The new agreement between the President and the head of NAKa had two objectives. The first was to allow Leonid Kuchma and his cronies to use the assets of Ukrtatnafa. The second was to cover up the administrative regulation of the market with a fig leaf, so as to influence the VINKa market”, said an analyst from IK Aton, Zharko Stefanovski.

To look at the matter more closely, we will examine what they were able to achieve, and what was not possible.

In the past year, it was unexpected that the whole market for supply of petroleum to Kremenchygski NPZ and its companies, would be from the “Western Oil Company”, advised a member of its management and a source close to Naftagaz. They were not the most active, but their profit according to analysts was more than 20 USD million

From the result of operations in the first nine months of 2004, the company accounted for 6.3% of the total market supply of petroleum and the profit matched the profit for the whole Keremchygski NPZ.

People in the industry have confirmed that the lion’s share of this profit did not only go to the oil trading companies but to the pockets of the top government members and officials. You should note that the force behind the creation of VINK and the role of Neftagaz was Kuchma. In this manner, the ex President made a choice between two, the independent Kolonoiskim and the faithful Boiko.

As we can see, the task of NPZ forming new trading companies and receiving from their high profits for Leonid Kuchma’s functions was quite easy.

The notion that VINKa would stabilize the market has not been realized. In particular, as described as a member of the committee at TNK Ukraine, Oleg Salmin, “one company has a hold on the market in principle, but we need more concrete measures”.

“Undoubtedly this opaque scheme needs to be removed. It can be done in the only possible legal way – that is to cancel the decision of previous government, which comes into contradiction with the Constitution.” - assured Alexsander Gudima.

As it is known, the complex measures for the support of prices for petroleum in the past year included pressure on petroleum traders from the previous Cabinet and State taxes administration and the role of Naftogaz [through the Western Oil Company and Shebelinksy GPZ]which controlled approximately 16% of the market.

“The decision to form VINK once and for all confused the situation, which on the market, as with Keremchygski NPZ – advised Ihor Eremeev. “Due to the attractiveness of the shares of the company, it attracted the attention of ‘Privatbank” and the management of “Naftegaz”. In fact, they both fought for this enterprise. The change in management led to some losses and came down to who basically stole more than the others involved in the process” added Ihor Eremeev.

He is an interested party, as Eremeev controls NPZ Galichina which is involved in the operation and formation of VINK.

"This factor influences the structure of the market in strong manner” added Eremeev; “if the company is badly organized in terms of large scale production it will destroy the petroleum products market in Ukraine. For this reason, we need to quickly make the decision about the future of our own manufacturing plant”.

“I am both a private investor and shareholder, one from NPZ and I believe that the company should be held in private hands. The owners are always concerned about the technology and are thinking about the expansion of the business. At the end of it all, the framework of the ownership is not the most important issue. This is what decision is made to end the war around your asset”, said a member of the Parliamentary Committee for TEK.

(He recently was part of a subjective scandal – well informed contacts have advised that this person was referring to the Minister for Justice, Roman Zvarich, when he mentioned the secret scheme which operates within the petroleum industry).

Along with this, other observers believe that Zvarich has been subject to intrigues about his own wife. Her company is involved in legal business of re –exporting petroleum, which was recently prohibited by the Prime Minister Tymoshenko after the scandal, was resurrected.

The wife of Zvarich confirms that she has had some dealings with ‘Nefterector” Eremeeva and advises that he is under the protection of the Prime Minister.

Of course, the thesis of privatizing a factory can be argued. But it is absolutely obvious that the government packet of shares in NPZ will be returned to the ownership of the Fund of State Property and to close all schemes associated with the previous regime. Yet the management of a factory where the government holds 43% of the shares should be undertaken by an experienced manner that has a good reputation.

“The only resolution to this difficult situation for the Cabinet Ministers is to change the rules of the game in terms of government factories and bring some order to them. This includes ZAO Ukrtatnafta and other large companies where the government has its share” advised Cemenuk.

Velvet Revolutionists Threaten CIS

MOSCOW, Russia -- Viewed as the "biggest internal threat" against the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), which brings together former Soviet countries, the organization GUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldova) sends strong signals to increase influence.



The GUAM leaders convened on Friday April 22 in Moldova. Belarussian leader Alexander Lukashenko met his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin while Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili called for "support for a future revolution" in his GUAM summit statement. Yesterday, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice clearly pointed out Belarus as the location of the next velvet revolution. Ukraine and Georgia, who recently went through peaceful revolutions have started to be more influential in the organization. On the other hand, CIS, which is losing influence gradually, is likely to have difficult days because of GUAM.

Georgian "Rose revolution" leader Saakashvili in his statement at the summit yesterday also said Belarussians have the right to have independent elections and freedom of expression. As member countries of GUAM, they are ready to provide support for democratic developments in Belarus. At the summit, in which Saakashvili and Ukrainian "Orange Revolution" leader Victor Yushchenko shared the leading roles, Moldova, Azarbaijan, Romania, and Lithuania participated. GUAM leaders aim at establishing economic and strategic relations among themselves and with the US. While Saakashvili declared a sort of "democratic togetherness", Yushchenko presented an "autonomy plan" for solving the pro-Russian "separatist" crisis in Trans-Dinyester which deeply affects Moldova.

GUAM is expected to gain observer status at the United Nations (UN) in late 2005. The prominent Russian newspapers Izvestia likened yesterday's summit to a Bandung Conference for preparing ground for the Non-aligned Movement. The paper reported yesterday that GUAM will end the Russian influence over CIS. On the other hand, Russian Parliament's upper wing, Federation Assembly International Affairs Committee Chair Mikhail Margelov claimed that the organization promoting any imitation of orange revolution will not find any support in CIS.

NATO Acts to Open Door for Ukraine

VILNIUS, Lithuania -- NATO acted officially on Thursday to open discussions with Ukraine, a former partner of Russia, to become a member of the Atlantic military alliance, while Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with opposition leaders favoring the ouster of the Russian-backed regime in Belarus.

Rice, who previously had declared that Belarus was the last dictatorship in Europe, warned bluntly that it should not conduct a "sham election" next year because its conduct would be "watched by the international community," much as the election in Ukraine last year had been watched and deemed fraudulent, helping to lead to its revolution.


U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
The opposition leaders with whom Rice met said later that they would use "mass pressure for change" on the regime of President Alexander Lukashenko. But Rice cautioned that she was not suggesting any particular way for them to oust him.

In Moscow earlier in the week, Rice heard complaints from officials and call-in listeners on a radio show that Russians fear the United States is trying to surround Russia with allies and in some cases military forces. She told reporters that Russians seemed mired in a "19th-century" view of the world.

Nevertheless, to counter Russian concerns, NATO also moved Thursday to sign a "status of forces" agreement with Russia that would enable it to expand joint military exercises on Russian soil, possibly for future peacekeeping operations in various trouble spots.

There have been a few such joint exercises focusing on dealing with emergencies or humanitarian crises, but American and NATO officials said the new accord would expand the possibilities, making it easier to transport foreign troops across Russian soil to interdict narcotics and arms smuggling from Afghanistan and other places.

Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, met with NATO foreign ministers here in the capital of Lithuania, itself a onetime state in the Soviet Union but now a NATO member, and he said he was pleased with the Russia-NATO accord.

"The issues were dealt with without extraneous ideology," Lavrov said, though he added a note of displeasure with Rice's meeting with Belarus opposition leaders, saying that Russia did not support "regime change" there.

Rice flew back to Washington on Thursday night, ending her first visit to Russia as secretary of state. Part of her task was to pave the way for President George W. Bush's visit to Moscow next month to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II, but that event is also stirring controversy.

Many world leaders are scheduled to join Bush in Russia, but Lithuania, for example, is boycotting on the grounds that the celebration is effectively marking the beginning of Russia's grip on Eastern Europe and the cold war tensions that followed.

The NATO decision on Ukraine was set in motion after the victory of Viktor Yushchenko in the "Orange Revolution" last year. His rise to power came after an uprising that installed a new pro-Western regime in Georgia, and it was followed this year by an uprising in Kyrgyzstan, another former Soviet state.

Yushchenko pressed the case for joining NATO in Washington earlier this month when he visited the White House and addressed Congress. Bush backed the request, but this week American officials said that entry would not be easy or rapid. Ukraine used to have one of the largest armies in Europe, but its armed forces have shrunk recently.

"NATO is not just a club," a senior State Department official said. "You've got to be able to contribute."

The official said that before Ukraine could join NATO, it would need to demonstrate that civilian control of the military, and its democracy in general, will last, and that an effective military is not "top heavy" with generals.

The NATO discussions encompassed other issues, including a decision by the alliance to be ready, if asked by the African Union, to transfer forces to Darfur, Sudan, where thousands have died in a civil war and many more have been driven from their homes.

But Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, NATO secretary general, said any troop support would involve "planning and logistical support," and not "boots on the ground."

The United States has tried and failed to broker a Darfur peace agreement and to get adequate relief to the victims of what it has called genocide, but it remains committed to getting more outside forces there.

"We all have a responsibility to do what we can to alleviate suffering in Darfur and to create conditions in which humanitarian aid can get in," Rice said.

In addition, de Hoop Scheffer said there was a discussion - purely hypothetical, he said - about the possibility of eventually sending NATO forces as peacekeepers in other situations, such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Rice pressed for a broader NATO role, or at least a discussion of such a role. "We intend to use NATO more and more effectively as a trans-Atlantic security forum," she said.

But Foreign Minister Michel Barnier of France warned against turning NATO into "the world's policeman" and taking on too many tasks outside Europe.

Chernobyl Plant Faces Potentially Dangerous Power Cut Due to Debt

CHERNOBYL, Ukraine -- The Chernobyl nuclear power plant, site of the world's worst nuclear accident, is facing a potentially dangerous power cut due to a huge debt, an official said April 22.

The state-run company responsible for decommissioning the plant where a reactor exploded in 1986 in the world's worst commercial nuclear accident, owes more than $6 million (4.6 million euros) in overdue wages and unpaid bills for electricity, gas, fuel and transport, said company spokesman Semyon Shtein.



Shtein warned that the cutoff of electricity and gas supplies could be "rather dangerous and it can result in breaches of nuclear safety." He did not elaborate.

Shtein said his company had warned Ukraine's government of the potential danger.

He said the plant will be forced to use its own scarce fuel reserves to power generators and provide transport for workers if the plant is cut off from the power grid and gas supply.

The Soviet-era accident on April 26, 1986, at the plant about 100 kilometers (some 60 miles) north of the Ukrainian capital sent radioactive fallout over then-Soviet Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and much of northern Europe.

Some 7 million people are estimated to suffer from radiation-related effects, and Ukraine has registered some 4,400 deaths blamed on the accident. Chernobyl's last working reactor was shut down in December 2000, but decommissioning works have continued.

Chernobyl's managers have repeatedly warned that the decommissioning might be delayed due to lack of funds for the storage of nuclear fuel from the undamaged reactors and the highly radioactive debris that is still scattered inside the destroyed reactor No. 4, which was hastily entombed in a concrete-and-steel shelter after the accident.

The shelter is crumbling and Ukrainian and Western experts say it needs urgent repairs.

Shtein said that the money for Chernobyl's expenses was expected to be allocated earlier this year from a special state fund. He said the money has never reached it because of the government's failure to finalize details for their transfer.

Earlier this month, Ukraine's Energy and Fuel Minister Ivan Plachkov said that it would cost over $1 billion (770 million euros) to build a new, safer structure to confine the destroyed reactor, and that foreign donors including the United States had promised to contribute.

Work on the new confinement structure is scheduled to begin next year and end within three years, Plachkov said. Separately, a Ukrainian-Russian consortium began a three-year operation aimed at reinforcing the existing structure over the reactor.

Lawyer: Court Cancels Earlier Mill Decision

KIEV, Ukraine -- A Kiev court canceled its earlier decision to reconsider a complaint about the legality of last year's privatization of Ukraine's largest steel mill, a lawyer for the owners said Friday.

The ruling late Thursday by Kiev's Pechersky Court represents a significant victory for the current owners of the Kryvorizhstal steel mill, said lawyer Serhiy Vlasenko.

The Pechersky Court refused comment.

But the consortium, which bought the mill at an allegedly rock-bottom price, still faces a government lawsuit aimed at canceling what had become one of this former Soviet republic's most disputed privatization deals.

Kryvorizhstal, the country's most profitable mill, was sold to the son-in-law of former President Leonid Kuchma and another tycoon for $800 million. The sale went through despite reportedly higher offers from major steel bidders in the United States and Russia and sparked outrage in Ukraine and abroad.

New President Viktor Yushchenko has called the mill's sale a theft, and pledged that his government would return it to the state "at any cost."

In February, the Pechersky Court agreed to reconsider a lawsuit filed by a small group that included lawmakers challenging the privatization. On Thursday, however, the court canceled its earlier ruling "based on newly revealed developments," said Vlasenko.

A separate lawsuit by the Prosecutor General's Office to have ownership of the mill returned to the state is currently before Kiev's Economic Court.

"As of today, all courts ... have confirmed the legality of the privatization of Kryvorizhstal," Vlasenko said. "Hence, Kiev's Economic Court, which is considering a similar case, has no other exit ... but must take a similar decision."

It was not immediately clear when the Economic Court would rule on the matter.

Lawyer Irina Nazarova, who represents the group of lawmakers loyal to Yushchenko who had filed the petition to cancel the privatization, could not immediately be reached for comment.

Yushchenko's government has promised to review other privatizations of key enterprises and undo deals that put state property in the hands of people close to the previous regime.

GUAM Leaders Pledge to Boost Regional Cooperation

CHISINAU, Moldova -- Leaders of Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova – countries, which form GUAM coalition, described the summit in Chisinau, Moldova on April 22 as a turning point in boosting regional cooperation.

Summit in Chisinau was attended by the Presidents of Romania and Lithuania, Traian Basescu and Valdas Adamkus respectively. President of Poland Aleksander Kwasniewski could not arrive in Chisinau despite earlier pledge to participate in the summit. U.S. Department of State senior negotiator for Eurasian conflicts and Caspian energy issues Steven Mann also participated in the summit.

Georgian President’s press office reported, that the GUAM leaders adopted at the summit two declarations: one regarding the development of stability and democracy among the GUAM member countries and another – Democracy from Caspian to Black Sea.

GUAM leaders also discussed Ukraine’s proposal over military cooperation. “It is possible that joint [GUAM] armed forces might be involved in the process of resolution of conflicts,” information note issued by the Georgian President’s press office reads, but this note does not elaborate further details of this potential military cooperation.

“It is possible to think about realization of peacekeeping potential of GUAM member countries. For example, creation of a joint military force for participation in [peacekeeping] operations under the aegis of UN, or OSCE,” Victor Yushchenko, the Ukrainian President said.

Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko said that “a new page was written” in GUAM history by the Chisinau summit.

Yushchenko said that the GUAM stands on, as he put it, “three whales” – democracy, economic development and security/stability.

“There are four hot spots [Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transdnestria and Nagorno-Karabakh] in our region. And Ukraine sets giving a boost to resolving at least one of these conflicts as its goal,” Yushchenko said. He also stated that Ukraine has drafted a proposal over Transdnestria conflict resolution, titled “Seven Steps,” adding that Ukraine will submit the full plan within three weeks.

Victor Yushchenko also emphasized on the issue of boosting organization’s cooperation with EU. “Our goal of creating a zone of stability, security, and prosperity is tightly linked with the European Union, and it should be [achieved by following] European rules and standards," RFE/RL reported quoting Yushchenko as saying. He also said that a new regional organization based on GUAM should be created with “its own office, its own secretariat, and its own plan of actions.”

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev also underlined the importance of regional cooperation focused more on conflict resolution issues. “Our organization is emerging as a powerful force, participating in resolving problems in the Caspian-Black Sea region… [GUAM] member states share a common approach against terrorism and separatism,” Ilham Aliyev, the President of Azerbaijan stated after the summit was over, adding that the joint declaration reflects these very same principles.

Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin also spoke much about the separatist conflicts and called other members of the coalition to increase coordination and cooperation within the organization.

“We should coordinate our positions over democracy development, economy and especially regarding the security-related issues. Threat coming from the separatist enclaves in our region and statements made by them are humiliating for civilized community,” Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin stated.

“I think it is of vital importance that our positions coincide that the preservation of previous, and as they turned to be, ineffective approaches to conflict resolution is no longer possible,” he added.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili spoke about the necessity of further democratization on the post-Soviet space with reference to Belarus, as well as called Moldova to jointly act in an attempt to achieve pull out of Russian bases from Georgia and Moldova in the shortest period of time.

“People of Belarus, as well as others in post-Soviet space, have right for free choice, right to freely express their will, to freely express their political views,” President Saakashvili said.

He also said, while speaking about Russian military bases, that Russian troops “are stationed in Georgia against the will of the Georgian people. Their presence serves neither Georgia’s nor Russia’s interests, they also do not serve the regional security.”

Georgian Foreign Minister Salome Zourabichvili, who also was in Chisinau on April 22, told Georgian reporters that the presence of Romanian and Lithuanian Presidents at the GUAM leaders’ summit proves that the organization is becoming a focus of regional cooperation.

“There will be no talks today about who might become a new member, but this organization is moving in the direction [of enlargement],” Salome Zourabichvili said.

Ukraine Gov't Reaches Deal on Gas Prices

KIEV, Ukraine - Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said Thursday that Russia's TNK-BP had agreed to lower the price of gasoline at its stations throughout Ukraine to the level of government-set price caps.

The agreement came amid growing accusations by Ukrainian officials against TNK-BP and another big Russian oil company, Lukoil, of conspiring to raise the price of gasoline.



Ukraine's Anti-Monopoly Committee opened a criminal investigation into the two oil giants, as well as other companies, into alleged price-fixing.

"We agreed that tomorrow from 8 a.m. the chain of TNK gas stations, which number 1,000, will use the prices set out in the Ministry of Economy's order," Tymoshenko said in a statement distributed by her office.

TNK-BP's Ukraine office said no one was immediately available to comment. The Moscow-based oil company is half-owned by Britain's BP.

Prices at the gas pump have risen 13 percent this month, a sharp increase that underscored Ukraine's energy dependence on Russia and threatened to fuel popular discontent against the new government.

Under the agreement, the gasoline price will fall back to 2.99 hryvna (59 cents) a liter from the current 3.30 hryvna (65 cents).

Oil traders have said the increase is due to Russia's boosting of export tariffs, rising costs for rail shipments in Ukraine and high world prices.

Tymoshenko was scheduled to meet with representatives of Lukoil's Ukraine office on Friday, and she predicted an equally positive result.

"I think that within a week, the government will manage to bring the price of gasoline to a normal level," Tymoshenko said.

Russian companies dominate Ukraine's gasoline sector, controlling 87 percent of the market. After the 1991 Soviet collapse, Ukraine didn't have enough oil reserves to run its Soviet-era refineries, and so the newly independent nation turned to Russian investors.

Ukrnafta is the only major homegrown player in Ukraine, and the company is trying to develop its own retail network.

Tymoshenko said Wednesday that Russian companies' dominance of the Ukrainian market was no longer welcome — a comment that comes amid the ongoing chill in relations. If the Russian companies had been found guilty of price fixing, they faced fines of 10 percent of their 2004 profits.

Russia Could Slow But Not Stop Ukraine NATO And EU Bid

BRUSSELS, Belgium - Russia will not stop Ukraine on the road to NATO membership but could slow it down, according to Kiev's deputy prime minister, Oleh Rybachuk. The country also faces dangers to its internal reform process and EU accession prospects, the minister warned.

"Ukraine joining NATO or the EU does not depend on Russia's position," Mr Rybachuk told EUobserver in Brussels on Thursday.

"We are patiently waiting for Moscow to understand that we should have different levels of partnership than in the past," he said, adding, "Russia is stubborn."

Mr Rybachuk's remarks followed a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Vilnius earlier the same day, involving the organisation's chief, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Ukrainian foreign minister Borys Tarasyuk and Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov.

Mr Scheffer declined to endorse Kiev's tentative target date of 2008 membership but gave the green light to start talks, while Mr Lavrov signaled Moscow's goodwill by saying that joining NATO, "is the sovereign matter of Ukraine", according to agency reports.

But Mr Rybachuk hinted that Russia's actual policy may differ.

The minister indicated that Kiev is braced for "psychological warfare" in which Moscow could use economic measures, such as diverting oil and gas flows or manipulating energy prices, in order to exert pressure on Ukraine.

"They will also use telephone diplomacy, calling their friends, slowing things down," he indicated.

Consumers of Security

A western European diplomat explained that Russia's opposition to Ukrainian NATO membership runs deeper than its mistrust of the Baltic states' place in the transatlantic alliance.

"Russia will intrigue against it," the source said. "The Baltic countries are consumers of security with no real capability. Even if NATO puts forces on the northern Russian border, it would not be a big threat to the Russian forces stationed on the other side. But the Ukraine has over 200,000 men under arms as well as a developed military infrastructure."

He added that Kiev also has the capacity to build weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

"Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons under the US/Russian agreement at the end of the Cold War. But it still has the brains to develop WMDs. Russian strategic missiles were built and designed in Ukrainian factories," the diplomat explained.

Mr Rybachuk also foresees Russian intervention in the upcoming parliamentary elections in March 2006. The ousted presidential candidate, Viktor Yanukovych, is widely expected to run for parliamentary office in the poll, and could become a hub of anti-Yushchenko sentiment if he scoops enough votes.

Mr Rybachuk said that Moscow is likely to use the same propaganda tools as it did during last year's Orange Revolution to foment tension in the country.

"They used the mass media and formed a partnership with the Russian Orthodox Church. We found black propaganda literature inside monasteries in the Ukraine and we have testimonies saying that priests were instructed to oppose Yushchenko in their prayers," he explained.

"They will try it again in this parliamentary election, with the same advisors paid to play the Russian card. But sooner or later, the Kremlin policy makers will realise that this does not work," he said.

Enlargement Fatigue

President Yushchenko's efforts to push through political and economic reforms, as well as tackling corruption under the terms of the EU-Ukraine Action Plan, risk alienating Ukrainian oligarchs who want to protect their steel and coal interests in the Russian-speaking east of the country.

Ukrainian exporters are keen for the country to gain Market Economy Status, which would open doors for tariff-free trade with the EU. But the business lobby could turn against Mr Yushchenko if the corruption purge throws the privatisation deals of the 1990s into question.

On top of this there is a certain degree of mistrust toward the EU goal at grass roots level.

"We have enlargement fatigue, perestroika fatigue and glasnost fatigue, because people talk a lot and do little," Mr Rybachuk indicated.

"People want EU membership to get better living standards and visa-free travel but some of them don't want to pay the price to get there. There is a sweet and bitter part of the cake. But it's one cake, you can't divide it."

On the EU side, Mr Rybachuk said that Ukraine will focus efforts on winning over the hearts of the French people in the short term.

He quoted a recent TNS Sofres poll showing that 58 per cent of French respondents support Ukrainian accession, with 37 per cent against.

Mr Rybachuk also won the agreement of the head of the European Parliament's foreign affairs committe, Elmar Brok (EPP-ED), to address the committee on 14 June ahead of the October EU/Ukraine summit.

But the western European diplomatic source indicated that accession prospects remain dim at this stage.

"Ukraine needs to make a super effort to fulfill Mr Yushchenko's promises and it needs the EU and NATO to respond appropriately, but at the moment they are still lukewarm," the contact explained.

Ukraine Divided Over Language Row

KIEV, Ukraine -- The future status of the Russian language in Ukraine is the cause of public and political debate. The BBC's Helen Fawkes speaks to Russian-speakers who fear discrimination and Ukrainians who are proud of their mother tongue.
It is a difficult lesson for Oleg Tikhomirov.

The teenager is being taught Ukrainian. It is the official language and everyone studies it.

But like all the children in his class in Kiev, Oleg's native language is Russian.

His family is part of the 30% of the country who say that Russian is their mother tongue.

"I think the worst thing is to introduce Ukrainian language using force and to take away choice from people," says Oleg's mother, Irina Tikhomirova.

Russification Fear

Following last year's disputed presidential elections where language became a contentious issue, these people fear they will be discriminated against.

Defeated candidate Viktor Yanukovych had promised to make Russian a state language. He was supported by Russian-speaking parts of the Ukraine, while Viktor Yushchenko was largely backed by the Ukrainian-speaking West.

Many of his supporters voted for him because they want to put a stop to the "Russification" of their country.

"I think the Ukrainian language is still hugely under threat," Mr Yushchenko said in a newspaper article shortly after being elected.

"The previous administration didn't think there was a problem but if we lose our language we lose our culture."

During Soviet times people were taught to speak Russian. It was only after independence that Ukrainian became the official language here.

Russian is still widely used in this country, especially in the east, the Crimea and the capital. According to a recent opinion poll, six out of 10 people would like Russian to become Ukraine's second official language.

Two of the main opposition parties are now trying to get parliament to introduce laws to protect the rights of Russian speakers. They want to make it easier for people to use their native language while at school and dealing with the authorities.

Labour Camp

"Many people have never learnt to speak Ukrainian and they find life difficult. We want equal rights for Russian-speakers," says Mikhailo Illarionov, from the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine.

The media caters for both languages. You can buy newspapers in either Russian or Ukrainian. One television station even uses both languages at once.

The most popular programmes on the music channel M1 have two presenters. One of them speaks only Ukrainian while the other just uses Russian.

Flicking though a pile of black and white photos at his home in Kiev, Yevhen Sverstyuk looks back at more repressive times.

The Ukrainian author picks out pictures of himself and fellow prisoners. In the 1960s Yevhen wrote a book in Ukrainian. He was punished by the Soviet authorities and spent 12 years in a labour camp in Siberia.

"The Ukrainian nation has been fighting for their native language for centuries. People have even died in the struggle to use the Ukrainian language," he says.

Many of those who voted for Mr Yushchenko speak Ukrainian. They now hope for a new chapter in the country's history - where there is less Russian influence and more pride in the native language.

Yushchenko Associate Arrested for Embezzlement in Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine’s Interior Ministry has arrested politician Anatoly Zhukinsky, a supporter of President Yushchenko and head of the Ternopol regional council, for state property embezzlement on a particularly large scale, Lenta.ru reported Thursday.

An investigation of former top officials’ activities is currently in progress in Ukraine. However, Zhukinsky is the first politician from western Ukraine and from Viktor Yushchenko’s team to be detained. Those previously detained or examined were mostly from eastern Ukraine and also active supporters of Viktor Yanukovich, Ukraine’s ex-prime minister and candidate for the president’s post.

Zhukinsky was among those who managed Viktor Yushchenko’s election campaign and after its success helped establish a political network, the Gazeta daily reports.

Besides Zhukinsky, three more politicians from western Ukraine have been charged, among them Sergey Ryzhuk, the former head of the Zhitomir administration, and his deputy Anatoly Velechuk, who both allegedly bought private apartments with state money.

Meanwhile, an investigation of corruption in eastern Ukraine is also in progress. Nikolai Shvets, head of the Dnepropetrovsk regional council, arrived in Kiev on Tuesday for questioning. Shvets is charged with misusing a state-owned health resort in the Crimea. Although the opposition is inclined to see the case as a political one, Shvets says politics has nothing to do with it. “The Ministry just wants some details of my work as the head of the local administration,” he was quoted by Lenta.ru as saying.

The Interior Ministry complains that most officials summoned for questioning never turn up. This is why the Ministry has decided to declare them wanted, Lenta.ru added.

President Yushchenko came to power after the so-called Orange Revolution which was a response to perceived corruption in the former regime of Leonid Kuchma.

Ukraine Bank Strengthens Currency

KIEV, Ukraine -- The central bank raised the value the national currency against the U.S. dollar in hopes of curbing inflation Thursday, a move that Ukrainians say will wipe out chunks of their savings.

The 2.7 percent revaluation of the hryvna set the exchange rate against the dollar at 5.05 hryvna, as compared to 5.25 hryvna on Wednesday. Ukrainians, who mostly keep their money in dollar savings, called the move outright theft.

"Our money is being stolen," complained secretary Lena Levina, 29.

President Viktor Yushchenko's government had warned that it planned to strengthen the hryvna in an effort to fight double-digit inflation.

The process of revaluation was to continue, with the National Bank announcing the rate would drop further Friday to 5.02 hryvna to the dollar.

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who lobbied for strengthening the hryvna, insisted Thursday that Ukraine's economy would benefit in the long run.

"Artificially maintaining a low course for the hryvna is absolutely illogical because its value must be set by the market," she said, adding that imports would become cheaper and inflation would drop as less money is printed.

But the National Bank's move, bringing the exchange rate to its lowest level since 1999, caused grumbling among Ukrainians, who have already had to cope with rising meat and gasoline prices since the new government came to power.

Ukrainian lawmakers sharply denounced the bank's move in parliament, summoning the head of the National Bank to Friday's session to explain. Signs of dissent also emerged in the Cabinet.

Economic Minister Serhiy Teryokhin warned that the move could lead to panic, adding "it seems to me that the National Bank doesn't understand itself what it is doing," according to the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.

Paul Bermingham, the World Bank's director for Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova, insisted "the hryvna is strong and stable."

"It's not very wise to look at the currency exchange rate on one-day basis. You'll have to look at it from bigger prospective," he told reporters in Kiev. "It is desirable for Ukrainian economy to have a more flexible exchange rate."

But Mykola Rudkovsky, a lawmaker from the Socialist Party which joined the coalition that helped usher Yushchenko into power, warned that strengthening the hryvna would result in losses for exporters. That could cripple the country, which counts on exports for more than 60 percent of its gross domestic product.

Tymoshenko insisted Ukraine's exporters could still compete on the international market.

Ukraine exports include ferrous and nonferrous metals, fuel and petroleum products, chemicals, machinery and transport equipment.

NATO Backs Ukraine on Membership Goal

VILNIUS, Lithuania -- NATO offered Ukraine's new leaders fast-track talks and help toward their goal of joining the Western military alliance on Thursday but stopped short of fixing a target date for entry.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk said Kiev could complete the necessary military and political reforms within just three years but NATO, which is keen not to raise tensions with Russia, distanced itself from any timeframe.


Foreign Minister Tarasyuk (l) and NATO Secretary General de Hoop Scheffer
"NATO has invited Ukraine to begin ... an intensified dialogue on Ukraine's aspirations to membership ... without prejudice to any eventual alliance decision," NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said after a meeting in Lithuania.

Asked at a news conference with Tarasyuk to comment on whether Ukraine would be ready by 2008 to enter, he said:

"I don't know ... NATO is a performance-based organization," referring to the 26-member alliance's set of entry criteria ranging from military to political standards.

Tarasyuk said the invitation "transformed our relationship to a new stage" and set Kiev on an unstoppable reform course.

"I dare to say that Ukraine may be ready to fulfil the ambitious program of reforms in, let us say, three years' time. So by the year 2008."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stressed the road to NATO membership required major reforms and French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier was equally cautious, saying membership was only possible "when Ukraine and NATO are both ready."

There were fears before the meeting that offering Ukraine too overt backing in its bid to join NATO and the European Union could go down badly in French public opinion and help the "No" vote in France's May 29 poll on the EU constitution.

NO RUSH

NATO has made it no secret that the victory of pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko in Ukraine's rerun presidential elections last December after a rigged first poll had boosted the membership chances of Kiev.

But alliance diplomats fear a rush toward entry could raise tensions with Russia and alienate many Ukrainians in the former Soviet republic's pro-Moscow east.

However Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, also at the meeting, voiced no public criticism of NATO's backing for Kiev.

"It would be the choice of Ukraine to choose its partners and it is the sovereign matter of Ukraine," he told a news briefing, speaking in English.

NATO offered Kiev a package of measures aimed at helping it to revamp its army and pursue Western democratic reforms. The package ranged from support in boosting Ukrainian intelligence to public diplomacy to countering public mistrust of NATO.

Tarasyuk said Yushchenko had reinstated NATO and European Union membership into the military doctrine of Ukraine, which were removed by President Leonid Kuchma last summer.

He added that Ukraine would support NATO's existing mission to monitor suspect shipping in the eastern Mediterranean, but gave no details on what contribution it would make.

Ukraine to Send Troops to Israel-Syria Conflict Zone

KIEV, Ukraine -- The Ukrainian parliament has backed President Viktor Yushchenko’s proposal to send up to 200 officers and men to the Israel-Syria conflict zone to join there the U.N. forces watching over the disengagement of Israeli and Syrian troops in that area.

The Ukrainian servicemen will not take part in any combat actions and their duty will be to provide logistics support to the U.N. forces.



Ukraine’s participation in this peacekeeping operation will be financed from the state budget and later compensated from U.N. funds. The latter will provide the Ukrainians with practically all the necessary military hardware. It is planned to bring the Ukrainian volunteer unit to the Middle East in June-July.

The U.N. mission on Syria’s Golan Heights was founded in 1974. It includes 1,030 servicemen, 40 civilian monitors and 92 local civilian employees. Austria, Canada, Poland, Slovakia and Japan had provided it with the necessary troops.

Ukraine is taking part in international peacemaking operations as of 1992.

Doctor Shares Insight on Ukrainian Intrigue

VIENA, Austria -- Nikolai N. Korpan, the head of Vienna International Institute for Cryosurgery, was asked if he was thinking of moving back to Ukraine from Austria.

"It's a matter of political will," answered the professor who had treated then-Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko, allegedly poisoned with TCDD, the most harmful known dioxin, by his political opponents last September.

"A new period began in Ukraine's history; President Viktor Yushchenko and new political forces are determined to build a democratic, lawful state. It's a patriotic duty for every Ukrainian, wherever he lives, to help his country at that point ... I have enough knowledge and experience to be useful, but I think, the initiative should be taken at Ukrainian highest political level," Korpan, 48, wrote in his e-mail later.

Yushchenko, 50, who claims that he had been poisoned by political opponents, suffered severe stomach pains and disfiguring facial lesions after falling ill in Kiev on Sept. 5.

Korpan says he first met Yushchenko on Sept. 9 in the Vienna airport.

"I think we both felt like we knew each other before. He was accompanied by his charming wife, Yekaterina Yushchenko, and their little son who was sleeping ... But we didn't have much time for small talk. He was suffering from acute stomach pains, so he was rushed to the clinic's intensive care unit."

Yushchenko was treated at the clinic three times during last September and December.

"Last time he came to the clinic on Dec. 10. The next day we received the results of his blood tests that were carried out in three laboratories: CALUX, BioDetection Systems, and RIKILT, BioDetection Systems, both in The Netherlands, and Eurofins, Germany. All tests showed that Yushchenko's blood contained 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) - and at the level that was 5,000 times higher than the normal concentration ... The same day, Dec. 11, Michael Zimpfer, president of the Rudolfingerhause, and I, as Yushchenko's doctor, announced at a press-conference that he was poisoned with a dioxin chemical."

Korpan believes that Yushchenko's facial disfigurement eventually will go away.

"Using a five-point scale, I'd rate his condition as "almost five" at that point, although it's hard to say how quickly his body will eliminate the poison. It's a slow process, it will take some time. And the case (of the dioxin poisoning) is very rare in a medical history itself," he said.

According to Korpan, Yushchenko chose the clinic, "because he and his wife followed the advice of one prominent Ukrainian politician, my former patient, who had a first-hand experience at the clinic."

Meanwhile, Dr. Lothar Wicke, another Vienna professor I talked to over the phone about the case, denied that the Ukrainian president was poisoned.

Wicke, the former clinical director at the clinic, said he received a threatening phone call from somebody who introduced himself as "a friend from Ukraine" and told the professor "to take care. Your life is in danger," after Wicke made public his doubts about the official diagnosis.

"I resigned from the clinic on Jan. 18. I don't give any interviews at that point," said Wicke, who is now suing the clinic.

He confirmed, however, that he and his family were put under police protection for 10 days after the phone call and said that the next hearing in his case against the clinic was set for May 9.

He also declined to comment on speculation that he met some of Yushchenko's political opponents - the former Ukrainian president's daughter and her husband - who allegedly traveled to Vienna soon after Yushchenko first claimed he had been poisoned.

"No comment. It's very important for my court case," Wicke said.

Ukraine's Entry Into NATO Up To Itself: Rice

MOSCOW, Russia -- US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday that it is up to Ukraine itself whether it can join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

The United States has told Ukraine that the door of NATO is always open to the former Soviet republic and it is mainly up to Ukraine to join NATO, said Rice in an interview with the Russian Independent TV Station.


Condoleezza Rice with Vladimir Putin
There have been some coordination plans between NATO and Ukraine, which will help Ukraine carry out its domestic reforms, said Rice.

Rice arrived in Moscow Tuesday for a two-day visit to prepare for a summit between US President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Talking about Bush's coming visits to Latvia, Russia and Georgia, Rice expressed her hope that Russia understands the US friendly ties with Latvia and Georgia.

The development of ties between the United States and the two countries will not affect the good US-Russian relations, she said.

During her stay in Moscow, Rice held talks with Russian President Putin and other Kremlin leaders.

Rice traveled to the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius later Wednesday to attend a regular NATO foreign ministers' meeting, as well as meetings of the NATO-Russia Council and the NATO-Ukraine Commission.

"Hohols" as an Engine of Progress

MOSCOW, Russia -- Finally, the primary engine of modern Russian progress has been revealed: the hohols. [“Hohol” is a derogatory Russian term for Ukrainians] I don’t mean those hohols who come to Moscow and the Moscow area looking for jobs and finding themselves in demand among employers not for their meticulous craftsmanship, but rather for their low wage demands. Rather, I have in mind those hohols who comprise a viable state, with Kyiv as its capital.

It’s worth mentioning that seeking an engine of Russian change beyond Russia’s borders isn’t something new in our history. People in this country – the vast majority – revered their leaders, subscribing to the formula “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and the Nation,” and were categorically lazy about demanding reforms, freedoms or other elements of progress – unless some meaningless and bloody revolt was sweeping over the country. The impulse, therefore, often came from the outside.

The Tatars forced us to form a state. Peter the Great glimpsed in Europe the reforms that he wanted to institute here. Catherine the Great stole her Enlightenment from the same place, even though she understood it in her own way. Meanwhile, her son Pavel was in love with Prussian culture. Alexander, who strangled him, secretly worshiped Napoleon until the latter attacked him. The Crimean War stimulated the restructuring of the army at the very least, and probably not only that. The German General Staff literally bought 1917’s revolution for a little over 60 million marks. As for Stalin’s industrialization, in many ways it replicated Hitler’s. Gorbachev’s perestroika wasn’t born inside the country, but was imported from the West. Even President Vladimir Putin seems to see an ideal Russian Federation as something like the German Democratic Republic.

And now we’ve come to the point where the new ideas come from the hohols.

Hohols rising

During last year’s election campaign in Ukraine, hohols easily destroyed the favorite invention of our militia chiefs when Putin, visiting Kyiv, told Ukrainians they could visit Russia for 90 days without registering. As a result of the hohols’ visits, permission to stay somewhere for 90 days without registering with the local police station was granted to Russians, in their own country, as well.

And now that this “joker” President Viktor Yushchenko has come to power along with his “gas princess,” the official hohols are nagging at our rulers almost daily. Our rulers don’t even know how to react to them anymore.

For the Kremlin, the hohol state has became, if not the biggest nightmare out there, then definitely an obsessive one. All kinds of political technologists are exploiting the idea of that nightmare to screw the big political bosses and get money out of them, bringing up the idea of another Orange Revolution. In response to this nightmare, various new divisions are being created in the Kremlin. Terrified by this nightmare that they’ve themselves created, some of the more emotional leaders have started frightening the others with the threat of Russia’s breakdown. That’s the way things are these days.

After Yushchenko invited our oligarchs to meet with him, the Russian president had to do the same, even thought it was repugnant to him. During the meeting, his expression indicated that he was forcing himself to sit at the same table with those elements of an alien class.

On the whole, Moscow had to ease back on its harassment of the tycoons and announce something like a thaw.

It went from bad to worse. Once hohols started complaining about the Common Economic Space, it began to fall apart. Apparently, it won’t survive. But whatever, it’s just a Space. It seems the Commonwealth of Independent States will have to be given up as well. The Kremlin had that same idea right after the elections in Ukraine. But they’re afraid to be the first ones to speak about it. Evidently they’ll wait until Kyiv brings it up.

We will be racing one another to the World Trade Organization as well. How dare the hohols enter it before we do? To avoid such shame and economic drainage, they set themselves the task of finishing all the negotiations by the end of the year. If it weren’t for the hohols, we would slowly haggle for another 10 years or so.

And NATO? Ukraine’s intention to enter will be announced in May. And it will be supported. Not by us, of course, but by NATO. The idea of Ukraine as a NATO member boggles the minds of Russian politicians so much that they don’t know how to react.

By the way, there was also no reaction from Moscow to Kyiv’s unconventional move to cancel the visa regime for European Union citizens.

In our Foreign Ministry it is whispered: everything’s gone crazy. Yushchenko has easily done what Moscow, afraid to give up its imperial pretensions (and also the consular payments on which our pauper Foreign Ministry lives), didn’t dream of doing in its worst nightmare. How could that be possible? We do visa regimes only mutually.

And what should we do now on the Russian-Ukrainian border? Stretch barbed wire along the perimeter? Initiate a visa regime for Ukrainians? Or maybe we should give up our boundary fetishism and understand that those who really need to get in will get in anyway, and those who just want to see the country should be welcomed with their money. I’m afraid it’s a complicated dilemma for our native border guards. And that’s all due to them, the hohols.

What if they think up something else? Something to do with the economy, or reforms, or Europeanization? What will we do then?

There’s only one last hope for our security. Who are these hohols? After all, they’re Little Russians, not some disciplined Germans. They will hopefully fade away into their own Slavic chaos.

Otherwise it’s all very uncomfortable for us. We’re already almost asleep, but they keep waking us up, over and over again.

NATO Chief Warns Ukraine of Long Road to Membership

KIEV, Ukraine -- The head of Nato has pledged his support for Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko’s quest to join the 26-nation alliance, but has warned that Kiev faces a “long and winding road” before it can finally become a member.

“Ukraine has clearly indicated that it wants to go along the long and winding road to membership,” Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Nato secretary-general, said in an interview with The Financial Times.


Nato Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer (c)
“Given the fact that there has been a peaceful revolution, the membership standards can be much more easily fulfilled by the Yushchenko government than by the Kuchma government.” But de Hoop Scheffer refused to set any timescale for Ukraine’s membership ambitions, which are strongly backed by the U.S.

At a foreign ministers meeting in Vilnius, Lithuania, this week, Nato is set to offer Ukraine a package of assistance measures, but stop short of issuing a “road map” towards membership.

Bill Gates Asked to Help Ukraine Attract Investments

KIEV, ukraine -- Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko has included the head of Microsoft Corp. Bill Gates in the country’s Advisory Investment Council.

Yushchenko’s decree says that foreigners were chosen because of their long-term experience in the field of innovation and influence on world trends, Interfax news agency reported.



Other foreigners included in the council are the president of Moody’s Investors Service Raymond McDaniel, the president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine Jorge Zukoski, the president of the European Business Association Bjorn Markstedt, and the president of the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development Jean Lemierre. Yushchenko and his ministers from economic spheres will represent Ukraine in the council.

There are as yet no reports on Bill Gates’ comments on the news.

Yushchenko Displeased With Work of Ukrainian Police

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko believes that the work of the law enforcement agencies continues to be a source of people’s discontent. He said so at a meeting on Wednesday, which was devoted to the performance of the law enforcement agencies and the reform of the judicial system.

“I should like to stress most emphatically that the work of the law enforcement agencies continues to be a source of discontent and social tension,” Yushchenko said at the meeting. According to his information, his secretariat received 150,000 letters from Ukrainians between January and March. For the first time ever the number of complaints over the work of the law enforcement agencies exceeded the number of appeals dealing with social security.

“People ask to protect them against the authorities. This is their main request,” Yushchenko said. About 25 per cent of the appeals deal with the protection of law and order. The letters include numerous complaints over defects in the work of public prosecutor’s offices, courts and the Ministry of Justice.

People complain over too long investigation, illegal keeping in custody and torture. Yushchenko is concerned over the growth of the number of letters received by his secretariat. “If 2.6 per cent of the population appealed to the president during a period of three months, something very serious is going on in this country,” he believes.

Yushchenko is positive that a mechanism should be created, which would make it possible to give instructions on the complaints, received by the secretariat, and to control their fulfilment within three days.

The president will use the results of the meeting to draw up an instruction on the creation of a new system of responding to appeals of people, Irina Gerashchenko, press secretary of the president, told journalists.

Analysis of the Events of the Orange Revolution

KIEV, Ukraine -- The 2004 events in Ukraine challenge our understanding of Ukrainian history and reshape our vision of Ukrainian national identity. Is it possible for a national democratic revolution to succeed if it operates solely on the basis of legality in a country in which the institutions of legal power are manipulated by the government? Ukraine teaches us that it can.

The amazingly sober behavior of protesters in Ukraine forced the Supreme Court and parliament to operate not as servile governmental puppets but as institutions committed to legal principles that will lead the country out of political turmoil. The peaceful tactics of the revolutionary strikers made the speaker of the parliament and the head of the Supreme Court cut the threads and reemerge as politicians whose decisions are based solely on legality.



A "lawful revolution" seems to be an oxymoron that challenges our imagination, yet this is exactly what happened in Ukraine. While victorious Yushchenko and Tymoshenko are grappling with the burdensome heritage of the previous regime, it is crucial to ponder on a broader meaning of the Orange Revolution. One may want to emphasize five key messages of the 2004 Ukrainian upheavals.

UKRAINE AND RUSSIA

While Russian pundits bend themselves backwards to prove that Ukrainian Orange Revolution was a US-sponsored enterprise, a rational-minded observer is advised to believe that it was an articulate Ukrainian "no" to Kremlin-orchestrated neo-imperialism. Russia has traditionally considered Ukraine inseparable from itself. For the last three hundred years Russia has been absorbing Ukraine, then part of Eastern Poland, capturing one segment after another, pushing Poland westward.

Under the tsars, Russia invented a centennial Slavic brotherhood in which Ukraine appeared as Little Russia (Malorossia), the little sister of Great Russia, its big brother. Patronizing its new family member, Russia supplanted all traces of previous Ukrainian autonomy, assimilated Ukrainian gentry, enslaved Ukrainian peasants, and obliterated Ukrainian identity. In the 1860s-1870s Alexander II, perhaps the most liberal-minded among Russian tsars, outlawed Ukrainian language.

Following the Russian tsars' colonial attitude toward Ukraine, the Bolshevik and new Russian leaders considered Ukrainian identity a challenge to their vision of the Great Russian Empire. They could not accept the loss of abundant Ukrainian resources and the Black Sea ports. What started in mid-1920s as a major Ukrainian national renaissance that threatened Russian stance as a patronizing big brother of Slavic nations, was brutally suppressed in the early 1930s when Ukrainian intelligentsia was simply wiped out.

Ukrainian political independence achieved in 1991 was an affront to Russia, a historical mistake that needed to be straightened out. Kremlin wanted to see Ukraine returning into Russia's embrace, allowing it to re-emerge as a major European Empire. Viktor Yanukovych, deaf to Ukrainian revivalism, was a convenient puppet responsible for returning Ukrainian black sheep into the imperial flock. Ukrainian orange color, translated into Russian, implied that the country does not want any more to be a colony. And this was the first message of the Orange Revolution.

UKRAINE AND EUROPE

The 1991 demise of the USSR opened up brand new opportunities for the eastward advance of European legalism, liberalism, and democracy. For Europe to secure democratic changes in Ukraine and to incorporate Ukraine into the European Union signifies the actual, not formal demise of communism.

Though in 1991 Ukraine voted for independence yet it did not exercise it appropriately. Abandoned by Europe to the mercy of its fate, in its post-1991 development Ukraine inconsistently but steadily followed Russia.

Europe was closely monitoring the rise of pro-Russian and non-democratic Ukrainian oligarchs. The endemic corruption among the highest echelons of the Ukrainian government, which seemed to imitate the corruption of Russian authorities, turned Europe away from Ukraine and made the incorporation of Ukraine into the European Union an unlikely scenario. The Gongadze case signaled that for Europeans Ukraine would remain a suspicious polity on the outskirts of Europe drifting toward Asian-like autarchy. Also, Europeans realized that the Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma regime was talking legality and walking personal profit.

Therefore the events of November and December, 2004, revolutionized the European perception of Ukraine. Once rank-and-file Europeans adorned Warsaw skyscrapers and London squares with orange, Europe and Ukraine established common language at least on the level of the visual. Mass support of "orange" Kyiv during solidarity campaigns in major cities across Europe sent a direct message to the European Union that Ukraine was already considered as equal by its European brethren.

After December events it is only too evident that Ukrainian revolution, among other things, hammered the last nail into the coffin of European communism. Accepting Ukraine to European Union would not be a favour for Ukraine. Rather it will be a de jure confirmation of what Ukraine has proved de facto: that it is part and parcel of Europe.

NEW UKRAINIAN REVIVALISM

Ukraine appeared as a new polity on the European map only in 1991, yet Ukrainians have fought for their cultural and political independence for centuries. Starting from Bohdan Khmelnytsky's Cossack revolution in 1648, the people of Ukraine - peasants and gentry of the Russian Orthodox creed who as yet did not identify themselves as Ukrainians - fought for political autonomy first against Poland, then against Russia and the Soviet Union.

Their fight was heavily marked by bloody attempts to change Ukraine socially and politically. Ukrainian cultural revivalism of the 1860s, 1900s, 1920s, and 1990s articulated ideas that shaped an independent Ukrainian polity either as a multi-ethnic monarchy or as a nationalist state.

In November, 2004, it seemed that Kharkiv, Donetsk, and Odesa were inherently ready to accept Russian multi-ethnic imperialism whereas Kyiv, Lviv, and Ivano-Frankivsk preferred the nationalist model. Yet the December, 2004, events in Ukraine fit neither the previous history of Ukrainian revolts nor Ukrainian political theories. It turned out that the so-called Ukrainian split into East and West was an invention, manipulated by Russian politicians and overplayed in the Western media.

The governmentally controlled Ukrainian and Russian media transformed the alleged East-West rift into political weapons against the opposition while Ukrainians by and large remained bilingual and Soviet-minded, the differences between the two parts of the country being more cultural and economic than political. The Orange Revolution triggered the awakening of the nation bringing imaginary East and West together. Russian-speaking industrial workers and miners from Donbas and Ukrainian-speaking students from the western city of Lviv discovered that they belong to one and the same nation.

Instead of the clashes between them that the government anticipated, if not orchestrated, the two groups began to talk to one another. Their dialog brought hopes that bridges of mutual understanding would soon emerge. Two months of street dialogue fostered the birth of a new self-awareness of nationhood. That self-awareness was the third most important achievement of the Orange Revolution the ramifications of which is difficult to overestimate.

THE PLOTTERS AND THE DIPLOMATS

Both governmentally supported Viktor Yanukovych and the acting president Leonid Kuchma schemed an oligarchic coup in the country comparable to the communist coup of the KGChP in Moscow in August 1991, but based on manipulated legality. Their plan was to orchestrate the election of the pro-governmental candidate, and after his election to appoint Kuchma (who had already spent two terms in the presidential chair) as prime-minister, then to pass a political reform transforming Ukraine into a parliamentary republic with the prime-minister assuming full power. They also planned to appoint the most notorious oligarchs to ministerial positions finalizing the transformation of the country into a feudal neocolonial oligarchy.

To achieve this, they shuffled the opposition media, subjected the news coverage to almost complete governmental control, and had the best Kremlin image-makers aggressively campaigning for the pro-governmental candidate. That most oligarchs and their governmental puppets originated in the Eastern industrial districts of Ukraine contributed to their financial might that seemed unbreakable. Paradoxically, the government became trapped once Yushchenko turned the tables on it. Having incorporated most radical groups in the opposition Nasha Ukrayina (Our Ukraine) block, Viktor Yushchenko flatly rejected political radicalism as a means to solving the political crisis.

Rather he preferred the golden path between parliamentary struggle and revolutionary radicalism. Due to his double identity as a populist leader supported by at least 17 million people in Ukraine and a parliamentary figure unfamiliar with underground activity, Yushchenko managed to channel the revolutionary events into a battle for legality and rule of law. His well-balanced maneuvering was equidistant from the government's iron-clad communist-type stance and the pioneering radicalism of his closest associates. Yushchenko's rationalism saved the country from imminent bloodshed. How could it happen that an opposition leader who had been plotted against to be poisoned and removed from the political arena emerged as a revolutionary diplomat?

The answer to this question pending, one has to underscore a brand new revolutionary strategy unheard of in the history of European rebellions - the strategy that constitutes the fourth novelty of the Orange Revolution. It is clear that the opposition played to win by managing both the revolutionary Independence Square and the Ukrainian Rada, the parliament. Ukraine demonstrated how to transform the revolution into a parliamentary and constitutional reform, a powerful lesson of democracy which has not yet been entirely understood.

THE PEOPLE OF UKRAINE

While the United States, European Union, and Russia argued about how to solve the crisis in Ukraine, thousands of people firmly stand in the main square of Kyiv, demonstrating their stamina and astonishing commitment to democratic values. Their warm and cheerful orange ribbons, the symbolic color of the opposition, sharply contrasted with the frigid temperatures they endure. In December, 2004, the future of Ukraine depended little on the negotiations between the acting president Leonid Kuchma with the opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko, and even less on Kuchma's talks with the Russian and Polish presidents or the head of the European Union.

Rather it entirely depended on the will and steadfastness of the Ukrainians protesting an ignominious election fraud orchestrated by the government. Among those who took to the streets were students, teachers, government workers, computer operators, engineers, small businessmen, rock and sports celebrities, renowned writers and poets, and village and urban dwellers of dozens of nationalities and religious beliefs. Instead of irritation, bitterness, and well-grounded revolutionary rage, the protesters' faces shine with happiness, friendliness, and love. Citizens of Kyiv said that the city has never been as polite, understanding, and helpful as now.

Pensioners who could hardly make both ends meet purchased coffee and medicine for the picketers. Small-scale restaurant owners provided hundreds of protesters with free soup and porridge. The sense of unity was overwhelming. "There are so many of us on the main square," exclaimed a thirty-something literary scholar from Kyiv. "We are doing our best to help people in the streets," said a teacher of history in her sixties. "A new nation is being born," insisted a professor who has left the quiet of academe for the noisy streets, "Things will never be the same in this country."

Perhaps a Ukrainian poet captured an overwhelming feeling of people in the streets when, as if protesting the assumed attitude to the Ukrainians, he wrote to the author: "This is a people, this in not a riff-raff (bydlo)." Contrary to the claims of Kremlin-sponsored political analysts, the rank-and-file folks in the streets were not choosing between the Russian and Ukrainian languages. The Orange Revolution was bilingual.

Nor, as European analysts have said, were they making a choice between returning to the aegis of Russia and falling into the embrace of the European Union. Even the most stalwart supporters of the opposition understood that 200-year old economic ties to Russia will continue to go along with integration into the European Union.

For the people in the streets of Kyiv the choice was simpler. Do they want to live in a totalitarian state where the power manipulates the will of its people or to build a democracy that respects the choices of its people? The answer of the Maydan-dwellers emphasized what Ukrainians already have become: citizens in their own country.

Ukraine: When The Going Gets Tough

KIEV, Ukraine -- If democratic revolutions prospered on aspirations and the feel-good factor alone, Ukraine would soon be one of the world's leading nations. But they don't. So it is just as well that Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko is a tough cookie.

Her collaborator, President Viktor Yushchenko, was the dignified leader of the Orange Revolution, which defeated an attempt by his opponents to steal victory in last year's presidential election. Yushchenko deserves the accolades he has received in Brussels and Washington for mobilizing Ukraine's popular democratic will.


PM Tymoshenko with President Yushchenko
A new sense of pride is palpable in this country, even in those areas of the predominantly Russian-speaking east that are supposedly hostile to Yushchenko. Nonetheless, Ukraine's new leaders are confronted with immense problems. Yushchenko's predecessor, Leonid Kuchma, succeeded in dragging Ukraine into a pit of venality and corruption, and it seems increasingly clear that Tymoshenko's iron determination will be a key factor in whether Ukraine will be able to start cleansing itself in the post-Orange era.

She has addressed her two major domestic issues with gusto. At the heart of Ukraine's problems and Kuchma's legacy lie a tax regime that is an open invitation for Ukraine's superrich oligarchs to cheat the state of revenues and a customs operation that claimed to protect Ukrainian industry with high tariffs but in reality benefited only large-scale fraudsters and smugglers.

A more equitable tax regime and a "No to Contraband" campaign was Tymoshenko's bold answer to this. She drastically lowered tariffs on a range of key products, wiping out at a stroke the incentives for people to move goods illegally across Ukraine's borders. She has also ordered an overhaul of the notoriously corrupt Customs Service.

Her second problem contains greater dangers but also a couple of awkward moral dilemmas: The influence and financial clout of the oligarchs who indulged in everything from grand larceny, extortion and (most people believe) murder to amass huge fortunes under Kuchma.

This month, Tymoshenko sent out the most dramatic message possible when her interior minister ordered the arrest of the Donetsk regional governor, a close ally of the richest of all oligarchs, Rinat Akhmetov. More arrests could follow. The danger for Yushchenko and Tymoshenko is whether the oligarchs will take this lying down.

Then there are those moral dilemmas. Tymoshenko herself is believed to have made more than $1 billion during the Kuchma period before falling into disfavor and ending up in jail on corruption charges. At some point, if she is to avoid accusations of using the justice system as an instrument of revenge, she will have to define what was criminal behavior in the past decade and what was not. Furthermore, the new leadership will eventually have to decide whether to open an investigation against Kuchma himself, whom everybody recognizes as the great ringmaster of corruption.

In foreign policy, Ukraine needs to take particular care with Russia. However attractive the European Union's warm embrace might be, it is a very distant one. Ukraine stands far down a long line of EU aspirants, and politically and economically its relationship with Russia is central to its past, present and future. And however triumphal Yushchenko's U.S. reception might have been, Congress doesn't pay Ukraine's bills - especially its gas bill. And gas is the very stuff of Ukraine's relationship with its eastern neighbor.

Last week, President Vladimir Putin and Gerhard Schröder, the German chancellor, signed an agreement to build a gas pipeline through the Baltic Sea. By 2010, this will end Ukraine's virtual monopoly over the transit route supplying Russian and Central Asian gas to Western Europe. Ukraine is dependent on revenues from the transit to subsidize its own hugely inefficient gas consumption. The situation is even more bleak because the deal under which Turkmenistan sells cheap gas to Ukraine ends next year, and the Turkmens insist they will charge much more in the future. The new Baltic pipeline deal looks very much like Russia putting the squeeze on Ukraine where the country is most vulnerable.

The Orange Revolution was an inspiring spectacle, but it humiliated Putin, who campaigned openly for Yushchenko's opponent while Yushchenko and Tymoshenko celebrated the values of the West. And a corrupt bureaucracy, powerful oligarchs and a mighty neighbor with huge influence over the economy means that Ukraine faces a very rough ride over the next few years.

It does so, however, with confidence in its democratic credentials, and that gives it real hope for the first time in a decade.

Ukraine Introduces Ban on Tobacco Advertising

KIEV, Ukraine -- The Ukrainian parliament has decided to ban tobacco advertising in the country after it passed a new law on Tuesday, Itar Tass reports. Moreover, 50 percent of public establishments such as bars, cafes and restaurants must provide a non-smoking area.

The new law prohibits tobacco advertising on TV, radio, in publications aimed at minors, in cinemas, theaters, as well as banning outdoor advertising on billboards, large electronic screens and building facades.



The law also states that bar and restaurant owners face fines of up to $10,000 if they fail to provide non-smoking areas in at least half of their establishments.

The law also makes it illegal to sell tobacco to minors and sell packs without a medical warning.

More than 100,000 smokers die in Ukraine annually of smoking-related diseases. With a total number of 9 million smokers, Ukraine is among the top 11 countries with the highest number of smokers, Itar Tass added.

Ukraine PM Makes Elle Front Cover

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has appeared on the front cover of Elle magazine in Ukraine posing in a designer dress.
Mrs Tymoshenko played a key role in the "Orange Revolution", her plait hairdo making her a distinctive figure.

Interviewed by Elle Ukraine, she said she was making full use of her looks in the male-dominated world of politics.

She is said by local media to have even charmed Russian President Vladimir Putin, who visited Kiev in March.

"Do you really think I can charm people? That's interesting, I never would have thought," Mrs Tymoshenko told Elle.

In an earlier interview, given in 2001, she was asked whether she would prefer to make the front cover of Playboy, Time or the Ukrainian women's magazine Natalie.

Mrs Tymoshenko said Playboy would be "the best choice for any real woman".

She added, however, that she might plump for Time instead.

Mrs Tymoshenko told Elle that her looks were all natural as she had no time for beauty treatments.

"I am going to disappoint your readers but I am not doing anything special for my appearance... After working 16 hours a day, all I have time for is sleep," the Ukrainian politician said.

According to the AFP news agency, Mrs Tymoshenko appeared in four photos in Elle wearing clothes by Louis Vuitton, Yves Saint Laurent and Valentino Red.

Cashing In On Color Revolution

MOSCOW, Russia -- There is a widely held view that the revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine and, most recently, Kyrgyzstan have somehow been a victory for the United States and a slap in the face for poor old Russia. Certainly, the new pro-NATO and pro-EU regimes seem to spell the end of President Vladimir Putin's dream of a Slavic superstate. But the economic interests really benefiting from these revolutions are not American, but Russian.



In Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, the revolutions deposed political circles that had maintained a tight grip on the economy. That tight, monopolistic grip meant it was very hard for any foreign business, Russian ones included, to be treated fairly or to get access to key assets. The best assets always went to local insiders.

A good example is the Kryvorizhstal steel mill in Ukraine. Severstal, a Russian steel company, put together a strong bid for the mill when the government of Leonid Kuchma and Viktor Yanukovych privatized it last year. But the auction was rigged in favor of local oligarchs, who bought the asset at a lower price than Severstal offered. Putin's supposed close relationship with the Kuchma-Yanukovych government did not count for much.

Even when Russian companies were able to buy assets in Ukraine, they found themselves subject to the sort of arbitrary regulatory attacks that are a natural part of closed, corrupt economies. Mobile TeleSystems, for example, found itself almost stripped of UMC, the Ukrainian mobile company and MTS's largest foreign asset, thanks to a local political imbroglio.

The new government, by contrast, has made opening up the Ukrainian economy to foreign investors a priority. It has said all investors, domestic and foreign, will be treated equally.

This will naturally benefit Russian investors most because Russian companies are easily the biggest foreign investors in the former Soviet Union. President Viktor Yushchenko has already met with a large delegation of Russian business leaders. Vasily Siderov, the CEO of MTS, said after the meeting, "We heard what we wanted to hear. The regulators will treat market players and government equally and this will only help our business." Severstal could be a front-runner for the Kryvorizhstal mill when it is eventually resold, while other Russian companies, such as Vneshtorgbank, have already increased their investment in the post-revolutionary
Ukraine.

A similar situation exists in Georgia. The new government may receive generous financial support from the United States, but the companies reaping the benefit of the improved investment climate under the new regime are almost exclusively Russian.

So far, under Kakha Bendukidze, the larger-than-life minister on reforms coordination, Georgia has sold a manganese production plant to Yevrazholding and a bank to Vneshtorgbank. He also wants to sell the country's main gas pipeline to Gazprom. This profoundly startled the U.S. ambassador in Tbilisi, Richard Miles, who says selling the pipeline could undermine Georgia's energy independence, in which the United States has invested so much time and money.

Bendukidze says this is nonsense -- the pipeline runs straight to the Russian border and can only be used for Russian gas. As a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, he does not really care whether a company is Russian or American, just who is offering the best price.

And the companies offering the best bid for Georgian assets are Russian. Indeed, they're offering the only bid. Western companies are still very reluctant to invest in Russia, let alone in Georgia or in Kyrgyzstan.

What little American investment there has been in Georgia has ended badly. U.S. company AES bought the Tbilisi electricity generator but made many enemies in its rather crass attempts to reform it. The CEO was eventually murdered. When it decided to sell the asset, there was only one bidder, Unified Energy Systems. UES is currently doing a much better job at turning the company around and making a profit because it understands better how to do business in an environment like Georgia.

Thus, Russian companies have benefited the most from the post-revolutionary liberalization and regeneration of the Georgian economy. The more the new government succeeds in improving the business climate in Georgia, the more money Russian companies will make there. This point seems to be lost on the Russian military hard-liners intent on destabilizing Abkhazia.

And so, finally, to Kyrgyzstan. The situation there is more complicated because there is a danger the revolution will actually worsen the country's business climate. The Kyrgyz revolution may have a positive effect on the country's economy, by removing the economy from the monopolistic grasp of the Akayev family and acting as a powerful warning to future political leaders not to rule the country for the sake of their family rather than for the general public. As in Ukraine and in Georgia, the economy could be opened up to greater foreign investment, and Russian companies would stand to benefit most.

As in Ukraine and in Georgia, Russian companies found themselves suffering under the caprices of the corrupt former regime. Alfa Telecom, for example, initially bought BITEL, the country's main mobile company, from former President Askar Akayev's son Aidar. However, Aidar then decided he wanted to keep the company, so he took it back. There are indications that Alfa may be successful in securing ownership of the asset now that the family has been booted out.

However, the new government in Kyrgyzstan has so far not shown itself capable of protecting property rights, and some local businesspeople have used the confusion in government to grab assets. It is in the interests of Russian companies to make sure that the Kyrgyz revolution succeeds, that the new government is less corrupt than the old one and that it treats foreign investors fairly. Russian businesses would benefit most from a more honest and open Kyrgyz economy. UES and Russian Aluminum are already thought to be considering multimillion-dollar investments in metal and hydroelectric power projects in the country.

But there is an important point to be made. Russian companies will be welcome in the "near abroad" only if they are seen as good corporate citizens who are not mere extensions of Russian state policy. If Russian officials try to use Russian business as a way to meddle in other countries' affairs, then Russian businesses will find themselves barred from more and more deals, and Russian influence and prestige will be reduced.

If, on the other hand, Russian businesses act like good corporate citizens, they will naturally dominate the former Soviet Union and even Eastern Europe, and will project a brand of a progressive, prosperous "Russia, Inc.," which will naturally attract neighbouring countries into Russia's sphere of influence.

Two Miners Brought to Safety in Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine - Rescuers saved two miners trapped by a rock slide in an eastern Ukrainian coal mine, emergency officials said on Monday. The bodies of two other miners were found, and a fifth remained missing.

The accident occurred early on Sunday in the Rossiya mine in the Donetsk region, trapping five workers at a depth of 400m.

One of the miners made it to safety on Sunday morning, and rescuers managed to establish verbal contact with one of the others, who was retrieved from the rubble on Sunday evening, the ministry for emergency situations said in a statement. Both are recovering in hospital.

Crews discovered the bodies of two other miners under the rubble, and were working to bring the bodies to the surface. The fate of the fifth trapped miner remains unknown, emergency officials said.

President Viktor Yushchenko on Sunday dispatched Ukraine's Emergency Situations Minister David Zhvania and Fuel and Energy Minister Ivan Plachkov to the region to oversee rescue work, the president's office said.

Since the 1991 Soviet collapse, nearly 4 300 miners have died in Ukrainian coal mines, which are considered among the world's most risk-filled. More than 75 percent of Ukraine's 200 coal mines are classified as dangerous.

Protests Over Kolesnikov Arrest Peter Out

DONETSK, Ukraine -- The loser of last year's tumultuous Ukrainian presidential elections tried April 8 to drum up outrage by calling for protests over the arrest of a leader from his home region, but few people heeded his summons.

Although the response to Viktor Yanukovych's call for "unprecedented protests" got a tepid response, it underlined the tensions that still plague Ukraine in the wake of last year's bitter presidential vote.

Yanukovych, who has vowed intense opposition to President Viktor Yushchenko's government, tried April 8 to rally more protests over the arrest of Donetsk council chairman Borys Kolesnikov.

Kolesnikov's detention on suspicion of plotting assassination attempts brought out hundreds of protesters on April 7, some of whom set up tents in the eastern city and vowed to stay until he was released. The protesters contended the arrest was politically motivated.

However, on April 8, Donetsk's square was all but deserted and the tents were empty. In downtown Kyiv, a few dozen Yanukovych supporters chanted "Freedom to Kolesnikov" but there was little other sign of protest.

Interior Minister Yury Lutsenko and Prosecutor General Svyatoslav Piskun told lawmakers April 8 that Kolesnikov was suspected of plotting three assassination attempts, though they did not say against whom.

His Party of Regions is calling for the central government to loosen its control of eastern Ukraine, which includes his home base of Donetsk.

The call plays on fears in predominantly Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine that Yushchenko's drive for closer ties with Western Europe would weaken Russia's influence in Ukraine.

Kolesnikov's aides say he was detained over his role in the Yanukovych movement, promoting splitting the country along linguistic lines.

Yanukovych was declared the winner of a November presidential ballot, but hundreds of thousands of demonstrators alleging fraud poured into the streets of the capital Kyiv. The Supreme Court annulled the election and ordered a new election that Yushchenko won.

Late April 8, a court in Kyiv ruled that Kolesnikov should remain in custody, rejecting an appeal from his lawyer who called the detention illegal.

Yushchenko's Regime Gets Tough

KIEV, Ukraine -- A district court of Kiev is to pass on Tuesday a sentence upon the tent camp organized by the protesters who demand the liberation of an opposition leader.

Boris Kolesnikov, the head of the Donetsk regional legislature and a close ally of Viktor Yanukovich, was detained on April 6. Mr. Yushchenko has apparently forgotten that the previous regime used to treat his supporters noticeably more softly. The oppositionists are expecting that a court decision won't be in their favor and may be implemented by riot police as early as Tuesday's evening.

The plaintiff at this trial is the administration of Kiev. The city authorities claim that the territory occupied by the protesters has been taken lawlessly and the tent camp "disturbs the public order, impedes the recreation of the capital's inhabitants in the park area and hampers the work of the Cabinet of Ministers". During the first court's sitting the city's lawyers failed to prove their case, and the trial was adjourned to Monday. Meanwhile the tent camp has been swelling. It accommodates reportedly around a thousand people, and they keep on arriving from practically all regions of Ukraine.

The Ukrainian president makes no secret of his enmity towards the protesters. "If someone from the former regime is touched upon, the bought rallies will certainly be organized", Yushchenko said on Thursday. The truly "democratic" attitude of the authorities towards the opposition is revealed by the fact that the metal fences in front of the presidential headquarters have been recently restored. These fences were dismantled just after the victory of Yushchenko. The demolition of the fences was then declared a symbol of "the new era of democracy in Ukraine", since the president wouldn't "hide from his citizens anymore". But with the advent of the protesters' tents "the new era of democracy for all" has finished. The democracy for a few has reappeared.

However some people believe that the court's decision may be not in favor of the plaintiffs. The thing is that the camp is being built under the leadership of the opposition MP Nestor Shufrich who is by all accounts a close friend of the Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko, and they say that she herself is opposed to the demolition of the camp - the bloodshed is of no use to her, since the protesters are pledged not to go voluntarily.

But most protesters don't trust to justice. They think that it's already turned by the new authorities into a rubber stamp of the president. Yushchenko's regime is already experienced in destructing protesters' camps: a similar camp was brutally destroyed in Odessa on April 9. During the Odessa operation, which is called by witnesses no less than a massacre, riot police was assisted by a paramilitary organization INKONT, which has a reputation of "a criminal grouping involved in racketeering".

It's worth reminding that when Yushchenko was still in opposition, the then authorities acted much more softly towards his supporters. But now Yushchenko is seemingly willing to use force.

Tymoshenko Takes On The Oligarchs

KIEV, Ukraine -- A congress of Ukraine's oligarchs is scheduled for April 13 under the guise of the "Assembly of Ukrainian Metallurgists". Representatives from 62 metallurgical enterprises will attend the "Extraordinary" congress in Kyiv. Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko described the event as an attempt to lobby the government to reverse its decision to raise transportation charges on Ukraine's railways by 50%.

Tymoshenko's ongoing fight against the oligarchs will likely increase her popularity even more. As she has pointed out, five families control Ukraine's metallurgical industry and she plans to audit every one. Russian investors own the four largest Ukrainian oil refineries.

Deputy Prime Minister Mykola Tomenko has openly accused oligarchs and regional barons of systematically sabotaging the government's work and points to rising fuel and food prices as proof. The "sabotage" is directed against the government's plan to cut the hidden subsidies, unfair privileges, and excessive profits enjoyed by the oligarchs. "President [Viktor] Yushchenko is mobilizing all government agencies at the central and regional level, in particular law-enforcement bodies, in order to make the Ukrainian authorities work as a single and well-coordinated team," Tomenko warned.

Two other factors will also affect this looming clash between the state and the oligarchs.

First, Ukraine's largest metallurgical plant, Kryvorizhstal, will lead the participants at the "Extraordinary" congress. The plant was privatized for only $800 million in June 2004 as a pre-election bribe for the Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk clans, represented by Viktor Pinchuk and Renat Akhmetov respectively. Pinchuk is also former President Leonid Kuchma's son-in-law.

The new Ukrainian authorities have stated their readiness to re-nationalize Kryvorizhstal and re-submit it for tender. They hope to raise $3 billion from the new sale. Tymoshenko predicted that re-privatization would take place later this month.

The oligarchs became noticeably nervous in March, when Tymoshenko mentioned that 3,000 enterprises would be subjected to re-privatization, a statement that also alarmed Western investors. Yushchenko and other government ministers have calmed Western fears by reiterating that re-privatization would only apply to 30 companies, although which 30 has not been made public.

Second, on April 6 the head of Donetsk oblast council, Borys Kolesnykov, was arrested on suspicion of corruption, extortion, and attempted murder, charges that could lead to 12 years imprisonment. Kolesnykov is a high-ranking member of the Regions of Ukraine party led by defeated presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych.

Centrist parties have pointed to his arrest to claim that the new authorities have launched a campaign of political repression. Yanukovych wrote a long open letter to the EU and OSCE, in which he accused the authorities of launching "terror" against their opponents.

However, opposition-sponsored protests have been few, as the former parties of power are finding it difficult to work in opposition. Centrist parties have no real memberships and have traditionally paid or forced state employees to join their rallies and protests. Currently, protestors in Kyiv are paid 30-50 hryvni (about $8) to attend rallies against the government.

As "roofs" for business interests, centrist parties are inclined to closely cooperate with the authorities rather than go into opposition, according to former Yanukovych election consultant Dmytro Vydryn. Their only ideology, according to former Donetsk adviser Volodymyr Kornilov, is to support the current authorities in order to protect their businesses. As they are business rivals, they are rarely a united force.

One of the first acts of Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko was to increase the strength of MVS Internal Troops in two key regions, Donetsk and Trans-Carpathia. Under Kuchma both of these regions became de facto autonomous fiefdoms totally controlled by the Party of Regions and Social Democratic Party United (SDPUo), respectively. Tomenko undoubtedly had these regions in mind when he warned, "In certain regions a conglomerate involving local authorities, business, and law enforcement leaders has not been defeated yet".

Following Donetsk, the next area targeted for anti-corruption efforts will be Trans-Carpathia, where senior SDPUo leaders, such as Kuchma crony Viktor Medvedchuk, were elected to parliament in 1998. The region became notorious for "corruption, banditry, election falsifications, and poverty".

During the Orange Revolution, leaders tried to incite violence in Donetsk region in order to give the authorities an excuse to introduce a state of emergency. Local MVS personnel themselves worked to thwart the organized-crime skinheads who, along with the regional governor and the regional MVS leadership, had been preparing the rovocation.

On April 7 Channel 5 television's Zakryta Zona investigative program researched how millions of hryvni were extorted from businesses to support the 2004 Yanukovych election campaign. If businesses refused to pay, they would receive frequent visits by government agencies. Also, local Trans-Carpathian businessmen were forced to sell some of their assets to senior SDPUo leaders. Former Donetsk oblast chairman Kolesnykov was charged with both of these crimes and his arrest could be the first for many.

Another senior SDPUo leader elected in Trans-Carpathia in 1998, Hryhoriy Surkis, has been accused of donating 6 million hryvni ($1.12 million) to Kuchma's "Ukrayina" Foundation from offshore accounts. The MVS has called Surkis in for questioning.

Tymoshenko has declared that the oligarchs will no longer be able to earn super profits from monopolistic rents and channel the resulting funds into offshore accounts. Needless to say, the government is also attempting to block the return of these "shadow funds," so that they do not back the opposition in the 2006 parliamentary elections.

Ukraine Drops Visas for Eurovision

LONDON, England -- Ukraine has dropped visa requirements for visitors from Britain and other European Union countries for the period between May 1 and September 1. It is hoped that this will boost tourist numbers and make it easier for those wanting to visit the country as it prepares to host the Eurovision Song Contest.

The move has been welcomed by specialist operators to the former Soviet Republic, who predict that Ukraine could become a popular destination for those seeking more adventurous holidays.



"Until now, getting visas for Ukraine has been both costly - averaging about £50-£60 a go - and time-consuming, taking up to 14 working days," said Neil Taylor, director of east Europe specialists Regent Holidays. "People wanting to explore the former Communist bloc have, not surprisingly, gone for easier options, such as Budapest or Krakow. Now they might look further afield."

Interest in Ukraine was fired by last year's "Orange Revolution", in which the old guard was swept from power after massive protests led to the election of the progressive Viktor Yushchenko as president.

The country will also be in the limelight on May 21 when Kiev is the setting for the finals of this year's Eurovision Song Contest. In addition to the capital, other emerging tourist attractions in Ukraine include the western city of Lviv, the Black Sea port of Odessa and the beaches and mountains of Crimea.

Russian Bases Obstacle for Velvet Revolutionists' NATO Membership

ISTAMBUL, Turkey -- Russian bases in two former Soviet Republics Ukraine and Georgia, both of which were recently marked by the 'velvet revolutions', are reportedly seen as an obstacle for these countries becoming NATO members.

Within the scope of the newly approved "open doors policy" by the organization, an official invitation for the membership of Ukraine on April 21 was expected. The Lithuania Foreign Affairs Minister Antanas Valionis assigned by the organization said that the Ukraine- NATO Commission will deal with the issues of the official invitation for Ukraine and cooperation points. Valionis noted that any country that wishes to enter the organization would join it within the scope of the organization's new policies. The greatest obstacles, however, are the Russian bases in these countries preventing them from entering NATO. As an unclear treaty was obtained between Moscow and Tiflis on the subject to quit the Batum and Ahalkalaki military bases, the Russian military fleet in the Crimean seems to hamper Ukraine's NATO membership for some time. According to the treaties between the two sides, the center of the Russian Black Sea fleet will be positioned in the Crimean until the year 2017. Those countries who want to attend NATO must not host military bases from another country.



Ukraine Foreign Affairs Vice Minister Vladimir Ogrizko revealed that they would allow Russia time to leave the Crimean under its own free-will before their time is up. Observers, however, are stating comments that Russia would do anything to hamper the Ukraine joining NATO in order to be an obstacle to NATO settling in such a strategically important place like the Black Sea. If they fail to convince Russia, either the Ukraine will need to wait another year or another solution must be found. Some argue that one solution would be for Russia and Ukraine to become joint member of the alliance. Moscow had voiced opinions in some not very important decisions of the alliance through the NATO-Russia Council, which was formed in 2002. But this situation appears difficult to develop into full membership.

The new administration of the Ukraine where a western supported soft revolution was experienced wants to attend NATO and the EU as soon as possible. Moreover, Prime Minister Yulya Timaasenko and President Victor Yuescehnko who is in hurry to obtain his country's integration with the west are allegedly continually in discussions over these issues. The general view in Moscow is for the idea that Ukraine's cooperation with the west will seriously damage the Russian benefits. Some observers think on the other hand, Kiev's new administration will not be so harmful for Russia, it does not act as pro-western as Poland and Baltic Sea countries.

Kant Military Air Base in Kyrgyzstan where the location of the last 'velvet revolution' is under the control of Russia. There is a US' Manas Base 35 km away from this. The Russians also have Gebele Observation base in Azerbaijan and the number 102 military base in Armenia as well. It has also been suggested that Ayni Airport of Tacikistan (Tajikistan) would be rented out to the Russians. A top-level official from the Tajikistan Defense Secretary disclosed that the airport would be presented for the use by the number 201 Russian base.

Ireland/Ukraine Relations Get Trade Boost

KIEV, Ukraine -- A new trade association, which will facilitate more trade between Ireland and Ukraine, has been set up in Dublin to enable Irish firms to capitalise on the growing eastern European economy.

The Ukraine-Ireland Business and Trade Association will operate out of Dublin, Belfast and Kiev, and aims to provide advice and analysis to companies that are considering investing in Ukraine.

Brendan Murphy of Abbott International Consultancy Services, which is assisting with the venture, said the service would offer an entry into the Ukrainian marketplace and would also enable Ukrainian businesses to forge alliances with companies in this country.

“There is no quality advice on Ukraine available to Irish businesspeople at the moment so we aim to give people who are looking to broaden their horizons an insight into the Ukrainian economy,” said Murphy.

He said Ukraine was growing at a dramatic rate but that businesses needed advice on specific investment opportunities.

“Whilst property is booming, not all sectors are booming, not all cities are booming and not all areas are going to expand,” he said. “Ukraine has a long way to travel but as it begins to get things right, there are times when Irish businesses need to be there in order to capitalise.”

The association plans a series of workshops and seminars on potential investments for companies in the coming months and has the backing of the Ukrainian embassy in Dublin.

Murphy said the association would be able to offer research reports, property and industry reports, marketing and feasibility plans, procurement advice and a travel and translation service. The company's Dublin office is based in the Northside Enterprise Centre.

Ukraine Seeks Equality With Russia

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's prime minister called on Russia to stop treating Ukraine like ``a little brother,'' saying it was time for an equal relationship between Kiev and its former imperial master.

The comments by Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and the cancellation of a planned visit to Moscow were widely interpreted as signs of the ongoing chill in relations between Ukraine's new leadership and the Kremlin. Moscow had supported President Viktor Yushchenko's opponent in last year's presidential race.

``Relating to the cancellation of this visit, I would like for Russia to perceive Ukraine as an equal partner and not as a younger brother, so that the politicians and the countries can relate to one another with respect,'' Tymoshenko told the British Broadcasting Corp.'s Ukrainian service in an interview posted on its Web site Friday.

Tymoshenko postponed her planned trip to Moscow a day after Russian prosecutors refused to drop a criminal case against her. Russian Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov had said the case had not been closed, and that Tymoshenko remained on the wanted list, although he reiterated that she would not face arrest because of immunity provided to state leaders.

Tymoshenko is accused of bribing Russian defense officials while she headed Ukraine's main gas distributor. She has said the charges were an effort by Russia to ``destroy her'' and her allies during last year's presidential campaign.

Tymoshenko repeated, however, that she postponed the trip to ensure that necessary spring field work in Ukraine - the former breadbasket of the Soviet Union - proceeded smoothly.

In Moscow, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said the invitation to Tymoshenko still stands, and they were waiting for word from the Ukrainians.

``We are interested in conducting these talks, we believe they will play a very important role in the development of relations between our two countries,'' Yakovenko said.

Russia and Ukraine have already held two meetings at a presidential level, which both sides have insisted proceeded warmly despite the ambitions of Ukraine's new government to nudge this ex-Soviet republic on a westward course. Kiev relies on Russian energy supplies, and Russia needs Ukrainian pipelines to ship its oil and gas supplies to Europe.

Jafza to Attract Leading Companies in Ukraine and Russia

KIEV, Ukraine -- A delegation of senior officials from Jafza (Jebel Ali Free Zone Authority) is currently on a visit to Ukraine and Russia as part of a focused marketing and promotional campaign, to attract leading companies from these countries to set up operations in Jafza.

Ibrahim Al Janahi, Regional Manager, Europe, Jafza and Abdullah Al Banna, Marketing Manager, Jafza, will lead the Jafza team. The Ukraine trip follows a meeting between Ibrahim Al Janahi and senior Ukrainian government officials during the World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland earlier this year, where the latter extended an invitation to Jafza to promote their offerings in Ukraine.

“The industrial sector in Ukraine is developing at a fair pace, despite the recent instability in the region. Due to the favourable climatic conditions in the country, Ukraine is mainly an agricultural area and most of its industries revolve around this sector. It is one of the world’s major sugar producing centers and is also known for its timber and petrochemical industry. We will primarily target these sectors to help them set up operations in Jafza, as we have all the required infrastructure and facilities that can benefit these sectors,” said Al Janahi.

A UAE-Ukraine Business Council has been set up in association with the UAE Foreign Ministry and the Ukrainian Embassy in UAE, to promote bilateral trade between the two countries.

“The Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry is providing us with the required assistance and support. We will be hosting a seminar that will focus on business opportunities in Dubai and Jafza and provide details to participants on the various aspects of trade and business in Dubai. More than 150 leading businessmen and decision makers are expected to attend this seminar, presenting us with a good opportunity to attract investments to the free zone,” added Al Janahi.

The delegation will have a series of meetings in Ukraine, beginning with a meeting with the Chairman of UAE-Ukraine Business Council, followed by a meeting with the Vice President of Ukrainian Central Bank and the Deputy Minister of Commerce. They will also meet the Vice President of Keiv City, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Head of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry. In addition, Jafza officials will be visiting the facilities of leading industries in Ukraine to study different aspects of their business and industrial sector.

Jafza’s visit to Russia will be mainly to finalise the various proposals that are in their final stages. “We have been involved in talks with a few companies in Russia who are keen on establishing operations in Jafza and we will finalise these agreements during our visit, adding to the tally of 19 Russian companies in the free zone. We will also be visiting the Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing office in Russia to analyse the enquiries received by them from prospective investors interested in starting operations in Jafza,” stated Al Banna.

Jafza offers a range of advantages to companies who plan to set up operations in the zone, like simple administrative procedures, zero duties on all import and export goods and machineries within the free zone, modern communication facilities and excellent support services.

Some Chernobyl Clouds Will Not Clear

CHERNOBYL, Ukraine -- Almost 20 years have passed since the world's worst nuclear accident, but Chernobyl continues to bring back traumatizing memories for many Ukrainians.

The disaster continues to account for deaths and illnesses, but this has not stopped a few determined residents from coming back to contaminated areas to reclaim their old everyday life.

On April 26, 1986, an explosion occurred in reactor 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant in northern Ukraine. A fire broke out and huge quantities of radioactive debris were released. The authorities were first preoccupied with controlling the fire, and neglected the surrounding population that was left for four days without any information on the catastrophe.


Reactor 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant
After the government admitted the disaster, close to 150,000 inhabitants from nearby cities and villages were evacuated. People in Pripiat, the largest city in the region, left under the impression that they would return shortly.

They never did. Today the town that once hosted 47,000 citizens is a ghostly space of empty buildings and roads invaded by advancing flora. The houses, libraries, schools, and sports and recreational centres in what was a model of socialist urbanisation built in the seventies, have since the disaster seen only looters, scientists, and a few adventurous tourists.

Entering the local school presents the visitor with a spine-chilling scenery of desks, open books, rotten pianos and gas masks scattered over a floor that looks ready to give in. This school, like the buildings surrounding it, has remained untouched for almost two decades.

Most of Pripiat's residents were involved with the nuclear plant one way or another. Their misfortune was to live only a kilometre away from it. While Pripiat will never see life again, further away from the plant, still within the radius of a 30km government-restricted zone, villagers have been reoccupying their abandoned homes in an illegal move to which the state turns a blind eye.

The villages are not a rousing tale either. Seemingly abandoned, the sudden sight of a pensioner eventually says otherwise. The average age of its inhabitants is 68, they live mostly in solitude, surrounded by stranded households, and under harsh material conditions. They are relatively indifferent to radiation-related risks.

"Some specialists feel mass resettlement was a mistake," Evhen Golovakha, deputy director of the Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine told IPS. "People who live in their own villages and towns feel better than those resettled."

Yuri Privalov, director of the Centre of Social Expertise said it was not easy to settle in new conditions. "Adaptation to a community with differences in culture and language is not easy," he told IPS. But Privalov does not dismiss the economic aspect. "They lost everything, the government couldn't find everyone a new job, and was unable to cover all their expenses." If Pripiat and surroundings present a post-apocalyptic scenario, the Chernobyl power plant is its complete opposite.

The plant is abuzz with activity. Scientists, engineers and workmen wander the installation wearing simple uniforms, apparently indifferent to possible radioactive threats. One concern they have is that the complete closure of the plant, which they opposed, will be at the expense of their above-average salaries.

Following acute international pressure, the Ukrainian government closed the last working reactor in 2000. The plant's activities revolve these days around maintenance of the concrete 'sarcophagus' that covers the ruins of the explosion.

While radiation levels are not excessive at present, the precariousness of the structure has compelled the government to approve construction of a new safe confinement surmounting the old concrete block.

The project has already kicked off, but "the overall cost of the task is 1 billion, 91 million dollars," Igor Vasilevich from the Ministry of Fuel and Energy told IPS. "We had donations from several developed countries, but it's far from enough."

In line with dominant international interests, most current government efforts are directed at increasing nuclear safety levels. But there is also a costly social dimension to Chernobyl.

Ukraine had to outgrow two separate Chernobyl traumas: the first following the explosion, the second when mass media gave a true account of its consequences. It is estimated that around six million people have been affected in some manner. Even a close estimate of the number of deaths will probably never be reached.

Up to 50 were reported dead as a result of immediate exposure. Other estimates range from 250 to a few thousand. But many continue to face grave health problems. The most dramatic is the situation of the so-called "children of Chernobyl" who grew up in contaminated areas and now suffer from thyroid cancer.

Many more people have had to deal with psychological problems. A report by the Democratic Initiatives Centre that assessed the situation 10 years after the disaster says that among those affected, 60 per cent "associated food products with fear, and experience helplessness, insomnia and irritability", while 30 per cent "lost their interest in life."

For these victims, the disaster meant the "ruin of their world views, lifestyles and plans," the report says. Most re settlers overcame a general disenchantment and helplessness with time, but many others have been left behind.

Yuri Privalov concedes that victims need further assistance, but also that not much more could be done. "It's hard to say what's sufficient, since we have no similar situation to compare with. There are many demands on the state, with ill people, the plant's deactivation, and the earth's pollution. The country is quite poor, of course problems will remain."

Ukraine Creating a New Morality and Ethics

KIEV, Ukraine -- "When we came to office, we discovered that all public life in Ukraine had been corrupted. The very first thing we felt we had to do was change the country's mentality," said Sergey Teryokhin, Ukraine's new economics minister, according to The Washington Times’ David R. Sands.

"We now have a new social morality, a new ethic, a new attitude toward the way business policy should be conducted," he continued.

Ukraine’s citizens henceforth will be living under a democracy in the making. It will take time. It will take patience. However, its leadership is intent on throwing off Russian ties in favor of a more American imprint. The Ukraine is even applying for membership in NATO.

Pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko met recently with United States President George W. Bush, the two welding more securely their relationships for freedom’s sake. The new Ukrainian President is most enthusiastic about his country’s future. The people there have not experienced the kind of liberties that the new President envisions. Mr. Bush helped put in perspective for him the fundamentals of a free government.

Ukrainians now have hopes that are "soaring" for future generations, according to The Washington Times report.

The challenge is for the new President to see through changes within his officialdom. Many of those still in office were under the old politic. Therefore, they must be trained in new thinking — democracy thinking. They must be coached in freedom building. It is hoped that upcoming elections in April 2006 will substitute the old guard with truly dedicated civil servants favoring a democracy realized.

"Corruption was so entrenched under former President Leonid Kuchma," Mr. Teryokhin said, that even basic economic data and statistics compiled by his department were changed for political purposes.

"It was absolutely stupid," he said.

Hopefully, the grassroots will get hold of the same vision as the newly elected President. With that kind of alliance, the Ukrainians can in time come to sense the new politic in their favor. It will take educating the public as well as electing persons in league with the President’s democracy program.

Mr. Bush has already provided "economic ties to Ukraine and is backing its bid to join the World Trade Organization" by the close of 2005. It is expected that the US Commerce Department will pronounce the Ukraine as a "full-fledged market economy, easing trade and investment restrictions.

"Ukraine also hopes to apply for funding from the new Millennium Challenge Corp., set up by Mr. Bush to reward developing countries that institute pro-market, anti-corruption policies."

The Ukraine is now experiencing a face-lift in the process of establishing a democracy. They were once put in the same category as China and Russia. No more.

It is President Bush who has been mentoring such governments in search of genuine democracy. Mr. Bush, in both his first and second terms, has as his top priority the dualism of protecting America from killers international while planting liberties in nations that heretofore had no chance for that kind of lifestyle.

Though the American Democratic Party has given no encouragement to the President, themselves thwarting the very freedoms they enjoy daily, the President continues to continue. Though certain democracies in Europe have worked tirelessly to do little or nothing to evangelize other nations with democracy, Mr. Bush has stayed true to his vision.

Last November’s Red States provided Mr. Bush with the mandate to remain convinced of his convictions for political change in nations heretofore governed by dictators. This is especially unusual in that powerful nations in the past have used their might to subdue other nations. Instead, America uses its power to liberate other nations.

Though the liberal press gives scant attention to this revolutionary perspective, the grassroots in America gets hold of the Bush administration’s integrity and supports it with sacrifice and patience. In the future, numerous nations once held in the grip of dictators will give thanks to America and Mr. Bush in particular for staying true to the liberty cause.

A Litmus Test Turns Acidic?

KIEV, Ukraine -- The news was, at the time, sensational. On 1 March, Ukraine’s President Viktor Yushchenko emerged to declare that “we have every reason to believe that the murder of [Georgy] Gongadze has been solved.” It seemed that the central mystery of Ukrainian politics – a mystery that had turned Yushchenko’s predecessor, Leonid Kuchma, into an international pariah and helped activate opposition in Ukraine – might be coming to a close. Two Interior Ministry colonels who had taken part in the murder had been caught, Yushchenko said, topping off a series of news reports cataloguing progress in the case.

A month later, on 4 April, investigators claimed the two men had confessed to the killing. But in the meantime any sense of relief and optimism has dissipated.

Probably carried away by enthusiasm after Yushchenko’s happy declaration, Ukraine’s prosecutor-general, Svyatoslav Piskun, then made what many believe was a fatal mistake. He publicly invited the two policemen’s former boss, ex-Interior Minister Yuri Kravchenko, for questioning on 4 March.

The questioning never took place. Hours before his interrogation, Kravchenko was found dead. He left a suicide note in which he declared that he had fallen “victim to political intrigues by Kuchma and his entourage” and that he was departing “with a clear conscience."

Yushchenko saw it differently. His judgment, delivered hours after Kravchenko’s death and before full details of his death were available, was that “everyone has his own judgment day.

“There is a choice: to sentence oneself rather than to cooperate with the court and prosecutors and give testimony.”

But hours later, the media had turned skeptical. Kravchenko had been struck not by one, but by two shots, it transpired. The first bullet hit his chin and went out near the nose. The second shot was to the temple. Police still insisted Kravchenko pulled the trigger, asserting that the first shot was not lethal. But even the justice minister, Roman Zvarych, expressed doubts about that conclusion.

A month later, on 31 March, Ukraine’s secret service confirmed the official version: forensic tests showed that Kravchenko had committed suicide.

Hopes of getting to the bottom of the Gongadze case are now fading. As the former boss of the two suspect colonels, Kravchenko had been expected to give a definitive answer to the question of why they killed Gongadze or, at least, who ordered them to do so. He might also have clarified the role of Oleksiy Pukach, a police general who, according to Piskun, was in a car with Gongadze and the two colonels on the fateful night of 16 September 2000. Pukach is now on the run.

But there is another level of skepticism about the case – the suspicion that Yushchenko and his team would prefer not to solve the case. Is there something to such doubts?

THE MELNYCHENKO TAPES

After four years of controversy, it is easy to forget how the Gongadze case began. Gongadze was the editor-in-chief of a publication, Ukrayinska Pravda, that was already fairly well known but which, as an online publication, had only a fairly limited readership. He had been critical of Kuchma, but the criticisms were, by and large, of an unexceptional nature, as for instance that Kuchma liked to drink, that he was selling Ukraine out to Russia, and was a touch simple-minded.

When Gongadze’s body has found separated from his head in woods outside Kyiv, the reason for his murder seemed to be anyone’s guess. Business, though, seemed a more likely reason than politics. The day before he disappeared Ukrayinska Pravda had published a dossier on a prominent businessman.

But two weeks later, the case began to shake the foundations of the Ukrainian state. A fugitive former bodyguard of Kuchma’s, Major Mykola Melnychenko, announced that, during his two years in the president’s service, he had secretly recorded hundreds of hours of conversations in the president’s offices. His first extract (so far one of few) caught a voice resembling Kuchma’s instructing Kravchenko to “deal with” that “son of a bitch” Gongadze, to "drive him out, throw [him] out, give him to the Chechens." Kravchenko told Kuchma he had a “fighting” group of “eagles” who would “do everything you want.”

The focus of suspicion immediately moved away from businessmen to the country’s most powerful man. However Gongadze’s murder was interpreted – as a warning to other journalists, as a response to particular articles – and whatever the role of Kuchma’s elite, the journalist’s killing and Melnychenko’s tapes symbolized a regime that had gone wrong.

The authenticity of the tapes is disputed. Kuchma himself admits his voice can be heard on the tapes, but says it has been doctored. But parts of the tapes have been verified, in the United States by the FBI, in the Netherlands, and in Germany. Only a few dozen hours have ever been released. Whatever their authenticity, the tapes helped ensure that the death of a troublesome, but relatively low-profile journalist had more resonance throughout Ukraine than the unexplained suspicious deaths of 20 or more of journalists, businessmen, and politicians in the Kuchma era – including the murder of a former head of the national bank, Vadym Hetman, a mentor of Yushchenko’s.

Every computer-literate Ukrainian could familiarize themselves with the recordings, as Melnychenko put several of them online. Melnychenko fled to the United States; Gongadze’s wife and children later followed his example; demonstrations gathered tens of thousands of protestors before fading out; and Ukraine spent years in the diplomatic cold. And in the meantime, prosecutors came and went, unable to solve Gongadze’s murder, and the trail faded, sometimes in highly dubious ways. Ihor Honcharov, the suspected leader of a gang of policemen-turned-bad and a key witness, died in custody, reportedly after a lethal injection.

Inevitably, then, the Gongadze affair is now, in the words of Prosecutor-General Piskun, "a litmus test of democracy” in Ukraine. Yushchenko told the European Union in February that solving Gongadze’s killing was “a matter of honor for me and my team.”

On 1 March, he declared that “the former government not only lacked the political will to solve the case. The government gave cover to the murderers. The goal was to never solve the case.”

On the face of it, Yushchenko’s administration has the political will. The car used in Gongadze’s kidnapping has been found, two suspects have been arrested, and an arrest warrant has been issued for General Pukach. Yushchenko has promised to set up a special office to investigate other high-profile deaths.

The death of Kravchenko might also be seen as evidence that he (or his killers) believed Yushchenko was determined to pursue them. That possibility seems even greater because days before Kravchenko’s death, a man implicated in Gongadze’s murder survived a grenade attack. The notion that Kuchma’s men were running scared in the face of a new leadership determined to solve past crimes had already been strengthened by two (unrelated) deaths of men close to Kuchma, his former transport minister, Heorhiy Kirpa, and Yuriy Lyakh, a business associate of Kuchma’s right-hand man, Viktor Medvedchuk.

But how determined is the new Ukraine?

Kravchenko’s death has apparently terrified the main whistleblower, Mykola Melnychenko. Instead of taking Ukrainian prosecutors up on their invitation to meet and hand over the original recordings for use in possible trials, he fled, fearing that his life was under threat after Kravchenko’s death. He turned to the self-exiled Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky. Berezovsky said that he promptly evacuated Melnychenko to London, sending an aircraft to pick him up from Poland. (It was not the first time this highly controversial figure had helped Melnychenko: Berezovsky funded the publication of Melnychenko’s tapes but not, Melnychenko insists, the deciphering of the tapes.)

Melnychenko looks reluctant to do anything other than drip-feed information to investigators. (On 14 April, two associates of Berezovsky’s arrived in Kyiv to give testimony, carrying with them “recording devices, decoded recordings, and supplementary documents” from Melnychenko.)

Melnychenko apparently fears that the offer is a pretext to get hold of the tapes and cover up the truth. His concerns focus on the prosecutor-general – the same man who is causing the Gongadze family to doubt that they will ever see justice. The problem is that Svyatoslav Piskun was first appointed prosecutor-general by Kuchma. But Piskun was also the only man who ever made headway with the investigation. When he was appointed he said he would solve the case within six months. Within months, he had arrested Pukach. Kuchma promptly fired Piskun on unexplained charges of embezzlement. Pukach was released from custody by the courts.

So when Yushchenko forced Kuchma to reinstate Piskun in December 2004 in talks aimed at bringing a peaceful end to the Orange Revolution, it might have seemed a sensible political move by Yushchenko. It leveraged the credibility that Piskun had gained as the only man to make any progress with the case, forestalled the allegations of political cronyism that would inevitably have followed any choice of a Yushchenko supporter, and – by re-appointing a man sacked by Kuchma – highlighted Yushchenko’s differences from Kuchma. (The official reason for Piskun’s re-emergence was that his sacking had breached the Labor Code.) That, though, is not enough to convince some that Piskun's role is really to get to the bottom of the Gongadze case.

ANIMAL FARM?

In other words, the issue now is not whether there is any will to uncover who killed Gongadze but whether there is any will to let the Melnychenko tapes do their explosive work.

Kuchma, who clearly has many reasons to cast aspersions, has seized on that notion, telling the news agency UNIAN that “I do not exclude that my other fantastic talks with Viktor Yushchenko, [Prime Minister] Yulia Tymoshenko … and many other politicians might well be printed and then used against the current authorities.” Yushchenko served as prime minister and Tymoshenko as a deputy prime minister under Kuchma.

But the man who, at least on the face of it, has most reason to fear publication of transcripts is Volodomyr Lytvyn, the speaker of parliament. Lytvyn is heard on the tapes discussing how Gongadze should be handled. Lytvyn was at the time the head of the presidential administration. However, during the revolution, he sided with Yushchenko and, in return (as it was perceived), he won the position of parliamentary speaker and two members of his party became regional governors. Lytvyn is now under immense pressure, of which he complains constantly. Still, his party is strengthening, attracting deputies who have left other parties associated with Kuchma and Viktor Yanukovych, Yushchenko’s rival in the presidential election. The gap between him and Yushchenko appears to be widening. One of the two governors has resigned and the other was fired by Yushchenko on 4 March. Lytvyn claims the government has launched a "hidden lustration" campaign against his party.

Others who could be affected by publication of the tapes include Petro Poroshenko, a Yushchenko ally and secretary of the National Security Council, Oleksandr Zinchenko, the head of Yushchenko’s presidential administration, and Roman Bessmertny, who has been handed the task of reforming Ukraine’s administration.

Few suggest that the tapes might implicate Yushchenko himself in any wrongdoing. However, any embarrassment and any hint of complicity in crimes by anyone close to him could undermine the new administration ahead of parliamentary elections in 2006 – and political concerns could sap the energy from the investigation or, worse, encourage some even to sabotage it.

But some have another worry: that politicians’ fear of the impact of the Melnychenko tapes could increase a danger that has always been there: that a new administration drawn heavily from the old elite might become like the old regime. Already some are pointing to worrying signs.

Yushchenko’s declaration that the murder had been “solved” – a claim made before the case went to court – was seen as an act of rash bravura by some and by others as too strong an echo of the old regime.

Echoes of the old government’s attitude to journalists are also beginning to be heard. In mid-February, Prime Minister Tymoshenko and several of her cabinet wrote an open letter, claiming that the press were abusing the government’s openness and were behaving like "hired killers" out to discredit the government. The cause: a scandal in which it emerged that a major opponent of a bill to ban the re-export of Russian oil, Justice Minister Roman Zvarych, is married to the deputy director of one of Ukraine’s largest re-exporters.

Added to that are concerns that plans to transform state-owned television into a public-service broadcaster may be delayed until after parliamentary elections. That fear of government interference percolated through to the wider public when it emerged that ahead of the Eurovision song contest to be held in Kyiv in May, the government had replaced a singer aligned with the old government with a group that produced the anthem of the Orange Revolution.

So the danger for Yushchenko is that the litmus test of the Gongadze case and Melnychenko tapes may show that Ukrainian democracy is still acidic. At the very least, with Kravchenko dead, Melnychenko in hiding, and the whereabouts of his recordings unknown, it seems that Yushchenko’s confidence about solving Gongadze’s murder was premature. If Yushchenko’s administration is to pass the credibility test with an increasingly skeptical Ukrainian public, it may perhaps have to hope that Ukraine’s investigators produce results in other high-profile cases. There are plenty of them.

Yushchenko Vows to Safeguard Media Rights

KIEV, Ukraine -- President Viktor Yushchenko's pledge to safeguard media rights — a promise that helped swing support behind last year's Orange Revolution — is facing its first real test in a bitter legal battle over a TV company linked with the former regime.

The dispute could topple Ukraine's NTN television, the funding for which comes from a businessman linked to former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, who lost last year's presidential race.


NTN's Nataliya Katerynchuk
Prosecutors are challenging NTN's right to beam its news programs into homes across this nation of 48 million, claiming NTN is using frequencies it didn't pay for and wasn't entitled to. NTN denies the charges, calling the challenge a politically motivated effort to transfer its airspace to more friendly hands.

Analysts say the dispute could easily backfire on Yushchenko if the nation is left with the impression that the new government's commitment to a free press doesn't extend to media outlets owned by its opponents.

"It's one of those cases that I think many people believe is justified, but they have yet to see proof ... and that isn't reassuring," said Kiev-based political analyst Inna Pidluska.

A Kiev court is due to consider the case on May 19.

NTN is a relatively new player on Ukraine's media field, but its sleek design, fast-paced programming and aggressive attitude has won it a dedicated following. Editor-in-chief Nataliya Katerynchuk said the station strives for an independent viewpoint with a motto that journalists have to at times "spill the blood of politicians."

So far, it has adopted a moderate course. The station's biggest problem with the new government came amid their attempts to profile government ministers at home — with those "living in big country homes with Rolls Royces being the most unreceptive," Katerynchuk said.

The station is bankrolled by Eduard Prutnik, a former adviser to Yanukovych from eastern Ukraine, a region hostile to Yushchenko.

Originally granted a license to broadcast only in Kiev and the surrounding region, the station sought agreements last year to use military frequencies to expand its reach to 75 cities.

Ukraine's National Television and Radio Council had refused to approve the expansion, prompting NTN to seek approval to expand its license in the courts. It won approval in two court decisions.

The council has called such a backdoor method illegal and said that if NTN wants to expand its license it must go through an open bidding procedure. Ukrainian prosecutors filed a lawsuit against the company, saying it shortchanged the state budget; NTN says it paid $411,000 for the rights.

While prosecutors remain largely silent about the proceedings, awaiting next month's court hearing, NTN has launched a full-bore defense. It co-opted Yushchenko's orange campaign color — draping an orange banner across its logo with the words "Keep Silent."

A video clip montage features journalists with their mouths muzzled with orange tape. NTN's reporters have held noisy protests in central Kiev, and the station has erected tents outside subway stations to collect signatures in its support.

Valeriy Ivanov, of the Ukrainian Academy of Press, said that the method NTN used to acquire its license was "cloudy enough ... but the question does arise: why is only NTN being singled out?"

Such fears of political retribution resonate now in Ukraine, where the short honeymoon granted to the new authorities has already given way to political posturing ahead of next spring's parliamentary election, a contest that Yushchenko's supporters must win if they want to see the Orange Revolution remain intact.

Most analysts said they expected the government to seek some kind of compromise that won't close NTN, a move they said could hurt Yushchenko's friend-of-the-media credentials and prompt tougher criticism from other media outlets in the hands of Yushchenko's opponents.

Interpol Suspends Warrant For Ukrainian Premier

KIEV, Ukraine -- Interpol's secretariat-general has suspended a warrant for Ukrainian Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko in recognition of the parliamentary immunity she now has.

The Russian news agency Interfax reported today that the secretariat-general in the French city of Lyon made the decision but did not say when.

Russian Prosecutor-General Vladimir Ustinov said earlier this week that the Russian arrest warrant for Tymoshenko remained in force. Russian authorities issued an arrest warrant for Tymoshenko on charges of bribery dating back to the mid-1990s.

Tymoshenko became prime minister after the Orange Revolution in Ukraine drove the previous government from power in December 2004.

Timur Lakhonin, the head of Interpol's national central bureau in Russia, said the decision was normal for Interpol to suspend investigations for serving officials who have immunity in their countries.

In Ukraine, Interior Ministry spokesman Kiril Kulikov said the case has been erased from Interpol records and there are no charges now against Tymoshenko.

Timoshenko: Gossips About My Resignation Are Provocation

KIEV, Ukraine -- The prime minister of Ukraine Julia Timoshenko considers gossips about her resignation a pure provocation.

"Rumours about my possible resignation from the post of the head of government are nothing but banal informational provocation", - she declared, commenting on the information spread in Ukrainian and Russian Mass-Media about her resignation.

"It is obvious that there are some circles in Ukraine, which are crazy about such development of events. But their hopes do not have a chance to be realized", - the premier said, "Interfax-Ukraine" reported.

"I regard appearance of such information with patience. I understand that quantity of such materials will increase. But it is not my problems or problems of the government. It concerns only those politicians, who spread this information, or even their psychiatrists", - Timoshenko said.

"I and the president of Ukraine Victor Yushchenko are single team forever. Our political unity is beyond the control of any provocation", - the premier underlined.

Great Expectations

KIEV, Ukraine -- It was a perfect match. A world leader bent on bringing freedom to far corners of the globe, and a hero of a bloodless revolution. A much-maligned superpower in need of a showcase for its democracy-spreading ways, and a young democracy in need of a strong ally. An administration eager to contain Russia's instinctive imperialism, and a former Russian province struggling to loosen Moscow's grip. America and Ukraine, George Bush and Viktor Yushchenko – a world leader and a regional player who each now seem to have a stake in the other's success.

No wonder then than Yushchenko’s trip to the United States last week was nothing short of a triumph. From a meeting in the Oval Office with a beaming Bush to Yushchenko’s address to a joint session of Congress, an honor that only a handful of world leaders have received: even skeptics in Ukraine grudgingly admitted the trip was a breakthrough. Yushchenko’s half-hour speech to Congress – well-written, for once, and filled with lofty turns of phrase clearly geared to an American ear – was interrupted by applause no less than 30 times. Congressmen, many wearing orange ties, chanted "Yushchenko" as the hero of the Orange Revolution finished his speech, recalling the ecstatic atmosphere of Kyiv's snowy Independence Square at the peak of the protests.

Note the contrast with the situation of just two years ago, when organizers of a NATO summit in Prague had to resort to seating the guests according to the French alphabet in order to avoid placing the then president, Leonid Kuchma, who gate-crashed the gathering, beside George Bush. Even Yushchenko's firm resolve to pull out Ukraine's 1,600 troops from Iraq by the year's end – sweetened by a promise to play a prominent role in peacekeeping operations elsewhere – did not dampen his host's spirits. For the U.S. president, it seems, the contribution Ukraine has made to his global "march of democracy" cause by becoming one of its best success stories far outweighs the forthcoming loss of Ukrainian peacekeepers in Iraq.

Realizing perhaps that America's fascination with Ukraine won't last forever, Yushchenko wasted no time pressing his hosts for something more material than standing ovations. In addition to the expected democracy talk and kudos to America for its notable, if auxiliary role in forcing a re-run of Ukraine’s fraudulent election, Yushchenko presented America with a list of rewards he believed were justly his. America duly obliged.

The Ukrainian leader received a firm promise that Washington will lift the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, which dates back to Soviet times and restricts America's trade with Ukraine. That is something the previous Ukrainian administration had fruitlessly tried to obtain for years. Also under his belt is America's commitment to clear the way for Ukraine's entry into the World Trade Organization by year's end, an endorsement of Kyiv's NATO membership aspirations, prospects of easier travel to the United States for Ukrainians, and $60 million for safety measures at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The best demonstration perhaps of the new tone of relations between Kyiv and Washington is the bombastic title of the joint declaration by the two presidents: “A New Century Agenda for the Ukrainian-American Strategic Partnership.”

This impressive list of trophies, added to the ones wrested from a more reluctant European Union, has reinforced the overall feeling that Ukraine is no longer thought of in the West as a dreary place that can be left to languish in Russia’s shadow without anyone really caring. The confidence that comes from having a sympathetic ear in the Oval Office, and a superpower genuinely interested in your administration’s success (if only to better demonstrate the virtues of its own foreign policy), has already been reflected in the more assertive tones Ukraine has adopted in its dealings with Russia.

Kyiv’s belligerent noises on the uselessness of pet projects of Moscow’s – such as the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) or the Single Economic Area – would have been unthinkable without a clear realization in Ukraine that membership of more distinguished clubs, such as the WTO and even the EU, is within reach.

But after a series of foreign-policy triumphs, Yushchenko is returning to a far more uncertain situation on the domestic front that will put to the test his credentials as a democrat and economic liberal.

The economy is under strain from munificent social commitments inherited from the previous government that are undroppable as parliamentary elections loom in 2006. Rising food and petrol prices are making headlines, and the government’s threats to impose price caps have already angered Ukraine’s industries. Foreign investors are biding their time, waiting for the outcome of the reprivatization campaign; Yushchenko's assurances that only 30 or so of the most blatantly rigged deals will be reviewed has had only limited success in calming frayed nerves. NTN, a small news channel linked to Yushchenko's election rival Viktor Yanukovych, is doing a reasonable job of trying to portray as an attack on free speech the government's attempts to take back the broadcasting licenses that the channel grabbed under the previous government by bypassing all normal procedures. And the arrest on extortion charges of a leading Yanukovych ally, Donetsk regional council chairman Borys Kolesnykov, has triggered furious protests by the new opposition.

No doubt, Yushchenko has much to show for not even 100 days in office – and the standards set by his predecessor were so low that merely not killing journalists or selling weapons to rogue regimes will be deemed sufficient progress by Western allies. After years of fear and censorship, Ukrainian papers and television are falling over themselves to demonstrate their editorial freedom to the audiences. Arrests have been made in the hitherto moribund case of murdered journalist Georgy Gongadze. Despite a massive social spending spree, the government’s current account seems healthy. Tough action on pervasive tax privileges granted to well-connected businesses under Kuchma and a crackdown on contraband are beginning to pay off. Relations with Russia, albeit far from the back-slapping bonhomie of the Kuchma years, are much closer to normal than one would expect after Moscow’s blatant support for Yanukovych during the election. Kolesnykov’s case, along with recent arrest on bribery charges of a newly appointed district administration chief, give hope that the government is taking its own anti-corruption rhetoric seriously. Most tellingly perhaps, two recent polls have suggested that the public’s trust in state institutions is at its highest level ever, and Yushchenko’s personal rating has even risen since he came to office.

All this should be enough to keep the international and domestic feel-good momentum generated by the Orange Revolution – for now. But Yushchenko must tread carefully, and keep delivering on the express and implicit election promises he made both to his own people and to the international community. For all the fanfare of the joint declaration with America, all the commitments undertaken by Washington are clearly conditional on Ukraine’s progress in crucial areas such as the fight with corruption, media freedom, democratic progress, and economic reform. An embarrassing corruption scandal, a dodgy privatization deal, or another arms-smuggling scandal could spell a quick and painful end to Kyiv’s honeymoon with Washington.

Now that Ukraine has got the world thinking of itself as a young and promising democracy, it will have to act like one – or back it will be in America’s doghouse, with fellow CIS no-hopers for company.

Hungary Bbacks EU Membership for Ukraine

BUDAPEST, Hungary -- Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany said Thursday Brussels should give a clear signal to Ukraine that European Union membership is a possibility.

Gyurcsany said it was inconceivable the EU could open the door to Turkey but leave one of Europe's biggest countries out in the cold.

Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski recently said Brussels should start membership talks with the new, reformist government in Ukraine as early as 2006.

New EU members from the former communist world have emerged as strong supporters of the accession hopes of Ukraine and other countries that have so far failed to secure clear signals about the prospect of membership.

Gyurcsany also said Thursday Croatia was doing all it can to comply with EU demands it hand over General Ante Gotovina, who is wanted on suspicion of war crimes by the International Court in the Hague.

Croatia's EU membership bid was put on hold last month over concerns authorities in Zagreb were not doing enough to locate the fugitive.

NATO Not to Invite Ukraine in Nearest Future

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- NATO is not going to invite Ukraine to join it in the near future, sources at the Brussels headquarters of the Western alliance told Itar-Tass.

A new quality of relations between Ukraine and NATO will be discussed at a regular meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission due to be held in Vilnius on April 21.

However, no invitation of Ukraine to NATO will be made at this meeting.



Ukraine openly states its wish to join Euro-Atlantic structures, but accession to NATO is a long process, decisions on invitation of countries are made only at the top level and nobody is ready for this so far, the sources said.

They said the invitation of Ukraine to NATO is not a matter of the nearest months.

There’s a certain procedure, and only Albania, Macedonia and Croatia are candidates for the admission to NATO, but even they have not been invited to join the alliance so far.

Foreign ministers of 26 NATO countries will exchange at the informal meeting in Vilnius views on the situation in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq and on the beginning of political consultations on reform of the Western alliance.

Yulia Tymoshenko Excluded from all Interpol Search Systems

KIEV, Ukraine -- Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko was excluded from all search systems of Interpol. Thus, she cannot be arrested on the case, brought by the Senior Military Prosecutor’s Office of Russia.

According to an UNIAN correspondent, acting chief of the Ukrainian Interpol Bureau Kirill Kulikov has claimed this in Kyiv today, commenting on the statement of Russian Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov that the criminal case, brought in Russia against Yulia Tymoshenko, was not closed.

K.Kulikov has pointed out that during March 3-4 of 2005, in the Interpol HQ in Lyon, at an international conference of Interpol chiefs, Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble put forward an initiative to exclude all data, concerning the search of Yulia Tymoshenko, out of the international system of Interpol.

This initiative was supported, and the Interpol leadership sent three letters about this to the Russian Prosecutor’s General Office, Interior Ministry, and Interpol Bureau.

K.Kulikov has also underlined that, in line with the Vienna Convention of 1961, the Ukrainian Prime Minister has a diplomatic immunity. In this connection, “Russia, being a state, which ratified this convention, must stop and prevent any attempts on the honor, freedom, and dignity of the person, having immunity in line with the convention”.

As UNIAN reported earlier, on 12 April, the Russian Prosecutor General claimed that Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko is wanted by the international search.

Today Ukrainian Economics Minister Serhiy Teriokhin has claimed that the visit of Yulia Tymoshenko to Moscow, scheduled for 15-16 April, was postponed namely due to the statements of the Russian Prosecutor General.

According to him, “when before the first visit such interesting statements are made – this is an international scandal. The supreme officials of the Russian Federation should think before speaking”, said he.

The Economics Minister has stressed that it would have been the first, thus, a very important, visit of the Ukrainian Prime Minister to Russia. He has pointed out that a very intensive program of issues was prepared, including the issues concerning the Single Economics Space. S.Teriokhin has noted that now Ukraine “will wait over its diplomatic channels how Russia will solve this spicy situation”.

Ukraine's PM Delays Moscow Trip

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has delayed a planned visit to Moscow after a top Russian official said she was still a "wanted criminal".
Russian Prosecutor-General Vladimir Ustinov said an arrest warrant for Mrs Tymoshenko remained in force, although she had immunity.

Mrs Tymoshenko is said to have postponed her trip in protest.


Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko
The warrant relates to allegations of fraud while in charge of Ukraine's main gas distributor - claims she denies.

Mrs Tymoshenko was one of the driving forces behind the Ukrainian "orange revolution" that resulted in victory for the pro-Western opposition led by Viktor Yushchenko.

Moscow had backed rival candidate Viktor Yanukovych.

Mrs Tymoshenko's appointment as prime minister was seen by many analysts in Moscow as a challenge to Russia.

'No obstacles'

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov insisted there were no obstacles on the Russian side to her planned visit.

He said President Vladimir Putin had made it clear duing a recent visit to Kiev that the Russian government was "eagerly awaiting her in Moscow".

"He said there are no impediments to her visit and that we are ready for the very broadest, most wide-ranging and very fullest co-operation with the Ukrainian prime minister and, it goes without saying, with the Ukrainian president," he told Channel One TV on Wednesday.

Mrs Tymoshenko's spokesman Vitaly Chepinoga said the visit was being delayed "because Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko gave an order recommending the Ukrainian prime minister... avoid foreign travel for now", the AFP news agency reported.

Pope's Prayers Helped Make Ukraine's 'Orange Revolution' a Success: Yushchenko

WARSAW, Poland -- Pope John Paul II's prayers helped make Ukraine's "Orange Revolution" a success and enable the country to move towards democracy without violence, President Viktor Yushchenko said Monday as he began a visit to the pontiff's native Poland.

"I know that millions of people and Pope John Paul II in particular prayed for the Orange Revolution... Without those prayers, the revolution would doubtless not have been such a big success," Yushchenko said at a joint press conference with Poland's President Aleksander Kwasniewski.

Kwasniewski said that the Polish-born pope "was very interested in Ukraine" and "brought up the subject" of Poland's eastern neighbour at each of their eight meetings.

"I am certain that the happy ending to the Ukrainian crisis was a day of joy for the pope," said Kwasniewski, who played a key role in brokering a way out of the crisis that arose in Ukraine after a controversial election in November.

The pro-Moscow candidate, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, claimed to have won despite accusations of fraud and intimidation by the opposition.

As a result of mediation by Poland and other countries, a rerun election was held on December 26 which saw pro-Western opposition leader Yushchenko swept to victory against Yanukovich.

Iran Denies Buying Missiles From Ukraine

TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran has denied reports it purchased unarmed nuclear-capable missiles from Ukrainian weapons dealers four years ago.

Ukrainian prosecutors said recently that weapons dealers had smuggled 18 nuclear-capable cruise missiles to Iran and China in 2001 during the rule of former President Leonid Kuchma.


Ukrainian Prosecutor-General Svyatoslav Piskun
President Viktor Yushchenko, who took office in January, has promised to investigate illicit weapons deals.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters Sunday there is no government record of such a missile deal. But it is widely believed Iran often buys weapons through individuals of various nationalities, rather than through official government agencies.

According to the office of Ukrainian Prosecutor-General Svyatoslav Piskun, 12 of the missiles went to Iran and six to China.

Prosecutors say the 12 Kh55 cruise missiles, which have a range of 1,860 miles, were sold illegally. The Kh55 is known in the West as the AS-15 and can carry a nuclear warhead.

Arrest Sharpens Ukraine Political Divide

KIEV, Ukraine -- The arrest of a top politician and businessman closely linked to Ukraine's richest man has sharpened the conflict between President Viktor Yushchenko and the embattled power brokers of Leonid Kuchma, his predecessor.

Boris Kolesnikov, a close friend and partner of Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine's wealthiest industrialist, was arrested last week for alleged racketeering in a case that Mr Yushchenko's government says was reported to police in 2002 but ignored until this year.


Demonstrators against the detention of Borys Kolesnikov
Yuri Lutsenko, interior minister, said at the weekend he would issue arrest warrants for Mr Akhmetov's brother and five businessmen close to him if they failed to appear for questioning. Mr Kolesnikov has not been charged, but a Kiev court has permitted prosecutors to keep him in prison for up to two months while they investigate allegations he used a campaign of threats and violence, including two bombings and a spray of machine-gun fire, to scare a department store owner in Donetsk into selling his shares at a discount.

Mr Kolesnikov is chairman of Donetsk's regional council and vice-president of Donetsk Shakhtar football team, owned by Mr Akhmetov.

Last year, a company jointly owned by Mr Akhmetov, Mr Kolesnikov and Mr Kuchma's son-in-law, Viktor Pinchuk, bought the country's largest steel mill, Kryvorizhstal, in a privatisation tender that Mr Yushchenko has denounced as rigged.

The arrest has galvanised Mr Yushchenko's opponents in parliament, many of whom are themselves businessmen who prospered during Mr Kuchma's rule.

Viktor Yanukovich, the former prime minister who lost to Mr Yushchenko in last winter's presidential elections, has threatened to lead a national strike and civil disobedience campaign.

Yesterday Mr Yanukovich published an open letter to Javier Solana, EU foreign policy chief, and other foreign leaders complaining that "a campaign of terror has been unleashed against the political opponents of the current authorities".

Mr Akhmetov owns a television channel and a popular tabloid newspaper which have strongly defended Mr Kolesnikov. However, protests in Kiev and Donetsk have drawn only a few hundred people.

Mr Kolesnikov's arrest came amid a review of past privatisations, which Mr Yushchenko and his government believe were abused to enrich Mr Kuchma's and Mr Yanukovich's friends.

Besides seeking to reverse the sale of Kryvorizhstal, Mr Yushchenko has said his government will review up to 40 other privatisations, including a stake in a large ore mine and mill Mr Akhmetov bought last year.

The allegations against Mr Kolesnikov are unrelated to privatisation, but they fit into a broader concern held by Mr Yushchenko that Mr Kuchma gave his cronies free reign to dominate the private sector.

Yulia Tymoshenko, prime minister, said yesterday that the arrest was a criminal case and not under her purview, but added: "The people who brazenly robbed our country in recent years certainly must answer for it."

The case has invited comparisons with the arrest of Platon Lebedev in Russia in 2003, which was a precursor to the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the dismantling of Yukos, their oil company.

Ukraine PM Slams Opposition Over Jailed Council Official

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine 's prime minister criticized opposition leaders Monday for trying to rally protests in support of a jailed regional official from eastern Ukraine , saying they were trying to politicize a criminal case. Yulia Tymoshenko also pledged the government wouldn't interfere in criminal proceedings against Boris Kolesnikov, whose arrest prompted protesters to erect a small tent city in downtown Kiev in hopes of starting anti-government demonstrations.


PM Yulia Tymoshenko Talking to Reporters
The detention of Kolesnikov, who heads the Donetsk regional council, has touched a nerve in eastern Ukraine , where the threat of an east-west division of the country came to the fore during last year's tumultuous presidential election. Prosecutors ordered Kolesnikov arrested last week on suspicion of plotting assassinations, extortion and fraud.

Kolesnikov is a staunch backer of former prime minister Viktor Yanukovych, who lost the presidential election battle to Viktor Yushchenko after hundreds of thousands of opposition supporters flooded Kiev and built a tent city to protest a fraudulent first round of balloting. Since losing, Yanukovych has vowed stiff opposition to Yushchenko's government.

On Sunday, Yanukovych tried to rally his backers for more protests, warning of transportation blockades and strikes if the authorities continued "repression against our allies." Tymoshenko shrugged off Yanukovych's demands Monday. "If they want to be collectively responsible for someone's crimes, that's up to them," she told a news conference in Kiev. "The days when the (former) government was ordering who to arrest and who to release are now gone ... only the courts can decide about Kolesnikov."

Ukraine President to Thank Poland

WARSAW, Poland -- Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has met his Polish counterpart, Alexander Kwasniewski, at the start of a two-day visit to Warsaw.

Mr Kwasniewski was among the mediators who went to Ukraine last year to help resolve the political crisis caused by disputed presidential election.

Mr Yushchenko went on to win a re-run of the ballot.


Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko (l) with Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski
As well as thanking Poland, Mr Yushchenko is expected to discuss his country's efforts to join the EU.

Grave Visit

"I appreciate very much what Poland and, most of all the president, are doing in supporting our efforts to join the European Union," Mr Yushchenko told Poland's Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper ahead of his visit.

Poland is considered an important ally of Ukraine in its bid for membership of the European Union, says the BBC's Helen Fawkes in Kiev.

Later, Mr Yushchenko is due to meet Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka, and to attend a concert launching the Year of Ukraine in Poland.

On Tuesday, he will travel to the south-eastern village of Mlyny to visit the grave of the Ukrainian poet who composed the country's national anthem.

Ukraine's Kolesnykov Charged with Attempted Extortion

KIEV, Ukraine -- Donetsk regional council chairman Borys Kolesnykov has been charged with "attempted extortion of the property of another person with a threat of murder," said the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office.


Borys Kolesnykov
The charge carries a sentence of 7 to 12 years' imprisonment with confiscation of property, the prosecutor's office press service told Interfax. Kolesnykov is accused of trying to extort shares in a shopping center.

Kolesnykov was arrested on April 6 after being summoned to the Prosecutor General's Office as a witness in proceedings against officials in eastern Ukraine who are accused of seeking autonomy for their regions, which runs counter to Ukraine's constitution.

The autonomy movement began after Viktor Yushchenko won the last presidential election, defeating former prime minister Viktor Yanukovych, who enjoyed wide support in the country's eastern regions.

TIME Magazine Names Abramovich, Yushchenko Among World’s Most Influential People

NEW YORK, NY -- TIME Magazine has unveiled the Time 100 list of the world’s most influential people. This year the list includes the names of controversial Russian tycoon and Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich and the leader of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko.

“The Time 100, our annual list of the world’s most influential people, is all about individuals like Yushchenko, whose courage inspires others to action,” wrote TIME Canada editor and TIME executive editor Adi Ignatius in the special issue of the magazine.



Roman Abramovich was named first on the list of “Builders and Titans”. One of Russia’s most powerful businessmen, the owner of Chelsea Football Club has amassed a huge fortune, mainly in the oil business. At only 36, he was listed by Forbes as one of the world’s 50 wealthiest people.

Viktor Yushchenko was included in the category “Heroes and Icons”. Together with his long-time ally Yulia Timoshenko he led the so-called Orange Revolution last December forcing Leonid Kuchma and his protege, Moscow-backed Viktor Yanukovich to give up their political ambitions.

The KGB'S Poison Factory

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Viktor Yushchenko was intentionally poisoned during Ukraine's presidential election campaign last year. By now that fact can hardly be disputed. Yuri Lutsenko, newly appointed Ukrainian interior minister, publicly announced in February that he knew precisely "who brought the poison across the Ukrainian border, which official took it to the scene of the crime, and who personally put it into Yushchenko's food." Officials also suspect that Mr. Yushchenko, now the country's president, imbibed the poison during a Sept. 5 dinner with the then- chairman of Ukraine's security services, Igor Smeshko, and his deputy Vladimir Satsyuk.



A team of American doctors that secretly flew to Vienna to assist Austrian colleagues in treating Mr. Yushchenko found a substance in his blood -- a highly toxic dioxin of the type 2,3,7,8-TCDD (Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin) that a Russian laboratory had successfully experimented with a few years earlier. The question now left unanswered is: Who produced this poison and authorized its use?

Former Soviet spies and intelligence historians like myself, listening to the debate and taking note of the victim, the timing and the early confusion surrounding Mr. Yushchenko's symptoms, can speculate about the source with some authority. Even before the news that the poisonous compound had been found, we had already noticed uncanny similarities to the past work of the "Kamera," or as KGB veterans might remember it, "Laboratory No. 12".

This highly innovative research institution began life in 1921 in a secluded corner of Lenin's Cheka, the first name of the Soviet KGB that today's Russians know as the FSB, which handles domestic security, and the SVR, the old First Chief Directorate of the KGB, responsible for foreign intelligence and "special operations." Kamera -- Russian for chamber -- is the name that it bore under Stalin. But like its parent organization it has been renamed and even "abolished" in occasional fits of reform.

In 1934, when it was located at No. 11 Varsonofyevsky Lane just meters away from the main KGB building, Kamera actively developed deadly poisons and gases. According to Alexander Kouzminov, a former SVR bio-spy handler who published "Biological Espionage" in New Zealand in February, it is it is now the main consumer and supplier of Department 12 of Directorate S of the SVR which handles biological warfare. Russian President Vladimir Putin is a former FSB chief and junior SVR officer.

Whatever its official name, Kamera's products -- poisonous biological and chemical agents -- have been constantly refined over the years as advancing science opens new possibilities and as Kremlin leaders have new requirements. They are highly specialized, tailored for each recipient to cause the desired effect -- usually death or incapacity -- in specific ways.

But one thing in their design is constant. They must make the victim's death or illness appear natural or at least produce symptoms that will baffle doctors and forensic investigators. To this end the Kamera developed its defining specialty: combining known poisons into original and untraceable forms.

The Kamera met the demanding standards of Joseph Stalin. He granted its chief a medical doctorate and the Stalin Prize for his research. Today this division presumably no longer enjoys access to its Stalin- era test facility. Grigory M. Mairanovsky, a colonel in the Medical Corps, and State Security Lieutenant Colonel Okunev, under the orders of the lab's overseer and Beria's chief executioner General Vasili Blokhin, would try out the Kamera's products on condemned prisoners before shooting them, unless poison saved them from the bullet.

President Yushchenko's case produced just the kind of confusing symptoms that would characterize a poison produced by the Kamera. It took weeks to pinpoint the cause of the Ukrainian democratic leader's ailments, which started with severe stomach and back pain and later chloracne on his face. But on Oct. 31, after the first round of the elections, Christopher Holstege, an expert in chemical terrorism and treatment of poison victims at the University of Virginia, identified dioxin as the most likely substance in Mr. Yushchenko's blood. A laboratory in the Netherlands confirmed this diagnosis in December.

From the very beginning it was clear that dioxin alone would not cause these precise symptoms. Two other dioxin-intoxication cases studied by experts at Vienna University's medical school showed that this poison by itself wouldn't act so quickly or lead to Mr. Yushchenko's reported ailments. Now it appears that he was hit not by one known chemical agent but by a sophisticated compound. As I learned from his physician, Nikolai Korpan, whoever came up with his poison had produced a veritable bio-bomb, combining 2,3,7,8-TCDD with Alpha- Fetoprotein, a protein that helps the dioxin move around the body. Before this case, dioxin was considered an inappropriate poison because it can't be dissolved in water, took effect only 10 to 13 days after contact and wasn't fatal. But when mixed with the fetal protein, dioxin appears to be soluble and much more toxic, and acts almost immediately. Such creative combination is usually the claw mark of the Kamera.

I'm reminded of the 1955 attempt on Nikolay Khokhlov, a defector from the KGB. He drank a cup of coffee at a public reception in Germany in 1957 and fell ill. In his blood the doctors found traces of thallium, a metallic substance commonly used as rat poison. But the appropriate treatment had little effect and it was not until weeks later when Khokhlov was close to death that imaginative doctors at a U.S. Army hospital in Frankfurt found the hitherto undreamed-of answer. The thallium had been subjected to atomic radiation so that the metal would slowly disintegrate in the system, giving symptoms as common as gastritis as a patient slowly died of radiation poisoning. By that time, the thallium would have disintegrated and left no trace even for an autopsy.

Countless others -- literally countless, for who can count poison victims when no poison is detected? -- suffered this fate. I have identified more than a dozen examples through the years. The Chechen rebel leader Khattab was poisoned by the FSB in March 2004. A KGB agent poisoned the food of the Afghan leader Hafizullah Amin in December 1979. Trotsky's secretary Wolfgang Salus died mysteriously in 1957. The anti-Soviet emigre writer Lev Rebet was thought to have died from a heart attack in October 1957 until the KGB assassin defected four years later and told how he had
sprayed a Kamera mist containing poisonous gas from a crushed cyanide ampoule into Rebet's face as he passed him on a stairway.

The Kamera also provided ricin in tiny, specially tooled pellets to be injected undetected, with hardly the pain of an insect's sting, causing death without trace. Lent to the Bulgarians, this poison pellet killed the anti-Communist emigre radio journalist Georgi Markov in 1978 in London. His cause of death and the means of its delivery were discovered only long afterward, and by chance. Oleg Kalugin, former KGB general who now lives in the U.S. and who was in charge of this operation from the Soviet side, described it in "Spy Master," published in 1994.

The nature of the poisons themselves sometimes determined the delivery system: the ricin pellet in a sharp-tipped umbrella, the spray vented from a tube hidden in a rolled newspaper, a poison- carrying bullet (designed for Russian emigre Georgy Okolovich in 1955) shot from a very short range pistol concealed in a cigarette packet. The Kamera leaves to other parts of the Russian services the task of getting its poison to the victim, like putting the powder into Khokhlov's coffee cup.

If the Kamera is somehow behind Mr. Yushchenko's problems, it did its work with great skill. Some 20 specialists, from dermatologists to neurologists, were unable to make an exact diagnosis in his case. "It is an atypical case," said Dr. Korpan, "One seldom observes complex acute disease combined with neurological signs."

Russian intelligence veterans will also recognize, as I do, the characteristic campaign of Soviet-style "active measures" to confuse the issue. Officials in the government of Leonid Kuchma said that the candidate ate some bad sushi, or maybe caught a virus, or even disfigured himself on purpose to win electoral points. And they accuse the doctors and laboratories of "medically falsified diagnoses." Former KGB Colonel Viktor Cherkashin, who handled the two notorious American traitors Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames, was recently quoted as saying, "I have my doubts about whether Yushchenko was poisoned at all. It looks more like a dermatological problem."

Without knowing all the details, it's hard not to agree with Dr. Korpan at the Rudolfinerhaus hospital in Vienna that Mr. Yushchenko was poisoned with the aim to disfigure, weaken and end his threat to the now deposed pro-Kremlin Ukrainian government.

Kuchma: “My Fabulous Talks with Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko Might be Used Against Current Administration”…

KIEV, Ukraine -- Sometimes the ex-president seems to be forgotten. Kuchma rested in Karlovy Vary where he didn’t want to talk to the press until his ex-interior minister’s death. But even then he was “a man of few words”.

Recently Kuchma has showed up in the newly fixed office of his Fund “Ukraine”. He looked bad: dimmed eyes, paper-like skin. In general he seemed shabby.



This is the first printed Kuchma’s interview to UNIAN. The ex-president, as usual, accuses the new authorities of populism. He complains of moral pressuring on his family; he's boasting up with the economical achievements during his reign. He gives the new authorities a hint it’d better not bring all Melnychenko’s tapes in public…

Leonid Danylovych, what do you think, what should the new authorities do to make European prospects for Ukraine seem real? How should the results of the Orange Revolution be taken advantage of in order not to imitate the situation of 1994 when Ukraine became non-atomic state but got no profits in return?

We should stop declaring what has already been our goal. We’ve decided Ukraine is going to be European state. Now we need action. If we do not achieve proper gross domestic product rate no one will talk to us.

It’s that simple. The European Community can’t “grind” a country like Ukraine, sorry for such wording. You should understand them. We’re teasing them with these extra unnecessary statements. Do we have some improvement? Whatever you might babble, but the treaty “Ukraine-EU” signed this year is based upon the keypoints of the last year summit “Ukraine-EU” I took an active part in.

And one more thing. If you won with under the flag of democratic freedoms that shouldn’t be just a bold slogan. That shouldn’t be just the bold statements of the officials; everyone should feel the freedom, in economics in particular.

Do you feel any changes or just trend to some radical changes?

You know, it’s difficult to answer this question, ‘cause I’m out of this. I see, just after the changing of power lots of mass media painted themselves orange and that’s it. Neither authorities nor people actually need it.
And one more thing I’d like to pay attention to is marketing relations and marketing type economics. But I feel, instead, that we’re building up socialism. I’m talking about re-distribution of funds via central budget.

And the most important is that lots of economists (Pinzennyk including) claimed Yanukovych did wrong increasing 2 times pensions without raising salaries that will increase pension fund and thus allow carry out pension payment taking nothing from central budget.

Some people from the opposition stated the Pension Fund was sacrificed for the sake of election campaign. By the way, I agreed to some of the statements. The pensions should be increased differentially otherwise it will level those who worked all his life and those who didn’t work at all.

But today we did the same. Populism can win you a year or so but then you’ll have to pay for that. The economics will suffer ‘cause it’s in no condition to maintain such a high level of social grants. We don’t want Europe to say: “Well, guys, you’re talking about integration into EU community and you spend you budget on eating but not on further development of you country”.

Whatever people might talk about, democracy or high moral values, money rules the world. You have euro, dollars, rubl and here we go…people take you seriously. If you don’t have a thing they talk to you accordingly.

Leonid Danylovych, EU always emphasized Ukraine had to go on serious reforms to join Euroclub. Will Ukraine become EU member taking into consideration euphoria in Europe after Orange Revolution? What reforms should we start with?

You know, Europeans and Americans are very pragmatic. They count everything. They will analyze the steps made, the consequences of the actions performed, without any political or revolutional conjuncture.

The next 10-15 years it’ll be absolutely impossible for Ukraine to become EU member. That’s not gonna happen, under no circumstances. That’s why we’re to improve the living standards and maybe then…Personally I think it’d be better if we’re invited to EU, but we are applying to the European community instead.

Actually Ukraine has the right for “the place under the sun”. But it won’t get it the years coming. I’d like to repeat the truth for everybody to understand – we can’t be EU members ‘cause we’re just absolutely noncompetitive. Imagine we are EU members. What Ukrainian producer will stand tough competition on European market? The consequences are quite predictable.

But we can get certain preferences and benefits.

What preferences are you talking about? For example Polish agriculture got benefits and preferences from EU but do you how many agricultural farms have turned bankrupts? They have no market to sell their products. If we open our market for them they’ll bow and say “Thank you”. Europe doesn’t need their products but Ukrainians will eat up everything. EU membership is kind of a dream. But we are not Kremlin dreamers, we’re realists.

The accomplishment of reforms is of primary importance for us now. The politics has stopped the process; because of the unstructured parliament lots of unpopular decisions can’t be adopted. But we’ve done a lot.

The task of the former authorities was to prevent the industry from complete demolishing and destruction. We gave benefits to metallurgy, ship-building branch, aero-cosmic branch, agriculture. And we haven’t just survived but we have achieved the best results.

I understand that the period of my presidency should be analyzed. But do not destroy everything. For example, everybody knows about exhaustion of the main funds in economy. The government almost rejected capital investments in 2005. Besides, the budget deficit is lowered at the expense of taxation payments’ increase from 15 to 50%.

State enterprises are deprived of any means for development. Moreover they can’t even afford the current repairing and changing of equipment. The word innovation seems to have been successfully forgotten.

What would you change in the foreign policy of Ukraine? What mistakes would you avoid concerning EU, relations with Russian Federation?

I would have done exactly what I’ve done. Maybe I’d just correct something, polish it, so to say. It’s difficult to compare present Ukraine and Ukraine at the dawn of independence.

You probably remember pretty well that there was no oil, no gas, and no electricity as well as provision (it is now that our market is being supplied with 94% of domestic agricultural products). We had to manipulate, so to speak, not to take a single position, because such a one-sided orientation would only be harmful for us. Today there's no country carrying out a one-track policy of this kind.

Even those countries which joined EU during its latest wave of broadening want to have good relationships with the Russian Federation. For France and Germany in particular the relationships with Russia are of the top priority. That is why I do not refuse anything. On the contrary, that was our mutual fault with Russia that we have lost a lot of time, that’s why those opportunities, those mutual economic projects, whatever they were, have not been yet finished. This concerns, first and foremost, aviation and space industry.

How can we persuade Europe and Russia that our Eurointegration will not cause any damage to the latter?

Personally I think, the European countries are rather afraid of Ukraine as a tough competitor at a certain level of its development. And Ukraine will compete the above mentioned France and Germany, at least I wish it were so. Europe is not afraid of our close cooperation with Russia, this is stability.

And as to Russia's negative attitude to the Eurointegration course of Ukraine, I think this problem does not exist at all. There's Putin's declaration that if Ukraine wants to join EU, be it so, if, of course, Ukraine is welcomed to. Russia is not concerned with EU, it’s concerned with NATO. It's natural, because this is safety. In addition, during the period Ukraine will be fulfilling its Eurointegration course, the situation in the world will change. Let's recall it, just 10 years ago Russia was considered to be an enemy. Today there's no such confrontation.

Today the world, first of all the US, considers Russia as a strategic partner and there are more than enough enemies on the basis of terrorism both in the US and Russia.

Zlenko wrote in his monograph how difficult it was for Ukraine at the beginning of its formation as a state to persuade the West that Ukraine was not the part of Russia but a self-sufficient state. Will it be easier for the next Presidents of Ukraine to persuade the West, Europe?

Zlenko is absolutely right. Nobody looks seriously at us, neither Europe, nor Russia. Europe thought we would not stand the test and would probably break apart, and if not all Ukraine, then the part of it for sure will go to Russia.

And the Russians thought that Ukraine, primarily, would not stand the world prices for energy resources, which was really a sort of a tragedy for us. But we endured everything and our development is not worse, perhaps, even better than that of Russia.

Ukraine strengthened itself as a state. That time, all were rather pessimistic about our development. But today nobody dares to doubt our success. Over the last 5 years Ukraine's national produce has doubled, our living standards have changed; even the faces of Ukrainians are different now.

And I remember those gloomy faces during the meetings. Today we are not the same. And the fact that the Orange Revolution took place also proves that we are different, because many people started to think not solely about the daily bread, but about something more global.

That is why I am deeply convinced that it will be much easier for the new government to function.

It should be mentioned that the West didn't make any single effort to help us over our problematic questions with the Russian Federation.

They kept an eye on us as the outside observers. Generally speaking, the policy concerning Ukraine was carried out in the light of the relationship between Moscow and the West. It's obvious when one takes a look at the geographical and geological map of Russia - there is an answer to virtually all the questions. Let's refresh in our memory the conflict around the isle of Tuzla. Did anybody comment on this?

Leonid Danylovych, do you feel comfortable now in Ukraine, taking into consideration that your political opponents, who are in power presently, declared that they didn't want to live in the Ukraine of Kuchma? Do you want to live in the Ukraine of the new government?

What comfort are you talking about; when my Fund has not begun functioning yet and they started its detailed examination! I do not mention lots of other facts. So, from the moral point of view it is a very serious test for me and my family. That’s clear. If somebody wants me to lose control, as some other persons have already lost one, let it be. But I don't have any intentions of taking such a step.

Are you going to live in Ukraine?

I never ask myself such questions. Of course!

You said that during your second cadence you failed to realize all your plans including those of the foreign policy, taking into consideration the "Cassette scandal" ("Tapegate") . Lately the new version has arisen about the Russian special services' implication. Could it be the Russian attempt on the state level to disrupt Ukraine's possibilities of moving towards Europe?

I don't believe in the Russian special services as well as in the American services. They were not related to this on the first stage. But then the whole world wanted to make use of it. I said that we had to follow that path; we had to sound off, to cover ourselves in mud and tell all the possible lies to the whole world.

Is it possible to take seriously the country which abuses itself? Lots of efforts were made to cut the soviet period out of the Ukrainian history, the same is being done with the 10 years of independent Ukraine, keeping only all those loud scandals and "…gates".

Then your statements that you knew about the recordings and the person interested in them sound awkwardly.

That's absurd! Petro Poroshenko said that I knew about the recording, because I was giving different commissions word for word as if I knew I was being recorded. The thing is that I have a good memory. Tell this to him.

I remember everything I said and that explains my "exact" commissions according to the cassettes. But there's no point in recording conversations in the kitchen. Only the official events were recorded.

This is the same as the transcribed "round-table" discussions during negotiations of the political crisis period. That was the official part. The most important things were discussed after those negotiations. So when they introduce the deciphering of those events, it does not reflect the real state of things.

Don't you think that the new authority may fall over the Melnychenko's tapes, Gongadze Case investigation, thus not realizing their plans and expectations? Because it looks quite illogical when at first resounding declarations are made about the disclosure of the case, but later it turns out that these declarations are not backed by some real actions.

The Gongadze case became too loud all over the world, so Yushchenko's burning desire to put an end to it is quite explicable. I do not exclude that my other fantastic talks with Victor Yushchenko, Yulia Tymoshenko , Plyushch and many other politicians could be printed equally well and then used against the present authority.

In my opinion, this is pure politics or business. And even Berezovsky joined this game. I think this is an attempt to spread hatred and distrust in Ukraine and towards Ukraine.

How much time does the new authority have, so to speak, of the society's "credit of trust"?

Mykola Azarov, the former Minister of Finance, who dealt with the everyday financial matters, told me that we had a solid reserve of nearly 1.5-2 years to avoid different political "headaches".

I agree that economics will work a couple of years mechanically due to what has been done.

This is at the normal course of events, when all the efforts are channeled into productive creation, but not into crushing everything on one’s way.

Shadows of Chernobyl

LONDON, England -- Martin Cruz Smith, the author of Gorky Park found an eerie, empty world in research for his latest work. Here he gives an interview to The Observer.

When did you first visit Russia?
I went for 15 days in 1973 to research Gorky Park. I went on a package deal to Leningrad, Kiev and Moscow and I was very fortunate that 17 people had been rejected from getting their visas so there were only four of us on the trip. It meant that we did not have a full-time guide so I was pretty free to come and go as I wished. When we arrived in Moscow I just took off. Everything was fascinating, everything was information. It was so different to what I had read. I didn't see it as this dread empire - the place was falling apart. It's such a great way to travel where you don't just let things happen, you get out there and move and are ready for any kind of encounter. I've been going in and out of Moscow ever since.



Your most recent trip was to Chernobyl; why did you go there?
I was interested to find out what it was like now and had decided to write a book largely set there. I had also heard that some people had moved back which struck me as totally insane - I wanted to see who they were. They were very nice, but all slightly mad. They were warned that in 25 years they would be dead of cancer, but most of them are in their seventies - so another 25 years would be great! These pensioners much prefer living in their cosy house with great fishing to a dingy apartment starving on the dole. In the case of one couple, their daughter had emigrated to Brazil and had invited them to come too but they chose Chernobyl over Brazil. The authorities used to try to keep them out, but they acknowledge them now.

Is there much to see?
You can get scared to death walking around the sarcophagus which is the shielding which they put over the reactor with steel and concrete which is about four stories high. It is actually falling apart and could collapse at any time. It's full of radioactive fuel and 90 per cent of the core is still there and it's leaking out into the ground water all the time. There is a town right across the street which was built for the workers. It had 40,000 people, but today it is empty. It is very eerie; a real end of the world scenario. You can walk into any of the apartments which were all abandoned in an afternoon.

What about in the surrounding countryside?
There are the black villages. They have been there a thousand years and are now abandoned. All these beautiful little houses which were a variety of pastels - blues, greens, white - are all black from the radiation. Some old people, against the regulations, have gone back to their homes. Then there is nature itself. The Chernobyl area has become the richest wildlife reserve in middle Europe because man has pulled out. The grass is as high as your chin, the berries are heavy on the bough, the fish seem huge, but they're just full-sized. Wild boar abound, but they are very dangerous to eat because they live off mushrooms and nuts which become radioactive. Wolves are taking over and there are no more dogs around because wolves eat dogs. It's a fascinating contradiction, or at least seems a contradiction to us.

Were you nervous before your trip?
I got a radioactivity meter of my own and carried it with me at all times. Caesium is particularly nasty stuff: it's hard to see and is water soluble. There is an interesting phenomenon ocalled the red forest or the magic forest. All these fir trees near the reactor turned red overnight and died so there are all these dead, red radioactive trees which look kind of magical.

Shipments of Turkmen Investment Gas to Ukraine Could Increase

ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan -- The shipment of Turkmen gas to Ukraine in payment for investment projects conducted by Ukrainian companies in Turkmenistan could increase by two billion cubic meters from 4.5 billion cubic meters, Chairman of Naftogaz Ukraine Alexei Ivchenko told reporters following talks between the presidents of the two countries in Ashgabat.

"We expect the increase will be about two billion cubic meters," he said.

Turkmenneftegaz head Ilyas Chariyev will visit Ukraine soon and Ukraine will "conduct detailed and specific talks," he said. Ivchenko said increasing the shipments of so-called investment gas would lower the cost of the contract. "The price after the increase in the investment component will be lower than it is now. I can't yet say how much lower. This will depend on the cost of work, services, and materials we provide in payment for this investment gas," he said.

Ukraine hopes that after Chariyev's visit it will be able to increase the share of payment for gas in goods. "This will also help us lower the price of gas that comes from Turkmenistan," he said.

Under the contract for 2005 Ukraine will buy 31.5 billion cubic meters of Turkmen gas and pay for half in cash and half in products. Ukraine will receive another 4.5 billion cubic meters in payment for investment projects in Turkmenistan, which include compressor stations, a railroad and automobile bridge over the Amudarya River, a communications tunnel in Ashgabat, and other projects. The price for Turkmen gas until January was $44 per 1,000 cubic meters, but was increased in the new contract to $58 per 1,000 cubic meters.

EBRD Ready to Invest 500-600 Million Euros in Ukraine in 2005: President

KIEV, Ukraine -- The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is prepared to invest between 500 and 600 million euros (645.7-774.6 million dollars) in Ukraine this year to help improve transportation and nuclear safety, EBRD president Jean Lemierre said.

Lemierre said he had raised the investment possibility in discussions with Ukrainian officials.

"I've mentioned the possibility of investment... between 500 and 600 million euros this year in Ukraine," he said at a news conference in Kiev.

The investment, which requires the approval of the Ukrainian parliament, would be aimed at the "road sector, railways and nuclear safety".

Several projects in these areas have already been prepared by the Ukrainian government, but still await ratification by the parliament, he said.

"These projets are very important because they (funds) can be disbursed very quickly" and the country would see "quick improvements in crucial sectors".

Other projects are being planned for 2005, notably for new high-tension electricity lines, port infrastructure and the development of public services, he added.

The EBRD is the biggest investor in Ukraine and is working with the government on the privatization of the telecommunications group Ukrtelecom and a part of the banking sector.

U.S., Ukraine Seek To Facilitate U.S. Exports to Ukraine

WASHINGTON, DC - With Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko looking on, the Export-Import Bank of the U.S. (Ex-Im Bank) and the State Export-Import Bank of Ukraine (Ukreximbank) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that will help facilitate financing of U.S. exports to Ukraine.

Viktor V. Kapustin, Ukreximbank Chairman of the Board, and Peter Saba, Ex-Im Bank Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel, signed the agreement at historic Blair House, the official guesthouse of the President of the United States.

"We consider the United States as a strategic partner in all fields, including economics," Chairman Kapustin underlines, "and this Memorandum is the first step to facilitate the deepening of our cooperation for the benefit of businesses of both Nations."

"Ukraine is an important partner of the United States", said Saba, "and we believe that its future holds significant promise for growth and investment."

Under the agreement, Ex-Im Bank and Ukreximbank intend to work together to establish a Credit Guarantee Facility of up to US $50 million with Ukreximbank as obligor, under which Ukreximbank would make credits available to Ukrainian purchasers of U.S. goods and service exports.

As of the end of fiscal year 2004, Ex-Im Bank's outstanding loans, guarantees, and insurance commitments involving exports to Ukraine totaled just under US $180 million.

The MOU also encourages joint exchanges of information in an effort to facilitate transactions involving U.S. exports to Ukraine.

In a joint statement issued by Presidents George W. Bush and Yushchenko after their meeting on Monday, Mr. Bush said, "As Ukraine undertakes far-reaching reform at home, it can count on the United States for support. We applaud Ukraine's commitment to curb corruption, promote the rule of law and improve the business climate."

Ukreximbank, as State bank, promotes economic development of Ukraine, gives credit and financial support for development of foreign trade relations, restructuring and development of export-oriented and import substitution sectors of the economy.

Ex-Im Bank this year marks its 71st year of helping finance the sale of U.S. exports, primarily to emerging markets throughout the world, by providing loan guarantees, export credit insurance, and direct loans. In fiscal year 2004, Ex-Im Bank, an independent U.S. federal agency, authorized financing to support approximately $17.8 billion in U.S. exports worldwide, a 25% jump from a year earlier.

Another Russian Revolution?

MOSCOW, Russia -- Suddenly in Russia, everybody's talking about a revolution.

In a country with a popular president, a growing economy and a fragmented and weak opposition, Russia does not seem ripe for the kind of revolt that toppled governments in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan over the past 17 months. But as Lenin once said, "a revolution is a miracle," and the Kremlin and its political opponents seem bewitched by the possibility of one.



Russian activists found inspiration and a namesake in Ukraine's student pro-democracy group Pora, shown demonstrating in the capital, Kiev, in October in support of opposition leader V