Analysis: Will Europe Stand Up To Moscow?

LONDON, England -- European Union heads of state and government meet in Brussels on Monday to discuss what to do following Russia's crushing of Georgia. Can they make a better job of facing down Russia's new assertiveness than NATO's foreign ministers did?

The Russian military in South Ossetia on August 29.
Moscow's response to NATO's warning that normal relations could not continue was to swat it away with a contemptuous "See if we care." Russia simply announced in return it was severing its working arrangements with NATO.

Since then both sides have been maneuvering. To the amazement of most European diplomats Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin claimed to CNN that the U.S. had pushed Georgia's Mikheil Saakashvili into provoking the crisis as a U.S. presidential campaign tactic.

Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband rushed to Ukraine, the other potential NATO candidate in Russia's "near abroad." But that wasn't just to signal to Moscow not to push things too far in targeting other former Soviet Republics and to indicate support for President Victor Yuschenko.

It was also to warn him not to fall for Russian provocation in the Crimea, where Russia leases port facilities until 2017, and so give Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Putin any pretext for intervening there.

How tough are EU leaders prepared to play? What sanctions might they have in mind against Russia over the violation of the Georgia cease-fire agreement? After all, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, currently in the six-monthly revolving EU chair, has insisted that there would have to be "serious consequences" for any breaching of the terms he negotiated with Medvedev.

The EU has scheduled for September 15, for example, a meeting to discuss a new EU/Russia partnership. What will the Brussels conclave decide about that?

Will the EU call for Russia to be punished for re-drawing borders in the Caucasus by being excluded from the G8 grouping of leading industrialized countries? After all the others who constitute the original G7, including the UK, France, Germany and Italy, have condemned what Russia did in Georgia.

Will the EU leaders threaten to oppose Russian membership of the World Trade Organization? While the U.S. State Department has suggested Russia will now have great difficulty getting into the WTO the European Commission is saying that it still believes Moscow's admission is both right and possible.

One little snag there though for Russia. Georgia is already a WTO member, in possession of a veto.

Will the EU leaders in Brussels offer to speed Georgia and Ukraine into the EU?

Linked to those questions is another. How hard will Russia play it in return? Already before the weekend there were leaks suggesting Russia would start turning off the pipelines which supply many EU countries with more than a third of their energy supplies. What might that do to oil prices at western pumps?

Russia's action in Georgia may be costing it economically. There has been a sharp fall-off in inward investment. But in the current volatile energy market Russia is not without retaliatory weapons, at least in the short term.

EU ministers won't have forgotten that just after Prague signed up to participation in the U.S. missile defense plan in July a sudden "technical difficulty" with the Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline resulted in a 40 percent drop in supplies to the Czech Republic. Similarly supplies were cut to Estonia during a row over the removal of Red Army memorials.

If the EU hand looks a little weak and its leverage limited, things have not been going entirely Moscow's way. Russia did not get quite the fulsome degree of support it had hoped for from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, for its recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

This loosely- knit group, which Moscow would like to mould into some kind of counterweight to NATO, includes former Soviet republics like Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. But it also numbers China among its members -- and Beijing, with Tibet in mind, is not too keen on precedents encouraging the recognition of breakaway regions.

The Dushanbe meeting supported some elements of Russian intervention but called for a peaceful resolution of difficulties and stressed the importance of territorial integrity.

So what are we likely to see at the end of the Brussels meeting? Even well in advance French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner is conceding that the EU is split on sanctions against Russia and may impose none.

Sarkozy called Russian recognition of the enclaves "simply unacceptable" but added: "Nobody wants to go back to the time of the Cold War. NATO is not an adversary but a partner of Russia. As for the EU, it seeks to build with this country a close and positive relation. It is for Russia today to make a fundamental choice."

Baltic nations and Poland, a close ally of Ukraine, will be pushing for tough language and action. But Germany, Italy and even Britain do not believe that isolating Moscow is a sensible way forward.

Because of the difficulties in securing agreement it seems likely that the focus will be more on helping Georgia than on penalizing Russia. The meeting is likely to approve sending a civilian monitoring mission to Georgia, increasing aid there and in Ukraine and Moldova and relaxing visa restrictions on Georgians.

As for encouraging noises to Ukraine about eventual EU membership, those can be expected too. Russian opposition to that idea has so far been comparatively muted. But remember that the EU is currently in an anti-enlargement mode after Romania and Bulgaria were rushed in prematurely.

And there is that awkward little matter of the new EU constitution, rejected in a referendum earlier this year by Ireland's voters. There can be no more enlargement, Sarkozy has insisted, until a new constitution has been agreed by all 27 existing members.

Source: CNN Europe

The Mouse That Roared: Georgia's Attack On South Ossetia Sets Russia And The U.S. On A Dangerous Course

EDMONTON, Canada -- Pipsqueak Georgia's harebrained and disastrous attack on tiny South Ossetia has produced a full-blown crisis pitting the U.S. and NATO against Russia.

Russian General Yuri Baluyevsky warns his nation has the right to launch a "pre-emptive nuclear strike" against enemies.
In an act fraught with danger, U.S. and NATO warships are delivering supplies to Georgia, watched by Russian men of war. The U.S. Congress may soon vote $1 billion for America's embattled Georgian satellite.

The western powers have resorted to fierce Cold War rhetoric. They are playing with fire. Russia has some 6,600 strategic nuclear weapons, mostly aimed at North America and Europe.

Besides the U.S., which invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, and whose air force just killed 90 Afghan civilians, 60 of them children, is in no position to lecture Moscow about aggression.

France's conservative president, Nicolas Sarkozy, blasted Russia and shortly will hold a European summit over Georgia in Brussels. As usual, the Harper government faithfully echoed Washington's words.

Poland agreed to emplace a U.S. anti-ballistic missile system only 184 km from Russia's border, provoking Moscow's fury. Ukraine and Poland are loudly backing Georgia.

Russia's chief of staff, Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, warns his nation has the right to launch a "pre-emptive nuclear strike" against enemies, in line, he tartly noted, with the Bush administration's own policies.

Topping off this war of words, two of Sen. John McCain's closest right wing allies, senators Joseph Lieberman and Lindsey Graham, went to Georgia and called for "tough" measures against Moscow. They urged isolating Russia for "aggression" and admitting Ukraine and Georgia to NATO.

MCCAIN PREVIEW

McCain's allies give a good preview of what his foreign policy would look like. Lieberman and Graham, leading proponents of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, had the chutzpah to insist, "Russia must not be allowed to control energy supplies."

This ugly mess recalls how the great powers blundered into both the first and second world wars over obscure locales such as Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Danzig Corridor.

The obvious lesson: Act with extreme caution. Few are listening as rhetoric sharpens.

The Bush administration -- most likely VP Dick Cheney -- almost certainly planned or knew about Georgia's attack on Russian-backed South Ossetia launched under cover of the Beijing Olympics.

Whether the White House was trying to inflict a quick little military victory over Moscow, or whipping up war fever at home to boost John McCain's prospects in the presidential election, is uncertain.

This crisis over a mere 70,000 South Ossetians and 18,000 Abkhazians could have been resolved quietly by diplomacy. Instead, the Bush administration turned it into a major confrontation by accusing Russia of aggression.

Washington, which rightly recognized the independence of Kosovo's Albanians from Serb repression, denounced Russia's recognition of Abkhaz and South Ossetian independence from Georgian repression.

Meanwhile, Moscow, which crushed the life out of Chechnya's independence movement, piously claimed to be defending Ossetian independence.

Things may get worse. The U.S. is pressing Ukraine to join NATO, though half of its 48 million citizens oppose doing so. Ukraine's constitution mandates a neutral state.

Russia allowed Ukraine to decamp from the Soviet Union with the understanding it would never join NATO, and allow Russia's Black Sea Fleet to operate from Crimea.

Russian political expert Sergei Markov rightly notes that Washington and NATO see Ukraine as a rich new source of troops for Iraq and Afghanistan, wars from which he says NATO leaders cannot withdraw their soldiers without committing "political suicide."

"Old Europe" is trying to avoid a clash with Moscow, while "new Europe" -- Georgia, Poland, the Czechs, and Balts -- frightened of Russia's growing power, eggs on the U.S.-Russia confrontation.

Not only did the clumsy U.S. attempt to expand its influence into Moscow's backyard backfire badly, Washington's childish, petulant response is as inflammatory as it is powerless.

The Georgian crisis and empty threats against Russia have aroused strong nationalist passions in Russia, which sees itself increasingly isolated and surrounded by the U.S. and NATO.

Nationalist hysteria, jingoism, and fevered rhetoric are coming from both sides. We saw such lunacy before: In August 1914, and September 1939

Source: Edmonton Sun

Moscow Mayor Yuriy Luzhkov: "If We Lose Sevastopol, We'll Lose The Caucasus"

MOSCOW, Russia -- Moscow Mayor Yuriy Luzhkov is convinced that a new Black Sea Fleet agreement must be signed with Ukraine.

Sevastopol was never given to Ukraine during the Soviet Union, says Moscow mayor Yuriy Luzhkov.
"I submitted a proposal to finish the new agreement by September. Russia needs to invite Ukraine to the table to consider this agreement," RIA Novosti quoted Luzhkov as stating.

The Moscow mayor referred to Ukraine's recent actions as a "blatant disregard" for the present agreement due to the country's NATO aspirations. He added that Russia is "losing Sevastopol."

"If we lose Sevastopol," said Luzhkov. "We'll lose the Caucasus."

In May 2008, at a celebration marking the Black Sea Fleet's 225th anniversary, Luzhkov reiterated earlier calls to reintegrate Sevastopol and the Crimean Peninsula into Russia.

"Sevastopol was never given to Ukraine," said Luzhkov. "I have carefully studied all the main documents." After the speech, Ukraine's security service declared Luzhkov persona non grata.

Recently, Ukraine's government stated a new agreement must be signed with Moscow that will regulate such issues as the Black Sea Fleet's participation in armed conflicts and ensure Ukraine's soverign right to monitor the fleet while on Ukrainian territory.

Several weeks ago, Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko signed an order stating the Black Sea Fleet's commanding officer must inform their Joint Chief of Staff if Russian ships plan to leave Ukrainian territory.

Russia's Interior Ministry referred to the order as "another serious anti-Russian maneuver" breaking the agreement on cordial relations between Kiev and Moscow.

Source: Kommsomolska Pravda

Where’s Next In Vladimir Putin’s Sights?

MOSCOW, Russia -- Russia’s aggression towards Georgia, its long-range missile tests and the fiery rhetoric coming out of both Moscow and western capitals in the past week have provoked comparisons with the cold war. How worried should we be?

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin
A graffito daubed on the wall of a Georgian army base at Senaki by Russian soldiers who looted the place last week reads, “Thanks Uncle Sam for the uniforms”. The Russians could not resist a swipe at America for arming, training and even dressing the Georgian armed forces.

Uniforms were not the only US kit that the Russians seized from the defeated Georgian army in the short but vicious war that appeared to have put paid to the country’s hopes of joining NATO. At Poti, the Black Sea port occupied by Russian troops, five US Marine Corps Humvees were captured.

They had been awaiting shipment back to America after being used in a military exercise with the Georgian army. Now their fate is uncertain. A Russian general called it a “detail” but his relish in the capture of American military hardware was a telling example of how East-West antagonism has been revived.

By late last week the sabre-rattling was reminiscent of the cold war at its most chilling: the Russians were test firing long-range missiles, NATO vessels were steaming into the region and Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, was being accused by Sergei Lavrov, his Russian counterpart, of an “evil imagination” for voicing suspicions that the Kremlin, having gobbled up the Georgian territories of Abkhazia and Ossetia by officially recognising their independence, might move next on Ukraine or Moldova.

Today’s Kremlin is far different from the geriatric institution of the 1970s, when Soviet citizens were locked behind the “iron curtain” deprived of even the slightest whiff of the West.

Russian leaders these days are being advised by a slick New York-based public relations giant, their subjects free to gorge themselves on as much western decadence as they want, having long ago dumped the communist gospel.

Yet the crude nationalism that has replaced reverence for the hammer and sickle may pose a danger to the rest of the world if the Kremlin, skilled at manipulating it, were to lose control.

Britain’s relations with Russia have been at a particularly low ebb since the poisoning in London of Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB agent, a murder that the government believes was ordered by Moscow; and relations will not have been helped by the visit last week of David Miliband, the foreign secretary, to Ukraine, the former Soviet Union’s bread basket, “to assemble the widest possible coalition against Russian aggression”.

Is this mere hot air? Is there any real danger of the cold war, when the threat of mutually assured nuclear destruction hung over the world, being revived – and who should be the most worried about it?

When Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, announced his country’s recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia last week, he stood beneath a two-headed Russian eagle.

As a national crest, it seems an appropriate symbol for the contradictory instincts that have pulled Russia in two different directions for centuries and, as the past few weeks have shown, continue to do so.

One side wants Russia to adopt western standards in government and business, the other wants to bring back a modified Soviet model and go it alone, believing that “westernisers” have brought only humiliation for Russia. Today these “hawks” – in other epochs they were called “isolationists” or “Slavophiles” – have the upper hand.

Vladimir Putin, the former president who has recently switched roles to become prime minister, said that Russia was frustrated because: “There’s a feeling that the West treats Russia merely as a loser in the cold war, which has to play by the winners’ rules.” The intervention in Georgia was Russia drawing a red line.

Relations with the West have been strained by NATO giving membership to Moscow’s Soviet-era satellites as well as to the former Soviet Baltic republics. They have become vociferous critics of Russia within the American-led alliance.

At the same time, Russian officials have complained that Moscow’s cooperation with the West on key international issues such as the fight against terrorism, Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea have failed to translate into a qualitative change in relations. “We cannot endlessly retreat with a smiling face,” said one Kremlin official.

Edward Lozansky, a former Soviet dissident who became head of the American University in Moscow, explained the prevailing view: “Putin was expecting some reciprocity for joining the antiterrorist coalition. What he got instead was further NATO expansion to Russia’s back yard and aggressive pipeline policy to weaken Russia’s position in the energy market.”

Not surprisingly, the Russian occupation of Georgia has turned into one of the most popular ventures ever undertaken by the Kremlin. But who was behind it?

Kremlin politics these days seem as opaque as they were in the cold war and, although tempting, it would probably be wrong to view Putin and Medvedev as the embodiment of that double-headed eagle.

Nevertheless, French diplomats report a comment by Putin over lunch with President Nicolas Sarkozy in the Kremlin not long after the crisis erupted.

He apparently described Medvedev and himself as “a good cop, bad cop routine”. It was the “nice” Medvedev who announced last week that Russia was not afraid of another cold war; and although Putin was widely believed to be calling the shots, Medvedev seemed to be emerging as his own man, winning popularity among the public because of the Russian “victory” in Georgia.

It prompted suggestions that Putin was getting jealous which inspired him, so the theory goes, to allege that America had goaded the Georgians into war to help the prospects of the hawkish John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate.

Some believed, nevertheless, that the crisis had strengthened Putin more than Medvedev and one Russian newspaper reflected the extent of public support for him by using a picture of a fist with the middle finger raised at America. Yet the peculiarity of this “new cold war” is that America, for once, seemed hardly to notice.

When Barack Obama, the US presidential candidate, stood up to deliver his speech at the Democratic convention in Denver last week, he was never likely to dwell long on foreign policy before an audience concerned mostly about domestic economic problems.

Even so, he gave short shrift to the crisis in Georgia, a measure of America’s startlingly relaxed response to Russian aggression. In his 44-minute address, Obama devoted just two sentences to the Russian threat, with a bland promise of “tough, direct diplomacy . . . that can curb Russian aggression”.

The candidate’s swift dismissal of what may prove the next US president’s most difficult foreign policy challenge confirmed a curious effect of the Russian invasion of Georgia.

Despite warnings from numerous US officials that Moscow’s actions represent a serious long-term threat to the West, neither the US media nor most of the American public have shown the remotest interest in the turmoil in the Caucasus.

Indeed there was a widely expressed belief that this was a crisis that Europe ought to be able to handle. “The sooner Europe equips itself to confront the challenges of a resurgent Russia, the better,” declared Sally McNamara, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation.

Nevertheless, President George W Bush will this week send Dick Cheney, his vice-president, to Europe and Georgia in the hope of stiffening backbones against the Russian menace.

Widely regarded as the only western politician who is more frightening than Putin, Cheney will visit Azerbaijan and Ukraine – and also Italy to try to dissuade Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi from cosying up to Moscow.

Yet the timing of the Georgian invasion and the prospect of a change of US administration in January have severely reduced the prospect of decisive American action and are already creating potential headaches for both Obama and his Republican rival, Senator John McCain.

“There’s the danger that things could be left in such a poisonous state that the next administration has no options and finds it difficult to get on a productive track,” said Robert Einhorn, a former arms control negotiator.

No one in America appears to have the stomach for a military response and, as officials reluctantly acknowledged last week, Putin was plainly aware that Washington offered little as a short-term threat. It was left to the Europeans to try to prod the bear back into the cage and Miliband, at least, was talking a big game.

However, some believed that his appearance in Kiev, where he was accused of ratcheting up the tension with his call for solidarity, was as much electioneering as it was a gesture of support for Ukrainian independence: there had been dismay in the Labour ranks that David Cameron, the Tory leader, had beaten Miliband to Tbilisi for talks with Mikhail Saakashvili, the embattled Georgian leader.

One respected Labour backbencher said: “David Miliband was caught short. Now he is running around trying to play catch up.”

Certainly his suggestion that the question for Russia was ultimately “whether it wants to suffer isolation and loss of respect” will not have left Medvedev and Putin quaking in their boots.

France holds the European Union’s rotating presidency until the end of the year and Sarkozy is deeply frustrated by Russia’s refusal to abide by the ceasefire agreement that he brokered.

He sees tomorrow’s extraordinary EU summit in Brussels as a big test of the newly enlarged Europe to pull together and would be happy with a communiqué “firmly” condemning Russia’s “unacceptable” recognition of Abkhazian and Ossetian independence.

The prospects for an agreement among 27 countries on anything, let alone sanctions against Russia, were not good. Poland, the Czech Republic and the Baltic states, still pained by memories of Soviet domination, were in favour of a tough response to the Russian “bully”.

But Angela Merkel, the German chancellor who was brought up in communist East Germany and has bitter recollections of the experience, joined the French and Italians in advocating caution, not wanting to risk Russian retaliation.

The key to their timidity is energy security. Europe relies on Russia for about 40% of its gas. With bills already soaring, politicians cannot afford to lose that supply. As the Kremlin’s relations with its former satellite states have deteriorated, it has shown that it is not afraid to use these tactics.

After the Czech Republic agreed to allow the United States to build bases for an antimissile shield in the country, Russia’s Gazprom cut supplies drastically. It blamed the shutdown on “technical” reasons.

Adopting similar tactics with the bigger EU countries would, however, be a huge gamble. Not only would Russia lose billions in revenues, it would also alienate its most important customers and catalyse European investment into alternative energy sources or providers.

“There’s always the possibility and the fear in people’s minds,” said Julian Lee, at the Centre for Global Energy Studies. “The Russians haven’t cut off gas supplies to consumers in western Europe before, but that is no guarantee they won’t do so.”

Gazprom’s answer to the paranoia is simple: it points out that even in the depths of the cold war it has never failed to fulfil a contract to western Europe. Alexei Miller, Gazprom’s chief executive, has also said: “Gazprom relies as much on Europe as Europe depends on our gas.”

Fears that Russia would shut off the pipelines that run through the Caucasus and supply the West have also proved groundless so far. The ountries that have most to worry about are the ones in Russia’s “near abroad”, especially those that do not have the protection of NATO, which regards an attack on a member nation as an attack on the whole alliance.

Ukraine and Moldova – which is already host to the Russian 14th army in its separatist Transdnistria region – are consequently next in the firing line.

The tension in Ukraine between its divided population, 17% of whom are Russian ethnically and live in the east and south of the country, has been building for years, particularly since the “orange revolution” of 2004. This had overturned the result of the presidential election which had been rigged in favour of the pro-Moscow candidate.

Crimea, where the Russian navy has a lease on a base at Sebastopol until 2017, is the obvious flashpoint. Ukraine has angered Russia by saying that it will not renew the lease.

It has also introduced restrictions on Russian vessels entering or exiting Sevastopol after ships based there took part in shelling Georgian coastal defences and landing troops there during the first week of the conflict.

Ukrainian officials fear that Russia is just waiting for a single act that it can portray as intolerable provocation to use as an excuse to seize the peninsula. The results of such an action could be catastrophic for the people of Ukraine, as Georgians know to their cost.

Last week hundreds of Georgian refugees from South Ossetia, displaced by the war and a wave of ethnic cleansing, were sheltering in tents erected in a dusty sports stadium waiting for permission to go back to their battered and looted villages.

They were a fraction of the tens of thousands who fled and are now scattered in schools, government buildings or with relatives across the country.

The economy is certain to shrink as foreign investment, which had begun to make Georgia feel prosperous, is frightened away. When winter approaches the unemployed queues will lengthen. “We’re looking at a creeping catastrophe,” said Peter Semneby, the EU ambassador.

And the Russian eagle, it seemed, was looking away from the West.

Source: TIMES Online

Ukraine Not Russian `Target' After Georgia Dispute

MOSCOW, Russia -- Prime Minister Vladimir Putin rejected suggestions that Russia may target pro-Western Ukraine after recognizing Georgia's breakaway regions.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin claims he will not target Ukraine.
Russia has ``long recognized'' Ukraine's borders, Putin said yesterday in an interview with Germany's ARD television. He also said Russia will honor its oil- and gas-export contracts, and he repeated criticism of U.S. involvement in Georgia.

The Crimea in southern Ukraine on the Black Sea, with its Russian-speaking population and a Russian naval base, ``is not a disputed territory,'' and didn't have an ethnic conflict, as South Ossetia had, the former Russian president said. His comments were posted on the Russian government's Web site.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Aug. 28 he assumes that Ukraine and Moldova are the next ``Russian targets'' after the Kremlin recognized the independence of Georgian breakaway regions South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Ukraine, like Georgia, has allied with the West and is seeking to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The U.S. has long seen Georgia and Ukraine as counterweights to Russia's influence in the region.

Problems among Tatar, Ukrainian and Russian populations in the Crimea are an internal issue for the Ukraine, Putin said.

Russia will honor its agreement with the Ukraine that allows Russia's Black Sea fleet to remain in the Crimea until 2017, he said, offering reassurance Russian navy will eventually leave.

Export Obligations

Separately, Putin said Russia remains ``a very reliable partner'' and will honor its export obligations.

Russian oil companies were ordered by the government to cut supplies to Germany and Poland through the Druzhba pipeline and executives from OAO Lukoil were put on alert for the weekend, the London-based Daily Telegraph reported yesterday, citing an unidentified business person. The cut may come as early as Sept. 1, the newspaper said.

``We hope that our partners will honor their obligations as well as we do, and intend to do in the future,'' Putin said, referring to Russian oil, gas, timber, metals and fertilizer exports. Russia ``guarantees'' that Germany will get its 40 billion cubic meters of gas this year, he said.

Yet, ``if someone wants to break these ties, we can't do anything about it,'' he said. ``We don't want it.''

South Ossetia

Russia's decision to unilaterally recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia on Aug. 26 drew condemnation from world leaders, with President George W. Bush asking Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to ``reconsider this irresponsible'' decision. Medvedev called his decision on the breakaway regions an ``obvious'' move to protect his country's borders.

``There is no difference'' between Kosovo, which the European Union recognized on the order from the U.S., and South Ossetia and Abkhazia cases, Putin said. If EU recognized Kosovo, it should then recognize Georgia's breakaway regions, he said.

``If European countries continue this policy, we will soon have to talk about European issues with Washington,'' he said.

EU should stop ``serving'' the U.S. foreign policy interests, as this won't bring any benefits for its member countries, Putin said.

European governments should send more observers to the security zone and `` set up impartial monitoring of the acts of the current Georgian government,'' Medvedev said today in a telephone conversation with U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, according to an e-mailed statement from the Kremlin.

War Zone

Putin repeated his accusations in an Aug. 28 interview with CNN that the U.S. orchestrated Georgia's attack on South Ossetia to benefit a presidential candidate.

The U.S. allowed its instructors, which were training Georgian army to use the new arms, into the war zone, suggesting the U.S. were aware and even involved in Georgia's plan to attack South Ossetia. This was done to ``organize a small victorious war,'' he said.

``And if that failed, they wanted to create an enemy out of Russia and unite voters around one of the presidential candidates,'' Putin said. ``Of course it's the candidate of the ruling party, because only the ruling party would have such an administrative resource.''

Spurce: Bloomberg

EU Must Give Kiev Accession Hope

LONDON, England -- The pledges of support given this week to Ukraine by David Miliband, the UK foreign secretary, and other European Union ministers must be followed by concrete action.

Ukraine wants desperately to become a member of the EU.
It is not enough for the EU to warn that Russia might try to build on its military victory in Georgia by targeting Ukraine and other vulnerable ex-Soviet republics. The west should respond – and the EU must play a big role in that response.

Brussels promised Kiev much when pro-west president Viktor Yushchenko triumphed in the 2004 Orange Revolution. It has delivered rather less, increasing aid, political contacts and economic ties. But the EU has denied Kiev the big prize of a pledge of possible future membership. It is time to think again.

First, the Georgian crisis shows Russia’s vulnerable neighbours need support in resisting Russian aggression. While EU membership brings no security guarantees, it confers the political backing of a 27-member bloc.

Next, a membership promise would boost Ukraine’s pro-west reformers in their struggles with opponents, including powerful Russia-oriented lobbies. Working for a clear common goal, Ukrainians could find it easier to set aside their political differences. This in turn could help stabilise Ukraine, leaving it less open to hostile interference.

Finally, there would be a delay of many years before Ukraine met entry standards. That would leave enough time for EU leaders to overcome the current anti-enlargement mood. A union which had by then successfully absorbed today’s wave of new members would be well-placed for further expansion.

None of this need be overtly anti-Russian. Moscow has not raised serious objections to Kiev’s EU bid. Russians investing in Ukraine would be glad to see their assets safe inside the EU. If and when membership came close, Ukrainian-Russian trade would have to conform to EU rules. But that need not be too onerous.

Also, an EU move now would help head off the difficult issue of Ukraine’s NATO membership bid. Ukraine (like Georgia) had consideration of its membership action plan put off at NATO’s summit. This was the right decision.

While united over EU accession, Ukrainians are split over NATO. This reflects divisions in attitudes to Russia, with many Ukrainians wanting to stay out of an alliance widely seen as anti-Russian.

Only when Ukrainians clearly make up their minds in favour of NATO should the alliance accept Kiev’s bid. But on the EU their minds are made up. Brussels must now summon the courage to offer a positive response.

Source: Financial Times

Battered Ukraine Stocks Get Dubious Label From Analysts

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's equity market has become one of the world's worst-performing exchanges, following a year-to-date decline in shares of more than 50%, leading analysts to dub it the "China of eastern Europe."


Ukraine's benchmark PFTS index fell 5.5% to close at 513.84 Thursday, because of tensions in the region. Russia's invasion of Georgia has led many to fear that Ukraine might suffer the same fate, since, like Georgia, it is frequently at odds with Moscow and has a significant Russian-speaking population.

This has taken the market's total year-to-date decline to more than 50%, leading to the comparison to stocks in China, where the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index has declined about 55% this year.

Some of the worst hit stocks have been in the steel industry over fears the companies will require increasing government support. On Wednesday shares in Avdeevka Coke fell 7%, and dropped an additional 2% Thursday, while shares in Enakievo Steel fell 10% Wednesday but recovered to rise marginally Thursday.

The share-price declines also match the drops in neighboring Russia. Russian equity valuations have also been hit hard this year, with Russia's leading MICEX index losing 19% of its value in the past month.

However, the sharp selloff in Ukrainian equities has some analysts forecasting a rebound in valuations, with Alfa Bank projecting a rally within the next two months.

In a report Thursday, calling Ukraine the "China of eastern Europe," Alfa Bank analyst Denis Shauruk said the fall in valuations offered investors a good opportunity to pick up Ukrainian stocks on the cheap.

"For many, this may look like a disaster, but for those who view underperforming stocks and indexes as the perfect buying opportunity, this is a clear signal to buy," he said.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

One Against All

MOSCOW, Russia -- President Dmitry Medvedev’s surprise recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia has drawn near universal condemnation from the West, and at best lukewarm acquiescence from elsewhere. But despite such unanimity, Western powers have failed to come to agreement on due punishment for Russia among themselves.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev
As the West overcomes initial shock, it is beginning to look like a new consensus has emerged. From the early days of the South Ossetian conflict, the West, or at least Europe, seemed to be divided on the issue.

On the one side, the United States, the United Kingdom, and a number of East European countries took a position of uncompromising (and from the point of view of many in Russia, hypocritical) opposition to Russia’s actions in South Ossetia.

That was tempered by a more nuanced approach from some (mostly Western) European countries. These included some traditional Russian allies. Germany, Russia’s largest trading partner and collaborator on the Nord Stream gas pipeline, initially called for restraint and an end to violence, but avoided blaming Russia for the conflict.

France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is reputed to enjoy remarkable personal rapport with Vladimir Putin, flew to Russia to broker a peace deal. Italy’s foreign minister warned against forming an “anti-Russian coalition” and said Italy’s position was “close to Putin’s.”

However real or imagined this division was, it was one Russia seemed keen to play up, and even to broach talk of a Russian-European “bloc.” Speaking the day after Dmitry Medvedev’s announcement, Col. Gen Leonid Ivashov, president of the Academy of Geopolitical Studies and a senior military analyst, listed a string of countries in “Old Europe” that he said were not interested in a conflict.

Ivashov is known for his conservative and often anti-American views, but the sentiments he expressed are widespread. That makes the shift in European diplomatic rhetoric following Russia’s recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia all the more significant. The European leaders were unanimous in condemning the move as “absolutely unacceptable.”

Perhaps more significant than universal expression of “regret” at Russia’s decision was the direct criticism of Russia’s actions in Georgia that accompanied it. The Italians, previously so “close to Putin,” felt compelled to warn against the “ethnic-based balkanization of the Caucasus.”

On August 27, the day after the recognition, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kuchner said that in a certain way, “ethnic cleansing” was taking place in South Ossetia in villages previously held by the Georgian side.

It is, of course, difficult to image how else Europe’s leaders could have reacted. However, diplomatic expressions of disapproval do not necessarily mean Europe is now more united than it was.

Nor will they necessarily translate into concrete action. Nonetheless, there is a sense that Sarkozy’s peace plan has failed, and that the moderate West European approach has been discredited.

The most active and visible European statesman in the wake of recognition has not been Nicolas Sarkozy, but Britain’s far more hawkish Foreign Secretary David Miliband.

Perhaps aware that Russia has burned its bridges in Europe, some are urging it to look for allies elsewhere. Even Ivashov seemed to be hedging his bets. “When people speak of the ‘international community’ they only mean the West,” he said, “but the West is not the only option. Today we need to build alliances in the south and east, where many countries share Russia’s interests and concerns.”

That may prove to be a vain hope. Reactions to the recognition in other parts of the world have been lukewarm at best. President Medvedev thanked his colleagues at a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization for their constructive support, but none of them actually went so far as to recognize the two republics.

China, Russia’s most powerful potential ally and certainly the only country with the clout to really offer a counterbalance to the West, is wary of offering encouragement to its own separatists in Xinjiang, Tibet and Taiwan.

Nor has Russia’s move garnered support from Latin America, Southeast Asia or Africa. Only Belarus, which on Thursday evening announced it would recognize both republics by the weekend, has answered the call.

While Russia has apparently condemned itself to diplomatic isolation, Britain’s David Miliband busied himself organizing a response, setting off for Kiev to “gather support for the widest possible alliance against Russian aggression.”

If his choice of language reflects a hardening of resolve, the choice of destination shows how, at least for the West, the crisis has moved beyond the Caucasus.

With its large Russian population in the East, and especially in Crimea, which is also home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, many fear that Ukraine could be the Kremlin’s next target. NATO yesterday issued a statement reiterating that its members “support territorial integrity, independence and sovereignty of our states-partners like Ukraine and Georgia.”

That is not an offer of NATO membership, but it could well entail other solidarity measures. “I don’t think a MAP offer for Ukraine has become any more feasible than it was,” said Richard Wilson, senior fellow at the Europe Institute for Foreign Relations, “but there could be an EU-Ukraine agreement including a solidarity clause that would do some of the security work NATO would do.”

More immediate measures could include delivering on (so far neglected) visa facilitation commitments, with an eventual eye to a visa-free regime. Much of this is likely to be discussed at a Ukraine-EU summit on September 9.

It is unclear, however, how reliable a partner Ukraine will prove in Miliband’s alliance. The foreign secretary met with President Viktor Yushchenko, who loudly backed Georgia in the recent conflict and has pressed all the harder for NATO membership since it began.

But there is a presidential election next year and Yushchenko’s popularity ratings are at their lowest ever. What’s worse, said Kiril Frolov, head of the Ukrainian department at the Moscow Institute of CIS countries, is that his support for Georgia has divided the country, and could even prove to be political suicide. “Yushchenko’s visit to Tbilisi contributed to a schism in Ukraine between the West, who supported it, and the East, where most people were disgusted.

Yulia Tymoshenko, the prime minister, had a chance to be a unifying figure, but she squandered it when she approved Yushchenko’s decree limiting the movements of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

And that gave Viktor Yanukovich a chance to resurrect himself politically.” Yanukovich, who was almost a spent force in Ukrainian politics, seized the opportunity with both hands. He has now called on Ukraine to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and appears to be a strong contender for next year’s elections.

Much will happen before those elections, and with tensions rising, Russia’s current diplomatic isolation matters. Russia is in danger of being drawn into a confrontation without allies – or at least one that its allies want no part of. Russian military analysts are aware of the problem, and it may be some form of comfort that they, at least, have little appetite for further hostilities.

Despite its success in Georgia, the Russian military is not ready for any major confrontation. “Only about twenty percent of the armed forces are combat ready,” Anatoly Tsiganok, a military analyst, said at a press conference Wednesday. “The 58th Army (which fought in South Ossetia), the airborne forces, elements of the air force and elements of the Northern and Pacific fleets.” Asked how many wars Russia could fight simultaneously without allies, he answered "one."

Source: Russia Profile

Yushchenko Plays A Risky Game As Russia Turns Its Gaze On Black Sea

LONDON, England -- The last time a British government faced an international crisis over Crimea, the Foreign Office had no hesitation in dispatching gunboats to put the belligerent Russians in their place.

Ukraine threatened to end Russia's lease on the Sevastopol base after ships based there were sent to attack Georgia.
But when David Miliband, prior to his visit to Ukraine this week, took the wise precaution of first checking with Whitehall officials as to the current availability of British gunboats, all he received by way of reply was an embarrassed shuffling of feet.

The might of the Royal Navy, which once struck terror into the hearts of even the most recalcitrant dictators, has been reduced to such a parlous state by the parsimony of Gordon Brown's Treasury that the prospect of Britain sending warships to confront the Kremlin's latest intrigues in the Black Sea is almost non-existent.

The fact that the Government's military options are so limited explains why Mr Miliband was so keen to stress the need for international consensus in dealing with the Kremlin's latest Caucasian land grab.

Moscow's decision to recognise the breakaway Georgian republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia took everyone by surprise, not least Mr Miliband who had been led to believe that Russian President Dimitry Medvedev, who has spoken often of his commitment to the rule of law, would never undertake so rash an action.

Only last April, Moscow declared its support for a United Nations Security Council resolution reaffirming Georgian sovereignty. Mr Medvedev's natural disposition is to respect the territorial integrity of sovereign nations, a point he made repeatedly when the West decided to recognise Kosovo's declaration of independence.

But one of the more revealing aspects of Russia's recognising the breakaway republics is the extent to which Mr Medvedev is in thrall to his prime minister, Vladimir Putin, the Richlieu of the Kremlin.

Despite being elected Russia's president, Mr Medvedev's every action is controlled by Mr Putin - even the appointment of his diary secretary.

And having taken the unilateral step of redrawing Georgia's borders more to Moscow's liking, there is growing concern throughout the West that the Kremlin intends to extend its geographical revisionism further afield, with the all-important Russian naval port of Sevastopol in the Crimea its top priority.

It was no accident that Mr Miliband chose Ukraine as the location for his ground-breaking speech on the challenges facing the West in the post-Cold War era.

Ukraine's post-Soviet relationship with Moscow has been every bit as fractious as Georgia's, particularly since the 2004 Orange Revolution brought to power the decidedly pro-Western government of President Viktor Yushchenko, which has joined with Georgia in seeking the twin holy grails of EU and Nato membership.

This is not playing well in Moscow where, emboldened by its success with the Georgians, the Kremlin has now turned its attention to provoking discord in Crimea.

Compared with Georgia, where Russian interests are mainly confined to protecting the small minority of Russian passport holders who remain, the stakes are far higher in Ukraine, where the Sevastopol naval base is regarded as a crucial strategic military asset, providing Moscow with its only access to the Mediterranean.

At present the base is leased from the Ukrainian government until 2017, but now the Yushchenko government is seriously considering tearing up the agreement after Russian warships based at Sevastopol were used to attack Georgian positions during the recent fighting over the breakaway republics.

While officially the purpose of Mr Miliband's Ukraine mission was to set a template for how the West should handle Russia, the subtext of his visit was to urge the Ukrainians not to fall into the same bear trap as the Georgians.

But, as Mr Miliband discovered during his discussions with Mr Yushchenko - still suffering from the after-effects of dioxin poisoning at the hands of Russian agents during the 2004 election - and his even more hard-line prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, far from being cowed by Moscow's Georgian intervention, the Ukrainian government seems to be almost itching for a fight with Moscow.

Not content with tearing up the lease agreement on Sevastopol, Mr Yushchenko is seeking to place restrictions on the movements of Russian naval ships.

In its current belligerent mood, the Kremlin is not going to take such provocation lying down, and Russian soldiers have already been busy handing out passports to Crimeans to bolster the numbers of Russian "citizens" who might conveniently require Moscow's protection should Russia genuinely fear for the future of its Sevastopol base.

The Ukrainian government's action is foolhardy, to say the least. And before Mr Yushchenko provokes Moscow any further, he would do well to remember that the last thing the West needs right now is a new Crimean war.

Source: Telegraph UK

Alarm Bells In Ukraine

LONDON, England -- The British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, has travelled to Ukraine to discuss what he termed "a coalition against Russian aggression".

All smiles for the cameras: But the Ukrainian president and his prime minister have a tense relationship.
Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner has warned that Moscow may indeed set its sights on Ukraine - a situation he described as "very dangerous".

Ukraine's leadership currently pursues pro-Western policies.

President Viktor Yushchenko and Foreign Minister Volodymyr Ohryzko are both committed to Ukraine's eventual integration into western institutions, including Nato and the European Union.

Neither organisation has so far provided a "road map" to membership, any realistic prospect of Ukraine joining may be many years away.

This, along with the divisions entrenched in Ukrainian society and politics, are factors Moscow will try to use to its advantage in the fight for influence over Ukraine with the West.

Fractious parliament

Mr Miliband might be aware that opinion polls before the recent conflict suggested that as many as two-thirds of Ukrainians are either opposed to Nato membership, or have no fixed opinion. Attitudes to the European Union are much more positive.

President Yushchenko's popularity is at rock bottom. Opinion polls give him extremely low, single-digit levels of support.

His chances of re-election in the next presidential vote are very slim.

Forging a coalition with such a weak leader, in a country with such a fractious parliament, could be difficult.

Even more so when the other key figures - especially Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko - have been decidedly ambiguous over the Russia-Georgia dispute.

Mr Yushchenko has criticised Ms Tymoshenko's silence, with his allies even suggesting she was a "traitor" working for Russia's interests.

Her position is likely to be based on the pragmatism for which she is known.

She could not launch a bid for the presidency next year (and she is likely to do so) on an anti-Russian ticket.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian opposition leader, Viktor Yanukovych, has warned that Ukraine must not be drawn into disputes between Russia and third countries.

Naval fleet

From the Russian perspective, the issues are more clear-cut.

Firstly, Russia will not countenance any further expansion eastwards of Nato.

Some Russian politicians have even suggested restoring Russian influence in the Caucasus could serve as a model for Ukraine - which matters much more than Georgia.

Russia has a powerful tool at its disposal, namely the large ethnic Russian population in Crimea - also, significantly, the home of Russia's Black Sea naval fleet.

Mr Yushchenko has restricted fleet operations, and suggested Russia should pay more for its presence. He also insists it must leave when an inter-state treaty expires in 2017.

From Russia, there are regular calls for the annexation of Crimea, which was transferred from Russian to Ukrainian jurisdiction by the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, in 1954.

Russian separatism in Crimea appeared to have waned by the mid-1990s. But recently there have been consistent attempts to resuscitate it.

Reports suggest that over recent years, Russia has quietly issued many of the ethnic Russians in Crimea - legally citizens of Ukraine - with Russian passports.

In Moscow's view, this makes them Russian citizens, and gives Russia the right to act to defend them.

This was precisely the policy adopted towards South Ossetia and Abkhazia - separatist regions internationally recognised as parts of Georgia, but whose populations are described by Moscow as its own.

Alarm bells

Inflating the concept and definition of citizenship in this way opens the way to serious consequences

After all, well over 20 million Russians currently live outside the borders of the Russian Federation.

In some countries they form a significant minority of the population. Russia's government began to enunciate this policy some year ago, but it drew little attention in the West.

No-one is seriously forecasting armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine. But the mere notion sets alarm bells ringing.

In the West, because Ukraine is the major transit route for Russian oil and has en route to markets in central and western Europe.

And, in Ukraine itself, it is encouraging an important rethink of national defence strategy and military doctrine.

Constitutionally, Ukraine is a neutral country, one that voluntarily gave up nuclear weapons and that has pledged never to host NATO bases.

Nonetheless, leaks from the Ukrainian defence ministry suggest the country plans to bolster air defence systems in Crimea and the eastern regions bordering Russia.

Fighters currently deployed in other regions are likely to be moved to the Crimea. Large increases in spending on defence are expected to be announced as early as September.

Source: BBC News

Analysis: Is Ukraine The Next Domino?

LONDON, England -- Western politicians are currently scrambling for air tickets to Kiev. Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband rushed to Ukraine soon after Russia announced its recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney will follow.

Ukraine's President Viktor Yuschenko has made it clear that he would welcome closer ties with the West.
They want to shore up the Western-leaning President Viktor Yuschenko, amid fears that his country could become the next frontline in the power struggle between Russia and the West. It is in part a deliberate signal to an emboldened Moscow not to overreach. But EU nations will only be taking their support so far, for geographical, practical and political reasons.

Conflict between Russia and Georgia, a tiny country of around 5 million citizens, was one thing. Conflict with the 47 million strong Ukraine would be a different matter, with much wider ramifications. What do you think of Russia's relationship with the West?

While Georgia's President Mikhail Saakashvili, at least for the moment, seems to have the bulk of the Georgian population behind him, Ukraine is much more divided about relations with Moscow. There is a huge energy dependency. Around 17 percent of Ukraine citizens, according to the census, are ethnic Russians. Even the country's political leadership is divided.

Although they were allies in Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution and both would like to see Ukraine in the EU, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has distanced herself from Yuschenko's eagerness to enter the embrace of NATO. She has also criticized his presidential decree restricting the movements of Russia's Ukraine-based Black Sea fleet, based in Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, where there is a heavy concentration of ethnic Russians.

Yuschenko flew to Tblisi to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Saakashvili over the conflict in Georgia, while Tymoshenko focused on calls for a cessation of hostilities.

Miliband used his visit to Kiev to insist that Russia's re-drawing of the map in the Caucusus was a moment of truth for Europe, marking the end of a post-Cold War period of geopolitical calm. But significantly Miliband also urged Ukraine to avoid giving Russia a pretext to intervene in the Crimea, where Kiev accuses Russia of trying to stir up trouble -- just as Saakashvili had accused Moscow of doing in South Ossetia before launching his military assault.

The Ukranian port of Sebastopol is leased to the Russian Black Sea fleet until 2017 and Yuschenko has urged that Russia should be asked for a higher rent and be subject to more restrictions. Miliband may be making the toughest warning noises he dares to Russia, but he also urged that "the Ukrainian government should ensure that the letter of the agreements are stuck to until 2017."

In recent years Ukraine has sought an uneasy balance between courting the West and not too overtly angering Moscow. But lately Yuschenko has grown bolder, offering to co-operate in the U.S. missile defense shield in Europe, despite the chilling threats from Moscow to Poland over its planned participation. NATO and EU leaders would not want him to get much bolder than that.

While a majority of Ukrainians, according to opinion polls, would like to see their country in the EU, they are sharply divided about joining NATO. Only last April EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso complained about the country's lack of political stability (a key qualification for membership). Disputes between president and prime minister over relations with Russia, he suggested, were holding up progress.

There is a regular EU/Ukraine meeting next month and Kiev will be looking for strong signals that it will meet a favorable response over its membership aims. Miliband declared in Kiev: "My visit is designed to send a simple message: we have not forgotten our commitments to you."

Ukraine allies like Poland will be pushing for those words to be reinforced with action, but EU commitments tend to come with rather vague timetables, and to become entangled in wider issues.

Poland's prospects of speeding its membership prospects will depend on who wins the internal EU argument between those who, with an eye to their energy supplies, want to see the conflict with Russia cool down and those who want to send a strong signal to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev, in that order, that they have already gone too far.

Source: CNN Europe

Leonid Kuchma Built A Prosperous Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine -- On Aug. 9, Leonid Kuchma turned 70 years old. For 10 years, from 1994 until 2004, he was the president of Ukraine. He arrived as the savior of his nation, but the Orange Revolution ended his second term. His legacy is rich but multifaceted.

Leonid Kuchma was Ukraine's President from 1994 till 2004.
After Russia's attack on Georgia, Ukraine may be the next target. Moreover, the country is deeply divided politically. Against this backdrop, the merits of Kuchma become even more apparent.

Recently, I saw Kuchma again at the Yalta European Strategy, the annual conference that his son-in-law, Victor Pinchuk, organizes every year to promote Ukraine's integration with Europe. This year, he had former British Prime Minister Tony Blair as the keynote speaker. Last year, it was former U.S. President Bill Clinton.

Kuchma looks good, much healthier than when he was in office. I asked him to characterize himself. True to his personality, he answered with one word: "pragmatist."

Indeed, he may be called a dead-pan realist. He saw people exactly for what they were -- neither worse nor better. His great realism helped him to act rationally, but people regretted that he did not embellish them.

In his extensive writing, Kuchma has summarized his wisdom: "I know the history of Ukraine, and I know the character of its people -- both the strong and the weak sides. Ukrainians in general know themselves very well. We praise ourselves less than we curse ourselves.

And what do we curse ourselves for most? For the fact that there are three bosses for every two Ukrainians. You know the old saying: In a struggle for power, people are ready to destroy one another and everything around them."

"What was your greatest deed?" I asked.

"I saved the integrity of our country," Kuchma responded. When he was elected president in the country's free elections in July 1994, Crimea was toying with separatism. Through complex negotiations with many small steps, Kuchma peacefully exhausted this disorganized attempt at secession.

"What else are you most proud of?"

Kuchma stated the obvious: "The construction of a market economy in Ukraine and the fact that we achieved financial stabilization."

The year before he came to power, Ukraine recorded hyperinflation of 10,200 percent. The Soviet-style command economy had ceased to function, and no new economic system had been established. Economic chaos prevailed, and output was in near free fall. Ukraine had no international reserves, only unregulated debts.

At the time of Kuchma's election, the CIA issued a National Intelligence Estimate titled, "Ukraine: A Nation at Risk," which postulated that Ukraine might not survive as a state.

Kuchma asked the International Monetary Fund to help him sort out state finances and did what it took to save his country. Without hesitation, he carried out the necessary market economic reforms and privatized most of the economy.

By 1996, he had defeated inflation and introduced Ukraine's national currency, the hryvna. In 2000, when Viktor Yushchenko was prime minister, economic growth finally took off. Since then, it has averaged 7.5 percent a year -- no mean feat.

In 1996, Ukraine adopted its constitution, which finally brought some order to the chaotic government proceedings. As the former manager of the largest Soviet rocket plant in Dnepropetrovsk, Kuchma has always been perfectly organized.

Kuchma's domestic successes brought international recognition. Kuchma not only got along well with Clinton, he worked well with Boris Yeltsin, and they agreed on the intricate division of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet.

Like so many other great leaders, Kuchma was at his height during his first two years and seemed to do it all, but he remained in power for 10 years, overstaying his welcome.

History has shown that it is difficult for strongmen to understand when it is time to go, and the temptations to abuse power are great, not least to interfere with the media.

His darkest period was from 1997 to 1999, when his prime ministers were Pavel Lazarenko and Valery Pustovoitenko. Lazarenko looked upon government as his business, being the most blatantly corrupt top politician in Ukraine.

Pustovoitenko was the country's quintessential bureaucrat, and this in a country in which corruption and bureaucracy were the greatest flaws.

What was the worst chapter of his political career? Kuchma responded with one phrase -- "the Gongadze affair." In November 2000, socialist leader Oleksandr Moroz presented audiotapes in the parliament that had been made by one of Kuchma's bodyguards.

In the recordings, a voice resembling Kuchma is heard complaining vehemently about the muckraking journalist Heorhiy Gongadze, who had since been found dead.

Although a Kiev court in March convicted three former Ukrainian police officers in the Gongadze murder case, law enforcement officials were never able to identify those who ordered the killing. Nonetheless, Kuchma's previously high popularity plummeted, never to recover.

The opposition against Kuchma built up for four years and led to the Orange Revolution in November and December 2004, but it ended with the peaceful and democratic election of Yushchenko as president.

During the next year, Kuchma kept out of the public limelight, but he did not leave the country and stayed in his old house on the outskirts of Kiev.

Last year, he published a book about his view of Ukraine, "After Maidan," referring to the Ukrainian word for Independence Square, where the Orange Revolution took place. After the book was published, Kuchma appeared in public again.

As the luster of the Orange Revolution dims, Kuchma looks ever better. After all, he allowed democracy and all its freedoms to be secured. No one doubts any longer that Ukraine will stay independent and economic dynamism will continue.

For the last three years, Ukraine has adopted very little legislation, apart from the legislation needed to enter the World Trade Organization this year. If Yushchenko does not change his policies, his term will have been one in which no government could accomplish anything. Naturally, this leaves a black mark on the Orange Revolution.

Since Tymoshenko became prime minister, Yushchenko has vetoed nearly all her decisions, notably all decisions on privatization. Inflation rose to 31 percent in May because the Central Bank insists on an inadequate exchange rate policy with a dollar peg and therefore maintains high, negative real interest rates.

Whatever you say about Kuchma, he was a man who could make decisions and get things done. His second term, from 1999 to 2004, was Ukraine's most productive in terms of both legislation and economic growth.

He managed to rule Ukraine, which is a difficult art. Whatever happened under his rule, he created a functioning democracy. One reflection of Ukraine's democratic strength is that both Kuchma and his predecessor, Leonid Kravchuk, remain public personalities. Kuchma's 70th birthday is an opportunity to celebrate his contributions. Few people have done so much for their country.

Source: The Moscow Times

Son Of Ex-Georgian President Says Kremlin Brutality Never Changes

EAST HAMPTON, NY -- Immediately after the Russian Federation attacked Georgia, the presidents of all four European Union member countries located on Russia’s borders gathered in Tbilisi to show their solidarity.

Redjeb Jordania, son of the former Georgian president, now lives in USA.
This action speaks volumes in and of itself: Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, together with non-EU member Ukraine, profoundly mistrust and fear a Vladimir Putin-led nation, as well they should, considering the long history of Russian expansion and subjugation of independent neighboring nations.

To remain with the Georgian example, this invasion is but a repeat of what happened in 1921, when my father, Noe Jordania, was president of Georgia.

Then, as now, our country was resolutely democratic, which was and remains anathema to the Russian totalitarian regimes.

That year, breaking a non­aggression treaty signed a scant few months before, the Bolshevik Red Army supported by the Ossetians then living in Georgia attacked and occupied the Georgian republic and forcibly incorporated it into the Soviet empire just as the czars did in 1805, under the pretext of protecting that tiny country from the Persians and the Turks.

At various times in history, all the nations bordering on Russia suffered a similar fate.

On the domestic front, with few exceptions, everybody fears Putin, knowing full well that anyone opposing or criticizing the Kremlin power runs the risk of being murdered like the journalist Anna Politkovskaya and the ex-­KGB operative Alexander Litvinenko, poisoned and permanently disfigured like Ukraine’s president Victor Yushchenko, jailed like the businessman Mikhail Khodorovsky and many others, or, at best, badly beaten or roughed up like the world chess champion Gary Kasparov and his supporters who challenged the leadership in recent elections.

The sad thing is that while individually Russians can be and often are wonderful people, as a nation they seem unable to shake their acceptance and support of autocratic, dictatorial regimes.

The events in Georgia demonstrate once and for all that Russia has remained basically the same throughout the centuries, whether it is called Czarist Empire, Soviet Union or Russian Federation.

Hopefully, the whole world will finally realize that Russia never did and still does not function according to the democratic principles of the Western world.

Russia is authoritarian, to say the least, and always has been.

Putin’s official title has morphed from prime minister to president, after a travesty of an election where practically nothing changed in the power structure.

He may seem himself as the forceful leader of a great country, but in reality he is very simply a ruthless dictator in the lineage of Stalin, Lenin, Peter the Great, Ivan the Terrible and practically all his predecessors in the thousand­year Russian history.

His country and the world deserve better.

Source: Kyiv Post

Testing For A New 'Cold War' In Crimea

LONDON, UK -- The Russian military operation against Georgia and its recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia have led to concerns amounting at times to near panic about whether a new Cold War is under way.


The Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said that he does not want a new Cold War but is not afraid of one either.

So is the conflict a turning-point heralding a new age of confrontation or just a limited Russian action to resolve two border disputes left over from the Soviet era?

Or something in between, a sign of uncertainty on both sides which will mean tension but not the kind of ideological struggle and military stand-off that was the Cold War itself?

New test

A good test of Russian intentions could come in Crimea, the territory jutting out in the Black Sea. It is part of Ukraine.

The French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said: "It's very dangerous. There are other objectives that one can suppose are the objectives of Russia, in particular Crimea, Ukraine and Moldova."

The problem over Crimea is this. Crimea was handed over to Ukraine from the Russian Soviet Republic by Nikita Khrushchev in 1954. However ethnic Russians still make up the majority of its nearly 2 million inhabitants. It is also home to the Russian navy's Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol, on which Russia has a lease until 2017.

Sevastopol has resonance in Russian history, from the siege by the British and French in 1854-55. There have been small demonstrations there recently calling for Crimea to be returned to Russia. Valery Podyachy, head of the Sevastopol-Crimea-Russia Popular Front, said: "While Russia sent aid to flood-hit Ukrainian regions, Ukraine failed to help Russia to force Georgia to peace, and took an openly hostile stance."

There is the potential therefore for trouble. If Russia started to agitate on behalf of its "brothers" in Crimea and argued that it must have Sevastopol (even though it is building another base), Crimea could provide certainly a test of Russian ambitions and possibly a flashpoint.

Western worries

This fear of future Russian actions partly explains the Western worries. The British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has gone to Ukraine talking of forming "the widest possible coalition against Russian aggression in Georgia".

Mr Miliband is positioning himself at the hawkish end of the Western response. He said in a speech in Kiev that events in Georgia had been a "rude awakening" and that a "hard-headed engagement" with Russia was needed. But he added: "The Russian President says he is not afraid of a new Cold War. We don't want one. He has a big responsibility not to start one."

The US Vice President Dick Cheney is going to Georgia. Nato has met to declare that there can be no "business as usual" with Russia.

People are looking up the principles laid down by US diplomat George Kennan after World War II that called for the "containment" of an aggressive Soviet union.

The other view

There is another view, though, and this holds that while Russian intentions are not to be trusted, it cannot be wholly blamed for what happened in South Ossetia.

The former British ambassador to Yugoslavia, Sir Ivor Roberts, said: "Moscow has acted brutally in Georgia. But when the United States and Britain backed the independence of Kosovo without UN approval, they paved the way for Russia's 'defence' of South Ossetia, and for the current Western humiliation.

"What is sauce for the Kosovo goose is sauce for the South Ossetian gander."

The borders issue

Behind all this also lies the problem of European borders. During and after the Cold War, it was held (and still is) that borders, however unreasonable to the inhabitants, could not be changed without agreement.

This has given governments a veto. Serbia tried to veto the break-up of Yugoslavia. Georgia has not allowed Abkhazia and South Ossetia to secede. Ukraine holds on to Crimea etc.

The potential for a clash between the competing interests of local people and central governments is obvious.

The fear that borders may unravel also helps explain why the Russian recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia has upset Western governments so much.

Their problem, however, is that they offer no solutions to those disputes beyond best intentions and a status quo policed by peacekeepers, a status quo that can easily be upset.

Source: BBC News

French Diplomat Concerned About Russia's Intentions Toward Ukraine, Moldova

PARIS, France -- French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner is expressing concern that Russia, riding high after its victories in Georgia, may target other neighbors, such as Moldova and Ukraine.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner is concerned about Ukraine and Moldova.
"There are other targets that we may assume to be Russian targets, in particular Crimea, Ukraine, Moldova," Kouchner, whose country holds the European Union presidency, tells Europe 1 radio, according to Bloomberg News and Reuters.

AP says Kouchner also called on Moscow to reverse its "irresponsible decision" to recognize the independence of two breakaway regions in Georgia.

The United States, which has sharply criticized Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's decision, just delivered 34 tons of humanitarian supplies to Georgia.

Source: USA Today

British Leader Arrives In Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine -- British Foreign Secretary David Miliband is visiting Ukraine offering solidarity in a growing battle of words with Russia.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband at No. 10 Downing Street
The timing came shortly after Russia formally recognized the independence of Georgia's breakaway areas of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, further inflaming relations with other former Soviet states and Western powers.

Ukraine leaders' interest in joining NATO has increased tensions with Russia.

Miliband has said that would use the Ukraine visit to assemble the "widest possible coalition against Russian aggression in Georgia," the Times of London reported Wednesday.

He added that Russia's recognition of the separatist regions "further inflames an already tense situation" adding: "We fully support Georgia's independence and territorial integrity, which cannot be changed by decree from Moscow."

Ukraine President Victor Yushchenko described his country as a hostage in a war waged by

Russia against old Soviet bloc states. He added that the brief war between Georgia and Russia had exposed serious weaknesses in the powers of the United Nations and other international bodies.

But a large Russian-speaking population in Ukraine and polls showing that up to two-thirds of the country's population oppose NATO membership may limit his options, the BBC reported Wednesday.

Source: UPI

Europe's New Dividing Line?

WASHINGTON, DC -- In the wake of Russia's invasion of Georgia, the United States and its trans-Atlantic allies have rightly focused on two urgent and immediate tasks: getting Russian soldiers out, and humanitarian aid in.

U.S. senators Joe Lieberman (L), and Lindsey Graham, denounce Russian actions in Georgia during a visit to Warsaw, Poland.
But having just returned from Georgia, Ukraine and Poland, where we met with leaders of these countries, we believe it is imperative for the West to look beyond the day-to-day management of this crisis. The longer-term strategic consequences, some of which are already being felt far beyond the Caucasus, have to be addressed.

Russia's aggression is not just a threat to a tiny democracy on the edge of Europe. It is a challenge to the political order and values at the heart of the continent.

For more than 60 years, from World War II through the Cold War to our intervention in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the U.S. has fostered and fought for the creation of a Europe that is whole, free and at peace.

This stands as one of the greatest strategic achievements of the 20th century: the gradual transformation of a continent, once the scene of the most violent and destructive wars ever waged, into an oasis of peace and prosperity where borders are open and uncontested and aggression unthinkable.

Russia's invasion of Georgia represents the most serious challenge to this political order since Slobodan Milosevic unleashed the demons of ethnic nationalism in the Balkans.

What is happening in Georgia today, therefore, is not simply a territorial dispute. It is a struggle about whether a new dividing line is drawn across Europe: between nations that are free to determine their own destinies, and nations that are consigned to the Kremlin's autocratic orbit.

That is the reason countries like Poland, Ukraine and the Baltic States are watching what happens in the Caucasus so closely. We heard that last week in Warsaw, Kiev and Tbilisi. There is no doubt in the minds of leaders in Ukraine and Poland -- if Moscow succeeds in Georgia, they may be next.

There is disturbing evidence Russia is already laying the groundwork to apply the same arguments used to justify its intervention in Georgia to other parts of its near abroad -- most ominously in Crimea.

This strategically important peninsula is part of Ukraine, but with a large ethnic Russian population and the headquarters of Russia's Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol.

The first priority of America and Europe must be to prevent the Kremlin from achieving its strategic objectives in Georgia. Having been deterred from marching on Tbilisi and militarily overthrowing the democratically elected government there, Russian forces spent last week destroying the country's infrastructure, including roads, bridges, port and security facilities.

This was more than random looting. It was a deliberate campaign to collapse the economy of Georgia, in the hope of taking the government down with it.

The humanitarian supplies the U.S. military is now ferrying to Georgia are critically important to the innocent men, women and children displaced by the fighting, some of whom we saw last week. Also needed, immediately, is a joint commitment by the U.S. and the European Union to fund a large-scale, comprehensive reconstruction plan -- developed by the Georgian government, in consultation with the World Bank, IMF and other international authorities -- and for the U.S. Congress to support this plan as soon as it returns to session in September.

Any assistance plan must also include the rebuilding of Georgia's security forces. Our past aid to the Georgian military focused on supporting the light, counterterrorism-oriented forces that facilitate Tbilisi's contribution to coalition operations in Iraq.

We avoided giving the types of security aid that could have been used to blunt Russia's conventional onslaught. It is time for that to change.

Specifically, the Georgian military should be given the antiaircraft and antiarmor systems necessary to deter any renewed Russian aggression. These defensive capabilities will help to prevent this conflict from erupting again, and make clear we will not allow the Russians to forcibly redraw the boundaries of sovereign nations.

Our response to the invasion of Georgia must include regional actions to reassure Russia's rattled neighbors and strengthen trans-Atlantic solidarity. This means reinvigorating NATO as a military alliance, not just a political one. Contingency planning for the defense of all member states against conventional and unconventional attack, including cyber warfare, needs to be revived.

The credibility of Article Five of the NATO Charter -- that an attack against one really can and will be treated as an attack against all -- needs to be bolstered.

The U.S. must also reaffirm its commitment to allies that have been the targets of Russian bullying because of their willingness to work with Washington. The recent missile-defense agreement between Poland and the U.S., for instance, is not aimed at Russia.

But this has not stopped senior Russian officials from speaking openly about military retaliation against Warsaw. Irrespective of our political differences over missile defense, Democrats and Republicans should join together in Congress to pledge solidarity with Poland, along with the Czech Republic, against these outrageous Russian threats.

Finally, the U.S. and Europe need a new trans-Atlantic energy alliance. In recent years, Russia has proven all too willing to use its oil and gas resources as a weapon, and to try to consolidate control over the strategic energy corridors to the West.

By working together, an alliance can frustrate these designs and diminish our dependence on the foreign oil that is responsible for the higher energy prices here at home.

In crafting a response to the Georgia crisis, we must above all reaffirm our conviction that Russia need not be a competitor or an adversary. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Democratic and Republican administrations have engaged Russia, sending billions of dollars to speed its economic recovery and welcoming its integration into the flagship institutions of the international community.

We did this because we believed that a strong, prosperous Russia can be a strategic partner and a friend. We still do.

But Russia's leaders have made a different choice. While we stand ready to rebuild relations with Moscow and work together on shared challenges, Russia's current course will only alienate and isolate it from the rest of the world.

We believe history will judge the Russian invasion of Georgia as a serious strategic miscalculation. Although it is for the moment flush with oil wealth, Russia's political elite remains kleptocratic, and its aggression exposed as much weakness as strength. The invasion of Georgia will not only have a unifying effect on the West, it also made clear that Russia -- unlike the Soviet Union -- has few real allies of strategic worth. To date, the only countries to defend Russia's actions in the Caucasus have been Cuba and Belarus -- and the latter, only after the Kremlin publicly complained about its silence.

In the long run, a Russia that tries to define its greatness in terms of spheres of influence, client states and forced fealty to Moscow will fail -- impoverishing its citizens in the process. The question is only how long until Russia's leaders rediscover this lesson from their own history.

Until they do, the watchword of the West must be solidarity: solidarity with the people of Georgia and its democratically elected government, solidarity with our allies throughout the region, and above all, solidarity with the values that have given meaning to our trans-Atlantic community of democracies and our vision of a European continent that is whole, free and at peace.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Is Ukraine's Crimea The Next Flash Point With Russia?

MOSCOW—Russia's invasion of Georgia is raising concern that the next flash point may be Ukraine's Black Sea peninsula, the Crimea, an area once part of Russia that still provides a key warm-water port for the Russian Navy.

Sevastopol, Crimea
Moscow's relations with Ukraine have been strained since the 2004 Orange Revolution, in which pro-western Viktor Yushchenko won an election runoff after hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians protested the allegedly fraudulent victory of his Kremlin-backed rival.

Like Georgia's western-oriented leader, Yushchenko has been pressing hard and very publicly for his country to join NATO, a move that infuriates the Kremlin.

Next week, Vice President Dick Cheney is due to visit Georgia and Ukraine as a high-profile sign of Washington's support.

For the Russians, the Crimea is an issue of strategic importance, even more than pride or nationalism. Russia's Black Sea naval fleet is based at Sevastopol, a city located at the tip of the Crimea peninsula.

Russia holds a lease to the naval base until 2017, though in recent years Ukrainian politicians have made clear that they are eager for the Russian Navy to pull out.

And just as Georgia's leader unwisely challenged Moscow's interests in the pro-Russian South Ossetia enclave, the Ukrainians made a brief but troubling show of standing up to Moscow over its Crimean port.

After Russian warships departed Sevastopol for Georgia's Black Sea coast to support the Kremlin's offensive, the Ukrainian administration announced new restrictions on the fleet and threatened to ban the ships from re-entering Ukrainian territory.

The Ukrainians backed down, but that is not likely to be the end of the issue. Yushchenko said at Ukrainian Independence Day celebrations on Sunday that Ukraine is vulnerable and should push harder to join NATO.

"We need to accelerate our accession to the European security system and improve our country's defenses," he said. "Only these steps will effectively guarantee our security and the inviolability of our borders."

As a practical matter, the Georgian war is likely to put full NATO membership on hold, probably indefinitely, for Ukraine, as well for Georgia.

All along, the European members have resisted Washington pressure to move quickly on their membership, fearful that the western military alliance—with its collective defense obligations—would risk being drawn into conflict with Russia over old territorial disputes festering since the breakup of the Soviet Union.

A recent poll by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology of around 2,000 Ukrainians found that 50 percent fear a war with Russia over the presence of the Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol (35 percent said there was no cause for concern).

The Crimea, while it has a majority Russian-speaking population, has been under Kiev's at least nominal control since 1954, when Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev transferred it from Russia on the grounds that it had better economic and transport links with Ukraine.

Russia had won the Crimea from the Tatars in the late 18th century, and Sevastopol assumed a vaunted place in Russian history; many Russian schoolchildren read Leo Tolstoy's short stories about Sevastopol.

Today, ownership has become a highly emotive issue. Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov was banned from Ukraine in May after saying that Sevastopol, now a city of 400,000, does not belong to Ukraine.

An overreaction, perhaps, but it's a potentially dangerous topic for Ukraine. According to the 2001 Ukrainian census, the most recent, around 60 percent of the 2 million inhabitants of the Crimea are Russian, and around 25 percent are Ukrainian.

Last week, Russia denied reports that it has been distributing Russian passports in the Crimea, as it has done in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two pro-Russian regions seeking independence from Georgia. According to the Ukrainian newspaper Express 24, 15,000 Sevastopol residents, most in the military, hold Russian passports.

In Moscow, coverage of Georgia has so far drowned out the rumblings in Ukraine, but some Muscovites are clear where they stand. "No one in my circle—and they're rather well educated—would say the Crimea is Ukrainian territory.

You could shoot them, and they wouldn't say it's Ukrainian," said Yelena Kamenskaya, a prosperous Russian teacher. She added: "We all think it's going to be the next trouble spot."

As with Georgia, there is the prospect of U.S. involvement. The head of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council is in Washington this week for talks.

And Vice President Cheney is traveling next week to meet with leaders in both Ukraine and Georgia, visits that may embolden Russia's hard-liners. In the wake of Russia's move into Georgia, he declared that "Russian aggression must not go unanswered."

Parliamentarians from United Russia, Russia's ruling and virtually only party, see Yushchenko as acting at the bidding of the United States—some going so far as to cite the perceived influence of Cheney even before his trip was announced.

"It's not democracy when a president carries out the orders of a vice president of another country," said Sergei Markov, a United Russia deputy.

Analysts have suggested that Yushchenko is bolstering the specter of a rampaging enemy to boost his own rock-bottom popularity ratings. And considering the common historic and ethnic origins of Ukrainians and Russians—closer than Russians and Georgians—ordinary Russians would have a hard time coming to terms with a war on Ukraine, says Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of the magazine Russia in Global Affairs.

"An armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine would be a catastrophe. The two peoples are so close that, from a moral point of view, it's horrifying."

Source: US News and World Report

Ukraine Striker Andriy Shevchenko Gets Medical Examination At AC Milan

ROME, Italy -- Ukraine striker Andriy Shevchenko passed a medical examination Monday at the AC Milan's training camp to complete his transfer from Chelsea, the Italian club said.

Ukraine striker Andriy Shevchenko passed the physical at AC Milan.
"I am very happy to be here," Shevchenko was quoted as saying on Milan's website ahead of the tests. "I also want to send a greeting to Chelsea fans who, in the last two years, always made me feel their support."

Shevchenko agreed to terms on Saturday to return to Milan after failing to fulfill expectations during two injury-plagued seasons in England.

He scored 73 goals in 296 games during seven seasons with Milan, but scored just nine in 47 appearances for Chelsea after an English Premier League record transfer of 31 million pounds (then US$62 million) in the 2006 off-season.

The 31-year-old player arrived at Milan's Linate airport Sunday night.

Neither club has disclosed financial terms, but Milan officials have indicated that Shevchenko will accept a salary cut to return to the Italian club, which is owned by Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi.

Source: AP

Cheney Travels To Georgia, Ukraine Next Week

WASHINGTON, DC -- US Vice President Dick Cheney will visit war-torn Georgia as well as Ukraine and Azerbaijan next week and meet with the three countries' presidents, the White House said Monday.

US Vice President Dick Cheney will visit Georgia and Ukraine next week.
"President Bush has asked the vice president to travel to Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine and Italy for discussions with these key partners on issues of mutual interest," the White House said in a statement.

Cheney will be the most senior US official to visit the region since Russian troops invaded Georgia two weeks ago amid a dispute over the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Source: AFP

Russian Actions Reignite Tensions Over Strategic Port In Ukraine

SEVASTOPOL, Ukraine -- Russia’s guided missile cruiser Moskva appeared suddenly on the horizon, dark and imposing like a fortress in the twilight, and steamed on Saturday into this Black Sea port, where its sailors were given a hero’s welcome. “Russia! Russia!” chanted hundreds of supporters from the embankment, as fireworks burst.

Ukrainian soldiers marched Sunday in the country’s first military parade in years in the capital, Kiev, to celebrate 17 years of independence from the Soviet Union.
The ship, more than 600 feet long and bristling with guns and missile launchers, was one of several from the Black Sea Fleet that patrolled the coast of Georgia during the conflict between it and Russia.

The fleet — which the Russians say sank a Georgian gunboat that fired on them — is based here in Sevastopol, a city populated mainly by ethnic Russians.

The next day, in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, President Viktor A. Yushchenko presided over the first military parade in years — with a massive display of tanks, armored personnel carriers and missile launchers — to celebrate his country’s 17th year of independence from the Soviet Union.

Russia’s willingness to send troops into Georgia, another former Soviet republic, to settle their territorial dispute this month has made Ukraine jittery, and the pro-Western Mr. Yushchenko used the celebration to again push for inclusion in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

“We must speed up our work to achieve membership of the European system of security and raise the defense capabilities of the country,” Mr. Yushchenko said in a televised speech to thousands gathered in the city’s main Independence Square. “Only these steps will guarantee our security and the integrity of our borders.”

The dueling celebrations, one rejoicing in Russia’s military might and the other overshadowed by it, underscore the tensions between Russia and Ukraine, where leaders had hoped the days of Russian dominance were long over.

They also highlight Sevastopol’s status as something of a fault line between the two countries.

Though it is in Ukraine’s southern Crimean peninsula, Sevastopol — home to thousands of Russian naval personnel and their families — is ethnically and culturally very much a Russian town.

Crimea, connected to Ukraine by a slender causeway, was in fact considered a part of Russia, until Nikita S. Khrushchev, the Ukrainian-born Soviet leader, bequeathed it to Kiev as an act of good will in 1954.

What was considered a purely symbolic gesture at the time, however, assumed monumental importance with the breakup of the Soviet Union. Crimea — wrested from the Turkic Tatars in the late 18th century under Catherine the Great — was now a part of Ukraine.

And with it went Sevastopol, the strategic base for the Black Sea Fleet for more then 200 years and a city of deep emotional resonance for Russians.

Twice it has been besieged — by British-led forces in the 19th-century Crimean War, and then for 250 days before falling to the Germans in World War II.

After the Soviet breakup, Moscow and Kiev wrangled first over the ownership of the fleet — of which the Kremlin finally took the lion’s share.

Then they argued over the terms by which Russia could continue to use the base. The two countries agreed on a 20-year renewable lease in 1997.

With the ascension of Mr. Yushchenko’s pro-Western government after the 2004 Orange Revolution, and with Russia’s new assertiveness as petrodollars flow into its coffers, Sevastopol has once again been thrust under the klieg lights.

Crimea was a stronghold of Mr. Yushchenko’s political opponent, the pro-Russian Viktor F. Yanukovich.

Russian nationalists have begun agitating to reclaim Sevastopol and Crimea, although taking such an action is far from a mainstream sentiment.

The mayor of Moscow, Yuri M. Luzhkov, raised Ukrainian hackles in May when he called for Russia’s western neighbor to return “what doesn’t belong to it,” The Associated Press reported.

The Ukrainians, for their part, have struck back. Mr. Yushchenko, who traveled to Tbilisi in a display of solidarity with the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, threatened to ban Russian warships from returning to Sevastopol, saying their movements were subject to Ukrainian approval. Yuriy Yekhanurov, the country’s defense minister, later said that the fleet could move unhindered.

As with his Independence Day remarks, the Ukrainian leader has also amplified his rhetoric for joining NATO, despite Russia’s clear indications that it opposes expanding the alliance to its border.

Many analysts say that Europe is not seeking a battle with Russia and that the Georgian conflict has reduced, rather than enhanced, Ukraine’s chances of joining the alliance.

At the same time, the idea of eventually rejoining Russia has strong support among many in Sevastopol, though no one here is yet speaking of pushing the matter politically, let alone militarily.

“Everyone wants for Crimea to become part of Russia,” said Nina Vakula, a local resident, as she watched the Moskva.

Ms. Vakula is living proof of the ties that bind Russia and Ukraine. She is a Ukrainian citizen, but her son-in-law serves in the Black Sea Fleet and both he and her daughter hold Russian passports. The couple’s 2-year-old son, Yura, a Slavic portrait with hair bleached white from the sun, was born in Ukraine.

Ms. Vakula says that Ukrainians and Russians are part of one Slavic family, and that divisions between them are artificial.

Those sentiments are not shared by those who not only fear Russia’s return, but also worry that Sevastopol’s importance could provide a pretext for Moscow to extend its reach here.

“These people are separatists,” said Oleg Yatsenko, a student leader who traveled from Kiev to stage pro-Ukrainian rallies during the warships’ return, referring to the those who had gathered to welcome home the sailors. “They want to do the same thing here that was done in Georgia.”

Source: The New York Times

Ukraine Vows To Speed Up Bid To Join NATO

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has called for stronger efforts to join NATO, saying Ukraine shares Georgia's "pain" in its conflict with Russia.

Ukrainian missiles pass down Kiev's main street during a military parade to mark the 17th anniversary of Ukraine's Independence, in the capital in Kiev, Sunday, Aug. 24, 2008.
"We must intensify our work to win membership in the European security system and strengthen the defence capabilities of our country," Mr Yushchenko said in a speech marking the 17th anniversary of Ukraine's independence from the Soviet Union.

"Anyone who cares about Ukraine must openly declare that entry into the Euro-Atlantic security system is the only way to protect the lives and ensure the well-being of our families, children and grandchildren," he said.

Mr Yushchenko condemned the "forceful intervention and "aggression" waged against Georgia but vowed his country would not be Russia's next target.

"Ukraine will do everything to prevent any military escalation in our region."

Ukraine, which has a large ethnic Russian minority, has sided with Georgia in its confrontation with Russia over the breakaway republic of South Ossetia, whose rebel leadership is backed by Moscow.

Ukraine has sided with the West in condemning Russia for sending tanks and troops into Georgian territory in response to a Georgian offensive on August 7 to retake South Ossetia, where residents have been given Russian passports.

Addressing several thousand people gathered on Kiev's independence square, Mr Yushchenko said "the events in Georgia did not leave Ukraine indifferent.

"I share a deep empathy with all the suffering people of the indivisible Georgian land. Your pain is in our hearts."

Ukrainians watched a military parade on Kiev's main Kreshchatyk street, cheering tanks, armoured personnel carriers and missiles mounted on vehicles as they rolled by.

There was also a fly-past of some 22 fighter jets and other warplanes in the parade, the first military display since 2001 to mark the anniversary of Ukraine's secession from Moscow.

Source: AFP

Russian Incursion Sounds Regional Alarm

TBILISI, Georgia — The bombs dropped by Russian planes fell in Georgia, but the shudder also coursed through nearby nations that once existed under Moscow's thumb during the Soviet era.

A Russian serviceman walks in the town of Gori 80 km (50 miles) from Georgia's capital, Tbilisi.
For countries like Ukraine, Azerbaijan and the Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Russia's invasion and occupation of West-allied Georgia is rekindling haunting memories of a Soviet-era Kremlin that used its military might to keep its East European populations in lock step with Moscow.

Today, former Soviet republics and East bloc nations that long ago switched alliances westward have been watching the events in Georgia with alarm, wondering whether they might be next in line.

"This conflict in Georgia is a kind of 9/11 for Russia's neighbors, an event that changed all the security-related thinking in our countries," said Kadri Liik, director of the International Center for Defense Studies in Tallinn, Estonia's capital.

From 1999 to 2004, the Kremlin watched helplessly as 10 nations once ruled by Moscow joined NATO. Since then the Kremlin has rebounded on the shoulders of record oil prices and has solidified Europe's dependence on Russian oil and gas.

Russia has been ready to flex its newfound geopolitical might for some time, experts say, and the conflict with tiny Georgia, a nation led by a U.S.-allied president the Kremlin despises, gave Moscow the perfect arena.

Now Russia's neighbors worry that the Kremlin may expand that arena. Countries that have adopted pro-West policies, such as Ukraine and Azerbaijan, lie within what used to be the Soviet sphere.

Ukraine under threat

Ukrainians have especially watched with trepidation as events unfolded in Georgia. Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has been pursuing NATO membership, despite a threat last year from former President Vladimir Putin that Russia would re-aim nuclear missiles toward Ukraine if it joined NATO.

If an underlying aim in Russia's incursion into Georgia was to warn Ukraine and other former Soviet states about the perils of aligning with NATO, the strategy may have backfired, experts say.

"Russia's disproportionate actions in the Caucasus have raised a lot of concerns here, and the concerns are growing," said Alexei Haran, a political science professor at Kiev-Mohila Academy in Kiev. "The number of supporters of the idea of joining NATO is likely to increase."

Ukrainians are deeply divided by the question of NATO. The country's eastern and southern provinces are staunchly pro-Russian.

Russia has tried to exploit that rift by supporting Ukrainian opposition leaders. Russia's best leverage in Ukraine, says Haran, may be its Black Sea naval fleet, which under a lease agreement is allowed to be based in the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol until 2017.

When Yushchenko recently suggested Ukraine should restrict movements of those ships in the wake of the Georgian conflict, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev issued his own warning. "They must not tell us how to behave," Medvedev said.

Residents anxious

On the streets of Kiev, Ukraine's capital, anxiety runs high.

"If Russia ever attacks Ukraine, the world will know the truth—that Russia is a real armed monster," said Elena Titova, 32, an accountant. "That's why we should hurry up and stay close to NATO."

In Azerbaijan, citizens who embrace President Ilham Aliev's decision to align his country more closely with Washington and Western Europe now worry that the Kremlin will search for ways to force him to reverse course.

One tack Russia could pursue against Azerbaijan is to derail its burgeoning energy relationship with the U.S. and European countries. Azerbaijan ships Caspian Sea oil to Western markets through a pipeline operated by British energy giant BP.

That pipeline runs through Georgia, and Georgian officials have accused Russia of targeting the pipeline during its bombing raids. Georgia also accused Russia of bombing a key railroad bridge outside the town of Kaspi that was used to ship Azerbaijani oil to the West.

"It's clear that the events in Georgia infringe on Azerbaijan's interests directly and make Azerbaijan very wary," said Rasim Musabayev, a foreign affairs analyst based in Baku, Azerbaijan's capital.

Like Georgia, Azerbaijan wrestles with separatists in a frozen conflict that has endured for years and makes Azerbaijan vulnerable to Kremlin interference.

Azerbaijani officials have accused Russia of arming Armenian separatists who control the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in western Azerbaijan.

Though Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are all members of NATO and the European Union, their populations have watched with alarm as Russia pushed its troops deeper into Georgia.

A report in The Times newspaper in London quoting unnamed Russian sources as saying the Kremlin is considering arming its Baltic naval fleet with nuclear weapons has only heightened anxiety.

An Aug. 15 poll by a Tallinn-based survey group found that 83 percent of Estonians believed the Kremlin's actions in Georgia endangered Russia's neighbors.

"People are indeed worried," Liik said.

Source: Chicago Tribune

Ukraine Fears Being Next On Russia's Hit List

SEVASTOPOL, Ukraine -- Rival groups of Russian and Ukrainian demonstrators hurled insults at each other to a background of cannon fire as the Russian navy’s Mirage sailed into Sevastopol on Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula last week.

Russian missile boat "The Mirage" enters the Black Sea port of Sevastopol.
The celebratory gunfire could become all too real if fears are realised that Russia may repeat its incursion into Georgia and turn Ukraine into the next Caucasian flashpoint.

Crimea has a Russian majority population and, because of its strategic importance, Moscow deeply resented its loss at the time of the break-up of the Soviet Union.

Mirage, a guided missile corvette, returned on Friday morning to the home port of the Russian Black Sea fleet after seeing action against Georgia’s port of Poti, where it shelled Georgian defences and landed troops who occupied the city.

Many of the Russians waiting to greet Mirage belonged to a political party called the Russian Bloc, whose leader in Crimea, Vladimir Tyunin, said: “We say categorically that Crimea should and certainly will become part of Russia.”

He claimed that the Ukrainian government was trying to force native Russian-speakers to speak Ukrainian, showing only films and television programmes dubbed in Ukrainian and forcing Russians to assimilate their culture.

While Tyunin maintained that Russian annexation of Crimea would be peaceful, some of his supporters were more outspoken. One young woman said: “This is Russia. We want nothing to do with Ukraine. The Ukrainians oppress our people. They are totalitarians and fascists who take orders from America.”

Her remarks were greeted with approval by others, who aired a ferocious litany of charges and threats against Ukraine. With a million Russians in Crimea, outnumbering native Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars, local loyalties are often to Moscow rather than Kiev and the presence of the base serves only to reinforce the Russian claim.

Many “Crimean flags”, that differ only slightly from the Russian one, fly on the streets, not only in Sevastopol but also in most other Crimean towns.

Taking part in a rival pro-Ukrainian demonstration, opposing the return of the Mirage, was Oleh Fomushkin, a former colonel in the Soviet army and now a community activist.

“Moscow and its intelligence services have been active here for 17 years while the Ukrainian authorities slept or were too timid to act,” he said. “They’ve demonstrated their aggression in Georgia and they won’t hesitate to use violence to get hold of Crimea.”

Tension in Crimea has risen because of the public support for Georgia of Viktor Yushchenko, the Ukrainian president. Russia accused Ukraine of supplying weapons to Georgia and Yushchenko enraged the Kremlin by ordering restrictions on the future movements of the Russian fleet in Ukrainian waters.

The Black Sea fleet facilities are leased from Ukraine until 2017 but Ukraine, which wants to join NATO and the European Union, says it will not renew the lease. Moscow has made clear it is determined to stay.

Reports that thousands of Russian passports have already been distributed on the peninsula have sparked fears that a takeover may be in the offing. Moscow issued passports in South Ossetia to foster its breakaway from Georgia.

A western military source advised caution, saying Crimea was effectively already occupied by Russia.

Mykola Vladzimirsky, a Ukrainian journalist, said Tatars, who were deported by Stalin in 1944 but have slowly returned, might take up arms.

“If they carried out an attack against ethnic Russians, Moscow would have its excuse to annexe Crimea by contending that Ukraine is unable to defend Russian citizens,” he said.

Source: Times Online

Lomachenko Wins Featherweight Boxing Gold

BEIJING, China -- Ukraine's Vasyl Lomachenko has won the Olympic boxing featherweight gold, stopping France's Khedafi Djelkhir in the first round.

Ukraine's Vasyl Lomachenko (red) celebrates victory over France's Khedafi Djelkhir (blue).
Djelkhir was totally out-gunned from the start and took three standing counts before the referee waved off the contest.

Lomachenko, a world silver medallist last year, jumped on his opponent from the off and Djelkhir could not stop the blows raining down on his head.

He was down 9-1 when the referee put him out of his misery.

Turkey's Yakup Kilic and Shahin Imranov of Azerbaijan won the bronze medals.

Source: AFP

Ukraine's Osypenko-Radomska Wins Gold In Women's K-1 500M

BEIXIAOYING TOWN, China -- Inna Osypenko-Radomska of Ukraine won the gold medal in women's 500-metre kayak single Saturday, just nipping Italy in a tight finish.

Ukraine's Inna Osypenko-Radomska kisses the gold medal after the Kayak single 500m women's final at the Beijing 2008 Olympics Saturday, Aug. 23, 2008.
Osypenko-Radomska won in one minute 50.673 seconds. Josefa Idem of Italy was right behind with the silver medal in 1:50.677.

Both women sat in their kayaks past the finish line for nearly as long as the race before Osypenko-Radomska's name was flashed on the scoreboard as the winner.

Germany's Katrin Wagner-Augustin won bronze in 1:51.022.

Idem won a medal 24 years after she was a bronze medallist in the 500 K-2 in Los Angeles. She also has a gold and silver medal in the K-1.

Ukraine is currently in 11th place in the medal standings, having won six gold, four silver and thirteen bronze.

Source: TSN

Senator Back From Georgia Wants Tough Action Against Russia

WASHINGTON, DC -- Sen. Lindsey Graham said Friday that his visit to Georgia, Ukraine and Poland, at Sen. John McCain's behest, persuaded him that the United States and its allies must take tough steps to prevent further Russian military aggression against its smaller neighbors.

US Senator Lindsey Graham
Graham, a South Carolina Republican, called on NATO to "stop war-gaming on tables in Brussels" and to begin military exercises in Europe to show its commitment to protecting member nations.

"I found a Russia on the move, a Russia that is trying to intimidate its neighbors who are Democratic in nature," Graham said. "This (Georgia) conflict is not about a border dispute. It's about the desire by Russia to send a signal to its democratic neighbors that Russia is a dominant power."

Poland is a NATO member, and the United States backs Georgia's effort to join the trans-Atlantic organization.

Graham was joined on the trip by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, an independent Democrat from Connecticut.

The two men, McCain's closest Senate friends, met with the leaders of Ukraine and Georgia on Wednesday, then conferred with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Thursday before returning to Washington.

Graham and Lieberman briefed McCain in a call from Warsaw.

"I told (McCain) that there was unity in Georgia, Russia is doing a lot of damage, the Poles and Ukraine see this as a very big step in the wrong direction by Russia," Graham said. "Basically, that your view, John, of Russia being up to no good is correct."

Graham expressed skepticism over the start Friday of an apparent pullback by Russian troops in Georgia, under a cease-fire agreement brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

State Department spokesman Robert Wood confirmed movement of some Russian forces from Georgia, but he accused Moscow of violating the deal by setting up checkpoints and a security zone around the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had vowed to remove his troops from Georgia by late Friday, but a top Russian military commander said the pullout would take 10 days to complete.

Diplomats and analysts say there's little the West can do — short of going to war with Russia — to check its military muscle-flexing in the Caucasus.

Graham, though, said the United States and its allies should accelerate Georgia's bid to join NATO, reconsider Russia's membership in the G-8 group of advanced industrialized nations and freeze Moscow's campaign to enter the World Trade Organization.

Russia's move into Georgia, Graham said, has isolated it diplomatically and gained little support from other countries beyond Belarus and Cuba.

Graham said that Russia, a major producer of oil and natural gas, wanted to seize control of an energy pipeline that went from Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia, through Georgia to Turkey.

"We cannot sit on the sidelines and allow energy supplies to be controlled by Russia," Graham said. "We can't allow these young democracies to be intimidated by Russia."

Graham said he'd lead efforts in Congress next month to pass a $1 billion-plus package of emergency aid for Georgia and for the Senate to ratify a new missile-defense treaty with Poland.

He rejected Russia's claims that the treaty, which Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed Wednesday in Warsaw, threatens Russia.

The senator also rejected Russia's assertion that Georgia started the military conflict by attacking South Ossetia, a province with many ethnic Russian residents.

"It is clear that the Russians tried to create this provocation," Graham said. "They were looking for this opening. They're trying to lure these young democracies into a fight."

Ukrainian leaders told Graham and Lieberman that the Russian government has issued passports to 75,000 ethnic Russians who are living in the former Soviet republic, following a model of similar moves in South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia, both of which are heavily populated by Russians.

"We have to be bold now," Graham said. "We have to implement this treaty with Poland. We have to beef up NATO in the east (of Europe). We have to show the Russians they can't be part of the international community by behaving this way."

Source: McClatchy Washington Report

Ukraine Fears It May Be The Next Target For Russia

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine fears it could be the next target of Russia's campaign to reassert influence over countries it long dominated in the Soviet Union, with Moscow well placed to foment separatist feelings in its Russian-speaking regions.

A sailor takes part in a pro-Russia gathering in support of Russia's Black Sea Fleet that is based in Ukraine's Crimean port of Sevastopol August 21, 2008. Ukraine, which has backed Georgia in armed clashes with Moscow over South Ossetia, is angry Russia has used ships based on Ukraine's Crimea peninsula to take troops to Georgia, and has ordered tighter monitoring on Russian naval movements.
Ukraine stood by Georgia in its war with Russia over the region of South Ossetia. President Viktor Yushchenko traveled to Georgia to show his support and announced tougher rules on Russian naval movements from a base in Ukraine.

And in a departure from his usual careful balancing act between Russian and Western interests, Yushchenko attacked Russia over South Ossetia in a way more akin to Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.

Some political analysts say that could heighten the risk.

"When Ukraine prioritizes its national interests, it goes against Russia's interests and, of course, there will be conflict," said Viktor Chumak, an analyst for Ukraine's International Centre for Policy Studies.

"And Russia has broken through a psychological barrier to start this kind of war on former Soviet territory ... Georgia had created itself in the shape of an enemy of Russia, and many in Russia already see us in the same way ... We probably rank third in the list of Russia's leading enemies."

Both born out of bloodless revolutions, one orange and one rose, Yushchenko and Saakashvili's administrations want to join NATO, the European Union and secure close ties with the United States.

Like Georgia, Ukraine was not put on the fast-track to NATO membership at the alliance's summit last April, but was promised it would be allowed in one day.

All of this has angered Russia which is fearful of having the Western military alliance on its doorstep.

Other former Soviet republics have also been considering their rankings. Moldova, whose Communist government has courted the West rather than traditional ally Russia, fears it has taken the same path as Georgia and has Russian peacekeepers patrolling in its separatist Transdniestria region.

Even Belarus's leader, Alexander Lukashenko, initially distanced himself from the war, which was criticized in the West. But subsequently, at Moscow's prompting, he praised Russia's "wisdom" in the way it handled the crisis.

CRIMEA

Analysts say the Crimea region in southern Ukraine could be used by Russia to destabilize Ukraine. It hosts Russia's Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol and the majority of people living there are ethnic Russians.

Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine could also provide fertile ground, the analysts say.

Chumak said Russia could take advantage if Ukrainian politicians failed to resolve their differences and continued to let legislation slide. Yushchenko and his prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, have sparred over almost all policy decisions since she came to power in December.

"In that situation then Russia will start playing games, start provoking Ukraine, especially with Crimea," he said.

Yushchenko was quick to call on the West to protect Georgia's territorial integrity.

"When we think about our position on Georgia, I have no doubts ... The loss of sovereignty, putting into doubt the territorial integrity of Georgia -- this means revising the sovereignty of all," Yushchenko, swept to power by the 2004 "Orange revolution", said in a statement.

Russia could also hold Ukraine ransom over its gas supplies. Moscow controls about 80 percent of Ukraine's supplies and in 2006 Russia cut supplies to Ukraine over a pricing dispute.

"There is a reason to be wary in the short-term future, there is a threat in that Ukraine is similar to Georgia in terms of what has happened in recent years," said political analyst Oleksander Dergachev.

"But I find it difficult to think that the threat posed is a military one. Russia relies on the fact that it has more of an influence over Ukraine economically."

Most analysts cautioned against scare-mongering and said Ukraine could avoid confrontation by taking a pragmatic stance first and then reforming its economy in the long-term.

"If Ukraine sorts out its domestic situation and consolidates its foreign policy in terms of European and Atlantic integration and this goes at a good pace then we can avoid the South Ossetian scenario," Chumak said.

"I mean there is no stronger enemy to Ukraine than Ukraine itself, especially its politicians."

Source: Telegraph UK

Ukraine's Blonska Stripped Of Silver Medal

BEIJING, China -- Ukrainian heptathlete Lyudmila Blonska has been stripped of her Beijing Olympics silver medal after she tested positive for an anabolic steroid, an International Olympic Committee (IOC) official said on Friday.

Ukraine's Lyudmila Blonska now faces a lifetime ban.
"She has been stripped of her medal," the IOC official said after an IOC Executive Board meeting on Friday.

Blonska now faces the prospect of a lifetime ban after what has officially become her second doping offence.

She tested positive after her competition on Aug 17.

All top-five finishers as well as several other random athletes undergo drugs tests during the Games.

Blonska, who tested positive to methyltestosterone, had returned to competition in 2005 after serving a two-year doping ban.

It is now up to the International Association of Athletics Federations to impose any further sanctions.

Source: Telegraph UK

Ukraine Leaders Divided Over Russian Threat

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's prime minister has sharply criticised the country's president for restoring displays of military hardware to Sunday's independence day parade amid fears of provoking Russia.

Ukrainian military vehicles take part in a rehearsal for the Independence Day military parade in the centre of Kiev August 21, 2008. The parade will be held on August 24.
Battle lines between the former political allies are hardening at a treacherous juncture in the country's history.

As President Victor Yushchenko prepares to fight presidential elections in 2010, Yulia Timoshenko has issued what amounts to a broad scale challenge to her partner in Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution.

Grigory Nemyria, vice-prime minister and Miss Timoshenko's closest advisor, told The Daily Telegraph that differences over the parade formed part of a much wider divergence between the two leaders. "The prime minister thinks the military parade is inappropriate because of the cost at a time when Ukraine has to cope with severe flooding but also because this flexing of muscles is a provocation," he said.

Preparations for the parade have given Kiev the feel of a city preparing for occupation. Loud cannon fire has echoed through the canyon-like Soviet-era boulevards during the evening rush hour this week. Newspapers are filled with pictures of tanks. To crown the sense of siege, jets on a fly-past flew fast and low over the city.

Residents were shocked by the sudden militarisation of the Ukrainian capital, which has struggled hard to present a modern image. "This is the first time we've seen this in seven years," said Oleg Pashchenko, a newspaper vendor. "Why now and for what? The president must be crazy to think he is scaring the Russians."

In the wake of Russia's assault on Georgia, pressure on the Ukrainian leadership to row back from pro-western policies has escalated. While President Yushchenko resisted with measures that directly targeted Russian interests, the prime minister has shown increasing disquiet.

Mr Nemyria hinted that the prime minister was prepared to put a strategic change of direction before the electorate, a development that would mean breaking a pledge not to run.

"Foreign and security policy has not before been an issue in Ukrainian elections," he said. "But in the just beginning presidential elections it will be and it will be up to each party to explain their approach in the manifestos."

Miss Timoshenko has distanced herself from the president's determined pursuit of Nato membership. Mr Nemyria said the collapse of Georgia's army proved that upgrading the military of aspiring allies was unequal to the task of preserving peace next to Russia.

"Purely security based arrangements are not enough," he said. "We need a much more ambitious set of policies. The EU cannot remain on the sidelines. We need to demand that you the countries of Western Europe take a much more proactive approach to stability, particularly in regard to frozen conflicts."

Miss Timoshenko has also been critical of a presidential decree restricting the movements of Russia's Ukraine-based Black Sea fleet in its waters.

"This unilateralism on both sides causes problems," said Mr Nemyria. "The president took unilateral action in his announcement. There must be a mechanism to cover this issue but if it's not workable and not enforceable, it could act as a pretext for the other side."

Russia's intimate relationship with Ukraine stretches beyond the origins of its empire. The two nations share an ethnic Slavic make-up and the Orthodox religion. Ukraine has successfully steered west since 2004 while Russia under Vladimir Putin has become steadily more autocratic, both at home and abroad.

With at least 17 per cent of Ukrainians claiming Russian nationality on census forms, a ready constituency for Moscow lives in Ukraine. If inter-ethnic frictions build, Russia would have a reason to intervene as it did in Georgian.

So far Ukraine has avoided ethnic clashes. Mr Nemyria, a native Russian-speaker, claims that the handling of communal tensions is one of the great achievements of its independence.

However, there are signs that distrust is mounting. Ukrainians increasingly insist on speaking the national language, a development that has left many Russians excluded from both national affairs and small-scale social events.

At a riverside disco in Kiev, Tatania Lytvyn, a 32-year-old IT consultant, visiting from the Russophone city of Donetsk, partied inconspicuously yesterday in a showcase venue for Kiev's newly prosperous elite. But during a prize giving announcement in Ukrainian, she was suddenly dismayed.

"It's become really hard for us. Everything is pressure to use Ukrainian and people get really mad if we don't," she said. "But who cares about Ukrainian? Who learns that language?

"Russian is known all over the word. It's disgusting but what can we do."

Source: Telegraph UK

“Why Is The Boss Mum?” – Leonid Kravchuk Asks President Yushchenko

KIEV, Ukraine -- If presidential office officials have proof of Tymoshenko’s high treason and say they have handed it to the prosecutors (and this means that they have some documents) and prosecutors deny seeing any documents, then the question arises “Why does the incumbent keep a low profile and does not react to such tomfoolery?” asks Ukraine’s first President Leonid Kravchuk.

Dr. Leonid Kravchuk, first President of an independent Ukraine.
Kravchuk says recent statements by Yushchenko aides humiliate the country and its authorities. “It is abominable and indecent when officials accuse the premier of the gravest crime one can imagine for a politician, with the president keeping a tight lip, Kravchuk adds.

He doesn’t believe the officials could make such statements without the incumbent knowledge. Kravchuk poses a question: who’s the boss in the presidential office if ordinary clerks dare to do whatever they want.

“I am not defending any one, I am for a law-abiding, tolerant and balanced relationships in the Ukrainian executive. I am opposed to ways when officials make irresponsible statements, and the incumbent doesn’t bring them to account,” Kravchuk stresses.

Tymoshenko, he goes on, has been accused of all crimes imaginable, and now the presidential team has accused her of the gravest crime, high treason.

“They still have one more crime to pin on Tymoshenko. They can say that there hasn’t been Armageddon yet because Yulia Tymoshenko hasn’t engineered it. When they accuse her of not starting the Armageddon, I will say it out and loud they are nuts, and instead of being in politics they should be treated in a clinic,” the first president noted.

There shouldn’t be any dismissal of the cabinet as it is working effectively. It is stupid to sack the cabinet because the opposition wants this to happen.

Kravchuk is convinced that even if the opposition manages to sack the cabinet, it won’t be able to create a coalition and appoint a new premier. Tymoshenko will only benefit in the end, same as she will from presidential office clumsy stunts, he says.

Source: ZIK

Ukraine Military In Poor Shape

KIEV, Ukraine -- If current doomsday predictions suddenly came true and Moscow attacked Ukraine like it did tiny Georgia, Kyiv would fare a bit better, but almost surely face the same dismal outcome, experts say.

Ukrainian military marchers
While Ukraine’s army is more than five times larger in terms of troops than Georgia’s, it is still is no match for Russia’s military. In comparison, Ukraine’s seven functioning naval vessels are dwarfed by the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s 46 fully­armed navy ships strategically based in Ukraine’s Sevastopol port, which is leased to Russia through 2017.

Moreover, Ukraine’s arsenal is nowhere near ready to respond effectively.

Its weapons are few and outdated. Its conscripts are demoralized by low pay. And strategists are leaving what some describe as a sinking warship.

“The only thing Ukraine’s army is basically able to do is march down Kyiv’s main street Khreshchatyk for a military parade, that’s it,” said Volodymyr Savchenko, first­rank captain and deputy head of the Ukrainian Officers Union.

Wary of his country’s inability to protect itself from an imminent threat, pro­Western President Victor Yushchenko stepped up efforts in recent days to bolster support from citizens for Ukraine to join the NATO military alliance. He has also sought out ways to integrate his country as a partner with Western collective security organizations. It’s a move aimed at setting up a psychological deterrent to a bullying neighbor in the short­term before NATO membership can be sealed.

“What happened in Georgia is the best example how easily military actions, and questions of territorial integrity, can in today’s condition be forced upon a country that does not have collective security guarantees,” he said.

Referring to the bloody conflict in Georgia, Yushchenko said that if Ukraine’s borders are “questioned” by someone, “then that means we are on verge of deep and serious military actions.” Last week, Yushchenko toughened up to Moscow by unilaterally setting new restrictions on Russia’s use of Sevastopol. He also offered Western countries use of Ukraine’s early­warning missile detection radar systems.

The bold presidential moves worry Leonid Kravchuk, Ukraine’s first president. With no foreign security guarantees and squat chance of winning a military standoff with Russia, Kravchuk worries tough actions could escalate what are already tense bilateral relations between Kyiv and Moscow.

“The world isn’t a calm place today. Wars are breaking out and before getting involved I think Ukraine should have sealed its security policy first.” With a weak army and no guarantees, Ukraine’s “welfare, sovereignty and independence are impossible to defend at this moment,” Kravchuk added.

Unlike Georgia, whose air force numbers less than a dozen planes, Ukraine has a significantly larger air force and anti­aircraft systems which experts said could help defend its airspace and inflict considerable damage on its opponent.

The defense forces of Poland, Romania and Hungary, for comparison, do not have any surface­to­air missile systems comparable to Ukraine’s, said Alexander Khramchishin, an analyst at the Russian Institute of Military and Political Analysis.

Also, political analysts say Ukraine’s early­warning missile radar systems based in the western Ukrainian town of Mukachevo and in Sevastopol might be of great interest for the United States and other members of the Northern Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Just getting NATO or western countries using Ukraine as a partner for their collective security could, as a move before formal membership in NATO, make Moscow think twice before challenging Ukraine’s territorial integrity in the pro­Russian Crimean peninsula, for example.

Ukraine requested a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP), the last step towards a full membership invitation, together with Georgia earlier this year. At a Bucharest summit in April, members of the alliance pledged both would be members in the future, but postponed any decisions on a MAP. Kyiv and Tbilisi hope to be accepted into a MAP at a follow­-up NATO summit in December.

In the meantime, Ukraine – like Georgia – is stuck with a weak and ill­prepared army. Savchenko said an army’s readiness can be judged by two factors: the state of its weapons and equipment, and the officers’ and soldiers’ morale.

While Georgians showed themselves to be united and motivated in their fight against Russia, and have extensive military action experience in conflicts that have plagued the region since the breakup of the USSR, in the case of Ukraine, there is bad news on both fronts.

Almost all its weapons are inherited from the Soviet army, and are therefore outdated. Georgia in recent years spent some $2 billion to purchase new arms, from Ukraine, the U.S. and Israel. Of Ukraine’s roughly 800 tanks, the few operational ones are modernized models of tanks first produced in 1964. The planes were made in 1970-­1980s.

“While we use second and third­generation tanks, [NATO members] use tanks and aviation of the fourth and fifth generation,” said Victor Chumak, a security expert at the Kyiv­based International Center for Policy Studies.

While Ukraine’s armed forces are badly in need of upgrades, the country ­ paradoxically ­ has in recent years ranked as one of the top ten arms exporters worldwide, with about two percent of the global market. And its domestic defense spending is only a fraction of NATO standards.

“According to Ukraine’s security and defense legislation, expenses on defense should account for some 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). NATO would require it to be 2 percent of GDP, but Ukraine’s expenditures for defense this year are only 1.1 percent of GDP,” said Mykhailo Samus, an expert at the Center for Army Conversion and Disarmament Studies.

This limited budget funding available is inefficiently spent. Out of nearly $2 billion in funding set aside for this year, 61 percent is being spent to feed, house and take care of nearly 200,000 military personnel. Only six percent goes to purchases and upgrades of weapons, equipment and infrastructure.

The limited spending leaves soldiers, and the military overall, strapped for cash. Rather than spending their time training for war, or other missions, soldiers are often engaged in other activities, such as picking potatoes to feed themselves and comrades. Conscripts commonly get marksmanship training only several times during a 10­-month compulsory military service.

“If a conscript is digging holes for laying cables or building his chief’s summer cottage it means that the chief can’t teach the soldier how to fight in war,” says Savchenko. “Soldiers aren’t grave­diggers. Their task is to defend the motherland.”

Even compared to Georgian army personnel, Ukrainian army officers are also notoriously underpaid and cared for. A lieutenant’s wage is Hr 1900 ($422) per month, for example.

“Most of Ukraine’s officers don’t have apartments to live in and money to support their families and finance their children’s education,” Savchenko said. This results in loss of the most skilled officers. They leave the army in search of better paying jobs, he added.

Abandoning the draft and moving to a smaller yet better­trained contract army could solve a lot of these problems, experts say. The transition is planned to take place by 2011, but progress is slow.

According to a Defense Ministry report, this year alone financing of this transition program fell 85 percent short of the budget. Less than $400 million of the planned $3 billion in funding was provided. The same report said that out of the 3,750 contract soldiers the army aimed to sign up, only 1,181 had joined.

However, if the Ukrainian government continues ignoring the army’s problems, the country’s defense will be nothing to speak of.

“A single drunk enemy soldier would be able to drive all of Ukraine’s armed forces into the Dnipro River with a whip,” Savchenko cynically warned of the dire situation.

Source: Kyiv Post

Ukraine PM Rejects Traitor Accusations: Report

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko on Wednesday refuted allegations of treason levelled by the presidency which hinted that she sided with Russia over the conflict in Georgia, a report said.

Ukraine's Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko is in an on-going feud with President Viktor Yushchenko.
Tymoshenko, who is locked in a bitter feud with her erstwhile ally President Viktor Yushchenko said she wanted to "immediately refute this declarations," according to the Interfax news agency.

In a statement from administration official Andri Kyslynsky, the presidency said earlier Wednesday, "the actions of the current prime minister show signs of high treason and political corruption."

Kyslynsky offered no proof, but said that "we are handing over materials in our possession to the security forces for a detailed examination."

He said suspicions centred on Tymoshenko's silence over Russian actions in Georgia, whose president, Mikheil Saakashvili, is a close ally of Yushchenko.

He also said that Tymoshenko was seeking the Kremlin's support ahead of a bid for Ukraine's presidency in an election due between 2009 and 2010.

Analysts and the media in Ukraine have raised concerns that Russian troops will target the country's Crimea peninsula as long as Yushchenko continues to openly support Tbilisi in the Georgia-Russia conflict.

Crimea is home to the naval port city of Sevastopol where Russia's Black Sea fleet has been based since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. It also has a large Russophone population with pro-Moscow sympathies.

Last week, Yushchenko heightened fears that Ukraine, a close ally of Tbilisi, could be caught up in the conflict when he imposed new restrictions on the Black Sea fleet.

In a veiled criticism of the president, Tymoshenko on Wednesday called for a more considered approach.

"Concerning the tensions between Ukraine and the Black Sea Fleet... I think that the Ukrainian authorities should behave in a more responsible way and not lead Ukraine into military conflicts," Interfax quoted her as saying.

Source: AFP

Milan Close On Shevchenko As Abramovich Mellows Over £30m Pal

LONDON, UK -- Milan are exploring ways in which they can cover Andriy Shevchenko's wages as they edge closer towards re-signing the Ukraine international on a season-long loan to end a dismal two-year spell at Chelsea.

Having scored 127 goals in 208 league games for the Rossoneri, Ukraine's Andriy Shevchenko still has hero status at San Siro.
Shevchenko cost the Londoners a British record £30 million ($56 million) in the summer of 2006 but has struggled to make any consistent impact at Stamford Bridge and has rarely justified such an inflated fee.

He has managed only nine league goals in 47 league appearances and, while his efforts have been hampered by hamstring, groin and back injuries, he appears to have lost the explosive pace and poise that were once key to his game.

Regardless, he retains hero status at San Siro after scoring 127 goals in 208 league games in a seven-year career at the club, with the Rossoneri having enquired regularly as to his availability while he laboured in London.

Roman Abramovich, a close friend of the Ukrainian, had always resisted the possibility of releasing the striker yet that stance now appears to have mellowed.

Informal talks took place between the clubs over the summer though they did not prompt any resolution, with Chelsea understood to be unwilling to subsidise the forward's £121,000-a-week wage during a long-term loan in Serie A.

More contact is expected before the transfer window closes at the end of the month with Milan ascertaining whether they could afford the 31-year-old's salary. Their outlook was more optimistic last night.

"There really isn't much more to be done," said the Milan director Silvano Ramaccioni. "We are close to the end of the deal and I hope that these little things that have to be fulfilled are done as soon as possible. I would be extremely delighted if Shevchenko returns to Milan and I am ready to embrace the Ukraine champion again. For us it's about a return home."

It certainly appears that Shevchenko does not figure in Luiz Felipe Scolari's plans at Stamford Bridge. Groin surgery over the summer was a set back for his pre-season preparations, though he did recover enough to feature as a substitute in Chelsea's friendlies on their recent tour of Asia and Russia.

However, with his match fitness apparently much improved, he was not even included as one of the club's seven substitutes in Sunday's 4-0 win victory over Portsmouth, with the teenage forward Franco di Santo preferred.

Chelsea, of course, retain an interest in Milan's Brazilian midfielder Kaka - who is currently recovering from knee surgery - though they appear to have accepted that their pursuit of the playmaker is likely to prove more successful next summer.

Instead, they believe Real Madrid can be persuaded to sell Robinho before the September 1 deadline, though that transfer is only likely if the Spanish club can recruit a replacement in advance.

Scolari is close to securing the 20-year-old Fabio Paim from Sporting Lisbon, most likely on an initial 12-month loan, with negotiations on-going between the two clubs. The attacking midfielder has yet to represent the first team but is considered a notable prospect.

Source: Guardian UK

Yushchenko: Georgia Conflict Shows Kiev Needs NATO

KIEV, Ukraine: Ukraine's president said Wednesday that the Russian invasion of Georgia shows that NATO membership is the only guarantee of his country's independence.

US Senator Joe Lieberman stopped in Kiev, on the way to Georgia.
Viktor Yushchenko told visiting U.S. Senators Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham that the conflict in Georgia demonstrates Ukraine's need for NATO protection.

The Republican senators were on their way to Georgia to show support for its pro-Western leadership and discuss the crisis.

"Our aim is to receive international guarantees of Ukraine's territorial integrity which is only (guarantee) possible in the framework of collective security," Yushchenko told the senators.

Russian troops have been occupying large parts of Georgia for days. They moved in after Georgian forces tried to take the rebel province of South Ossetia by force earlier this month.

Many Ukrainians worry that after dealing with Georgia, the Kremlin might set its sights on Ukraine.

Like Georgia, this former Soviet republic has angered Moscow by seeking closer ties with the West and membership in NATO.

Source: International Herald Tribune

Silver Medalist Blonska Fails Drug Test

BEIJING, China -- Lyudmila Blonska of Ukraine is under investigation for a positive doping test and could be stripped of her silver medal in the Olympic heptathlon.

Blonska served a doping suspension between 2003-05 and if guilty of a second offense faces a lifetime ban.
The International Olympic Committee said Wednesday it has opened a disciplinary procedure into Blonska, who finished second behind fellow Ukrainian Nataliia Dobrynska last Saturday.

The 30-year-old Blonska served a doping suspension for the steroid Stanozolol between 2003-05.

If the second sample proves positive on Thursday "she will be suspended for life," Lamine Diack, the president of the International Association of Athletics Federations, said in an interview. "Over and done with. And we go on."

The announcement came only hours ahead of Usain Bolt's attempt to clinch a 100-200 sprint double at the Bird's Nest, one of the highlights of the track program.

Diack insisted that Bolt's performance and the three world records set so far on the track would outshine any positive tests.

"This will not spoil the games. It will spoil nothing. If Blonska testing positive would ruin the games, that would kill us," Diack said.

"These things happen. there are 2000 athletes here," he added. "It is not because Blonska is doped that we scrap Bolt. That would kill us."

Diack said he had been notified of the positive result by Gabriel Dolle, the director of the IAAF's medical and anti-doping department.

"Only on my way here, Dolle phoned me to say this athlete tested positive. The process is under way."

Blonska is also competing in the long jump and was third in qualifying ahead of Friday's final. Her place in that event is now in jeopardy.

The third-place finisher in the heptathlon was American Hyleas Fountain, who would be moved up to the silver if Blonska is disqualified. Russia's Tatiana Chernova would climb from fourth to the bronze.

Blonska served a doping suspension between 2003-05 and if guilty of a second offense, she could face a lifetime ban.

Blonska won the silver medal in the heptathlon at last year's world championships in Osaka, Japan, and took gold in the pentathlon at the 2006 world indoors in Moscow.

British athlete Kelly Sotherton, who finished fifth in the Olympic heptathlon, complained publicly for months that Blonska should not be allowed to compete in Beijing because of her doping past.

"I'm pleased her teammate beat her," Sotherton said last Saturday. "That makes it bittersweet. I'd have been really upset if she'd won gold. The penalty you should pay if you take drugs is not to compete at the Olympics."

Four athletes have been disqualified and kicked out of the games so far for positive drug tests -- Greek hurdler Fani Halkia, North Korean shooter Kim Jong Su, Spanish cyclist Isabel Moreno and Vietnamese gymnast Thi Ngan Thuong Do.

Earlier Wednesday, IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said a total of 4,133 tests had been conducted so far, including more than 3,290 urine controls and 840 blood screenings.

By the end of the games Sunday, the IOC will have carried out between 4,500 to 5,000 drug tests in Beijing, up from 3,600 in Athens four years ago.

Davies said 39 athletes had been caught ahead of the games in testing by international sports federations and anti-doping organizations.

"The IOC was very clear in the lead-up we would work in concert with all the anti-doping bodies," she said. "We feel the deterrent effect plays a part in what we see here. The athletes know the IOC means business."

Because of the spate of high-profile doping scandals in recent years, there is intense media and public interest in the test results from marquee Olympic events, especially the men's 100 meters.

Davies said she didn't know whether all tests had come back clean from Saturday's final in which Jamaica's Bolt won the gold medal in a world record time of 9.69 seconds.

Davies said she wasn't privy to results from specific tests or events, noting 300 to 350 samples are being analyzed each day.

Normally, it takes 24 hours for a negative test to be confirmed, 48 hours for positive tests for steroids, and 72 hours for positive results for the blood-booster EPO.

Source: CNN

What Is Russia Afraid Of?

WASHINGTON, DC -- Forty years ago this week, on the night of Aug. 20 and early morning of Aug. 21, 1968, thousands of tanks and hundreds of thousands of soldiers rolled into Czechoslovakia.

Russian tank in Czechoslovakia - August 21, 1968.
The goal of the invasion was straightforward: to prevent a Soviet satellite from carrying out democratic reforms, which, if they had been allowed to succeed, could have threatened the legitimacy of the governments of the other Soviet satellites and, indeed, of the Soviet Union itself.

Superficially, it has to be said that the events of August 1968 do bear some resemblance to the events of August 2008, as the American secretary of state has already observed.

For yes, not only are there again tanks with Russian commanders rolling over the territory of another sovereign country, some of the invaders' intentions are similar.

Once again, Russia is punishing a former satellite whose reforms, if successful, could challenge its own political system.

True, Russia is no longer Soviet. But its ruling clique, led by former President and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, remains steeped in the paranoid, highly controlled, conspiracy-obsessed culture of the old KGB.

He and his entourage are not Communists, but neither do they believe in free markets or free societies. Instead, all important decisions must be made in Moscow by a small, unelected group of people who know how to resist sabotage organized from abroad.

Events cannot be allowed to just happen; they must be controlled and manipulated. Elections cannot just take place; they must be determined in advance.

The Russian state's open hostility, not only toward Georgia but also toward Ukraine and the Baltic states, is, in this sense, partly ideological.

Genuine elections have taken place in all these countries; people who have not been preselected by the ruling oligarchy sometimes gain wealth or power.

Georgia's Rose Revolution and Ukraine's Orange Revolution even involved street demonstrations that helped unseat more-oligarchic regimes.

Thus it is not pure nationalism, nor mere traditional great-power arrogance, that makes the Russian leadership disdainful of Georgia and Ukraine: It is also, at some level, fear that similar voter revolutions could someday challenge Russia, too.

Nevertheless, the word superficial is worth repeating here: As I've written before, I don't really like historical analogies, which can conceal as much as they reveal.

For one thing, the ethnic conflict that sparked the Georgian president's foolhardy response and the Russian invasion two weeks ago has been twisted and manipulated, but it nevertheless involves real people.

Any long-term solution to the current crisis has to find some accommodation for the South Ossetians whose homes and livelihoods have been destroyed in the exchange of fire.

More important, though, the international situation is utterly different. Despite some misty-eyed memories of alleged Cold War decisiveness, we had, back in 1968, neither the will nor the ability to help its victims.

Our only real response to the Soviet invasion was a bit of public spluttering. Most of Europe was still recovering from the "events of 1968," the student uprisings celebrated across the Continent earlier this year in a haze of post-radical nostalgia.

Today's Russian leaders, despite the paranoia they learned in KGB training, have far more profound relationships with Western institutions, not only the G-8 and the Council of Europe but the Western banks and companies that invest their money and manage their property.

Today's Europe is theoretically better prepared to engage Russia, though it has not done so until now. On Aug. 8, I wrote that the West, which failed for many years to address the security vacuum in the Caucasus, would have no influence over Russia, and in the short term this has proved true.

Despite a cease-fire brokered by France, Russian troops are withdrawing very slowly, if at all. We have no military means to force them out and should not pretend otherwise.

But if this turns into a long-term conflict, if the Russian military remains in Georgia proper, if this proves to be only the first of more incursions into other neighboring states, there are relationships we have and meaningful levers we can use, whether over Russian membership in international institutions or Russian leaders' luxury apartments in Paris—if, of course, we are willing to use them.

The critical question now is whether the West is prepared to behave like the West, to speak with one voice and create a common trans-Atlantic policy.

In recent years, Russia has preferred to deal with Western countries and their leaders one by one. Just last week, an affiliate of Gazprom, the Russian state-dominated gas company, added a former Finnish prime minister to its payroll—which already includes former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.

If we hang together instead of allowing Gazprom to pick us all off separately, there is at least a chance that this minichill won't last another 40 years.

Source: Slate

Russia Warns Ukraine Not To Interfere At Navy Base

KIEV, Ukraine -- Russia's foreign minister warned Ukrainian leaders Tuesday against trying to restrict the Kremlin's use of a Crimean naval base it leases from Ukraine, adding to tensions that have heated up since Russian troops invaded Georgia.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
Ukraine's pro-Western president, Victor Yushchenko, has sided with Georgia and moved last week to restrict Russian warships at the leased military base at the Black Sea port of Sevastopol, saying the vessels' movements were subject to Ukrainian approval.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dismissed that argument in a sharply worded barb Tuesday, saying Russia's ships don't need any permission to use the port.

The lease agreement says "nothing about us needing to explain to someone why, where to and for how long the Black Sea Fleet ships are leaving their walls," Lavrov was quoted as saying by Russia's state-controlled ITAR-Tass news agency.

Ukraine's Defense Ministry said it was considering Russia's request to allow four Russian warships to enter Sevastopol on Wednesday, but declined further comment.

However, Foreign Minister Volodymyr Ohryzko sought to cool tensions, saying his country wouldn't physically prevent Russian ships from entering or leaving the naval base.

"Without a doubt, there won't be any mine fences or military collisions; one shouldn't even talk about that," Ohryzko said in Kiev, the Interfax news agency reported.

Many Ukrainians worry that after dealing with Georgia, the Russians might set their sights on Ukraine, which like Georgia is a former Soviet republic government that has angered by Moscow by seeking closer ties with the West and membership in the NATO military alliance.

Russia's critics say the conflict in Georgia heralds a new, worrying era in which an increasingly assertive Kremlin has shown itself ready to resort to military force outside its borders in pursuing its goals.

Many Ukrainians fear the Kremlin's fierce opposition to Ukraine's drive to join NATO and Moscow's desire to regain control of the palm-lined Crimea peninsula and the Sevastopol naval base might put Ukraine at a risk of a military conflict with its giant neighbor.

Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov has warned Ukraine that it still isn't too late to return "what doesn't belong to it" — a reference to Crimea.

Ukraine is also important to Russia because its pipelines carry Russian oil and natural gas westward. The country also has a huge Russian-speaking population in its east and south that wants to remain linked with Russia.

While siding with Georgia, Ukrainian officials have acknowledged that Moscow's quick military victory exposed their nation's own vulnerability.

"I think that Russia is looking for a reason to have a serious conflict with Ukraine," said Iryna Mezentseva, a 21-year-old secretary in Kiev.

Source: AP

Shock In Ukraine: Ukrainian President Yushchenko Demands Investigation Of PM Yulia Tymoshenko For State Treason

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's presidency announced on Monday the submission of a written request to investigate Ukraine's incumbent PM, Yulia Tymoshenko, for presumed state treason and political corruption.

President Yuschenko has accused his prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko of plotting to use the current crisis to take over as president.
Tymoshenko, in an open conflict with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko is accused of state treason in favor of Russia.

Ukrainian Presidency's Deputy Chief Secretary Andrey Kinslinky said, quoted by the UNIAN news agency, that Russia plans to support Yulia Tymoshenko's candidacy for President in the upcoming presidential elections.

According to gazeta.ru, Tymoshenko is Russia's favorite for her passive position in the Russian-Georgian conflict.

Tymoshenko declared that she was against the measures adopted by Ukrainian authorities to block the Russian military fleet to transit Ukrainian waters.

According to Ukrainian newspapers, it was very unlikely that Tymoshenko would be actually sent to court.

Moreover, experts declared that the President wants to pressure the Prime Minister to adopt a clear cut anti-Russian attitude.

Source: HotNews

Ukraine PM 'Working For Russia'

KIEV, Ukraine -- Aides to Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko have accused Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko of working in Russia's interests in a bid to become president.

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko
Presidential spokesman Andriy Kyslynsky said Ms Tymoshenko had been co-operating with Russia by avoiding any criticism of its actions in Georgia.

He said she was counting on Moscow's support in next year's Ukrainian presidential election.

Ms Tymoshenko, currently on holiday, has not yet commented on the claim.

Rows between President Yushchenko and Ms Tymoshenko scuppered their previous alliance after they came to power in the Orange Revolution in December 2004.

Mr Kyslynsky said a Tymoshenko campaign headquarters had been set up in Moscow, headed by Viktor Medvedchuk.

He was the chief of staff of former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma - the political enemy of Ms Tymoshenko and Mr Yushchenko in 2004.

"Last week, we announced that we had information about Yulia Tymoshenko's systematic work in the interests of Russia. Unfortunately, that information is now confirmed," said Mr Kyslynsky, quoted by the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.

"We will hand over the material we have to the law enforcement bodies, for detailed study," he said.

"Society has the right to get an answer to the question: How far can politicians go beyond the point where political campaigning ends and betrayal of national interests begins?"

Source: BBC News

Europe Wonders If It Can Square Its Need For Russia With A Distaste For Putin

PARIS, France -- As NATO foreign ministers gather Tuesday for an emergency meeting on the Georgian crisis, Europe is divided over how to balance its ties to Russia with concerns over the country’s new aggressiveness.

German Chancellor Merkel shakes hands with Georgian President Saakashvili during a visit to Tbilisi. Merkel has said that the ex-Soviet republic -- currently mired in conflict with Russia -- will join NATO.
The European dilemma is clear, said Clifford Kupchan, a director of the Eurasia Group, a consulting firm in Washington. “How do they square their increasing energy dependence on Russia with their increasing political discomfort with Putin?” he said, referring to Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin. “It’s a very hard circle to square.”

As the United States looks for more than symbolic gestures on how to support Georgia and another former Soviet republic, Ukraine, there is a split between “old and new Europe” — roughly Western and Eastern Europe, Mr. Kupchan said. New Europe, backed by Britain and Scandinavia, is taking a harder line toward Russia, while old Europe “will only be reinforced in its view that Georgia and Ukraine are not ready for NATO.”

After Russian behavior during the Georgia crisis, said Jacques Rupnik, an Eastern Europe expert at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, known as Sciences-Po, “There is little disagreement now in Europe about the nature of the new Russia.” Those Europeans “who didn’t get it before are getting it now,” Mr. Rupnik said. Still, Europe is taking comfort, as usual, “in the idea of mediating between Washington and Moscow.”

The cease-fire agreement now signed by Russia and Georgia was negotiated by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, in his role as president of the European Union. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, traveled to Tbilisi to offer her support to Georgia but continued to straddle the American position that Georgia be offered NATO membership soon and the European view that it should happen at some future time.

This is not Europe’s fight, said Stefan Kornelius, foreign editor and columnist for the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. “I don’t see Europe prepared to go to war with itself over Georgia,” he said. “The European foreign ministers sense this is too big for them and they will in the end align themselves with the United States, while trying to affect policy.”

The Americans are looking for concrete gestures to punish and warn Russia — perhaps suspending or even canceling the NATO-Russian Council, or as Ronald D. Asmus, director of the Brussels Transatlantic Center of the German Marshall Fund, suggests, “fast-tracking NATO membership for Ukraine.”

NATO could also begin formal defense planning, including putting in military infrastructure, to defend new NATO members like the Baltics and Poland against even a hypothetical war with Russia.

As a gesture to the Russia of Boris Yeltsin, who grudgingly accepted NATO expansion, “NATO never developed military plans to defend central and eastern Europeans, because we said, ‘Russia’s not an enemy and not a threat,’ and we never backed up the new members with exercises and infrastructure,” said Mr. Asmus, who was a senior State Department official in the Clinton administration.

The Germans opposed such moves at the time; Gerhard Schröder, the former German chancellor, and Jacques Chirac, the former French president, were considered a kind of pro-Russian axis in NATO. Both are gone, replaced by more pro-American and more viscerally anti-Communist leaders in Ms. Merkel and Mr. Sarkozy.

But France, Germany and Italy remain deeply dependent on Russian energy. Mr. Sarkozy is eager to mediate between Washington and Moscow, and Ms. Merkel is in a grand coalition with the left. Her foreign minister, the Social Democrat Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a close Schröder aide, is considered very friendly toward Moscow.

In an interview published Sunday, he urged the West against a “knee-jerk reaction” like suspending talks between the European Union and Russia on strategic cooperation or banning Russia from the World Trade Organization.

The Russians say they are pulling out of Georgia — but it will be their own definition of Georgia, which does not, apparently, include South Ossetia and Abkhazia, where they have distributed Russian passports. Few believe they will leave those ethnic enclaves, even if they redefine their own occupation troops as “peacekeepers,” let alone allow the regions to be controlled by the Georgian government.

Even if the formal borders of Georgia remain unchanged for now, in the long run Russia will have been seen to expand.

“Russia has never been a nation state, but always an empire, with Muskovy gradually expanding its borders since the 15th century,” Mr. Rupnik said. “Russia built a state as it built its empire; the two were inseparable.”

The Russian Federation was never a state in its current borders, and more than 25 million Russians live outside it, mostly in the former Soviet Union. “These new borders are new and somewhat artificial,” Mr. Rupnik said. “And we in the West never fully measured the effect of this loss of empire on the Russians, or how integral Ukraine is to the Russian sense of self.”

The Orange Revolution in Ukraine, which Russia failed to stop, “was the real wake-up call for Putin,” Mr. Rupnik said. “The Russian conclusion then, and it’s widely shared there, is that the limit has been reached — no more concessions, a push for rollback, and definitely no Georgia and no Ukraine in NATO.”

Ukraine has its own built-in ethnic Russian enclaves in the east and in Crimea — the home of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and handed to Ukraine in 1954 by Nikita S. Khrushchev, the Ukrainian-born Soviet leader. Like Ossetia, split by Stalin so that North Ossetia is in Russia and South Ossetia is in Georgia, Crimea is a kind of poison pill to keep Ukraine in line, one supported by nearly total energy dependency on Russia.

That is why, for those like Mr. Asmus, NATO’s response to Russia’s actions in Georgia should involve Ukraine. But that is also why many Europeans do not want to commit to defending another Russian neighbor when they have neither the will nor the means to enforce that commitment.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, there have been numerous border changes in Europe — mostly recently in Kosovo, the example Mr. Putin uses to defend Russia’s move in Georgia. “We are still in the process of building and making states,” Mr. Rupnik said. “The map is not finished.”

Source: The New York Times

Russia 'Distributing Passports In The Crimea'

LONDON, UK -- Ukraine is investigating claims that Russia has been distributing passports in the port of Sevastopol, raising fears that the Kremlin could be stoking separatist sentiment in the Crimea as a prelude to possible military intervention.


The allegation has prompted accusations that Russia is using the same tactics employed in the Georgian breakaway regions of Abhkazia and South Ossetia in order to create a pretext for a war.

Russia handed out passports to the residents of the two provinces, which have long looked to Moscow for support, five years ago. The Kremlin has justified its invasion of Georgia in terms of defending its citizens in Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgian "aggression".

Mykola Stretovych, an MP with Ukraine's ruling orange coalition, claimed that Russia was engaged in a massive operation to hand out passports in Sevastopol, home to 400,000 people, many of whom have historic ties with Russia.

Anatoly Gritsenko, chairman of the Ukrainian parliament's national security committee, launched a probe into the claims which, if true, would represent "a threat to national security", he said.

Tensions between Moscow and Kiev have grown in recent days after Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine's pro-western president, imposed restrictions on Russian ships entering the Black Sea Fleet's base in Sevastopol.

The decision to place limitations on movement to and from the base, which Russia rents from Ukraine, was taken after ships from the Black Sea Fleet were used in military operations in Georgia.

Ukraine further infuriated the Kremlin last week by offering Europe and the United States access to its missile warning systems.

Mr Yushchenko's alliance with Georgia has caused further resentment among the Crimea's overwhelmingly Russian-speaking population. The territory was historically part of Russia but was awarded to Soviet Ukraine by Nikita Khrushchev in 1954.

The head of Ukraine's security service, however, said that despite nationalist tensions in the territory, a rebellion in the Crimea with or without Russian support was inconceivable.

"Prosperity, peace and calm in the Crimea is the very foundation on which the interests of Ukraine and neighbouring Russia coincide," Valentin Nalivaichenko said.

Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, warned Russia that its actions in Georgia would further increase the alienation of Ukraine towards Moscow. Mr Yushchenko has applied for Ukraine's membership of Nato, a move bitterly opposed by the Kremlin.

"If the Russians intended this as intimidation, they have done nothing but harden the attitudes of the small states around them," she said. "I think the Russians have made a significant mistake here."

Source: Telegraph UK

Looking Both Ways: As They Watch Georgia Floundering, Belarus And Ukraine Are Playing Their Cards Very Carefully

LONDON, UK -- Western politicians and commentators have been quick to seize on the conflict in South Ossetia as a defining moment in world history, or their careers.

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenka
Some have been clambering to play peacemaker (Sarkozy, Kouchner), others want to boost their reputations for taking a strong line with Moscow (McCain, Miliband).

But closer to Russia, in the neighbouring countries of Ukraine and Belarus, some politicians have been conspicuous by their silence.

In Belarus, President Alexander Lukashenka has stunned the Russians with his lack of overt support. In an outburst on Tuesday, Russia's ambassador to Belarus said he was "perplexed by the modest silence on the Belarusian side. You need to express yourself more clearly on such issues."

Belarus is a member of a union state with Russia, has close economic, political and social ties with the country, and has enjoyed much support from Moscow in the past – from cheap gas to the congratulations Putin sent to Lukashenka on his re-election in 2006, while others were declaring him "the last dictator in Europe".

But in the isolation from the west that followed his re-election in 2006, including travel bans and economic sanctions, Lukashenka also started to find that money from Russia was beginning to dry up as Moscow hiked the price of gas.

Since then, the Belarusian leader has taken a series of steps to persuade the west that he is opening things up, notably by releasing a number of political prisoners.

His reaction to the July bombing of a concert he was attending can be viewed as a further attempt to give his regime a better image in the west.

The EU and the US have responded, but made it clear that any concessions are dependent on a greater degree of openness in the parliamentary elections in September.

Coming out in support of Russia's war in Georgia could have caused irreparable damage to his plan, given the predominantly anti-Russian mood in western political circles.

Lukashenka's silence, therefore, should be understood as consistent with a gradual shift in his policy towards appeasement with the EU and the US. He is, of course, playing each side off against the other.

He has no desire to open politics in Belarus up any more than is necessary to get what he wants. Furthermore, the opposition in Belarus is divided and weak.

But any opening up in Belarus must be welcomed: it shows that the west's soft power is in a position to have a positive effect in the region and may give the opposition a chance to put forward their views in a less hostile environment.

Before making any concessions, however, the EU and the US need to ensure that Lukashenka is not just window-dressing.

In Ukraine, prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko has had nothing to say about the war. With her ability to attract support in all parts of the country, Tymoshenko is a unique figure in Ukrainian politics.

As the leading contender for the 2010 presidential elections, she has no intention of alienating any part of the electorate, as demonstrated by her non-committal position on joining Nato.

More interestingly, Tymoshenko's predecessor, Party of Regions leader Viktor Yanukovich, whom the Russians tried to propel to victory in the 2004 presidential elections, has been restrained in his comments.

His party as a whole has been calling for peace and criticising President Viktor Yushchenko's one-sided support for Georgia, without decisively coming out on the Russian side.

This reflects a mood in the Party of Regions – whose main support base is in the Russian-speaking east of the country – that is split between pro-Russian elements and groups with a more pro-western orientation.

A Party of Regions deputy in the Verkhovna Rada I spoke to last month told me that they were in favour of Nato. The party's major backer and Europe's richest man, Rinat Akhmetov, is part of a more liberal wing of the party which is purportedly in favour of a move towards Nato for business reasons.

The party did not take part in anti-Nato protests during exercises in Odessa last month, nor when the secretary general visited Kiev in June.

The Party of Regions is not likely to start campaigning in favour of Nato membership any time soon and has a tendency to exploit and inflame this divisive issue – such as during the Nato exercises in Feodosia in 2006 – in order to garner votes.

But these are further signs that the west's soft power is having an influence on Ukrainian politicians. The reactions of Lukashenka and Yanukovich to the conflict in South Ossetia show that Russia's military victory does not herald the whitewash in the region that many have been proclaiming.

If Russia's intervention in Georgia has made some fear that the country's territorial ambitions are unstoppable, calm analysis points to a more complex picture.

Source: Guardian UK

In Ukraine, Fear Of Being A Resurgent Russia's Next Target

KIEV, Ukraine -- For 17 years now, several former satellites and republics of the Soviet Union have cherished their democracies, all made possible by the simple premise that the days of Russian dominance were over.


The events in Georgia over the past week have made them rethink that idea. Poland announced Thursday that it had reached a deal with Washington to base American missile interceptors on its territory, after months of talks. But then a Russian general went so far as to say that Poland might draw Russian nuclear retaliation, sending new shudders through the region.

The sense of alarm may be greatest here in Ukraine. Since the Orange Revolution began in 2004, bringing the pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko to power after widespread protests, Ukraine has been a thorn in Moscow's side, though perhaps not as sharp as the outspoken Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili.

"We're next," said Tanya Mydruk, 22, an office assistant who lives in Kiev, the capital. "Sooner or later our president is going to say or do something that goes too far, and then it will start."

Ukraine has done little to win Russia's favor since the crisis in the Caucasus began. On Wednesday, Ukraine announced that it would restrict the movements of Russia's Black Sea fleet into Sevastopol, on the Crimean peninsula. On Friday, the Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying it was prepared to give Western countries access to its missile-warning systems.

"What happened here in the last week certainly came as a shock, not only to Georgia but to a lot of others as well," said Peter Semneby, the European Union's special representative for the South Caucasus. "A lot of people will, as a result of this, want to build a closer relationship with their Western partners as quickly as possible."

Tensions between Russia and Ukraine have been high for years. Yushchenko, like Saakashvili in Georgia, has sought stronger ties with the West, including membership in NATO, which Russia has said would threaten its security. In early 2006, Russia cut off natural gas supplies to Ukraine, in a bold maneuver to weaken Yushchenko's government.

Yet despite fears of a Russian resurgence, Ukraine remains deeply tied to Russia by culture and history. Its ethnic Russian minority, largely in the south and east of the country, is roughly 17 percent of a total population of 46 million. Many Russian speakers watched the conflict in Georgia unfold through the prism of state-controlled Russian television channels that are broadcast here.

A growing nationalist sentiment among other segments of society, along with expanding trade and cultural ties with the West, has further complicated the political situation.

Asked whether Ukraine's future lay with Russia or the European Union, Lena Stepnevska, 24, who works at a construction company and was out for a walk in the capital on Friday, opted for Russia. "I would like to believe it will be Russia, because we are fraternal nations and have to support each other," she said.

Though he supports membership in both NATO and the European Union, Anatoliy Grytsenko, the head of the national security and military committee in Parliament and a former military minister, said Russia could not be ignored. "Russia will not disappear tomorrow, as well as in a century or two," he said. "We will always wake up and it will be there, not Canada."

The Baltic states, meanwhile, are gravely concerned about what a newly dominant Russia could mean for them, even though they became members of NATO in the 1990s and therefore have more protection.

"In the public, there's a certain anxiety," said the Estonian president, Toomas Hendrik Ilves. "Given our history, we understand why people feel anxious."

While Ilves said fears that Russia would invade Estonia were unfounded, he emphasized the serious consequences of Russia's actions in Georgia in terms of maintaining international order. "The assumption of the post-1991 settlement has been that the old Russia is in the past — that it is not a country that invades its neighbors," he said. "Basically the entire European security architecture is based on this premise."

Estonia has been at the forefront of states that have provided aid to Georgia. It also sent Internet security specialists and agreed to host Georgian Web sites after those sites were attacked. Georgian officials suggested Moscow was behind the attacks, a charge the Russian government has denied.

In addition to fear in the region, there is anger with the West for not doing more to rein in Russia. In an interview with a Polish newspaper on Saturday, Lech Kaczynski, Poland's president, criticized the European Union as being too soft on Moscow

At Shevchenko Park in the heart of Kiev, card games have gotten pretty heated since the fighting between Georgia and Russia began.

"Smart Russians keep silent and they still think about their fate in Ukraine," said Vasyl Marsiuk, 70. He sat at one of the granite tables where older men also play dominos or checkers, in the shade of chestnut trees.

In his eyes, the Russians are the clear aggressors in the Caucasus conflict, and they are by no means finished with their ambitions for the region. "Ukraine is under the same threat, the same kind of Damocles sword," he said.

Marsiuk spoke Ukrainian, but a man overhearing him launched into a defense of Russia, in Russian. "It was Georgia that started the conflict," said the man, Pyotr Lyuty, 53, who said he had served in military intelligence in Soviet times.

Asked if he thought the Soviet Union should have broken up, he replied with a simple and direct, "No," before adding, "My grandfather explained it to me. You can break a bunch of twigs one by one, but if we take a bunch of twigs you can never break.

Source: International Herald Tribune

Ukraine Dismisses Fears Of Crimea Separatist Crisis

KIEV, Ukraine -- A top Ukrainian security official on Saturday discounted any notion of a separatist rebellion in the sensitive Crimea as President Viktor Yushchenko proposed Kremlin talks on the issue of the Russian fleet based there.

Kremlin leader Nikita Khrushchev handed Crimea to Soviet Ukraine, in 1954.
Ukraine's pro-Western leaders, brought to power by the 2004 "Orange Revolution" and committed to seeking NATO membership, have been increasingly at odds with Russia over foreign policy.

Yushchenko, like the United States, backs Georgia in its conflict with Russia over separatist South Ossetia.

He further enraged Moscow this week by ordering restrictions on the movement of ships in the Black Sea fleet, based in the Crimean port of Sevastopol. Russia's military vowed to disregard the rules, saying the fleet answered only to Russia's president.

Russia's conflict with Georgia over the separatist region of South Ossetia has prompted suggestions that pro-Russian nationalism in the Crimea, strong in the 1990s, could be rekindled and undermine the authority of the Ukrainian state.

Crimea, part of Russia from the late 18th century, was handed to Soviet Ukraine by Kremlin leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1954. It became part of independent Ukraine in 1991 when the Soviet Union fell.

Valentin Nalivaichenko, acting chairman of Ukraine's SBU security service, said latent nationalism in Crimea could not be compared with South Ossetia's longstanding rebellion that ultimately led to the conflict between Georgia and Russia.

"I am certain that such a scenario is not possible in Ukraine," he told the weekly Zerkalo Nedeli.

"Prosperity, peace and calm in Crimea is the very foundation on which the interests of Ukraine and neighboring Russia coincide. Everything else is of secondary importance."

Nalivaichenko said Ukraine had taken legal action to hobble nationalist groups in Crimea. "If we complete this stage and go on to the next one, we can be confident that there will be no Russian, or any other, destabilization scenario in Crimea."

LEASE TO RUN OUT

Russia's Black Sea Fleet is based in the port of Sevastopol under a leasing agreement due to expire in 2017. Yushchenko has made plain that the lease will not be renewed and talks should focus on overseeing the fleet's orderly departure.

Outbursts of pro-Russian nationalism in the 1990s prompted authorities in Kiev to reduce local autonomy.

Kiev's jurisdiction over Crimea, populated mainly by ethnic Russians, remains a highly sensitive issue among nationalists in Moscow who periodically call for Sevastopol -- or the entire peninsula -- to revert to Russian jurisdiction.

In a statement on his website late on Friday, Yushchenko said his backing for Georgia was based on preserving the country's territorial integrity and similar concerns in Ukraine.

Disagreements with Russia over the fleet, he said, could only be settled through a formal agreement.

"I have therefore sent an urgent proposal to the president of Russia to start talks on signing an agreement that would regulate our relations in the event of military action like that which we saw at the beginning of August," he wrote.

"In other words, we need to come up with clearer rules that would ensure Ukraine's national security in such situations."

Source: Washington Post

Dobrynska Wins Ukraine First Athletics Gold

BEIJING, China -- Nataliia Dobrynska of Ukraine claimed the gold medal of women's heptathlon of the Beijing Olympics here on Saturday, giving her country the first title in athletics.

Nataliia Dobrynska of Ukraine holds the national flag after winning the women's heptathlon of the athletics competition at the National Stadium during the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, August 16, 2008.
Dobrynska emerged from the pack to rank first in shot put, 200m and long jump, led all the 43 competitors with 5,878 points before the 800m sprint event, which was the last event for the all-around event.

The 28-year-old clocked two minutes 17.72 seconds in 800m to list only 23rd but earned 855 points to accumulate her total points to 6,733 to take the title.

Her compatriot Lyudmila Blonska came second with 6700 points while Hyleas Fountain of United States third with 6619.

Source: China Daily

Ukraine Says Ready To Work With West On Missile Defence

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine said on Saturday it was ready to make its missile warning systems available for Western countries after Russia announced it was pulling out of a long-term cooperation agreement involving them.

Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko
The foreign ministry announcement provided further evidence of Ukraine's efforts to move closer to the West in choosing alliances and overseeing its security.

A ministry statement said Russia's abrogation earlier this year of an agreement involving two tracking stations allowed Ukraine to cooperate with other countries on missile warning systems and satellite tracking.

"The fact that Ukraine is no longer a party to the ... 1992 agreement allows it to launch active cooperation with European countries to integrate its stations with ... governments with an interest in receiving data of the situation in space," it said.

President Viktor Yushchenko issued a decree this week putting an end to Ukraine's participation in the accord in view of Russia's own abrogation of the deal.

Ukraine's pro-Western leadership, brought to power by mass "Orange Revolution" protests in 2004 and committed to securing NATO membership, has been increasingly at odds with Russia on a wide range of foreign policy issues.

Yushchenko has been highly critical of Russia's position in its conflict with Georgia over South Ossetia.

A presidential decree this week obliged commanders of Russia's Black Sea fleet, based in Ukraine's Crimea peninsula, to seek permission before moving warships and aircraft.

Moscow denounced the move as anti-Russian and said its commanders would disregard it as its forces answered solely to the Russian president

Source: The Star Online

Ukraine's Petriv Wins Gold In Beijing

BEIJING, China -- Oleksandr PETRIV of Ukraine has won the gold medal in the men's 25-meter (82-feet) rapid-fire pistol.

Oleksandr Petriv of Ukraine holds his national flag as he celebrates winning in the men's 25m (82 ft) rapid fire pistol final at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games August 16, 2008.
Three-time gold medalist Ralf Schumann of Germany won the silver Saturday, and Christian REITZ of Germany took the bronze.

Petriv was tied for third after qualifying. In the final round, six competitors shoot in groups of three in reverse order of standing.

Petriv shot in the first group, then watched as those ahead of him faltered.

American Keith Sanderson was in first place after qualifying, then shot his way off the podium entirely. He finished fifth.

Petriv finished with a score of 780.2. Schumann ended up at 779.5.

Source: NBC Olympics

Ukrainians Wonder What Georgia Crisis Means For Them

KIEV, Ukraine — Russia's invasion of Georgia has unsettled this former Soviet republic, which like Georgia has applied for membership in NATO but now fears that the U.S. could do little to prevent similar Russian action here.


"If the West swallows the pill and forgives Russia the Georgian war, the invasion of 'peacekeeping tanks' into Ukraine will just be a matter of time," Oleksandr Suchko, the research director of the Kiev-based Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation, wrote on Ukrainska Pravda (Ukrainian Truth), a leading online news site.

Still, not everyone here thinks that Russia would invade Ukraine, which is nearly nine times larger than Georgia, 10 times more populous and much better armed.

Many note, moreover, that Ukraine's president, Viktor Yushchenko, is highly unpopular and isn't expected to win re-election in 2010.

There are many disputes between the countries, however.

Ukraine has a long-standing issue with the presence of Russia's Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol, a holdover from when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, which collapsed in 1991.

Many in Ukraine want the Russians gone in 2017, when the lease agreement expires, but Russia has been suggesting that it intends to stay longer.

Russian politicians also provoke Ukrainian ire by reminding them that the Crimean peninsula was a gift from Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1954, giving rise to fears that Moscow might stoke secessionist sentiments in the area, which is part of Ukraine but inhabited predominantly by ethnic Russians.

Other supposed slights fan tensions.

One that burns, though perhaps apocryphal, is a supposed conversation between Russian then-President Vladimir Putin and President Bush during the April NATO-Russia Council summit in Bucharest, Romania, at which the membership applications of Ukraine and Georgia were delayed.

Putin supposedly told Bush that "Well, you understand, George, Ukraine isn't even a state," according to Russia's newspaper Kommersant, citing a diplomatic source in attendance.

Many here suspect Russian involvement in the still-unsolved and nearly fatal dioxin poisoning of Yushchenko, who fell ill while he was a presidential candidate in 2004.

The Kremlin backed his rival, Viktor Yanukovych, whose path to power was blocked when the democratic Orange Revolution overturned the results of a rigged election.

Yushchenko flew to Tbilisi, Georgia's capital, earlier this week in a show of support for Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, and said Thursday that Russia must seek Ukraine's permission before moving its warships out of port. Russian leaders responded by saying they'd ignore Yushchenko.

The two countries also have an ongoing dispute over the price of natural gas. Ukraine is heavily dependent on Russian energy supplies, as is much of Europe, while Russia depends on Ukraine's transit pipelines to carry its gas to customers in other nations.

Even religion is a source of friction in the mainly Orthodox Christian countries. The most recent spat came during last month's events celebrating the 1,020th anniversary of the conversion from paganism to Christianity of Kyivan Rus, the medieval empire from which the modern nations of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus arose.

Yushchenko irritated Moscow by asking Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, the nominal leader of the world's Orthodox faithful, to recognize a single Orthodox Church in Ukraine.

Currently, Ukrainians are divided, with millions of faithful still loyal to Russian Patriarch Alexei II.

Still, many here also have a hard time imagining a Russian-Ukrainian military conflict.

Ukrainians and Russians share centuries of Slavic kinship — Georgians have a separate cultural history — and rule by czars and Soviets. Ukrainians, stuck between Hitler and Stalin during World War II, are accustomed to navigating unfavorable geographic positions. Moreover, some 8 million of Ukraine's 46 million people are ethnic Russians.

Polls show that Ukrainians are divided over the prospect of NATO membership, with many opposed and others ambivalent.

That ambivalence is clear in interviews.

"Russia will never invade Ukraine, not even for Sevastopol," said Sergei Ribak, a security guard in Kiev. "This thesis is ridiculous."

Others aren't so sure, but draw different conclusions about what Ukraine's foreign policy should be.

"I agree that, under certain circumstances, a Russian invasion of Ukraine is possible," said Elena Guzva, a Kiev homemaker. "That's why Ukraine should be more serious about maintaining balanced and friendly relations with our eastern neighbor in order to avoid the risk."

Source: McClatchy Washington Report

Artur Ayvazian Of Ukraine Wins Gold In Men's 50-Meter Prone Rifle

BEIJING, China -- Artur Ayvazian of Ukraine won the gold medal in the men's 50-meter prone rifle Friday, holding off American Matt Emmons in the final round at the Beijing Olympics.

Gold medallist Artur Ayvazian of Ukraine celebrating after the men's 50-meter rifle prone final shooting competition Friday.
Ayvazian was the top qualifier with 599 points. Emmons, who won the event in Athens four years ago, was two points behind. Ayvazian scored at least 10 points on each of his 10 shots in the final, making it difficult for Emmons to catch up.

Ayvazian finished with a score of 702.7. Emmons finished at 701.7 for the silver. Warren Potent of Australia took the bronze.

It was the second gold in less than 24 hours for Ukraine, which won a team title in women's saber fencing Thursday night. Ayvazian dedicated the medal to a former coach who died in 2002.

"It is the greatest success I have ever had," the 35-year-old Ayvazian said. "I have participated in the Olympics three times and I have done a lot of preparation work."

Emmons won the gold in prone rifle in 2004 and blew a gold in three-position rifle that year when he fired at the wrong target on the final shot.

"I'm extremely, extremely satisfied with the competition, with the performance," Emmons said. "Ayvazian just had a great match. All you can do is shake the man's hand when he just shoots a better match than you do."

Source: International Herald Tribune

Could Ukraine Become Russia's Next Target?

MOSCOW, Russia -- The former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine are allies engaged in similar attempts to establish democratic rule, to join NATO and realign themselves with the West, much to the displeasure of Russia.

Ukrainian President Yushchenko (L) with Russian Prime Minister Putin.
During the conflict in Georgia, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko prohibited ships from the Russian Black Sea Fleet that are engaged off the Georgian coast from returning to port on Ukraine's Crimean peninsula without Kyiv's official permission.

In 2007, Public School Number 41 in Tbilisi was named after Mykhailo Hrushevsky, president of the short-lived Ukrainian People's Republic in 1917 and 1918.

Ukraine's current President, Viktor Yushchenko flew to Tbilisi to join his Georgian friend and fellow head of state, Mikheil Saakashvili, in the school's re-dedication ceremony. Both men rode to power following mass pro-democracy protests that came to be known as colored revolutions. Georgia's was the Rose Revolution and Ukraine's was the Orange. Accordingly, the Hrushevsky School was painted orange.

Moscow has not disguised its displeasure with the colored revolutions and refuses to deal with Mr. Saakashvili. On Tuesday, President Yushchenko again flew to Tbilisi, accompanied this time by the presidents of Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

Mr. Yushchenko says the task of the presidential mission is to show that Georgia is not alone, that in this age the power of reason should not be replaced by the iron fist.

The Ukrainian leader says the five presidents came to Georgia to prohibit the of killing people and the execution of the country.

Ukrainian military analyst Oleksiy Melnyk, of the Razumkov Center think tank in Kyiv, told VOA the Polish, Ukrainian and Baltic leaders do not necessarily agree with all of the actions undertaken in the conflict by Georgian leadership, but notes they risked their own physical security to send a signal to Moscow.

Melnyk says Moscow should see the presidential show of solidarity in Tbilisi as a serious signal that Russian foreign policy of establishing control over former Soviet republics and its neighborhood achieves a totally opposite effect.

The analyst says Russia is surrounding itself with nations that are, at a minimum, not friendly and perhaps even hostile toward Moscow.

Oleksiy Melnyk says Russian military actions in Georgia could lead the majority of Ukrainians who now oppose to their country's NATO membership to reassess their opinions about the respective security threats posed by the Western alliance and Russia.

The chairman of the European Integration Forum in Tbilisi, Soso Tsiskarishvili, agrees with Melnyk's assessment, but notes Ukraine is better prepared to meets NATO's democratic standards for membership than Georgia.

Tsiskarishvili says Ukraine's two recent parliamentary elections and Georgia's presidential and parliamentary contests differ from one another like heaven and earth in terms of democratic and transparent procedures.

But Russian military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer cautions that Ukraine could be Russia's next target as part of what he says is a grand Kremlin plan for the partial restoration of Russian greatness.

"Russia right now wants at least half of Ukraine to be annexed," said Felgenhauer. "Vladimir Putin talked about that rather openly at the NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania in April. Ukraine will disintegrate into two halves, and we want the eastern half, including of course, first and foremost, Crimea."

Felgenhauer says Ukraine's overwhelming vote for independence in 1991, which included a majority of Crimeans, means nothing to Kremlin rulers, who the analyst says do not respect the will of even their own people.

Nonetheless, the analyst says Russia is tied down in Georgia and will not make any immediate military moves against Ukraine. He notes, however, that Russia's Black Sea Fleet, which leases naval facilities in Sevastopol in Crimea, will likely steam back to port in defiance of a Ukrainian presidential order that it must first ask for Ukrainian permission.

"If Russia openly challenges Ukrainian sovereignty, I think that Ukraine will then turn to the West and say, 'you know guys, they're challenging our sovereignty with their fleet.' And this will happen without any kind of use of arms, or anything made in anger.

Ukraine right now, apparently wants to make the threat to its sovereignty obvious to outside powers," said Felgenhauer.

Felgenhauer says Moscow's vision of the world is that of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin; one in which Russia and Washington share spheres of influence. The analyst notes that Russia withdrew its bases from Cuba and Vietnam, expecting the United States to stay away from what Moscow thought was to be its sphere of influence.

He says Moscow felt betrayed when Washington began supporting colored revolutions among Russia's neighbors.

But Soso Tsiskarishvili points to this week's visit to Tbilisi by presidents of five countries that border Russia as a sign that they do not trust the Kremlin.

Source: Voice of America

After A Referee's Crucial Call Giving No Point, Ukraine Beats China

BEIJING, China -- Italian referee Marco Siesto turned around with a big grin on his face. Both fencers were a point from the gold medal, and each appeared to have landed a hit.

Olga Kharlan of Ukraine (R), in action against Tan Xue of China on Thursday. Kharlan won 45-44.
All eyes were on Siesto - and he was going to think this over a bit.

Siesto checked the video replay. He contemplated. He paced. Then he contemplated some more.

Finally, he returned to the strip and announced ... no point for either athlete.

On they went - Ukraine's Olga Kharlan and China's Tan Xue - for one more agonizing point. Then at last, Kharlan scored a touch, giving her team a 45-44 win and the Olympic

"At 44-44, I wasn't nervous at all," Kharlan said. "I knew how to set the hit and I did it."

Kharlan scored nine of the bout's last 13 points, completing a sensational Ukrainian comeback. In team events, three fencers for each team rotate over nine rounds, so it's hard for one athlete to dominate. Kharlan did, winning 22 of her team's points - and 21 of Ukraine's last 30.

With the bout tied at 44, both fencers came together at the same time, forcing Siesto to consult the video monitor. The referee must occasionally determine who has the "right of way" when both fencers land hits. The fencer who first started to attack receives the point, but if there is a simultaneous attack, no points are granted.

Siesto gave neither athlete the point. Tan then moved toward Kharlan, and again each fencer appeared to land a hit. This time Siesto ruled quickly and decisively. Tan's attack had failed. Point - and the gold medal - to Kharlan.

"I knew Olga would make the last point," Ukraine's Olena Khomrova said. "She's used to doing it and she did it."

Ukraine trailed 25-15 when Kharlan came on for the second of her three rounds. A round ends when one team reaches the next multiple of five - in this case 30. Kharlan outscored Bao Yingying 12-5, so China led only 30-27 after the round.

When Kharlan came out for the final round, China led 40-36.

China settled for the silver medal. The United States took the bronze. The U.S. featured all three individual medalists in women's saber but was upset by Ukraine in the semifinals

Source: International Herald Tribune

Russia Must Not Be Allowed To Turn Back The Tide Of Democracy

LONDON, UK -- The presence of the leaders of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine at a mass rally in Tbilisi this week provides pointers both to the past and the future. All these countries were once part of the Soviet empire.

Ukranian President Viktor Yushchenko takes part in a rally to support Georgia and it's President Mikheil Saakashvili in Georgia's capital Tbilisi.
As a result, all of them fear that the Russian annexation of a large part of Georgia, and the West's weak response, presages further trouble from a country still smarting from what it regards as national humiliation in the 1990s.

Their participation in Tuesday's rally in support of President Mikheil Saakashvili makes an appropriate starting-point for examining the probable hot spots in Moscow's revanchist drive.

• Ukraine. On his return from Tbilisi, President Viktor Yushchenko issued a decree ordering Russia to give 72 hours' notice of any movement by its ships and aircraft based in the Crimean port of Sevastopol.

In an obvious reference to Georgia, a statement from the country's Security Council said that that military presence posed "a potential threat to Ukraine's national security, particularly if parts of Russia's Black Sea Fleet are used against third countries".

The Kremlin responded by accusing Kiev of taking "a serious new anti-Russian step".

Mr Yushchenko has said his country has no intention of extending the Russian lease on the base beyond 2017, the limit fixed by a 1997 agreement, and in the meantime would like to negotiate an orderly departure. Moscow wants the 20-year lease to be renewed.

The Kremlin's dealings with its southern neighbour are coloured by the fact that medieval Kiev was the source of Russian culture, a sense of identification loosened by Khrushchev's transfer of Crimea to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1954 and further weakened by independence in 1991.

Ukraine has already felt the force of Kremlin disapproval of its Orange Revolution. In 2006, a dispute with the Russian state-owned Gazprom resulted in a temporary suspension of gas exports.

An obvious way of trying to reassert Kremlin authority over Ukraine would be to play on the differences between the nationalistic west of the country and the parts of the east and south that are more sympathetic to Russia.

However, having freed themselves from old Soviet empire, Ukrainians are unlikely to accept submission to the new authoritarian order created by Vladimir Putin. Russian aggression will, rather, strengthen their sense of nationhood.

• The Baltic States. While Ukraine has merely been promised eventual membership of Nato, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are already anchored within it.

Unfortunately, that has not stopped Kremlin interference in their internal affairs, whether in "championing" the rights of Russian-speaking minorities by imposing economic sanctions or in apparently subjecting Estonia to cyber attack following the moving of a Soviet war memorial in Tallinn.

With Lithuania, which has a smaller russophone population than its Baltic partners, the main bone of contention is Russian access to the exclave of Kaliningrad.

• Poland. The most rebellious of the old Soviet satellites, Poland is now a leading member of both Nato and the EU. But, like Estonia, it is concerned about Kaliningrad and, along with the Czech Republic, has been threatened with reprisals by Moscow if it hosts an American missile shield.

• Moldova. Less prominent than the other potential hot spots, this impoverished Romanian-speaking republic is the subject of both Western and Russian proposals for its forming a confederation with russophone Transdniestria. Economic pressure from Moscow is aimed at persuading Moldova to accept the Russian peace plan.

Events of the past week have their origins in Mr Putin's Millennium Manifesto, a 1999 blueprint for restoring Russia's status as a great power.

The Second Chechen War, which sealed his democratic legitimacy, his relentless buttressing of presidential authority, the rise in his anti-Western rhetoric and now the invasion of Georgia have given America and its allies ample a clear indication of the threat he poses to the newly-won freedoms of eastern Europe.

Nato's ambiguous response to Georgian and Ukrainian requests to join its Membership Action Plan at the Bucharest summit in April merely encouraged the Russians, who had already warned of repercussions following Kosovo's declaration of independence. The allies have an opportunity to remedy their timidity in December, when that request is due for review.

A thuggish Russian leadership is trying to banish a sense of victimhood occasioned by what it sees as Western triumphalism in the 1990s. The response of Nato and the EU should be a united reassertion of the principle of self-determination.

That applies, of course, to the Baltic States and Poland, but also to Ukraine, a pivotal factor in European security, and to Georgia, the brightest beacon of democracy in the Caucasus. Moscow should be isolated diplomatically, subjected to economic sanctions and given no occasion to pursue its usual tactic of undermining multilateral organisations by bilateral deals.

The attempt to bring Russia into a new concert of powers has failed. Forty years after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, Moscow has, in the words of David Miliband, given "a chilling reminder of times … we hoped had gone by". But Western leaders cannot claim that they were not warned.

Source: Telegraph UK

Georgia: Blockade Threat Risks Escalating Conflict

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine threatened to blockade the Russian Black Sea Fleet yesterday in an act of solidarity with Georgia that risked escalating the conflict.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko
After flying to Tbilisi to assure Georgians of his country’s support, President Yushchenko signed an order imposing tough restrictions on the Russian fleet, which is based in the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol.

Mr Yushchenko’s decree instructs Russia to give 72 hours’ notice of any movement of ships, aircraft or personnel in Ukraine. The Ukrainian authorities were given the power to alter those plans.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry had already warned Russia that it will bar ships from returning to Sevastopol if they take part in military action against Georgia.

Moscow responded furiously, accusing Ukraine of a “serious new anti-Russian step”.

Like Georgia, Ukraine’s pro-Western leadership is seeking membership of NATO in December. The democratic Orange Revolution that swept Mr Yushchenko and Yuliya Tymoshenko, the Prime Minister, to power in 2004 has long been loathed by Vladimir Putin, the Russian Prime Minister.

The Ukrainian Security Council issued a statement yesterday declaring that the presence of foreign warships in its waters “poses a potential threat to Ukraine’s national security, particularly if parts of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet are used against third countries”.

Russia and Ukraine are already at loggerheads over the future of the Crimean base, which Russia must vacate in 2017 under a 20-year lease agreement signed after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Most of Crimea’s population consider themselves to be Russians and are strongly pro-Moscow.

Tensions have mounted over calls by politicians in Moscow not to surrender control of the territory, regardless of Ukraine’s wishes.

Mr Yushchenko insists that the Black Sea Fleet must leave on time and that there is no prospect of extending the lease.

Ukraine’s ambition for NATO membership has raised tensions still further. Russia is opposed to the Western military alliance replacing it in Crimea and Mr Putin has threatened to target nuclear missiles at Ukraine if it joins NATO.

Unlike tiny Georgia, Ukraine is a country of 47 million people and any confrontation with Russia could quickly escalate into a broader European conflict. Vital Russian gas pipelines cross Ukraine to supply the European Union.

Source: Times Online

Leaders Of Ex-Communist States Show Solidarity With Georgia

TBILISI, Georgia -- The pro-Western leaders of Poland and four post-Soviet countries appeared alongside Georgia's president at a mass rally in central Tbilisi to show a united front against Russia.

From left, Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Polish President Lech Kaczynski, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus and Latvian Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis travelled to Georgia to show its solidarity.
Tuesday's rally took place hours before Russia and Georgia agreed in principle on a peace plan, and after Russia ended its military operation to prevent further Georgian incursions into breakaway South Ossetia.

"We came to fight because a northern neighbor wants to suppress a small country. We want to tell it 'No!'," Polish President Lech Kaczynski said.

"This country thinks that old times will come back, but those times are over. Everyone knows that Ukraine, then Poland could be next," Kaczynski said.

The presidents of Ukraine and the three post-Soviet Baltic countries - Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia - were also on the podium with Georgian leader Mikheil Saakashvili.

The rally came after five days of fighting that began with an attack by Georgian forces on the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali on August 8. Russia has said that around 1,600 people died in the Georgian assault. Some 34,000 people also fled fighting into Russia. Most residents of South Ossetia have Russian citizenship.

Russia has accused Ukraine of supplying arms to Georgia and encouraging it to attack South Ossetia.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko told the crowd in Tbilisi that his country will support Georgia in its battle for independence.

"If they put under question democracy and independence in Georgia, then they can undermine democracy and independence in other states," he said.

Latvia sent its prime minister to the rally, rather than President Valdis Zatlers, who is seen to have a more accommodating attitude to Russia.

Premier Ivars Godmanis said: "Always be united, and we - Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Poles, and Ukrainians - will always be with you,"

Latvia has joined the United States in warning that relations with Russia are bound to suffer following the conflict.

The presidents of Russia and France agreed on Tuesday on six principles to resolve the situation in South Ossetia.

"The first is not to resort to the use of force. The second is to halt all military action. The third is free access to humanitarian aid. The fourth is that Georgian Armed Forces should return to their bases. The fifth is that Russian Armed Forces should pull back to their positions prior to combat," Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told a news conference with his French counterpart, Nicolas Sarkozy.

Source: The Moscow News

Russia May Turn Focus To Pro-U.S. Ukraine After Beating Georgia

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Now that Russia has humiliated Georgia with a punishing military offensive, it may shift its attention to reining in pro-Western Ukraine, another American ally in the former Soviet Union.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (Front) and President Dmitry Medvedev's first order of business likely will be to try to thwart Ukraine's bid to join NATO.
``The Moscow authorities will use this opportunity to remind Ukraine of the damages of allying itself with NATO,'' said Geoffrey Smith at Renaissance Capital investment bank in Kiev.

The U.S. has long seen Georgia and Ukraine as counterweights to Russia's influence in the region. Opposition leaders in the two countries came to power after U.S.-backed popular protests in 2003 and 2004. Their ascension advanced an American strategy of expanding NATO to include both countries and securing energy routes from the Caspian Sea that bypass Russia. The BP Plc-led Baku- Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline to Turkey runs through Georgia.

The future effectiveness of that policy is now in doubt, with Georgia's U.S.-educated President Mikheil Saakashvili, 40, weakened by a five-day blitz that his American patrons were powerless to halt.

Medvedev, 42, and Putin, 56, say Russia began the offensive in response to a drive by Georgia to restore control over the breakaway region of South Ossetia. Now Russia has ousted Georgian forces from there and from Abkhazia, another separatist region, and destroyed much of the central government's military.

Less Confident

``Georgia will be enormously more careful in its actions in the future, and much less confident of its relationship with the United States,'' said U.S.-based geopolitical advisory group Stratfor in a research note.

NATO is due in December to review the two countries' bids to join the Western military alliance. NATO leaders in April promised Ukraine and Georgia eventual membership while declining them fast- track status. Russia, which has also denounced U.S. plans to station missile defense sites in former Soviet satellites Poland and the Czech Republic, says the expansion of the Cold War-era alliance to its borders is a security threat.

NATO should affirm the potential of Georgia and Ukraine to become alliance members in the face of Russia's incursion into Georgia, senior U.S. officials said yesterday in Washington.

``Russia may find it convenient to raise the level of tension with Ukraine in the run-up to the December NATO review,'' Citigroup Inc.'s London-based David Lubin and Ali Al- Eyd wrote in a note to clients. ``If the conflict with Russia decelerates or reverses Georgia's integration with the West, a similar fate could also affect Ukraine.''

Divided Country

Ukraine has a large Russian-speaking population in the south and east that opposes NATO entry and looks to Moscow. Russian officials warn that if President Viktor Yushchenko pushes Ukraine into NATO, the nation may split in two. Russia has made its displeasure with Ukraine clear in recent years, cutting off gas supplies to the country in 2005 and reducing deliveries earlier this year.

The military operation in Georgia will serve ``as a warning'' to Ukraine that it should desist from petitioning for NATO entry, said Janusz Bugajski, director of the New European Democracies Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. ``Otherwise, Moscow may intervene to protect the allegedly threatened interests of the Russian population.''

Too Aggressive

An overly aggressive move by Russia against Ukraine might invite a backlash, said Renaissance Capital's Smith.

``If it reacts too violently against Ukraine, then it risks provoking the reaction it least wants: trade and investment barriers for its companies, a more antagonistic approach to energy transit, and above all, it risks scaring Ukraine into seeking western protection,'' he said.

Germany and France opposed NATO entry for Georgia and Ukraine because of the Georgian separatist disputes and opposition to membership among some Ukrainians. They now will feel their concerns have been justified, said Cliff Kupchan of New-York based Eurasia Group a political risk consulting firm.

``Considering both European reticence and possible fears about Ukraine, I think it is very much on the slow track,'' he said, referring to NATO membership for both states.

The assault by Russian artillery, tanks and bombers inflicted significant damage on Georgia's armed forces, which last month increased their size to 37,000 soldiers. Russia's military has 1.13 million personnel. The U.S. trained and equipped Georgia's military and in 2006 approved almost $300 million in aid over five years.

Army Regroups

``A substantial part of our military power has been destroyed,'' said Georgian National Security Council chief Kakha Lomaia. ``However, we did preserve the core of our army, and have managed to regroup it close to the capital.''

An airbase in Senaki was destroyed and three Georgian ships blown up in the Black Sea port of Poti, he said.

A month ago, about 1,000 U.S. soldiers joined 600 Georgians and 100 from Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Armenia in joint exercises at the Vaziani military base near Tbilisi. Russia repeatedly bombed the base during this month's war.

``The American role in the region has been weakened,'' Jan Techau, a European and security affairs analyst at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin, said in a telephone interview. ``It's a reassertion of Russia's dominant role in the region.''

Ian Hague, a Bank of Georgia board member and fund manager with $1.8 billion in the former Soviet Union, said the attack on Georgia discouraged Western investments in energy infrastructure by raising the risk premium.

``It's somewhat reminiscent, in 1939, when Stalin attacked Finland,'' former U.S. national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski told Bloomberg Television. ``I think this kind of confrontation is the best kind of answer as to why they are seeking to be members of NATO.''

Source: Bloomberg

Ukrainian Government Expresses Strong Support For Georgia

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine’s president and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which comes under his jurisdiction, have reacted sharply to the Georgian-Russian conflict. Viktor Yushchenko has close personal relations with Mikhail Saakashvili with whom he is in direct contact on a daily basis.

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili (L) and Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko.
The Yushchenko-Saakashvili relationship is a political alliance based on the shared aims of the 2003 Rose and 2004 Orange revolutions, a common desire to join NATO and support for an alternative to Russia energy sources through the GUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova) regional group.

Ukraine and Georgia have also supported pro-U.S. positions in the UN on Belarus’s human rights record and in the CIS through the Community of Democratic Choice created in 2005. Ukraine and Georgia contributed the third largest military forces to the US-led intervention in Iraq (Ukraine until 2005 and Georgia since 2006).

Ukraine’s parliament, which is in summer recess, is a different matter. The two orange forces (the Yulia Tymoshenko bloc and Our Ukraine-Peoples Self Defense [Nuns]) follow the president’s line in support of Georgia’s position.

Meanwhile, the Party of Regions (PR) and the Communist Party (KPU) hold positions that are not sympathetic to Georgia, at times pro-Russian and at other times contradictory and duplicitous.

The PR and KPU have both demanded an investigation into Ukrainian supplies of arms to Georgia. The KPU has accused the Ukrainian authorities of having armed the Saakashvili regime and has described Saakashvili as an “international criminal.”

Such accusations and inflammatory rhetoric echo those emanating from Moscow and the South Ossetian and Abkhaz separatists. Russian and separatist leaders have accused Ukraine of assisting alleged Georgian “ethnic cleansing” of South Ossetia and of “arming the Georgian army to the teeth.”

The Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs defended Ukraine by accusing Russia of having armed the separatists.

These accusations ignore the fact that “military-technical cooperation between Ukraine and Georgia, which has taken place over the last 15 years, has been within the parameters of international law”.

Ukrainian supplies of military equipment to Georgia began during Leonid Kuchma’s presidency, and continued under the government of PR leader Viktor Yanukovych from 2002 to 2004. Ukrainian troops were sent to Iraq by the same Yanukovych government.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry’s demand that Russia withdraw its troops and respect Georgia’s territorial integrity is an established position articulated under Kuchma. Ukraine’s offer of acting as a mediator is again a long-standing proposal that was rejected by Russia under Kuchma and again now.

Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke’s comment that Russia’s next objective would be Ukraine is a fear long held in Kyiv.

The initial impetus for creating the GUAM group in 1998 was that of Russian-backed separatism in three of its members (Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan) and a threat to the Crimea. The Russian parliament continually laid claim to the Crimea and Sevastopol in the 1990s, the island of Tuzla in 2003 and to Sevastopol as recently as May l.

Ukraine’s unease at Russia’s continued territorial demands led to a presidential decree ordering the government to prepare legislation and conduct negotiations with Russia on a full withdrawal of the Black Sea Fleet (BSF) personnel by 2017.

BSF personnel, who are Russian citizens, have illegally participated in anti-NATO and pro-separatist rallies.

Russian nationalist, Communist and pro-regime politicians are unanimous in using the Crimea and Sevastopol as a potential bargaining chip to halt Ukraine’s NATO membership.

This reflects long-standing Russian views as expressed by President Vladimir Putin at the April NATO-Russia Council that the alleged “fragility” of Ukraine would cause it to disintegrate if it joined NATO.

Crimean KPU leader Leonid Grach threatened to support the peninsula’s secession from Ukraine if it joined NATO. The view was criticized by the head of the parliamentary Committee on European Integration and deputy leader of the Nuns faction Borys Tarasyuk.

Crimea’s Communists, which are a regional branch of the KPU, played a positive role in the 1990s in supporting Ukraine’s territorial integrity and adopting the 1998 pro-autonomy constitution.

The Simferopol city council voted on July 24 to declare itself a “‘territory free from NATO.” The vote was supported by the “For Yanukovych” faction and the national Bolshevik-oriented Natalia Vitrenko bloc. The PR would lose votes in eastern Ukraine if it began to play, like the KPU and Vitrenko bloc, with separatism.

Russian Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov arrived in the Crimea during the Ossetian crisis to hold negotiations with Crimean Communists on a “joint anti-NATO struggle.”

Zyuganov said the Saakashvili regime was undertaking “state terrorism” with the support of the United States and NATO. Zyuganov supported the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and has long supported Sevastopol’s transfer to Russia.

The stakes are high for Yushchenko and Ukraine in the Ossetian crisis. The removal or weakening of the Saakashvili regime would undermine the Ukrainian-Georgian partnership, destroy the GUAM group (which already has a passive Moldova) and thereby neutralize the pro-Western wing of the CIS.

Ultimately, the most important impact of the crisis will be on the December meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers set to review Ukraine and Georgia’s “‘progress,” held at a time of regime change in the United States.

The two arguments against admitting Ukraine and Georgia to NATO--political instability in Ukraine and Georgia’s military conflict with Russia--have become stronger since they were raised by Germany and France at the April Bucharest NATO summit.

It is therefore unlikely that the review meeting will send a positive signal to Ukraine and Georgia about being granted NATO MAPs.

Source: Eurasia Daily Monitor

The Russian-Georgian War: A Challenge For The U.S. And The World

WASHINGTON, DC -- As the Olympic Games opened, the tragic and ominous conflict between Georgia and Russia erupted as well. On Thursday of last week, South Ossetian separatists, supported by Moscow, escalated their machine gun and mortar fire attacks against neighboring Georgian villages.

Vladimir Putin (pictured) sidelined his successor, Dmitry Medvedev, thereby leaving no doubt as to who is in charge.
This past Thursday and Friday, Georgia attacked the separatist capital Tskhinvali with artillery to suppress fire. Tskhinvali suffered severe damage, thus providing the pretext for Moscow's long-planned invasion of Georgia.

As Russia responded with overwhelming force, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin flew from the Beijing Olympics to Vladikavkaz, taking control of the military operations. Putin sidelined his successor, Dmitry Medvedev, thereby leaving no doubt as to who is in charge.

The 58th Russian Army of the North Caucasus Military District rolled into South Ossetia, reinforced by the 76th Airborne "Pskov" Division. Cossacks from the neighboring Russian territories moved in to combat the Georgians as well.

Russia is engaged in a classic combined arms operation. The Black Sea Fleet is blockading Georgia from the sea and likely preparing a landing, while Russian ballistic missiles and its air force are attacking Georgian military bases and cities.

At the time of this writing, it looks as if Russian troops will not stop at the South Ossetian-Georgian border but may press their advantage further.

Russia's goals for the war with Georgia are far-reaching and include:

- Expulsion of Georgian troops and termination of Georgian sovereignty in South Ossetia and Abkhazia;

- "Regime change" by bringing down President Mikheil Saakashvili and installing a more pro-Russian leadership in Tbilisi;

- Preventing Georgia from joining NATO and sending a strong message to Ukraine that its insistence on NATO membership may lead to war and/or its dismemberment;

- Shifting control of the Caucasus, and especially over strategic energy pipelines, by controlling Georgia; and

- Recreating a 19th-century-style sphere of influence in the former Soviet Union, by the use of force if necessary.

Post-Soviet Border Revisionism: The Challenge to Europe's Status Quo

Russian relations with Georgia were the worst among the post-Soviet states. In addition to fanning the flames of separatism in South Ossetia since 1990, Russia militarily supported separatists in Abkhazia (1992-93), which is also a part of Georgian territory.

Russia also had a cantankerous relationship with then-Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze, the former Soviet foreign minister, whom hardliners in Moscow blamed for the Soviet withdrawal from Central and Eastern Europe.

In the 1990s, there were two assassination attempts against Shevardnadze, and elements of the Russian state, such as secret services or military intelligence, came under suspicion both times.

Russia has long prepared its aggression against Georgia's pro-Western President Mikheil Saakashvili, in order to undermine his rule and prevent Georgia from joining NATO.

Despite claims about oppressed minority status, the separatist South Ossetian leadership is mostly ethnic Russians, many of whom served in the KGB, the Soviet secret police, the Russian military, or in the Soviet communist party.

In recent years, Moscow granted the majority of Abkhazs and South Ossetians Russian citizenship and moved to establish close economic and bureaucratic ties with the two separatist republics, effectively enacting a creeping annexation of both territories.

Use of Russian citizenship to create a "protected" population residing in a neighboring state to undermine its sovereignty is a slippery slope that is now leading to a redrawing of the former Soviet borders.

Chilling Language, Strategic Actions

Aggression against Georgia also sends a strong signal to Ukraine and Europe. Russia is playing a chess game of offense and intimidation.

Former president and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin spoke last spring about Russia "dismembering" Ukraine, another NATO candidate, and detaching the Crimea, a peninsula that was transferred from Russia to Ukraine in 1954, when both were integral parts of the Soviet Union.

Today, up to 50 percent of Ukrainian citizens speak Russian as their first language, and ethnic Russians comprise approximately one-fifth of Ukraine's population.

With encouragement from Moscow, these people may be induced to follow South Ossetia and Abkhazia to Mother Russia's bosom. Yet Ukraine's pro-Western leaders, such as President Victor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko, have expressed a desire to join NATO, while pro-Moscow Ukrainian Party of Regions effectively opposes membership.

NATO opponents in Ukraine are greatly encouraged by Russia's action against Georgia.

Beyond this, Russia is demonstrating that it can sabotage American and European Union (EU) declarations about integrating Commonwealth of Independent States members into Western structures such as NATO.

By attempting to accomplish regime change in Georgia, Moscow is also trying to gain control of the energy and transportation corridor¾which connects Central Asia and Azerbaijan with the Black Sea and ocean routes overseas--for oil, gas and other commodities.

A pro-Russian regime in Georgia will also bring the strategic Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and the Baku-Erzurum (Turkey) gas pipeline under Moscow's control.

Such a development would undermine any options of pro-Western orientation for Azerbaijan and Armenia, along with any chances of resolving their conflict based on diplomacy and Western-style cooperation.

The West's Hour of Truth

The United States and its European allies must take all available diplomatic measures to stop Russian aggression. The U.S. and its allies need to demand that Russia withdraw all its troops from the territory of Georgia and recognize its territorial integrity.

Furthermore, the U.S. and Europe need to internationalize the conflict. Russian desire to be viewed as upholder of international law needs to be turned against Moscow.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the EU and the United Nations should send other international observers to Georgia, while mediation efforts to withdraw Russian forces need to be expedited.

Talks need to start in a neutral forum, such as the OSCE, to finally settle the South Ossetian matter as well as future Abkhazian problems. This can be done by granting these territories full autonomy within the Georgian state, as Tbilisi has repeatedly suggested.

Beyond this, the United States, its allies, and other countries need to send a strong signal to Moscow that creating 19th-century-style spheres of influence and redrawing the borders of the former Soviet Union is a danger to world peace.

Moscow's plan cannot be accomplished without violation of international law and is likely to result in death and destruction--a price that neither the Russian people nor others should pay.

The U.S. and its European allies should communicate to Moscow that Russia has much to lose--including hosting the 2014 winter Olympics in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, membership in the G-8, and access to Western markets--if the Georgian aggression is not stopped.

Source: The Heritage Foundation

Ukraine Toughens Moscow Stance

KIEV, Ukraine -- Along with Georgia, Ukraine is a rare western ally on post-Soviet turf and has much at stake in Tbilisi’s bloody standoff with their bullying neighbour, Russia.

Members of the Georgian diaspora in Ukraine take part in a protest in front of the Russian consulate in Kiev, August 11, 2008.
As US presidential hopeful John McCain pointed out in a statement, ”the implications of Russian” military aggression go beyond the territorial integrity and independence of a Georgia, but also threat other young democracies in the region

”Russia is using violence against Georgia, in part, to intimidate other neighbours – such as Ukraine – for choosing to associate with the West and adhering to Western political and economic values.”

When the conflict first broke out, Kiev joined western countries in calling for a ceasefire, but flexed its muscle on Sunday with tough diplomatic rhetoric warning Moscow that if its naval ships were used to attack Georgia, they would not be welcome back to the Crimean port of Sevastopol.

The port is leased as a base to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Tensions are high. Russia blames Ukraine for selling arms to Georgia that have killed Russian soldiers.

Few expect the Georgian-Russia military clash to spread to Ukraine, a country of 46 million citizens that borders and wants into the European Union. But it could delay security guarantees for both Kiev and Tbilisi, which seek NATO membership, and inspire separatists in Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.

At an April summit, NATO members designated Ukraine and Georgia as future military alliance members, but delayed a decision on kick starting the process until a December summit.

Svante Cornell, Director of the Institute for Security & Development Policy, said Georgia’s conflict could play into Russia’s geopolitical interests raising reservations with senior NATO members, such as France and Germany. Both have hesitated on opening the door to NATO for Kiev and Tbilisi fearing a backlash from Russia.

In provoking Georgia into a war, Russia seeks to portray Georgia as ”reckless” and scare NATO away from the volatile ex-Soviet region, Mr Cornell said.

Unlike Georgia and many other ex-Soviet states, Ukraine has avoided military conflicts since the USSR collapsed. But if it gets too close to the Georgia-Russia conflict, cautious support for its NATO bid could wane.

Speaking to the Financial Times, a NATO official said, ”we are very concerned” with the South Ossetia situation. It involves ”key partners” and aspiring alliance members. ”Its impossible to predict” how the conflict could affect Georgia’s and Ukraine’s NATO bids; ”each country would be judged by its own merits,” the official added.

Mr Cornell said he conflict is also a sign of Russia’s intention to ”preserve its domination in the region showing what happens to those who oppose.”

Like Georgia, Ukraine remains defiant, and yesterday demanded Russia sign an agreement pledging not to use its Ukraine-based fleet to attack Georgia. Kiev wants Russia’s fleet out of Crimea when a 2017 lease agreement ends. Moscow is keen on staying.

Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili, warns that Russia’s backing of separatists in his country could next be applied to Crimea, where a large Russian population wants unification with Moscow.

Gaining control of Crimea, even in a peacekeeping role as in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, would fully secure Russia’s influence in both the Caucasus and Black Sea regions. And as the South Ossetia clash shows, going against Moscow could prove dangerous.

Source: Financial Times

Richard Holbrooke: “Putin’s Next Target Will Be Ukraine”

WASHINGTON, DC -- Former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke said Russia acted feeling hatred for Mikhail Saakashvili and wanted to overthrow the government, APA reports.

Former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke.
Richard Holbrooke said in his interview to CNN that Russia trying to separate Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia incited Georgia to the military conflict.

“No one needs cold war with Russia. But this country has intruded into the territory of a sovereign state. I was surprised at Bush’s embracing Putin in the opening of the Olympic Games. After that Putin was sitting while Bush and first lady were applauding the American team,” he said.

Richard Holbrooke called Mikhail Saakashvili the most democratic and pro-western leader in the region.

Asked whether the war could impact on the whole region, former diplomat said he did not believe it and that Ukraine would join the conflict.

“Putin’s next target will be Ukraine. But he can not do it there. Georgia has 5 million population and Ukraine 50 million. There are other factors, too,” he said.

Richard Holbrooke is expected to be Secretary of State in case Barack Obama is elected president.

Source: APA

Georgian Troops Withdraw From South Ossetia, Russia Bombs Tbilisi Airport

TBILISI, Georgia -- Georgia on August 10 announced a withdrawal from the disputed territory of South Ossetia, but Russia’s bombing campaign against the South Caucasus country continued apace.

A Rustavi 2 channel television grab shows Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili addressing the nation in Tbilisi. Russia kept up its attacks on Georgia in the early hours of Monday, brushing aside appeals for a ceasefire after its forces swept through the Georgian rebel region of South Ossetia.
National Security Council Secretary Alexander Lomaia said the decision to pull Georgian forces out of the territory was made "in an attempt to negotiate a cease-fire" with Russia. "We can only hope that we will be able to do this to stop the aggression, " he said. The decision followed an August 9 order for a withdrawal from the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali.

Lomaia said that fighting had stopped. Georgian troops are "very well positioned to protect the city [of Gori]," he said.

Although the withdrawal from South Ossetia was a term laid down by Moscow for a cease-fire, the Kremlin has given no sign of relenting in its aerial bombardment of the country.

At roughly 7pm on August 10, Russian planes bombed Tbilisi International Airport, the government reported. No casualties were reported. Three bombs had hit a plane factory and military airfield not far from the airport at roughly sunrise on Sunday morning.

"The attack on Tbilisi Airport offers further evidence that Russia’s invasion of Georgia is not about Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The goal of the Russian Federation. . . is to overthrow the democratically elected government of this small European nation," National Security Council Secretary Lomaia said in a statement.

The strike was followed by a raucous public demonstration in downtown Tbilisi in protest at Russia’s attack. The strike against the airport is the latest in a varying campaign that targets both civilian and military strikes.

Roughly two hours following its initial August 10 strike against the Tbilisi plane factory and military airfield, Russian jets reportedly bombed a village, Urta, outside of Zugdidi, the regional center for Samegrelo a region in western Georgia that borders on the breakaway region of Abkhazia.

The village contains "transmission antenna," according to the government. While officials claimed that the blasts resulted in no damage, cell phone communications between western and eastern Georgia and within Tbilisi itself were disrupted throughout the day.

Russian forces have begun an artillery attack on Gori, Ministry of Interior spokesperson Shota Utiashvili stated. The attack began at roughly 9:20pm local time. Georgian forces, however, retained control of the city, he said.

A village between Gori, on the border of South Ossetia, and the nearby town of Kareli was bombed in the morning, according to government statement.

The strikes were followed by another reported attack in the late afternoon against an unidentified site on the outskirts of Gori and regular strikes against the Upper Kodori Gorge, a strip of territory in breakaway Abkhazia controlled by Tbilisi. Oni, a town in the remote mountainous region of Racha, which borders on South Ossetia, was reportedly hit by Russian planes late on August 9.

The National Security Council Secretary claimed that some 50-60 Russian planes are flying sorties over Georgia per day.

To date, 47 civilians have been killed in the fighting with Russia, and some 200 wounded, according to the government. The numbers appear to refer only to territory over which Georgia’s central government has full control – an expanse that would exclude Tskhinvali and other Russian-controlled parts of South Ossetia. Armed forces casualties were not immediately available.

"Our troops are fighting. They’re not letting the Russian troops enter in the city of Gori," he said, while adding that "we have to be realistic here . . . our resources are not unlimited."

The fight has also taken its toll on journalists. Ekho Moskvy radio station has reported that Georgian photo-journalist Alexander Klimchuk and reporter Grigol Chikhladze were killed in the South Ossetia conflict zone. The information has not been confirmed. Klimchuk is a freelance photographer who works for EurasiaNet, among other outlets.

In an apparent bid to avert casualties from an anticipated additional strike, police were diverting traffic from the Black Sea port city of Poti, already targeted on August 8, a EurasiaNet correspondent on the ground reported.

In remarks to reporters, National Security Council Secretary Lomaia described the bombing campaign and alleged influx of fresh Russian troops and heavy equipment as an attempt to "annihilate Georgia’s statehood."

The government claims that 6,000 Russian troops entered South Ossetia over night on August 9-10, accompanied by 90 tanks, 150 armored personnel carriers, and 250 artillery gunships.

The total amount of equipment "is enough to destroy a country ten times bigger than ours," Lomaia claimed.

The troop and equipment numbers could not be independently verified. Accessing international phone lines from within Georgia has become increasingly problematic.

At the same time, as of August 10, access to Russia-based news and government Web sites appeared to have been blocked.

In a conference call with reporters, Lomaia outlined what he believed to be the remaining options for Georgia in its struggle against Russia: a deployment of military equipment "not to fight, but to deter them"; and, the arrival of "a very, very high representative of a foreign government for a few days" to demonstrate international support for Georgia.

"Frankly speaking, we do not see any other way of stopping these people," he said.

[National Security Council Secretary Alexander Lomaia is a former director of the Open Society Georgia Foundation, an organization run under the auspices of the Open Society Institute. EurasiaNet is financed by OSI, but operates independently from the Open Society Georgia Foundation.]

Some 10,000 ethnic Georgians have been forced to leave South Ossetia by Russian troops, Lomaia reported – an alleged operation Georgian officials term ethnic cleansing.

In Tbilisi, scores of refugees gathered in front of the mayor’s office on August 10. The municipality, struggling to provide food and housing for the increasing numbers of displaced people, has asked the population for help. Refugees are being housed in makeshift camps in and near Tbilisi.

Seventy-five-year-old Gori resident Vakhtang Jorjiashvili told EurasiaNet that he and his family had slept on the street in front of the mayor’s office after arriving in Tbilisi. "Now, they found a place for my children and grandchildren, and also my daughter-in-law and my wife," he said. "My son and I are still homeless."

A group of men who lived just outside Tskhinvali told EurasiaNet that the Ossetians had started digging trenches a week before the fighting broke out.

"Then they evacuated many Ossetian civilians," one man said. "We knew something was coming, but we didn’t know it would be this bad… Then they started shelling Georgian villages. We asked the troops for help. They came to our rescue and repelled the Ossetians’ attack. But this was just the beginning. That’s when the Russians started coming in…. It was the worst bombing ever. Worse than in the 1990s [when South Ossetia fought Georgian forces for independence]."

But as Russia pounds Georgian territory, international envoys are still pondering a solution to the crisis.

The most categorical statement to date has come from Ukraine, a strong Georgian ally. On August 10, Ukraine warned that Russia’s actions could draw it into the fray. Ukraine may bar Russian navy ships deployed from the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Sevastapol from reentering the port, an August 10 statement on the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry’s web site reads.

Georgia claims that Russian ships from Sevastapol have landed some 4,000 troops at Ochamchira, a coastal town in Abkhazia, in a bid to open a second front in the conflict.

The government also claims that Russian ships are preventing other vessels bearing grain supplies from docking at Georgian ports. Lomaia estimates that Georgia has a 30-day supply in reserve.

"In order to prevent the circumstances in which Ukraine could be drawn into a military conflict ... Ukraine reserves the right to bar ships which may take part in these actions from returning to the Ukrainian territory until the conflict is solved," the statement affirmed. Ukraine, like Georgia, seeks entrance into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a move which Russia fiercely opposes.

Moscow has not yet issued an official response to the statement.

Fuelled by the attacks, public anger against Russia is steadily growing. Cars bearing Georgian flags of all sizes can be seen on Tbilisi’s streets, while informal groups of city residents now gather in front of parliament to swap news and commiserate.

Shortly after the second August 10 bombing of the Tbilisi airfield, a raucous, large-scale demonstration took place in downtown Tbilisi, the second in two days.

The August 9 event had been followed by a march to the Russian embassy, where demonstrators staged against the building’s walls a slideshow protesting the attacks. Similar demonstrations have taken place in cities with sizeable Georgian Diasporas, including New York and Paris.

Source: EurasiaNet

No Peace Talks Until Georgian Forces Pull Back: Russia

GORI, Georgia -- Georgia has called for a ceasefire after Russian bombers widened an offensive to force back Georgian troops seeking control over the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

'State of war': Georgian soldiers in Gori after Russian warplanes bombed the city.
On Thursday Georgia sent troops to retake the breakaway province, which has been independent since the 1990s, and that move triggered an invasion of Russian forces dispatched to restore the status quo.

Russia has accused Georgia of "ethnic cleansing" in South Ossetia, where the majority of the population is ethnically distinct from Georgians.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili told CNN his country was ready to take immediate steps towards a ceasefire in South Ossetia providing Russia stopped its attacks.

"We are willing to do ceasefire immediately, provide the other side stops to shoot and to bomb," the Georgian leader told the US television network.

"And we are willing to disengage, disengage immediately, and as soon as they stop shoot[ing] at us we're willing to take any steps, first steps required for us."

The call seemed to fall on deaf ears, with Russia's leaders saying Moscow's actions were legitimate and that the only way to end the conflict was for Georgia to pull back from the region.

Russian officials said the death toll now stood at 2,000 and 30,000 refugees from South Ossetia had fled over the border to Russia over the past 36 hours.

It said two of its warplanes had been shot down, 13 of its soldiers killed and 70 wounded.

Georgian officials said that on its side, 129 Georgians had been killed and 748 injured.

US President George W Bush said Russian attacks on Georgia marked a "dangerous escalation" of the crisis and urged Moscow to halt the bombing immediately.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told Bush the only solution was for Georgian troops to quit the conflict zone.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin defended Russia's incursion.

"Russia's actions in South Ossetia are totally legitimate," he said in the Russian city of Vladikavkaz, near to the separatist Georgian region.

"We urge the Georgian authorities to immediately stop their aggression against South Ossetia, to stop all violations of all standing agreements on a ceasefire and to respect the legal rights and interests of other people."

A senior US official has stated, Russia has used "disproportionate" force in the South Ossetia conflict with Georgia and must immediately withdraw its troops and agree to a ceasefire with Tbilisi.

"The response has been far disproportionate from whatever threat Russia was citing," the official told reporters in a conference call.

"We are calling for an immediate ceasefire and a stand down of all troops," he added.

Russia's military action dramatically intensified its long-running stand-off with the pro-Western Georgian leadership and has sparked alarm in the West and led to angry exchanges at the United Nations reminiscent of the Cold War.

President Bush, Mr Saakashvili's main ally in the West, said Georgia's territorial integrity must be respected.

"The attacks are occurring in regions of Georgia far from the zone of conflict in South Ossetia. They mark a dangerous escalation in the crisis," said Mr Bush, who is attending the Olympics in Beijing.

In a telephone call with Mr Bush, Mr Medvedev "stressed that the only way out of the tragic crisis provoked by the Georgian leadership is a withdrawal by Tbilisi of its armed formations from the conflict zone," a Kremlin statement said.

Russian officials said there could be no talks until Georgian forces pulled back.

European reaction

Britain said a delegation of US and European officials was travelling to Georgia to seek to broker a ceasefire.

Georgia's parliament approved a state of war across the country for the next 15 days, while Russia accused the West of contributing to the violence by supplying Georgia with arms.

In New York, Belgium's UN ambassador was trying to get Security Council agreement on how to call for a halt to hostilities, diplomats said.

Sweden's foreign minister has compared Russian policy to that of Adolf Hitler and Slobodan Milosevic.

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said he had asked the French EU presidency "to urgently convene a meeting of the European Council at the level of heads of government," the PAP news agency reported.

"The territorial integrity of Georgia is currently being violated on an enormous scale," Mr Sikorski added. "There are bombardments, civilians are dying, foreign military forces are on Georgian territory."

Poland backs pro-western Georgia's efforts to join the EU and NATO and was supported by fellow ex-Soviet bloc members Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in urging the EU and NATO to oppose Russia's "imperialist" policy, a statement said.

"The EU and NATO must take the initiative and stand up against the spread of imperialist and revisionist policy in the east of Europe," leaders of the four countries said in a joint statement.

"The Russian Federation has overstepped a red-line in keeping the peace and stability in the conflict zone and in protecting Russian citizens outside its own borders," the statement added.

NATO has repeated calls for talks between Georgia and the separatist Russian-backed South Ossetian leadership but insisted that these "can only be based on Georgia's territorial integrity," a NATO spokeswoman told AFP.

Alongside another former Soviet republic, Ukraine, Georgia was prevented from obtaining NATO candidate status at an alliance summit this year.

A joint mission of diplomats from the EU, the US and Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe was due in Georgia late Saturday.

The UN Security Council was also to meet again Saturday, while EU foreign policy chief Solana was to speak with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko.

But German's deputy foreign minister, Gernot Erler, said Georgia had breached a 1992 South Ossetia ceasefire agreement, monitored essentially by Russian peacekeepers.

"In this sense, it is also a question of a violation of international law as soon as you start to go down the road of military action," Mr Erler told German radio station NDR Info.

Mr Erler acknowledged provocation by separatists, but said he understood Russia's reaction given the economic support it has long given the region.

Source: ABC News

Russia Says Ukraine Helping Georgia

MOSCOW, Russia -- Russia accused Ukraine on Saturday of encouraging Georgia to carry out 'ethnic cleansing' in the separatist region of South Ossetia by providing arms, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

Georgian soldiers run past a building hit by bombardment in Gori, 80 km (50 miles) from Tbilisi, August 9, 2008. A Russian warplane dropped a bomb on an apartment block in the Georgian town of Gori on Saturday, killing at least 5 people. The bomb hit the five-story building in Gori close to Georgia's embattled breakaway province of South Ossetia when Russian warplanes carried out a raid against military targets around the town.
"The Ukrainian government, which has been enthusiastically arming Georgian troops from top to bottom, was in fact encouraging Georgia to attack and carry out ethnic cleansing in South Ossetia," the ministry said in a statement on its website www.mid.ru.

It added that ex-Soviet Ukraine had "no moral right to teach others how to do things."

Source: Khaleej Times

Can The New Rich Buy Respect? One Ukrainian Oligarch Is Trying

KIEV, Ukraine — There comes a time in the life of an oligarch when spending money becomes more important than making it. And for Victor Pinchuk, the controversial oligarch and Ukraine’s second-richest man after Rinat Akhmetov, that time is now.

Victor Pinchuk has a fortune of $5 billion to $10 billion.
At his invitation, Paul McCartney recently performed before 350,000 exultant Ukrainians in Independence Square in Kiev during a thundering rainstorm. “This is for Ukrainya,” Mr. Pinchuk yelled after the performance in June.

It may have been, but the concert, which cost Mr. Pinchuk more than $5 million, was also the latest, most lavish stage for his own uneven metamorphosis from grasping, post-Soviet oligarch to international mover and shaker. Now, he calls the likes of the financier George Soros and former President Bill Clinton friends.

The worldwide boom in commodities has created a growing number of billionaires in once destitute economies like Russia, India and Ukraine. At the same time, the global credit crisis has set back the ambitions of many a Western titan and opened the way for a new breed of the superrich, hungry for art, access and, ultimately, acceptance.

For Mr. Pinchuk, and many of his contemporaries in neighboring Russia, the prizes they extracted from the ashes of the Soviet Union were a function of brute political calculation and ruthless business practice.

But in an interconnected world, success is measured not only by the size of their fortunes but also by their ability to use their billions to achieve recognition and influence far beyond the grimy precincts of their industrial triumphs.

His detractors say that Mr. Pinchuk’s wealth would not have exploded had he not married the only daughter of Leonid D. Kuchma, Ukraine’s controversial former president.

He has been accused of securing sweet deals on privatizations, especially in the steel industry. One of his privatization deals has been revoked. Another, his purchase of Nikopol, one of the world’s largest iron alloy producers, resulted in a lawsuit that accused Mr. Pinchuk of paying bribes to officials and siphoning off $41 million in profits.

That case was settled in 2006, and Mr. Pinchuk brushes off the allegations. He also denies that he benefited from favoritism.

“My pipe business I created from scratch; my media assets and bank I bought from the secondary market,” he said. “The only gift I get from Kuchma is my wife. I am trying to be transparent but nobody likes rich people.”

But his critics are undaunted. “I wouldn’t mind getting paid what his P.R. people are getting paid to clean up his image,” said Bruce S. Marks, a lawyer who represented the rival Ukrainian businessman who filed the lawsuit against Mr. Pinchuk.

In Russia, billionaire oligarchs like Roman A. Abramovich and Oleg V. Deripaska have taken steps to present themselves as acceptable international figures. Mr. Abramovich has invested millions in art and soccer, while Mr. Deripaska met with Senator John McCain in 2006. But few, if any, have been as bluntly aggressive in using art, philanthropy, public policy and even rock ’n’ roll to advance their agendas as Mr. Pinchuk.

“What I am doing is not about image,” said Mr. Pinchuk, 47. “I just want to participate in the building of my country.”

He is engaged in a level of philanthropy unparalleled in Ukraine, mixed with supercharged celebrity hobnobbing. He is one of the larger non-American donors to the foundation established by Mr. Clinton, and has bankrolled a substantial AIDS awareness initiative in Ukraine. He is equally at home enjoying a night out with Elton John or a private showing of Jeff Koons’s latest sculptures.

To sustain his quixotic dream of securing Ukraine’s entry into the European Union, he has financed programs in Washington at the Brookings Institution and the Peterson Institute. And he lured George H. W. Bush, Mr. Clinton, Karl Rove and Tony Blair to give speeches in Yalta to support the cause.

None of this comes cheap. Such pursuits, along with his art purchases, have cost Mr. Pinchuk about $200 million over the last four years out of a fortune estimated at $5 billion to $10 billion.

But the investments are already reaping dividends. A Pinchuk luncheon at Davos drew 400 luminaries; he has attended Mr. Clinton’s 60th and Mr. Bush’s 80th birthday parties; and he can now call upon Damien Hirst, known for his shark in formaldehyde, to propose a color scheme for his new private jet. (The suggestion was blue.)

Mr. Pinchuk’s endorsers include Kofi Annan as well as Mr. Soros, whom he identified early on as a mentor. He has since become a large benefactor to foundations backed by Mr. Soros.

“He is behaving like an enlightened capitalist, and there are not many in that part of the world,” Mr. Soros said.

It is not a role he was born into. Mr. Pinchuk was raised in a two-room apartment in Dniepropetrovsk, a town south of Kiev.

As an engineer out of college, he had modest goals — an apartment, a TV, perhaps a dacha. “This was my dream,” he said. “Then perestroika started.”

Armed with a patent for a specialized form of pipe production, Mr. Pinchuk persuaded his manager to let him market his services to pipe factories. In 1990, he formed Interpipe as an engineering consulting firm and positioned himself as a middleman.

With companies cut off from Moscow and the old business relationships, and unschooled in the ways of marketing and entrepreneurship, Mr. Pinchuk recreated the industrial chain of manufacturing steel — converting coal to coke to pig iron to hot rolled coils to steel pipes — taking a cut at each stage.

When Ukraine began selling its assets in the 1990s, Mr. Pinchuk built up stakes for a few million dollars in two pipe companies, which are now worth billions.

His fortune has attracted attention in the West and Mr. Clinton’s attention in particular. Sharing a fondness for blending high policy with kitschy celebrity gatherings, the two men have bonded.

“Victor is motivated by the rare quality of inclusion and doing whatever he can to bring together those who can help with those in need,” Mr. Clinton said in a statement.

Mr. Pinchuk makes scant effort to cloak his wealth, whether it be a $23 million purchase of a Koons sculpture or the $160 million he recently paid for a London estate. But such displays are not so easily digested in Ukraine, a country ravaged by inflation, AIDS and an inchoate political process.

Prime Minister Yulia V. Tymoshenko, who, like Mr. Pinchuk, is young and glamorous, has advanced an anti-oligarch platform squarely focused on Mr. Pinchuk and his ties to Mr. Kuchma.

When asked about her, Mr. Pinchuk declines to comment, saying only that the country is in need of real leadership. “Politicians love power. I love freedom,” he said. “That is why I am not a politician.”

It is the day after the concert, and Mr. Pinchuk has invited select guests to his sprawling Japanese garden. To honor Mr. McCartney, a vegan, Mr. Pinchuk has flown in the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra. The orchestra is now entertaining his brunch party by performing a cacophony of pumpkin pounding and celery screeches.

Mr. McCartney shows up with his new girlfriend. William B. Taylor Jr., the United States ambassador to Ukraine, is in attendance, as is Viktor A. Yushchenko, the president of Ukraine; Mikheil Saakashvili, the president of Georgia; and Mr. Hirst, the artist, accompanied by Jay Jopling, the influential art dealer.

It is in many ways a coming-out party, with each guest representing a swatch of the gaudy tapestry of legitimacy that Mr. Pinchuk so badly craves. The presence of Ambassador Taylor brings the implicit approval of the United States; the Ukrainian and Georgian presidents attest to his local clout; and the mere presence of Mr. Hirst and Mr. Jopling underscores his weight in the world of modern art.

President Yushchenko, whose face still bears the scars that made him a symbol during Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, takes it all in — the shimmering garden, the rock star and, in the distance, a nine-hole golf course that Mr. Pinchuk (who has just taken up the game) is building.

“The world has given it all to Mr. Pinchuk,” he said. “Now it is time to give it back.”

Source: The New York Times

Ukraine's Klitschko Wants Title Unification To Be Made In U.S.

NEW YORK, NY -- Wladimir Klitschko believes in learning from history, specifically the path traveled by the late Max Schmeling. "When I met Max Schmeling, Max said, 'If you want to make it big, you have to make it in the United States,' " Klitschko says. "You know what? Max was right."

At age 32, boxer Wladimir Klitschko says he isn't going to hang up his gloves anytime soon. He would like to make his mark in the United States before that happens.
The advice from the former heavyweight champion, and legendary rival of Joe Louis, helps to explain Klitschko's recent visit to the Big Apple. When he wasn't meeting with HBO executives to discuss what has been an endless and difficult search for attractive bouts, he was meeting with various media outlets to remind anyone willing to listen that, as he joked at one moment, "I rule."

He holds only one of the three major belts (IBF), but he still is regarded as the world's best heavyweight after knocking out Tony Thompson in the 11th on July 12. Yet he is hardly content.

"I want to continue my mission to unify the titles even if it is not an easy job because of boxing politics," he says. "The saying in boxing is really the truth. It may be more important to have a good lawyer than a good coach."

The Klitschko camp is working out details for a fight against Alexander Povetkin that is being mandated by the IBF. Povetkin emerged as the top challenger with victories against Eddie Chambers and Chris Byrd. They are likely to clash in Europe.

If Klitschko gets past Povetkin at a date to be determined for later this year, he likely would oppose the winner of the Aug. 30 Nicolay Valuev-John Ruiz rematch for the WBA crown.

His connections would welcome Madison Square Garden as the site for such a bout. "We love to fight in the States, we love to fight at Madison Square Garden because New York is really the place to go," says Klitschko's manager Bernd Boente.

Klitschko, 32, who earned a doctorate in Sports Science, has not thought about retirement. "I'm just entering my prime," he says. "I've heard boxers over 30 get better, and I'm seeing it now.… I don't see limits to myself right now and I enjoy it because it's a discovery for me."

Wladimir's brother, Vitali, is ending a four-year retirement to tangle with WBC titleholder Samuel Peter in Berlin on Oct. 11. If Vitali makes a successful return, wouldn't Klitschko vs. Klitschko finally provide the heavyweight division with the kind of marquee event it so sorely lacks?

There would be money to be made in a bout with broad international appeal, but their mother, Natalia, is an insurmountable opponent when it comes to having one son pound another.

It is one thing for siblings to trade shots with tennis racquets as Serena and Venus Williams do. It is an entirely different matter when fists are involved.

"They sparred with each other," Boente says. "Both brothers wanted to win and it was very tough. Boxing is a little different than tennis, where there is a net in between."

Wladimir and Vitali intend to keep their promise to Natalia that they cannot be coaxed into the ring together. "She just will not accept it. She will not," Wladimir says, "and we follow her wish."

Rescheduled:

Joe Calzaghe vs. Roy Jones (52-4, 38 KOs) will take place Nov. 8 at New York's Madison Square Garden in a light heavyweight match (HBO Pay-Per-View).

Although Calzaghe (45-0, 32 KOs) doesn't hold any of the three major belts, by virtue of his victory vs. Bernard Hopkins in April, he's recognized as the world's best 175-pounder through lineage. The bout was postponed from September because of an injury to Calzaghe.

Source: USA Today

Ukraine Chases 15 Medals In Beijing

BEIJING, China -- Ukraine, the winner of 23 medals including nine golds in the Athens Olympics, decided to downsize its goal for the Beijing Games following the retirement of "Medley Queen".

Members of the Olympic delegation of Ukraine attend the flag-raising ceremony at the Olympic Village in Beijing, China, Aug. 7, 2008. The Olympic delegation of Ukraine held its flag-raising ceremony on Thursday.
"Our goal is 15 medals, which is set according to our athletes' form," said chef de mission Nina Umanens after the flag-raising ceremony at the Olympic Village.

Yana Klochkova, Ukraine's most successful swimmer and four-time Olympic gold medalist, is still waiting for her successor in 200m and 400m individual medley.

Without Klochkova, Ukraine has to rely on its traditionally strong events.

According to Umanens, Ukraine is composed of 253 athletes and will chase medals in wrestling, gymnastics, athletics and canoeing.

"Although our aim is to catch 15 medals, we will try our best to get more for our country," Umanens added.

First competing as an independent nation in the 1996 Olympics, Ukraine clinched 23 medals in total, including seven from gymnastics.

In the 2000 Games, Ukraine won only three golds against nine in 1996. However, it presented to the world star swimmer Klochkova, who won the women's 200m and 400m individual medley and a silver in the women's 800m freestyle.

Klochkova extended her legend with two more golds in 2004.

Source: Xinhua

Rising Sex Tourism Unwelcome

KIEV, Ukraine -- Good­-looking women can be a country’s greatest attraction and biggest problem – at the same time. This seems to be the case in Ukraine, which is becoming a prime European destination for sex tourists.

Protesters hold posters and watch a performance during a demonstration in central Kiev, July 30, 2008. Demonstrators of an organisation Femen called to denounce the notion of sex tourism in the country.
Eight skimpily clad female college students held placards reading “Ukraine is Not a Bordello” in many languages on Kyiv’s Independence Square on July 30. They were protesting the advent of increasingly more sex tourists coming to the country.

The 50­-person, awareness-­raising show – complete with male ballet dancers acting as pimps in flashy suits – caught the public’s eye and brought the issue to the forefront.

“This is insulting to us [women] and it harms the country’s image since we’re increasingly becoming a country of destination for tourists whose sole purpose is to have sex with our women,” said Anna Hutsol, the leader of FEMEN, a loose-­knit women’s movement of mostly female students who organized the provocative demonstration.

“We take this issue very seriously. We are pushing for legislation to forbid sex tourists from entering the country. We are sick of men looking at us like pieces of meat,” Hutsol added.

Non­-governmental organizations like FEMEN are not the only ones who have noticed the new sex tourism boom. Government officials, public relations professionals and those in the entertainment industry are also starting to say something needs to be done to counteract the trend and Ukraine’s image as a haven for sex tourists.

“Ukraine has a competitive advantage, simply put, our women are the best in the world,” said Vasyl Myroshnychenko, a partner at CFC, a strategic communications, government relations and investment consulting firm. “What Ukraine needs to do [to improve its image tainted by corruption, sex tourism and other problems] is to conduct a positive image campaign with systemic, consistent and coordinated support from the top.”

Hutsol says Ukrainian women are already equated with prostitutes abroad – an image that adds headaches to women seeking visas and facing embarassing interviews with foreign embassies.

Some observers attribute the increase of sex tourists to the government’s visa regime relaxation in 2005.

“There’s a definite correlation between the new visa­-free regime and visitors to my club, as is true in other places in Kyiv such as, Arena and Avalon,” said Ray McRobbie, director of entertainment and marketing at River Palace, whose night club is reputed for short-­term matchmaking.

It is virtually impossible to track the statistics of so called “sexpats” traveling to Ukraine, however.

“The growing amount of sex tourists entering Ukraine has not escaped us, but it is very difficult to measure their numbers,” said Andriy Shenin, an expert at the state tourism administration.

In 2007, 23 million foreigners visited Ukraine, according to the administration, up 22 percent over 2006. The vast majority of foreigners came mainly from former Soviet republics. However, the greatest rise in the numbers was from the European Union and other non­-CIS nations. That category showed a 96 per cent rise, or 725,000 more visitors.

Police told Korrespondent, the Kyiv Post’s Russian­ language sister publication, that some 12,000 prostitutes operate in Ukraine's $700 million sex industry. The figure is comparable to the annual profits of RosUkrEnergo, a Swiss­registered intermediary company that supplies Ukraine with gas, but pales in comparison with Thailand’s multi-­billion dollar sex industry. The Interior Ministry’s press service said this number is “very high” for Ukraine where prostitution is prohibited under law.

Hutsol said police figures heavily underestimate the situation. Low student stipends and the capital’s high prices are pushing more young women into prostitution, she added.

“Most women I spoke with are ashamed and do this out of poverty but some also do it out of material desire,” Hutsol added.

A 45­-year German businessman who runs a sex tourist web portal says there are too few well-­paying jobs for university­ educated women. “They see luxury cars and houses and they want it now so they either compete for sugar daddies or willingly sell themselves,” he said.

One example he gave was about a smart, open­ minded recent graduate who works for an insurance company, but who also services VIP clients at a rate of $2,000 per month. He calls it the “I want everything and I want it now” mentality of young women from 19 to 22 years of age. Prices for their services start from $20 for oral sex and can run up to $5,000 per hour for VIP clients, but usually fall in the $100­-$300 range.

The German portal owner said Ukraine’s proximity to Europe and its relatively inexpensive prices makes it a good destination for sex seeking enthusiasts. His site contains 32 sub­directories for Kyiv alone billed as “everything you need for a pleasure weekend."

"The girls here are tall and slim, and getting them into bed is easy. Moreover they are fun to party with,” he said.

The party can be booked on­line. A two-­day sex tour advertised runs $1,250­-$1,600, depending on the type of girl and her English speaking skills. The site offers confidentiality and discreet billing, private cottages outside of Kyiv or apartments in the capital, round­-trip transport to Boryspil airport and discounts for longer stays.

Lack of moral values is also cited as a factor driving Ukraine's sex business. Barely legal girls released from state­-run orphanages and boarding homes are especially at ­risk, said Iryna Konchenkova, head of the international non-­profit School of Equal Opportunities. Her organization combats child labor, child pornography and trafficking.

“Morals are not instilled at the state ­operated orphanages. When I speak to the older girls at these institutions, all they talk about are cigarettes, cars and so on without realizing how much they cost or how much they have to work to purchase them,” Konchenkova said.

This materialist approach leads them to prostitution as the fast track to acquiring the things they want, Konchenkova said pointing to street children and rural residents as two other at ­risk groups because of their low educational levels and lack of parental guidance.

Hutsol is concerned that the Euro­ 2012 Soccer Championship will bring an influx of male sexpat tourists.

“We are developing an action plan leading to the 2012 cup. We are a fast­ growing organization with a strong network and so we’ll build on this to hang social billboards on city life which will feature photo sessions with famous people, and partner with other organizations doing similar things to build a strong coalition,” Hutsol added.

Source: Kyiv Post

Credit Cards: US Authorities Charge 11 In Global Identity Theft Racket

WASHINGTON, DC -- American authorities have uncovered a global computer hacking and credit card fraud ring spanning the US, eastern Europe and Asia, officials said.

US Attorney General Michael Mukasey
Eleven people from the US, China and three former Soviet republics have been charge with stealing more than 40 million credit and debit card numbers and selling them to criminals in the US and Europe, in one of the largest identity theft schemes on record.

The indictments mark the end of a three-year investigation involving law enforcement authorities from at least four countries. US attorney general Michael Mukasey said the financial toll in the case is "impossible to quantify at this point".

Michael Sullivan, a justice department lawyer, said that most of the victims were in the US but officials have yet to identify all those whose credit card numbers were stolen. "I suspect that a lot of people are unaware that their identifying information has been compromised," he said.

One of the companies thought to have been targeted, TJX, is the parent of the British retail chain TK Maxx.

In January, TJX admitted that information from 45.7 million credit and debit cards on both sides of the Atlantic had been stolen.

Names, card numbers and personal data were stolen over a 17-month period and covering transactions dating as far back as December 2002.

According to justice department officials and court documents, members of the ring drove close to US retail stores in search of wireless internet connections on which they installed "sniffer" software that would record card numbers.

The suspects then sold the numbers over the internet to individuals who encoded them on blank credit cards and withdrew tens of thousands of dollars at a time from cash machines.

According to court documents unsealed this week, three of the defendants, Sergey Pavlovich of Belarus, and Dzmitry Burak and Sergey Storchak of Ukraine, used a website on which credit card traffickers bought and sold data, with Pavlovich taking a percentage of the sales.

Two other defendants, Maksym Yastremskiy of Kharkov, Ukraine, and Aleksandr Suvorov of Sillamae, Estonia, known on the internet as JonnyHell, allegedly captured credit and debit card numbers from a New York restaurant.

Justice officials said Yastremskiy pocketed more than $11 million from the sale of the stolen numbers.

One of the defendants, Albert Gonzalez of Miami, was an informant for the US Secret Service, the agency tasked with protecting the US president and combating financial fraud and counterfeiting. Gonzalez faces life in prison if convicted on all charges.

Source: Guardian UK

Survey Reveals Tension Between Russia, Ukraine

BANGOR, ME -- A survey in Russia, for naming the greatest person of its history, has three individuals in a tight race: Czar Nicholas II, Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Lenin. This fact is as fascinating as it is revealing.

Vladimir Lenin (L) and Joseph Stalin, in 1922.
Would you expect a similar tight race in Germany for the greatest historic person to be among Frederick William II, Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler? Not in your dreams! But then Germany was defeated during World War II while Russia-Soviet Union won the war.

Thus political and religious persecutions by the Soviet-Russian government and their gulags of Siberia are of no consequence to the average Russian.

There is nothing to be contrite about. A strong government has a soothing effect on the soul of the average Russian, even when it is at the expense of his personal freedom.

Vladimir Putin disavowed his government from the Soviet gulags but nothing else. However that statement was only for the benefit of the western world. The true feeling of the average Russian and his government has to be measured by the respect for former leaders.

Since the czars’ times, ethnic Ukrainians were not given access to education. In fact, printing of Ukrainian books, even prayer books, was forbidden. Thus a challenging opportunity presented itself to Stalin in that the Ukrainian nation consisted essentially of farmers and could be wiped out.

In order to destroy the rise of nationalism and as well the opposition of farmers to collectivization, Stalin had engineered a famine during the 1932-33 harvest season. Arable land and peasant households were confiscated while rich farmers were deported to the Urals.

All harvested grain and animals were centralized to be rationed as needed, while some were even exported.

Armed military units were going from village to village removing all "excess" food. Lack of forage for animals and rotting of grain in elevators resulted in food shortage.

While cities and towns received some food, the farmers were left on their own. It is estimated that the number of death from starvation ranged anywhere between 6 million and 10 million individuals.

But the problem is that history repeats itself, and in the case of the Russian government, it is intentionally duplicating history. Right now there is a verbal attack on Ukraine in an attempt to destabilize the nation and then annex it.

At the Bucharest conference, when Ukraine was being considered for potential entry into NATO, Putin reportedly said to President Bush that Ukraine is not a nation (an ethnic group of about 50 million?)

On several occasions the mayor of Moscow said that Russia will never give up Sevastopol, now in Ukrainian territory. Russia’s Duma representative stated that Russia will do everything possible to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO, yet there is no objections from Russia for Serbia to join NATO (once Radovan Karadzic has been turned over to the European Tribunal for war crimes).

As a matter of fact, Mr. Putin commented that if Ukraine joins NATO, Russia will target Ukraine with nuclear weapons (probably the ones that Ukraine turned over to them). Last winter Russia cut the gas supply to Ukraine twice by 50 percent (probably to remind Ukrainians of the 1932-33 Holodomor).

Thus under Russia’s oversight, Ukraine experienced mass famine in 1932-33 and nuclear catastrophe in 1986 (Chernobyl) and as an independent nation it is threatened with being frozen to death.

We should be extra cautious when dealing with countries with this sort of record.

Source: Bangor Daily News

Platini Urges Support For Ukraine And Poland

KIEV, Ukraine -- UEFA President Michel Platini urged the international community to back Ukraine and Poland in organising Euro 2012 despite doubts the ex-communist states, especially Ukraine, are able to do so.

UEFA President Michel Platini
Platini, quoted by the Ukrinform news agency while visiting Italy, said such public support was vital "in order to implement the democratic decision made by the UEFA executive committee to hold Euro 2012 in Poland and Ukraine".

UEFA chose the joint bid last year over submissions from Italy and another joint proposal from Hungary and Croatia.

Delays in rebuilding stadiums and proceeding with construction and modernisation of roads, airports and hotels have given rise to doubts that ex-Soviet Ukraine will be able to take on the mammoth task of staging half the tournament.

Platini has visited Ukraine twice this year and warned officials that the next few months were critical in moving ahead with preparations.

He said after talks in Kiev this month that a UEFA executive meeting in September would make a final assessment.

UEFA officials have denied suggestions that contingency plans have been drawn up to hand the tournament to another country if Ukraine proves unable to meet requirements.

In his latest comments, Platini denied a suggestion that such plans might involve Italy being asked to step in to run the tournament.

"Italy will probably want to stage the tournament in 2016," he was quoted as saying, but added that the country's stadiums were "not the best in Europe, old and not especially beautiful".

One of the key issues dogging Ukrainian organisers is the renovation of Kiev's 84,000-seat Olympic stadium, due to hold the Euro 2012 final.

A Taiwanese firm won a tender earlier this year to modernise the facility, but Ukrainian officials have since ceased all dealings with the company and reopened the bidding to German firm GMP and Britain's Foster and Partners.

Media reports say the new contractor is to be chosen this week.

Source: The Herald

Consumers Suffer As Ukrtelecom Lags

KIEV, Ukraine -- Millions of people around the world are using their cell phones to hold video conferences, surf the internet at fast speeds and to watch TV using the latest and greatest technology, so-called third generation (3G) communication.

Apple's upcoming 3G iPhone will not have a bright future in Ukraine.
But in Ukraine, such conveniences appear to be distant or expensive realities due to the lack of competition caused by the state’s go-slow strategy. That means consumers appear destined to suffer from low quality and a lack of choices.

Government officials have their reasons for taking this tack. They are trying to beef up the market value of state-owned Ukrtelecom, the only 3G license holder and one of the nation’s most valuable enterprises not yet privatized.

On July 16, a court stripped Ukraine’s largest mobile phone company, Kyivstar, of the right to attain a license offering third-generation telecommunications, leaving the state’s fixed-line telephone company, Ukrtelecom, with a monopoly. Experts say the decision will put off Kyivstar’s plans to kick start 3G mobile phone, internet and data communication service to thousands of subscribers this year.

The monopoly held by Ukrtelecom will limit competition and, therefore quality, of this hi-tech service that has grown in popularity in other countries. The company officially launched its 3G service late last year under the Utel brand, and claims its network is available in Ukraine’s largest cities.

But Ukrtelecom officials claim their 3G business is growing steadily, 20 percent each month, and currently has some 20,000 end subscribers of its own for 3G services.

Other companies that market 3G service in Ukraine use a less advanced CDMA technology, but Kyivstar and other leading privately-owned telecoms have pushed for regulators to open up the market so that Ukrainians could get a taste of real 3G, which includes video calling, mobile television services and high-speed internet connections in the 3.6-megabit range.

Their most recent effort in the two-year battle against Ukrtelecom’s monopoly license rights hit another snag this month.

Last December, Kyiv’s District Administrative Court ruled in favor of a Kyivstar appeal, arguing in its decision that the company should have the right to acquire a 3G license. But no license has since been granted and an appeal from Ukraine’s telecoms market regulator, the National Communications Regulatory Commission, was upheld on July 16. The Kyiv Administrative Appeal Court has ruled in favor of the national regulatory commission, reversing the previous court ruling that argued that Kyivstar should have a right to a license.

Meanwhile, it is unclear when Ukrtelecom will be sold by the government.

The sale of the telecommunications giant was first approved in 2000. But it has been mired in political squabbles.

The government’s most recent attempt to sell Ukrtelecom came in April this year, when it approved a $2.4 billion starting bid to privatize a 68 percent stake of the company.

The privatization, scheduled for this year, attracted a handful of big potential buyers, including Rinat Akhmetov’s System Capital Management, Russia's Sistema (MTS) and Alfa Group, Turkcell, Magyar Telecom, Telecom Austria and Transtelecom.

Ukrtelecom has almost 80 percent of Ukraine’s fixed line market with subscriber base of 10 million people. More than 92 percent of the company’s stock is owned by the government, while another 7 percent belongs to the company’s employees.

Since 2005, Ukrtelecom exclusively owns third generation connection license in UMTS standard.

After repeated protests from privately-owned telecom competitors, officials last year approved tender procedures to sell additional 3G licenses, but the process was again hung up in bureaucratic delays.

Serhiy Konnov, senior partner at Konnov & Sozanovsky law firm, believes that the state’s tactics of blocking 3G licenses are simply designed to maximize the value of Ukrtelecom ahead of privatization.

“The situation definitely has a political motive. Government wants to increase Ukrtelecom’s capitalization by means of such non-material assets for its further privatization. Its [Ukrtelecom’s] position of the monopoly 3G license holder raises its market value,” Konnov said.

Officials at Kyivstar, Ukraine’s largest mobile communication provider in terms of subscribers, said their company will now face more uphill court battles to defend its rights for a 3G license. Yulia Shilina, the head of Kyivstar’s public relations office, said that the company plans to appeal to a higher court.

Until it wins a license, Kyivstar and other operators will need to offer 3G services to customers via Ukrtelelcom’s network, paying a fee for access.

Maksym Blahonravin, a telecoms expert, said Ukrtelecom's monopoly hampers development.

Today third generation connection is provided by several operators in Ukraine. With service cost ranging from $5 to $60, the companies provide 3G connection based on CDMA technology. Kyivstar and Beeline provide this service through the only available UMTS 3G network operated by Ukrtelecom.

“We currently provide our 3G services through Utel's network. As a result, our 3G service development is limited by Utel's resources, which as you know, are quite limited," Shilina said. If we would have our own license, we would be able to cover about 99 percent of the country, because our network is very well developed,” Shilina said.

According to a report by Advanced Communications & Media (AC&M), a research and consulting agency, the mobile telecommunication market has reached saturation and requires massive investment into new technologies, such as 3G.

Mobile phone subscribers have now reached 55 million. Future revenue growth is dependent on operators’ ability to offer new services. In two years, estimates are that 30 percent of the world's mobile subscribers will be 3G users.

For now, consumers in Ukraine are wanting for competitive and quality 3G services to be made available in Ukraine. Dariya Polishchuk, a 3G subscriber for almost a year, said "the connectivity is not very good, the price is quite high. [Western European] 3G services are...much better,’” she added.

Source: Kyiv Post

Caravaggio Stolen From Odessa Museum

ODESSA, Ukraine -- Art experts in Ukraine on Friday lamented the theft of a work by 17th century Italian artist Caravaggio from a museum, describing it as a cultural catastrophe for ex-Soviet states.

Caravaggio's "The Taking of Christ"
Staff at the Museum of Western and Eastern Art in the Black Sea port of Odessa discovered the painting, called the Taking of Christ, or the Kiss of Judas, missing, cut from its frame when they arrived at work on Thursday.

As the museum had been closed the previous day, the thieves could have struck any time from Tuesday evening.

Police said they entered through a window, bypassing an outdated alarm system by removing a pane of glass rather than breaking it. They then escaped across the museum's roof.

"This is a cultural catastrophe, a national tragedy. There is so little of art of such level in the former Soviet Union," said Vitaly Abramov, deputy head of a second museum in the city, the Odessa Art Museum.

"You cannot put a price on this and I am not talking about money here. It is, in every sense, priceless."

Auction houses in London declined to give a valuation of a Caravaggio.

Television pictures showed the window where the thieves had entered, its alarm disabled and its frame in bad repair.

"We came in here to find that the wind was blowing the blinds around through a window with no pane," Lyudmila Saulenko, the museum's deputy director told reporters.

"And where the painting had hung we just saw its stretcher. The painting had been removed from its frame."

The painting had been bought by a Russian ambassador to France and presented as a gift to a Russian prince before being turned over to the Odessa museum last century.

Doubts had been expressed about the painting's authenticity, but Soviet art experts in the 1950s confirmed the work was in fact by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. It underwent restoration work in 2006.

A version of the same painting by Caravaggio hangs in the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin.

News reports said city police had been urging the museum to update its alarm system, dating from the mid-1990s, but the suggestion was turned down on financial grounds.

"Thefts, of course, do occur in great museums like the Hermitage (in St Petersburg) or the Louvre (in Paris)," Abramov said. "But the answer is to put in a truly effective alarm system and not postpone this."

Source: AFP

Thirty Die In Ukraine’s Worst Floods In 200 Years

KIEV, Ukraine -- The death toll from Ukraine’s worst floods in two hundred years climbed to thirty while swollen rivers in the region also claimed the lives of three people in neighbouring Moldova.

Yaroslav Narozhnyak, 62, a former miner and crane operator in Siberia, stands outside his badly damaged house, with his possessions piled on tables and shelves to avoid the damp, in Dubivsti village, Ivano-Frankivsk region, southwest Ukraine July 31, 2008. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies have released over 600,000 Swiss francs ($574,053) for emergency relief and rehabilitation in Ukraine and Moldova following the devastating floods last weekend.
The country's parliament responded with the allocation of some 5.8 billion hryvna ($1.2 billion) to disaster relief efforts and also approved President Viktor Yushchenko’s decree declaring six regions disaster areas.

Five days of heavy rain in the southwestern Carpathian Mountains caused the Prut and Dniestr rivers to overflow.

Hundreds of towns and villages have been flooded, more than 40,000 houses affected and around 20,000 people were evacuated.

Ukraine's Emergency Minister Volodymyr Shandra said 23 people had drowned, three had been hit by lightning, three had been electrocuted and one was killed in a small landslide.

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko had called for an emergency session of parliament, which was on summer recess, to amend the state budget to allocate money for relief works.

The parliament spent six hours examining compensation proposals submitted by Mr Yushchenko and Ms Tymoshenko.

Heavy floods have also hit neighbouring Romania and Moldova.

In the Moldovan capital, Chisinau, three people were found dead after being swept away by floodwaters, an Interior Ministry official said.

Two drowned when they became trapped under cars while trying to cross a flooded road. Another was found under a bridge.

More than 100 houses had been destroyed in the storms and more than 5,000 people evacuated, the official said.

The authorities in Romania said that four people had died and more than 11,000 been evacuated.

Source: Times Online

Students Protest Ukraine's Sex Tourism Industry

KIEV, Ukraine -- Students from several universities dressed as prostitutes to draw attention to a problem many Ukrainians say is tarnishing their country.

Protesters hold posters and watch a performance during a demonstration in central Kiev, July 30, 2008. Demonstrators of an organisation Femen called to denounce the notion of sex tourism in the country.
"We are not for sale:" a group of Ukrainian women gathered in central Kiev to protest against the country's burgeoning sex tourism industry.

The women - students from several universities - dressed as prostitutes to draw attention to a problem many Ukrainians say is tarnishing their country.

"Lots of foreigners come here for sex, and to put it bluntly sex tours are now being sold. We don't want our country to become a big brothel. It's a shame and it's shameful," says one of the protestors.

Prostitution is illegal but widespread and largely ignored by the government.

Ukrainian police estimate there are approximately 12,000 prostitutes in Ukraine, with 4,000 working in Kiev alone.

The former Soviet republic may lag far behind Thailand on the list of sex tourists' favourite destinations, but it's moving up - thanks in part to the easing of visa restrictions on American and European Union citizens.

Ukraine is one of the largest exporters of women to the international sex industry - a damning statistic.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, almost half a million Ukrainian women have been trafficked into sexual slavery abroad - and now increasingly at home as well.

Source: News Radio 600