Dynamo And Shakhtar Fight For Ukraine Supremacy On European Stage

KIEV, Ukraine -- Certain fixtures transcend their immediate context. A UEFA Cup semi-final, of course, is a significant occasion whoever the opposition, but tonight's meeting of Dynamo Kyiv and Shakhtar Donetsk has added spice.

Head coach of Dynamo Kiev Yurii Semin, looks on during press conference at the Koncha Zaspa training base near Kiev, Ukraine, Wednesday, April 29, 2009. Dynamo Kiev will face Ukraine's Shakhtar Doneck in an UEFA Cup semifinal first leg soccer match in Kiev, Thursday, April 30, 2009.
It's not just that whoever wins over two legs will be Ukraine's first representatives in a European final since the fragmentation of the USSR; it's that whoever loses will have to endure their closest rivals claiming to be Ukraine's pre-eminent team.

The story of Dynamo's rivalry with Shakhtar is the story of modern Ukrainian football; to an extent, it is the story of modern Ukraine, as the regions have risen to challenge the capital.

Thanks to the patronage of the Ukrainian Communist Party, Dynamo were always the dominant Ukrainian side in the USSR. "In those days," the former Dynamo player and coach Josef Szabo said, "it was like a pyramid, with Dynamo at the top.

The patron of the club was [the late leader of the Ukrainian Communist Party] Volodymyr Scherbytskyi. He was a big football fan, and if there was a great player at Shakhtar or Dnipro or some other Ukrainian club, he made one phone call and the player would be in Kyiv – no money or anything like that."

Accordingly, after Tavriya Simferapol had won the first league title after independence, Dynamo won the next nine. They were starting with the best squad and they were wealthier than anybody else, having attracted backers keen to take advantage of tax breaks enjoyed by sporting institutions.

At the end of the 1993-94 season, for instance, after being pushed hard by Dnipro, they signed four of their players.

They also enjoyed the fruits of the best state-run academy. The last generation to pass through it was highly gifted, featuring the likes of Andriy Shevchenko, Serhiy Rebrov, Oleh Luzhny and Vladyslav Vashchuk, and Valeriy Lobanovskyi lead them to the semi-final of the Champions League in 1999, in which they at one stage led Bayern Munich 3-1. Bayern, though, came back to win, and that was as good as it got for Lobanovskyi's third great Dynamo side.

Shakhtar, meanwhile, were building. Their president Oleksandr Bragin was killed in a bomb attack at the ground in 1996, and was eventually succeeded by his right-hand man, Rinat Akhmetov, who had missed the bombing after being held up in traffic.

He invested heavily, both in players and in a superb training complex which, with its luxurious rooms, aviary and fishing lake, provides an understandable lure for players who may otherwise be reluctant to move to an industrial city in the heart of Ukraine's coal-mining region.

For all Akhmetov's wealth – a study in 2007 named him as Europe's richest man, although he has almost certainly slipped back since then – that mining heritage is still central to Shakhtar's self-image.

The word Shakhtar itself means "Miner". The new crest, adopted last year, features a flame and a pair of crossed hammers. Their combination of orange shirt and black shorts supposedly represents the experience of a miner leaving the dark of the pit for the bright of the day.

Like many industrial areas, the Donbass has an intense regional pride, and Shakhtar plays a key part in that identity. They regularly had the highest average attendances in Soviet times, and still average more than Dynamo.

"The people work very hard and they need football," said their coach, Mircea Lucescu. "It has a social role beyond sport. Akhmetov is spending his money for all the people." The new stadium, which should be ready for the start of next season, will be set in an extensive park to provide recreational space for all of Donetsk.

As Shakhtar invested in the late nineties, so Dynamo began to resent them. Their vice-president, Serhiy Polkhovskyi, compared them to Rastignac, the ambitious youth created by Balzac who first appears in Pere Goriot.

When I relayed that description to his Shakhtar counterpart, Mark Levytsky, he snorted. "Let them read Balzac," he said with a dismissive waft of his arm. "We will concentrate on football." Typical Kyivans, he seemed to be suggesting, with their laboratories and their computer-modelled training programmes, always over-intellectualising.

Even the club song, after eulogising miners leaving the pits to watch the team, contains a snide reference to the fact that "not only students with books are waiting for Shakhtar's victory".

As Shakhtar rose, so Dynamo stumbled. After the defeat to Bayern Munich, Shevchenko and numerous others left. Without state funding, it turned out, the academy was no longer churning out gifted players who conformed to the Lobanovskyi template.

Dynamo, like many others in eastern Europe, brought in foreigners to fill the gap, only to find them unwilling to submit to Lobanovskyi's demands. Local players, benefiting from a new freedom of movement, similarly grew resistant to Lobanovskyi's authoritarian method. "He had internal torments," said Polkhosvkyi.

"Previously a word, a glance, was enough to assert his authority and explain what he wanted. Maybe it was typical of the Communist system, but now players have a greater freedom and an individuality. They become stars and so they do not put the team first."

Lobanovskyi didn't live to see Shakhtar lift the title, but it was only a month away when he collapsed in the dug-out at Zaporyzhzhya, suffering a stroke from which he never recovered. Lobanovskyi's assistant, Oleksiy Mykhailychenko, replaced him and went on to win two titles, but the sense of invincibility was gone and Shakhtar have won three of the last four titles.

Dynamo, it seemed, were stuck in an endless cycle of trying to replicate Lobanovskyi's success. Mykhailychenko was dismissed early in the 2004-05 season following a 2-0 home defeat to Shakhtar – their first home defeat by two goals since fragmentation – after which a succession of other former Lobaonvskyi players - Szabo, Leonid Buryak, Anatoliy Demyanenko and Oleh Luzhny – succeeded him.

All seemed terrified of deviating from Lobanovskyi's model, as though they were always asking themselves, as Szabo openly admitted doing, "What would Valeriy Vasylyovich have done?"

The problem – even leaving aside the problems Lobanovskyi had in the final months - was that he had always evolved. It's impossible to know what – if any – solutions he may have come up with, but what is sure is that he wouldn't have kept trying to apply the 2002 model.

Last year, at last, came a break with the appointment of the Muscovite Yuri Semin, who had no direct connection to either Dynamo or Lobanovskyi. Dynamo currently lie 12 points clear at the top of the table.

In four meetings since Semin took charge, though, Dynamo are yet to beat Shakhtar: they lost 2-0 in the cup final, 1-0 in the league, and drew in both the Super Cup and the Channel One Cup, losing the former and winning the latter on penalties. "We don't have to prove we're the best team in Ukraine," said the Dynamo president Ihor Surkis. "We've proved that already in the league." Well, yes they have, but he must know that this game, whatever happens, will be etched into history, standing bold as another league title fades in the memory.

It is easy to be cynical about oligarchal involvement in clubs, but in this case at least it is clear that both Akhmetov and Surkis care. Akhmetov may not have been much of a fan when he took over, but these days he becomes so nervous during big games that he regularly leaves the stadium. Surkis has his own way of coping with the tension.

"The team has risen so high that I had to start smoking again," he said. "It destroys my health." It's a sign of how comfortable they were against PSG in the quarter-final that Surkis claims not to have touched a cigarette in the second half of the second leg.

It's hard to believe, though, that he will not be puffing away tonight, as Akhmetov paces the car-park. This is Dynamo's biggest game in a decade; it's probably Shakhtar's biggest ever.

Source: Guardian News

Russia, Ukraine Move To Ease Energy Tensions

MOSCOW, Russia -- Russia and Ukraine moved Wednesday to repair their strained relations, pledging cooperation on energy and a range of other issues that have plagued ties between the two ex-Soviet neighbours.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (R) exchanges documents with Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshchenko (L) in Moscow. Ukraine's and Russia's prime ministers on Wednesday voiced cautious optimism that their countries' energy disputes were being resolved, after past gas cut-offs caused alarm in the European Union.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said her country had asked Russia to help upgrade its gas transit system, after Moscow complained of being left out of a deal between Kiev and the EU on upgrading Ukraine's ageing pipelines.

"We have invited Russia as one of the main partners to modernise the Ukrainian gas transportation system," Tymoshenko said at a joint press conference with her Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.

Putin said Moscow deserved a role in upgrading Ukraine's pipeline network, which handles the majority of Russian natural gas exports to Europe.

"We are not seeking to manage, but we are the main and only supplier to the Ukrainian pipeline system," he said, following talks with Tymoshenko.

Putin added that Russia would not demand billions of dollars in fines from Kiev -- a possibility that had been raised after Ukraine, hit hard by the economic crisis, purchased less gas from Russia than required by contract.

"These sanctions are not being applied," Putin said, estimating that the possible fine could have been as much as two billion dollars.

Apart from any specifics Putin and Tymoshenko discussed, however, it was the sight of the two of them sitting side by side and holding forth calmly before a packed press conference that carried at least as much weight as their words.

Putin afterwards described his daylong discussions with Tymoshenko as "businesslike and open."

In January relations between Moscow and Kiev plummeted to such a low that gas supplies to and through Ukraine were cut off, leaving a string of European countries temporarily without gas in the middle of winter.

"It is good that our cooperation is being fine-tuned.... The times when a certain confrontation was felt are becoming a thing of the past," Tymoshenko said.

"The system of gas supplies in Ukraine has fully stabilized," she said.

For his part, Putin said: "What very much pleases me is that cooperation between certain rather sensitive and important industries and enterprises is not being destroyed but deepened."

Despite the friendly atmospherics, Putin made clear however that Russia had not yet agreed to a request from Ukraine for a five billion-dollar loan.

"We don't have a final decision today," Putin said.

Tymoshenko also sent a Moscow-friendly signal on another issue that hugely angered Russia last year: Ukrainian arms sales to Georgia, which fought a brief war with Russia last summer.

"There are no arms sales to Georgia, nor will there be in the future," Tymoshenko said in response to a reporter's question about whether Kiev was still selling arms to Tbilisi.

Tymoshenko also offered Ukraine's help in setting up an international centre for uranium enrichment, a project led by Kazakhstan and Russia with the aim of supplying third countries with enriched uranium for civilian nuclear power.

Following the talks with Putin, Tymoshenko said Ukraine would by July 15 prepare a long-term contract with Russia on nuclear energy cooperation.

Putin and Tymoshenko were initially due to meet in early April, but Russia postponed the visit after the Ukraine-EU deal on gas infrastructure cooperation sparked an angry reaction from Moscow.

Tymoshenko's visit comes as European Union Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs is also due in Moscow for talks on the bloc's gas trade with Russia.

Source: AFP

Poland Fears Losing Influence In Ukraine

WARSAW, Poland -- Ukrainian Secretary of the National Security Council Raisa Bohatyriova will visit Poland today to meet with President Lech Kaczynski, head of the National Security Office, Foreign Minister and Minister of Defense.

As Ukrainian Secretary of the National Security Council, Raisa Bohatyriova visits Poland, Warsaw fears it might be losing a close ally in Kiev sooner than expected.
The politicians will discuss security strategies drawn up at the NATO Summit in Strasbourg, the European Union’s European Partnership that Poland and Sweden have initiated and prospects of integrating energy security policies.

Meanwhile, former political rivals, President Lech Kaczynski and former president Aleksander Kwasniewski met two weeks ago to discuss current political crisis in Ukraine, Dziennik reveals.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, strongly supported by Polish political elites during the so called Orange revolution in 2004, will soon step down. The parliament in Kiev has set the next presidential election for October.

Yushchenko has declared, however, that he is ready to resign even sooner, if early parliamentary elections were held simultaneously.

Opinion polls show clearly that both Yushchenko and his party has little chance to win a ballot held in the near future.. Polish politicians are worried, because Ukraine led by a new government will probably be more pro-Russian and less pro-European.

The meeting between Kaczynski and Kwasniewski took place on 14 April, just a day before Kwasniewski’s visit to Kiev. The former president was invited by the Open Ukraine Foundation of Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a former Ukrainian head of diplomacy.

Kwasniewski made a speech on strategic perspectives of Ukraine and met with leading Ukrainian politicians, Dziennik reports.

Source: News PL

Ukraine Airport Arrivals To Walk Mats Soaked With Disinfectant

KIEV, Ukraine -- Air travelers arriving in Ukraine from countries hit by the swine flu virus must exit their plane across mats saturated with disinfectants, according to Health Ministry instructions going into effect on Tuesday. The anti-virus pathways are to be at the exits of aircraft arriving from Mexico and the US, government officials said.

European health commissoner Androulla Vassiliou answers questions as she arrives for a General Affairs Council meeting in Luxembourg. Fears of swine flu spreading to Europe grew Tuesday as the number of confirmed cases here rose to four, while travel firms cancelled flights to Mexico and began repatriating tourists already there.
All plane arriving on Ukrainian soil from Central and North America will receive "intensified health inspections," government spokesman Mykola Kornienko said, according to Fakty newspaper.

Ukraine's leading airline Aerosvit on Tuesday issued medical masks and gloves to air crew traveling on routes linking with the US and Mexico, to be used in assisting passengers showing signs of flu infection.

Air crew working Aerosvit's popular New York-Kiev route by government order must indentify to authorities at Kiev's main airport Boryspil the names of all passengers aboard displaying symptoms including fever or chronic cough, Kornienko said.

Similar measures will go into effect in other Ukrainian airports servicing international routes, said Vasyl Kniazevich, Ukraine's Health Minister, at a Kiev press conference.

A total ban on import into Ukraine of live pigs from any country and of raw pork products from Mexico, New Zealand, Canada, and some US states also was in effect, Sehodnia newspaper reported.

Ukraine's government had no supplies of swine flu vaccine, and so was recommending increased vitamin C intake, non-consumption of imported pork products, and avoiding crowds, as the best ways for Ukrainians to avoid infection, said Oleh Nazar, a Kiev city health official.

Source: DPA

Milan Striker Shevchenko In London To Sort Out Future

LONDON, England -- Ukraine international's lack of contribution means he will potentially be saying farewell to both the Rossoneri and the Blues during the summer.

Andriy Shevchenko (R) celebrates as he grabs the equaliser against England for Ukraine, but the Three Lions went on to win 2-1.
On-loan at AC Milan, striker Andriy Shevchenko has returned to London to resolve his future with parent club Chelsea.

The 2004 Ballon d'Or winner left the Rossoneri and moved to Chelsea for £30 million in 2006, but flopped at the English club and secured a loan move back to Milan this season.

Fans were hoping he would be able to repeat his past feats with the Rossoneri, but that has not been the case and he has made 17 appearances in Serie A without scoring a single goal in league play.

Despite his recent declarations that he would like to stay with the Milanese giants, it now seems certain that he will return to London at the end of the season and be transferred elsewhere after his disappointing form over the past three years.

The press have speculated that the 32-year-old is likely to look for a mid-size club where he could obtain more playing time. There is also the possibility he could return to Ukraine, where he started his career with Dynamo Kyiv.

Source: Goal

EU Studying Mission To Ukraine, Steinmeier Says

BERLIN, Germany -- The European Union could send a mission to Ukraine to help the country deal with a political deadlock hindering the country’s response to the economic crisis, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has said.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier says Ukraine needs Europe's help to avoid further crisis.
The fact-finding mission would be aimed at establishing how the 27-nation bloc can help the country from sliding further into political and financial instability, Steinmeier told journalists after talks with EU counterparts in Luxembourg on Monday.

"Developments there are worrying ... We must try such a mission to help find the national consensus needed to overcome the crisis in Ukraine," he said.

He said there was "a broad consensus" among EU states for such a move, which was proposed jointly by Germany and Poland, and that EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana would now discuss the idea with Kiev.

"It is timely to explore how we can best assist the country in tackling its current difficulties," Steinmeier said.

Earlier, the top adviser to President Viktor Yushchenko said Ukraine's economy would likely shrink by 8-10 percent ths year, rather than the 0.4 percent growth forecast by his government, Reuters news agency reported.

Divided Ukraine

Sweden's foreign minister, former premier Carl Bildt, said the EU was deeply concerned by the ongoing feud between Ukraine's president and prime minister, which has blocked the country's bid to bring in reforms demanded by the International Monetary Fund in return for a massive bail-out.

"There's every reason to be worried. They have a very major economic crisis ... On top of that, we've got the political divisions in the country," he said.

The country's inability to agree on IMF-mandated reforms is "more than regrettable, that is bordering on the dangerous for the country," he said.

Ukraine is one of six former-Soviet states that the EU has invited to join its "Eastern Partnership" cooperation group, which will be launched at a summit in Prague on May 7.

Ahead of the launch, concerns in Europe have grown over the threat of instability in Ukraine and Moldova, the state of democracy in Belarus and unresolved conflicts in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Bildt said that those problems make the partnership "more needed than ever."

"I don't think anyone (in the EU) is under the illusion that we are entering into relations with a couple of Switzerlands," he said.

Source: Deutsche Welle

Ukraine Bans Pig Imports From Mexico, Canada, U.S.

KIEV, Ukraine -- The deputy head of Ukraine's state veterinary committee said on Monday the country had banned the import of live pigs and pork from Mexico, Canada, the U.S. and New Zealand as fears grew of a swine flu pandemic.

People cover their faces to protect themselves from swine flu in Mexico City. Mexico City shut down museums and schools Friday, and sick people were urged to stay home from work.
He said the ban concerned all products imported from these states since April 21.

"Such shipments will not be received or unloaded on Ukrainian territory," Yuriy Satvary said.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said on Monday a special group had been established in the former Soviet republic to study issues connected with swine flu. There have so far been no reported cases in Ukraine.

The virus is suspected to have killed over a hundred people in Mexico, although only 20 cases have been confirmed. Over a 1,000 people have been infected with the virus in the Latin American country.

Forty cases of swine flu have been confirmed in the United States and six in Canada, although there have been no fatalities. The United States has declared a public health emergency. One case of swine flu has also been confirmed in Spain. A number of cases of possible swine flu have also been reported in the U.K.

World Health Organization director general Margaret Chan warned on Sunday that the outbreak had "pandemic potential", and urged governments to improve measures to monitor the virus.

Source: RIA Novosti

Ukraine Marks Battle Between Liberation Army, Soviets

RIVNE, Ukraine -- Ukrainians have marked the 65th anniversary of the largest battle between the Ukrainian Liberation Army (UPA) and Soviet troops during World War II, RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service reports.

Ceremonies were held in Rivne to mark the 65th anniversary of the battle.
At a place called Hurbi, near the town of Rivne, 5,000 UPA fighters from the Bohun division clashed with 30,000 Soviet Red Army and Interior Ministry troops (NKVD) from April 22-25, 1944.

A special commemoration ceremony was held in Hurbi on April 21.

UPA veteran Dmitro Avdeev told RFE/RL that thousands of soldiers from both sides were killed during the fighting, including his two brothers and several friends.

He was wounded and was later sentenced to 25 years in jail by the Soviets.

The UPA fought against Nazi German forces, the Polish underground army, and Soviet forces. It was disbanded in 1949 but some units continued operations until 1956.

Source: Radio Free Europe

Despite Dismal Standings In The Polls, Yushchenko Keeps Fighting

KIEV, Ukraine -- President Viktor Yushchenko is aiming to remain in office, despite facing the lowest approval rating in the country's history.

Viktor Yushchenko
“I will run. It's so clear and obvious,” the Ukrainian president announced, while calling for early presidential elections in October if they are held at the same time as the parliamentary elections. “It is not important how many months earlier they [the elections] will be held, in October or in September.”

Earlier, he insisted the elections be delayed until January 2010. But now he believes early elections would help Ukraine overcome political and economic crisis that has been tearing the country apart. Then, Yushchenko evoked the ‘reset’ word that has become a catchphrase of US-Russian relations.

"We also need a reset. It should be done by re-electing the parliament and forming a new majority and the government," he said.

Yushchenko quickly dismissed Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko's proposal to empower the parliament with the ability to appoint the president, claiming that this might lead Ukraine to some form of tyranny.

The opposition has already labeled the president’s announcements “completely predictable.”

Close margin of error

“He [Yushchenko] wants to make sure the orange line would be prolonged and he wants to do it himself,” says political expert Vadim Karasyov. “This announcement was his inauguration for running the campaign.”

Yushchenko is about to run for a new term with the worst approval rating recorded for the president at any time in Ukraine’s history, with only 2.9 percent of the people expressing support in him, according to Kiev's International Institute of Sociology research.

His popularity sharply decreased following the financial and political crisis, which started five years ago. Yet the political theater doesn't expect any big changes of the main characters, even though their popularity has dramatically suffered as a result of the crisis.

This time around, Yushchenko’s habitual contender, Viktor Yanukovich, who enjoys the support of 37.9 the respondents, according to the research, seems to be the most favored politician.

Ukrainians think he has the most positive effect on the domestic situation. Meanwhile, Timoshenko's rating is at 21.3 percent and pro-Western Front for Change leader, Arseny Yatsenyuk, has the support of 20.1 percent of the voters.

Early elections

Ex-president of Poland Aleksander Kwasiewski thinks the whole design of the Ukrainian political elite should be changed and mistakes admitted.

“Only when the failings in the architecture of the Ukrainian state are adequately addressed will Ukrainians enjoy the full benefits of the Orange Revolution. That architecture is making a bad economic situation even worse and is jeopardizing Ukraine’s integration into the European family. The design of the Ukrainian state must be corrected and strengthened, now,” he said.

In the fall of 2008, Yushchenko dissolved The Ukrainian Rada and announced early parliamentary, but his decisions was rejected two weeks later.

There have been a total of five presidential elections in Ukraine since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, while three of its five parliamentary elections have taken place in the last five years.

Orange history

Yushchenko took part in Leonid Kuchma's successful presidential campaign in 1999 and became Ukrainian prime minister the same year. But after several years of conflict with the president, Yushchenko was forced to resign in 2001. Some experts argue that was due to Yushchenko's growing popularity and political influence on the domestic situation.

In 2005, Yushchenko gained the support of Yulia Timoshenko, thus being elected president after a fierce contest against Yanukovich.

Meanwhile, Timoshenko has served as the country's prime minister on several occasions. Her first appointment came in January 2005, but she was ousted in September. She served in the post again in December 2007.

“Ukraine has made a great deal of political progress. The Orange Revolution made Ukrainians free. They can say and read and watch what they like. Elections are fair and reflect the popular will. But even Ukraine`s closest friends cannot pretend that its politics as usual,” Alexander Kwasiewski wrote.

Yushchenko's policy is generally described as pro-Western, as he mostly supports the EU and welcomes U.S. support. Today, most of the support is associated with the political and economic crisis in the Ukraine.

Yushchenko continues to express hope for the results of the future elections, but the polls show many people are disappointed with the direction of the country and the fruit of the so-called Orange revolution that dramatically brought him to power in January 2005.

Source: Russia Today

Ukraine Marks Chernobyl's 23rd Anniversary

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine paid homage to victims of the Chernobyl catastrophe 23 years after the worst nuclear accident in history.

Women hold candles and pictures of their dead husbands during a commemorative ceremony at the Chernobyl memorial in Donetsk. Ukraine paid homage to victims of the Chernobyl catastrophe 23 years after the worst nuclear accident in history.
"Today we remember with profound sadness those heroes who fought against the nuclear storm and sacrificed themselves for us and our children," President Viktor Yushchenko said in an address published by his press service.

Some 100 Ukrainians, including Yushchenko and other top officials, laid wreaths overnight before the monument to Chernobyl's victims in Kiev and lit candles during a religious service dedicated to the tragedy, an AFP photographer reported.

The "liquidators" -- men who took part in cleaning the site after the catastrophe -- in their turn wound a long fir-tree wreath around the monument, many unable to keep back tears.

In Slavutich, a small town 50 kilometers (30 miles) away from the accident's site where many of the power station's personnel used to live, the night vigil gathered many hundreds who brought flowers and candles to the Chernobyl victims' monument, according to another AFP photographer.

The disaster occurred on April 26, 1986 at 1:23 a.m., when one of the reactors exploded -- contaminating the Soviet states of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus with the fallout also spreading to other parts of Europe.

Over 25,000 people known as "liquidators" -- most of them Ukrainians, Russians and Belarussians -- died getting the accident under control and constructing a concrete shield over the wreckage, according to Ukrainian official figures.

A United Nations toll published in September 2005 set the number of victims at just 4,000, a figure challenged by non-governmental organisations.

In Ukraine alone, 2.3 million people are designated officially as "having suffered from the catastrophe."

Some 4,400 Ukrainians, children or adolescents at the time of the accident, have undergone operations for thyroid cancer, the most common consequence of radiation, the health ministry says.

Chernobyl nuclear power station was finally closed in 2000 after one reactor had continued producing electricity.

But the dead power station remains a threat because the concrete cover laid over 200 tonnes of magma, consisting of radioactive fuel, is cracking.

A new steel sarcophagus is due to cover the seal hurriedly flung over the reactor in the immediate aftermath of the disaster.

Internationally funded construction of the new steel cover is due to be launched this year or early next year and completed by 2012 by the Novarka consortium including France's Bouygues and Vinci companies.

Source: AFP

Ukraine's Yushchenko Demands Poland Ease Border Lorry Delays

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko on Friday demanded Poland's government act to reduce massive lorry queues on their border, the Interfax news agency reported.


Yushchenko, in a message to Poland's Foreign Ministry, called the current waits of more than 24 hours for lorry drivers attempting to enter Poland due to customs formalities 'unacceptable.'

Ukraine's border police will monitor the situation and will report to the president 'personally,' according to the report.

Queues at heavily-trafficked crossing sites such as along the Warsaw-Kiev highway often extend two or more kilometres, according to Ukrainian television reports.

Frequent vehicle searches, and the small number of Polish customs staff, are the main cause of the delays, Ukraine's 1+1 television said.

Lorry traffic jams on the Polish-Ukrainian border during the summer of 2007 caused difficulties in Ukrainian frontier, as lorry drivers ran out of food and water, while waiting for inspections.

Polish officials at the time said they were processing the Ukrainian vehicles as quickly as possible, but were not capable of handling large volumes of lorries each needing detailed inspections as per EU rules.

Source: DPA

Sunday Marks 23-Year Anniversary Of Chernobyl Nuclear Accident

WASHINGTON, DC -- On April 26, 1986, the world's worst nuclear power disaster took place at the Chernobyl electrical generating plant in Ukraine. Radiation from a reactor explosion there spread over a broad area of northern and central Europe.

Vehicle graveyard near Chernobyl.
The accident caused the creation of a 30-kilometer-wide "no-entry" zone around Chernobyl, sealing off a city built to house plant workers and their families. Despite the concrete entombment of the destroyed reactor, on the 23rd anniversary of the disaster, the plant remains a radiation hazard today.

Pripyat, Ukraine. A dead city. Homes, schoolrooms, playgrounds, and other places are crumbling as wild nature reclaims the land.

Pripyat once had some 50,000 residents. Now they are gone, perhaps forever. Only the artifacts of their lives remain behind, rotting to dust.

Pripyat died because of the deadliest nuclear power accident in world history. Chernobyl.

Early on April 26, 1986, reactor Unit Four at Chernobyl was put through an experimental test of its cooling system. The reactor overheated and exploded from steam pressure, ripping the roof off the power plant. Nuclear radiation spewed into the night sky. And, as people slept, it spread throughout Pripyat, just north of Chernobyl.

In reactor four, the nuclear fuel and the graphite surrounding it were on fire. Authorities sent helicopters to fly over the reactor to dump sand and other materials to try to stop the fire. But, it burned for days.

The wind carried radioactive particles from the fire over a wide area. Ukraine, Belarus, Russia. Then, Scandanavia, Britain, and other parts of Europe. As the wind shifted direction, so did the radiation.

Finally, a day and a half after the explosion, an evacuation of Pripyat was ordered. People were told they would only be gone for several days, so they left nearly everything behind. They never returned.

Despite the wide spread of radiation, Soviet officials at first said very little publicly about what happened at Chernobyl. Many people believed their leaders rather than outside reports about the disaster.

It was radiation detectors in other countries, many hundreds of kilometers away, that forced the Soviets to admit to Chernobyl's accident.

Thousands of people were sent to Chernobyl to clean up debris from the blast. They also built a structure, called a sarcophagus, to cover the shattered reactor and its radioactive fuel. The workers' equipment became so contaminated that it had to be abandoned. The workers became contaminated as well. Many became ill.

The Soviet government said at least 31 fatalities at the Chernobyl plant were directly linked to the reactor explosion. The World Health Organization says another 2,200 deaths can be expected among those who took part in the cleanup. The WHO report added that, in all, Chernobyl could result in 4,000 fatalities from cancer and other radiation-linked causes.

Radioactivity forced officials to create a 30-kilometer-wide no-habitation zone around Chernobyl, sealing off Pripyat. Still, the power plant continued to generate electricity until it was finally shut down in December, 2000.

The Chernobyl nuclear plant's Soviet RBMK [type design] reactors were not encased in thick concrete structures called containment vessels that are standard in the West. At the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Nuclear Installation Safety Director Philippe Jamet stresses their importance.

"The containment vessels are very, are one of the barriers. We have to protect the environment and people against radioactivity in case of an accident," he said.

Russia, incidentally, still operates 11 RBMK-type reactors. The worst nuclear power accident in U.S. history, at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, on March 28, 1979, caused no fatalities and much lower impact to the surrounding area. A reactor containment vessel here remained intact despite a nuclear fuel partial meltdown.

Source: Voice of America

The Viktor And Yulia Show, Continued

KIEV, Ukraine -- A country in default, engulfed by social protests and political chaos, crumbling to bits. This has been the West’s nightmare image of Ukraine. It was the first country to ask the IMF for a bail-out, its currency was in free fall, its economy is contracting at an annual rate of 9%.

The squabbling “orange revolution” leaders, Yushchenko (L) and Tymoshenko, are failing to push through the longer-term reforms that the economy needs.
Yet the main activity in Kiev today seems to be putting up summer terraces outside cafés, not tents for demonstrators. In front of the main government building, a dozen bored protesters call on Yulia Tymoshenko, the prime minister, to come out “to the people”. Even in the industrial east, where output has fallen by as much as a third, the mood is subdued.

One reason is that trust in the government is so low and the experience of crisis so extensive that Ukrainians see little point in taking to the streets. At a time of hardship, working on a vegetable patch is preferable. A protest called by Viktor Yanukovich, leader of the opposition Party of the Regions, attracted relatively few people. There is no money to pay demonstrators. Stirring up his eastern heartland could annoy Mr Yanukovich’s business backers, who have been cutting jobs and wages.

Another reason for relative calm is that after several years of growth many Ukrainians have enough savings to get by for a few months. Some unemployment has been avoided by involuntary holidays and pay cuts. And though the main exporting industry, steel, is struggling, farming (which employs a quarter of the workforce) is doing well. Petro Poroshenko, a businessman, suggests that food production could become an engine of growth.

“Either the country is more resilient or the adjustment started earlier than we thought,” says Ceyla Pazarbasioglu, head of the IMF mission visiting Kiev. After a 40% devaluation, the hryvnia has stabilised. The trade balance went briefly into surplus for the first time in years. The rate of economic decline has slowed. “There is a feeling that we have touched the bottom,” Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine’s president, says in an interview. On April 17th the IMF mission said it would recommend the release of the second tranche of Ukraine’s $16.4 billion loan.

The banks have undergone a stress test and the biggest will be recapitalised. For all the political cacophony, the government has pushed through the fiscal measures required by the IMF, including increased duties on alcohol and tobacco and higher gas tariffs for rich households.

In the short term, Ukraine needs to cut its budget deficit. In the longer term its big problem is the structure of public spending rather than low tax revenues, argues Pablo Saavedra, an economist at the World Bank. Its unreformed social system and its red tape, both inherited from Soviet days, are crushing burdens.

Ukraine devotes a third of GDP to social spending. Less than 2% of GDP goes to infrastructure investment. It takes 47 permits to open a business and three years to close it. All Ukrainian politicians, including Ms Tymoshenko, Mr Yanukovich and Mr Yushchenko, admit to corruption and lack of structural reforms in Ukraine—and blame each other. “We have been engaged with elections rather than with reforms,” says Anatoly Kinakh, who has served in several governments.

Now Ukraine is in the middle of a new election cycle. Mr Yushchenko’s presidential term expires in January and the campaign is under way. Political turmoil is nothing new in Ukraine, but when commodity prices were high and foreign credit cheap it had little impact on the economy.

No longer. Ukraine nearly botched its agreement with the IMF partly because some members of Mr Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine block refused to vote for fiscal cuts. Mr Yushchenko says that “half of my own block has been bought by Ms Tymoshenko, while the other half cannot support her economic methods”. He blames Ms Tymoshenko for sacrificing the ideology of the 2004 orange revolution to political expediency and populism. She says that he has sold out to vested interests.

Mr Yushchenko certainly has ideology and vision. He talks of building a nation-state and taking Ukraine into NATO and the European Union. “Six times in the 20th century we have declared our independence and five times we have lost it.” Yet on vision, rhetorically at least, there is little difference between Ukrainian politicians. Ms Tymoshenko talks eloquently of European integration and the need to consolidate a country historically divided between east and west.

“First of all we need to build Europe in Ukraine, because a country can only enter the EU if it has the same blood group, otherwise it will get rejected as an alien body,” she says in an interview. Even Mr Yanukovich, once backed by Moscow, now subscribes to the notion of European integration.

In truth, none of Ukraine’s politicians has risen to the promise of the orange revolution. Ms Tymoshenko’s actions sometimes smack of populism. When inflation rose last year, she imposed temporary controls on grain exports, for example. She has done little to promote long-term reforms.

But it was thanks to her intervention both that the IMF loan was unblocked and that a breakthrough was made in the gas-price stalemate with Russia in January. In contrast, Mr Yushchenko’s influence has been mostly disruptive despite his avowed liberalism. He has vetoed many government plans, including privatisations.

The problem goes deeper than animosity between two old allies. It is rooted in a flawed change to the constitution in 2004 that reduced the power of the president but stopped short of turning Ukraine into a parliamentary republic, fudging the responsibilities of president and prime minister. “Whoever wins the presidential election will next day run into the same problems,” says Ms Tymoshenko.

Inevitably, all three main leaders insist they will run for president, including Mr Yushchenko, despite a poll rating in low single digits. But Ms Tymoshenko’s popularity has also suffered recently. Even Mr Yanukovich, who now leads in the polls, has seen his popularity dented. Many Ukrainians feel that none of the three familiar faces is capable of taking the country forward. Tired of the mudslinging, 20% would either vote against all candidates or simply not turn out.

To hedge their bets many businessmen are now betting on other candidates, including Arseniy Yatseniuk, a 34-year-old who has already served as foreign minister, economics minister and central-bank governor. Mr Yatseniuk’s rating has doubled in a few months and he is now catching up with Ms Tymoshenko.

Her preferred option would be to change the constitution before the election and choose the next (symbolic) president in parliament. But she does not mind if Ukraine reverts to full presidential rule. “It does not matter to me what the head of the executive power is called: a prime minister, a chancellor, a president or a hetman.”

A bigger question is what kind of Ukraine will emerge from the crisis. And that will be determined not by elections, but by the willingness of political leaders to push through structural reforms.

Source: The Economist

EU-Ukraine Gas Deal Is No Pipe Dream

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- One could have been forgiven for suspecting that this month's deal for the European Union to help reform Ukraine's gas market was just more political window dressing.


It is true that the scale of the incompetence, double-dealing and corruption in the Ukrainian gas market is enormous. However, this time the EU and Ukraine may have achieved a breakthrough.

For the first time, a reform plan for the Ukrainian gas sector is backed up by a detailed, stage-by-stage program to fundamentally reform the market. If this program is implemented, it would not only drive out the corruption and opacity in the market.

It would also provide a basis for increased revenues for Ukraine while enhancing EU energy security. What Europe needs to do now is work with Ukrainian politicians to implement the deal while taking parallel measures to ensure it really does work on the ground.

The core of the deal is a pledge by Ukraine to adopt EU energy legislation and to make this law binding by joining the European Energy Community. Under the agreement, the Ukrainian national gas company, Naftogaz, will turn its transmission subsidiary, Ukrtransgaz, into an independent operator.

Full legal unbundling will follow, allowing Ukrtransgaz to offer access to the network to all potential gas suppliers on transparent and commercial terms. Tariffs will reflect actual costs and will be levied on a nondiscriminate basis. Equally, there will be third-party access to gas-storage facilities, again on transparent and commercial terms.

On its own, this first part of the deal would raise much skepticism with most commentators. It amounts to no more than another pledge to comply with EU rules. What distinguishes this deal from Kiev's previous pledges is the extremely detailed master plan for renovating the Ukrainian gas pipeline network. The plan shows the Ukrainians are serious this time.

The master plan provides a network-by-network, section-by-section analysis and costing for what needs to be done to restore the network, what is technically involved, and the potential for enhancing network capacity. Under the master plan foreign investors, together with the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the European Investment Bank, would provide capital to renovate the network.

This renovation proposal is vital. The Ukraine network delivers 80% of Russia's European exports. Even if Nord Stream and South Stream -- two Russian projects to deliver gas straight to Western Europe, skirting Ukraine and other transit countries -- are actually completed, Ukraine will still deliver significantly more gas to Europe than these two pipelines.

The Ukrainian domestic gas incumbent cannot afford to pay for the gas it needs for the Ukrainian economy as well as maintain the pipeline network. The renovation proposal, if implemented, will ensure the continued flow of gas into the EU and provide the capacity for more gas to flow -- at least an additional 20 billion cubic meters (bcm) and perhaps as much as 60 bcm. The total cost is approximately between $2.5 billion and $3 billion.

Given the economic crisis, it is unlikely that Gazprom will be able to afford the $20 billion South Stream project, and Nord Stream is also under financial pressure. Hence both Europe and Gazprom should welcome the funding of additional capacity via the Ukrainian pipeline network at a relatively modest cost.

Taken together, the liberalization of the Ukrainian gas sector and the renovation of the network should enhance EU energy security. Liberalization will root out most of the Ukrainian sector's opacity and corruption. Renovation and additional capacity will also ensure that the gas will flow securely and that more gas can be made available.

Furthermore, as Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has pointed out, "a single, competitive gas market would help depoliticize the EU-Russia gas relationship." The EU-Ukrainian deal, together with the extension of the European Energy Community to Ukraine, will help create a single European gas market in which commercial, not political, principles will prevail. This will reduce the scope for politics in gas supply.

The EU and the international institutions need to do more, however, to ensure that the deal is implemented in practice. We already know from our experience of energy liberalization in the EU that energy companies backslide when it comes to market-opening measures.

For instance, subsidiary companies that own networks have a habit of swinging preferential deals to their holding companies which supply gas. The EU and international institutions such as the EBRD and EIB could insist that Ukraine significantly upgrade the powers and resources of its antitrust agency so that it can effectively police liberalization.

A further consideration for the EU, Ukraine and the international institutions is Russia. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has indicated he very strongly opposes the EU deal. The facts, however, plainly stand against him. Two-thirds of Gazprom's revenues come from European sales.

Given that its market capitalization has fallen by more than 70% since January 2008, that its gas revenues have collapsed, and that it has accumulated more than $35 billion of debt, Gazprom can barely afford to build Nord Stream, never mind South Stream. If there is additional Russian gas available for sale to Europe, it needs a cheap supply route. The Ukraine/EU deal can provide that route.

There is another consideration. Given Gazprom's lack of capital, the company will need significant foreign investment into its gas fields and its own gas network infrastructure. Foreign capital is easier to raise if there is a comprehensive, legally binding regime that applies to your principal route to market. In other words, the Ukraine/EU gas deal should make it easier for Gazprom to obtain foreign investment for its gas fields and pipeline network.

The plan provides for initial funding and due diligence to be carried out in the next couple of months, and for Ukraine to take practical steps toward the liberalization agenda. So we will soon see if the promise of the Ukraine/EU deal is delivered. But of all the deals that have been done between the EU and Ukraine over the last few years, this one appears to be the most promising.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

EU Commissioner Hopes For Ukraine Deal By End Of 2009

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- The European Union and Ukraine could sign a new strategic deal by the end of the year, bringing Kiev and Brussels even closer on issues such as trade and travel, the EU's foreign-affairs commissioner said in Brussels on Thursday. "If things do not slow down for political reasons, hopefully we will be done by the end of the year," Benita Ferrero-Waldner told journalists in Brussels.

EU commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner.
"Negotiations with Ukraine proceeded very well in 2008 and we are continuing to make very good progress today. Large parts of the text have been provisionally closed," the commissioner said.

Complex issues such as the creation of a "deep and comprehensive" free-trade area and the management of individual economic sectors remain to be finalized, she said.

Ukraine's pro-Western government has been pushing for a closer relationship with the EU ever since the "Orange Revolution" which brought it to power in early 2005.

In September, the EU offered its former-Soviet neighbour an "association agreement" strengthening ties in a number of areas such as travel and free trade in return for European-style reforms to the country's political, economic and judicial systems.

Ukraine, which wants to join the EU in the long term, especially welcomed the fact that the proposed agreement was given the same name as a deal offered to former-Communist states such as Poland in the years before they joined the bloc.

However, Ukraine's image in the EU has been battered in recent months by the ongoing power struggle between its president and prime minister, and January's bitter row over Russian gas deliveries.

The country has also been hard hit by the financial crisis, with some experts warning that it could be on the verge of bankruptcy.

The EU is considering whether it should activate a scheme to provide guarantees for foreign loans aimed at keeping neighbours such as Ukraine from financial meltdown as a last resort in case international lenders cannot step in, Ferrero-Waldner said.

Source: DPA

Ukraine Above The Rest In Crisis Management

KIEV, Ukraine -- A month ago, a column was written about Russia's return to sane economic policy, but Ukraine has undertaken an even more impressive turnaround. Few countries have been more misunderstood than Ukraine, which has been particularly hurt by the global financial crisis.

Ukraine's Central Bank made a serious policy mistake by insisting on maintaining a fixed peg of the hryvna to the U.S. dollar.
In the wake of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, international finance froze throughout the world. Ukraine suffered from an underlying problem -- its high dependence on steel exports, whose prices and demand collapsed in fall 2008. In the first half of 2008, steel accounted for no less than 42 percent of Ukraine's exports. This year all of Ukraine's exports are likely to drop by almost 50 percent, but imports even more, so the current account deficit will become insignificant.

Ukraine's Central Bank made one serious policy mistake. It insisted on maintaining a fixed peg of the hryvna to the U.S. dollar. Because of the apparent safety and obvious profitability, foreign banks transferred short-term, speculative funds to Ukraine, which expanded the domestic money supply as the exchange rate was fixed and boosted inflation similar to what happened in Russia but worse.

In 2007, Ukraine's money supply surged by 51 percent and inflation peaked at 31 percent in May 2008. The speculative currency inflow widened the current account deficit to 7 percent of gross domestic product in 2008. This was not tenable, although Ukraine's budget deficit was minimal and its public foreign debt was only 12 percent of GDP in 2007.

What ultimately scared foreign investors was Ukraine's open political feuding. International investors are a strange anti-democratic lot who get worried by open arguments between politicians. They prefer strict authoritarian regimes like in China, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.

By Oct. 1, the Ukrainian economy suddenly halted. Steel production, mining and construction plummeted by about 50 percent in no time. The largest harvest ever could not salvage the economy. Astoundingly, industrial production contracted by more than 30 percent in the first quarter of 2009 over the same time one year earlier, and GDP probably plunged by 20 percent in this period. In addition, the stock market dropped by 90 percent from its peak last year.

Fortunately, the Ukrainian government acknowledged its crisis in early October and asked for help from the International Monetary Fund. Within four weeks, Ukraine concluded a deal with the IMF -- a large, strong two-year standby agreement with $16.4 billion of credits.

The IMF program was standard with three key demands: a nearly balanced budget, a floating exchange rate and bank restructuring. Ukraine has delivered. After some hesitation, the country's Central Bank let the exchange rate float. Although it depreciated by about 50 percent, it has since stabilized, giving Ukraine a new cost competitiveness.

Together with the international financial institutions, the Central Bank has examined all of Ukraine's banks and quantified their bad debt. Compared to the West, Ukraine's share of toxic debt is small.

Seventeen Western banks have committed themselves to recapitalizing their subsidiaries in Ukraine with $2 billion this year. In addition, it is estimated that two-thirds of the country's refinancing needs this year will be met. Most of this is done by European banks. So far, not a single foreign bank has withdrawn from Ukraine. Their prospects are just too attractive. Similarly, the three big Russian banks --VEB, VTB and Sberbank -- have increased their activity in Ukraine despite the crisis.

The Ukrainian authorities have taken seven private Ukrainian-owned banks under administration, and they have mobilized $2.6 billion for their recapitalization from the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the European Investment Bank. All of them understand Ukraine's financial dilemma. The IMF assesses the total need for recapitalization of no more than $5 billion.

Yet the Ukrainian government had problems receiving its second tranche of the IMF loan because GDP declined much more than expected, and thus state revenues. The IMF assessed the budget deficit would be untenable at 6 percent of GDP, even leaving a possible public bank recapitalization of 4.5 percent of GDP aside.

The Ukrainian parliament agreed to increase excise taxes on alcohol, tobacco and diesel, and the prime minister decreed further revenue measures to reduce the budget deficit by 2 percent of GDP. With substantial financing from various international financial institutions, the IMF mission considered that the shortfall was almost covered and recommended a second enlarged tranche.

At the same time, the Ukrainian government has made a break with nontransparent gas-trading arrangements through the gas agreement with Russia on Jan. 19 and the agreement on the gas transit system with the European Union on March 23. These two decisions might belong to Ukraine's most fortuitous reforms. Fortunately, it joined the World Trade Organization in May last year, securing reasonable market access.

On April 1, the Ukrainian parliament voted by an overwhelming majority to hold the next presidential election on Oct. 25, which will help the country to clarify the political situation. The fundamental political problem, however, lies in the confusing constitutional compromise of December 2004, which was one of the most significant results of the Orange Revolution. Now all major parties demand a transition to a purely parliamentary system that would make it impossible for a president to block all decisions. They also call for open-party lists to make it impossible for wealthy businesspeople to purchase seats in parliament.

Ukraine has not faced the level of social unrest that other countries have experienced, despite the serious blows to its economy. During television talk shows, both the government and opposition speak their minds freely, and the people hear their arguments until they are satisfied -- or bored.

Thanks to early and resolute anti-crisis actions, international reserves remain reassuring at $25 billion, or eight months of imports. Industrial production increased in both February and March over the preceding month, suggesting that Ukraine might already have turned the corner (although GDP will probably still decrease by 8 percent to 10 percent this year). Even the bond and stock markets have soared in the last month.

Ukraine has shown exemplary crisis management thanks to a few Ukrainian top officials --notably Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko -- and a good job by the international financial institutions.

Source: The Moscow Times

Manhunt For Ukraine-Based Hackers

LONDON, England -- The US Federal Bureau of Investigation and UK’s Metropolitan Police are hunting a gang of six hackers based in the Ukraine who have hijacked 1.9m computers around the world, including machines at hundreds of large corporations and 77 government departments.


It is the largest network of hijacked computers – or botnet – to have been discovered. to date. It is at least four times larger than botnets that have been discovered in the past, which have tended to include 200,000 to 500,000 computers.

In the UK alone, more than 500 companies were caught in the network of infected machines, including both large and small businesses. Six UK local government computers were compromised, while in the US, computers at both federal and local government level were infiltrated, said Yuval Ben-Itzhak, chief executive of Finjan, the IT security company that discovered the network. He declined to name any of the businesses that were affected, but said they included some of the largest global corporations.

“With this many computers affected, everyone was there on the list – the US Federal government, big universities, very large public companies,” Mr Ben-Itzhak said.

Finjan has provided the FBI and Metropolitan Police with information about the network but there has been no update on whether the law enforcement agencies have been able to track down the criminals. The server from which the botnet was run is no longer in operation, but if the hackers are still at large, they will be able to set a new one up again very quickly.

The 1.9m computer botnet was created in a very short time, between February and March this year. Hackers can infect computers in different ways – by sending e-mails containing viruses or by taking over legitimate websites so that they transmit malicious software code to everyone that visits.

“The speed at which they were able to infect so many people was astounding. If these people are still out there, they can start all over again very quickly,” Mr Ben-Itzhak said.

Criminals can use botnets for a number of different things. They can steal personal details and account information stored in the machines. Or they can control the machines remotely, instructing them to send out spam e-mails and viruses.

They could also be used to mount a “denial of service” attack, where a large number of computers all try to contact a company or country’s computer systems at the same time, causing the system to crash. In May 2007, several Estonia government websites were brought down this way, making it difficult for the country to function. The Ukraine-controlled network would have easily been able to bring down any website it targeted.

Source: Financial Times

What's The Difference After Five Years?

KIEV, Ukraine -- It sometimes seems difficult to believe, but it's been almost five years since Ukraine underwent its Orange Revolution - an event that for many put the country on the world map. For others, however, the heady days of late 2004 were a big show that has ended in even bigger disappointments.

The romantic "Orange Revolution" of 2004.
How come the bandits haven't been put in jail, as Viktor Yushchenko promised during his romantic rise to the presidency? Why is Ukraine still mired in petty clan politics, with state interests taking a back seat to those of businessmen with a voice in parliament? And, most recently, the country appears to be backsliding in the one area that has seemed promising and substantive, the economy. Is it possible that Ukraine will revert to a backwater buffer zone outside of Europe and out of favor with Russia?

All of these concerns are nothing new in a fledgling democracy, which despite the protestations of its harshest critics, Ukraine can still claim to be.

It's true that there wasn't a mass round up of thugs after Yushchenko took power, but to quote the Bible: "He who is without sin, throw the first stone." The point here is that since there wasn't much of a law in Ukraine, the majority of the country's population have probably been lawbreakers.

As for those individuals with particularly ugly reputations for quashing the hopes of the people, abusing their positions in the police force or simply stealing more than is "decent', many have met their death in suspect suicides, hunting accidents or the like. This may not be justice in the legal sense, but we have come a long way since the eerie days of President Leonid Kuchma all the same.

Yes, the country's courts are still corrupt, and murder hasn't disappeared as a means of settling business disputes, but no one can honestly compare today's comical top cop Yury Lutsenko to his Kuchma-era counterpart Yury Kravchenko. Abusing the law and abusing people under the law are different in practice.

And yes, the corruption continues, but in an odd sort of Ukrainian way the venal are keeping each other in check, rather than jockeying for influence before a modern-day czar. Kuchma kept everything in his own hands, which meant all the other hands were empty and often pawing for what they could get.

Viktor Yushchenko, for all his weaknesses, is a very different man. In fact, he was likely allowed to take power precisely because of his weaknesses, which are allowed and even cherished in a democratic country.

The very fact that Ukrainians can talk and write about Mr. Yushchenko's flaws is proof enough in itself. His currents opponents for power have shown much less democratic credentials during the brief periods that they were allowed to head the government. Populism is the bridesmaid of a dictator, while trying to steal an election is far worse than the theft of state assets.

Recently, with presidential and quite possibly parliamentary elections in sight, Yushchenko has been increasingly compared to his predecessor Mr. Kuchma.

Like Kuchma, it is said, Yushchenko is trying to stay in power by changing the rules of the game. Again, we hear talk of a referendum to change the country's much-embattled constitution, proposals to create a bilateral legislature - only this time from the man who fought such initiatives tooth and nail during his rise to power: Yushchenko.

Yushchenko has additionally called for yet another round of early parliamentary elections, to be held concurrently with the presidential ones.

These proposals are indeed unorthodox and rightfully raise concerns. But to compare Yushchenko's initiatives to those of Mr. Kuchma is a gross exaggeration based on convenient historical amnesia.

Yushchenko may want dual elections, but in fact he's gotten a shorter term, with presidential elections currently scheduled four months before his five years are up. Could it be that the mild-mannered president is simply trying to keep his opponents at bay?

With single-digit approval ratings, a shrinking party in parliament and not many friends in the West or up north, can Yushchenko really be expected to take the country hostage in some sort of constitutional coup?

Kuchma couldn't get away with it, and he had much more power and opportunity to do so. In fact, Mr. Kuchma knew full well that it was time to pass on the baton but he tried to do so underhandedly and in an eastward direction.

Like Kuchma, Yushchenko also knows that he's on his way out, and therefore may be trying to soften the transition. If the president is really trying to create a bilateral parliament to have somewhere to go after electoral defeat, I say make him an honorary senator for life! Whatever his faults as head of state, he was the best man to choose at the time and paid a high price for his election.

If, on the other hand, Yushchenko is trying to restrain the ambitions of his opponents - More power to him! The country can only benefit from this.

It's economics that have brought Ukraine closer to Europe and its values - cash from industry and agriculture that has trickled down to a population that had never known what money, ownership, freedom of travel and information, etc, was.

And whoever is elected to replace Mr. Yushchenko will face a population more used to freedom than ever before. If nothing else - and he did a lot more - Yushchenko has kept the expectation of democracy alive among his countrymen.

The economy will pick up again, as economies do. Ukraine is a major exporter of steel, grain and chemicals. Under Yushchenko, it entered the WTO.

Issues such as what percentage of the vote a party will need to get into the next parliament are indeed important. But a democratic system where the president isn't czar offers enough protection to balance interests among lawmakers, who with time should become increasingly sensitive to their constituents. With the continued accumulation of wealth and safeguards of free speech, the people will not stand for anything else.

Source: Turkish Weekly

Europe's Double Failure In Moldova

WASHINGTON, DC -- Europe's passive attitude towards the ongoing crisis in Moldova shows that when faced with the choice between power and principle, the EU is all too eager to abandon its core values in exchange for apparent geopolitical gains.


Moldovan protestors hold signs and banners in Chisinau on April 10, 2009. About 10,000 people joined an opposition rally in Moldova on Sunday to denounce President Vladimir Voronin's "dictatorial" leadership after post-election rioting.

True, the wise conduct of foreign policy often requires such compromises between what is right and what is necessary. But in the case of Moldova, the EU misjudged the forces at play and made a mockery out of its alleged commitment to a free society.

By European standards, Moldova today qualifies as a failed state. The country's average GDP per capita is only $250, with almost 30 percent of its four million citizens living below the poverty line. It is also one of the main sources of human trafficking on the continent and the break-away republic of Transdniester, which stretches between Moldova and the Ukraine, is a regional hub for money laundering and arms smuggling.

In the eyes of the disenchanted Moldovan youths, the victory of the Communist Party in the parliamentary elections held on April 5th signaled the continuity of this bleak horizon. In scenes familiar to Eastern Europe in 1989, thousands of protesters took over the Parliament building in the capital Chisinau and demanded a recount of the vote, which they claimed was rigged.

The regime of outgoing President Vladimir Voronin - himself a former interior minister in the days when Moldova belonged to the Soviet Union - responded with a Soviet-style crackdown. Over 200 people have been beaten and jailed, some without access to lawyers.

The body of 23-year old student Valeriu Boboc was returned to his parents covered with bruises and journalist Natalia Morar, one of the key planners of the anti-communist demonstrations, went into hiding after being placed under house arrest.

Ten other journalists have been threatened or arrested by the Moldovan authorities. Backed by the Russian government, President Voronin accused Romania of plotting a coup against him, expelled the Romanian ambassador from Chisinau and reintroduced visas for Romanian citizens.

On both moral and strategic grounds, Europe's reaction lacked substance. In spite of the abuses, the EU went beyond traditional expressions of concern and invited Moldova to attend the inaugural summit of the Eastern Partnership. This initiative is due to be launched next month in Prague and aims to tighten relations with six former Soviet republics, including Ukraine, Georgia and Belarus.

There were good reasons for the EU to be cautious: observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) found no evidence that the election had been manipulated. Yet certain members of the OSCE mission openly challenged its final assessment, arguing that the positive evaluation was the result of Russian maneuvering.

Furthermore, a United Nations inquiry concluded that Moldovan police subjected the detainees to cruel and inhuman punishment. In this context, Europe's deference towards President Voronin's regime dealt a blow to the country's already weakened pro-Western opposition, as well as to the aspirations of the young protesters for whom European integration is the only way for Moldova to chart a brighter course.

The EU position favored none of the rationales that would have made it strategically justifiable. Historically, Moldova has been coveted by Russia as a bridge to extend its influence into Eastern Europe and the Balkans.

With the establishment of the Eastern Partnership - which President Voronin labeled as a plot to encircle Russia - and the recent tensions between the EU and Moscow over Georgia and Ukraine, disputes over the post-Soviet space are bound to recur. The EU thus failed to appreciate that a complacent reaction vis-à-vis the Moldovan repression will not postpone inevitable disagreements with the Russian government.

What is more, the EU's decision to reprimand Romania for planning to relax citizenship criteria for circa one million Moldovans exposed the lack of cohesion in Europe's foreign policy: strangely enough, the EU was more troubled these plans than by the crackdown in Chisinau.

The EU prides itself with an approach to diplomacy guided by "effective multilateralism", i.e. a preference for dialogue over isolation and/or confrontation. As illustrated by the Moldovan crisis, pushing this idea too far can lead to results that are both morally and strategically undesirable.

Source: The Washington Post

Bringing Ukraine Into The European Club

MOSCOW, Russia -- Many of us who watched the Orange Revolution with admiration four years ago have become disappointed with its failure to usher in a period of democratic stability and sustained reform. Recent crises have strengthened this feeling.


Nonetheless, there have been some clear improvements. Media censorship has ended, elections are free and fair, civil society is flourishing and the economy is more open. These are considerable gains, especially when compared to developments in Russia. But that is a very low benchmark to set.

The Orange Revolution promised something more substantive -- an economic and political transformation that would put Ukraine firmly on the path to membership of the European Union.

But this hasn't happened yet, and part of the responsibility for this lies with the EU itself. Europe's soft power proved remarkably effective in encouraging the transition from communism to democracy in Eastern Europe but only when the promise of full membership was the end goal.

It was only the prospect of inclusion in the EU club that encouraged the emerging democracies to make the painful sacrifices required to get there. It also provided the financial support and political supervision needed to meet the immense legislative and administrative challenges involved.

The problem with Ukraine is that it expected to achieve the same results without any support or a clear statement that membership is an achievable goal.

Ukraine needs a clear signal that it is an integral part of the European-Atlantic community of democracies. U.S. President Barack Obama's desire for a new start in relations with Russia is understandable, as is German Chancellor Angela Merkel's recent call for Ukraine and Russia to work toward a new understanding.

But Ukraine should not be regarded merely as a factor in relations between great powers. It is a sovereign country in its own right and deserves to be treated as such. Europe should not lose sight of its fundamental values by failing to respect the legitimate interests and aspirations of a major country like Ukraine.

Yet the major reasons for Ukraine's disappointing progress are to be found in the deficiencies of its own political system. Without united leadership and effective political institutions, it is difficult for any country to chart a clear and consistent path.

Unfortunately, the deal that allowed President Leonid Kuchma to step aside in 2004 also saddled his successor with constitutional restrictions that undermined his capacity to govern. By weakening the office of president and creating an unstable and ill-defined division of powers with the prime minister and the parliament, this created sharp division at a time when unity was most needed.

The result has been a prolonged three-sided struggle for power leading to a series of serious political crises.

The most recent crises were the gas dispute with Russia and a serious economic downturn. European countries and international organizations trying to assist Ukraine have often been confused about which leader they should be dealing with in Kiev.

The International Monetary Fund's frustration over the terms of a badly needed loan package with the government is a case in point. President Viktor Yushchenko and the Central Bank were willing to agree on workable terms, but the second tranche of the package was held up because of irresponsible political bickering elsewhere.

Agreement now appears to have been reached, but Ukraine's international credibility has again suffered in the process.

The rest of Europe has little patience for dealing with leaders who put their own ambitions before the interests of their country. Yes, Ukraine has a presidential election in less than a year, and the potential candidates have a right to set out their positions.

But most mature democracies are able to keep political competition within acceptable constitutional boundaries. This is true even in countries like Germany, where the main political rivals are in coalition together. Part of the answer for Ukraine centers on constitutional reform to create a clearer and more efficient political order.

Another part of the answer is for Ukraine's political class to develop a culture of restraint and self-control in the national interest.

The EU should be willing to do much more to help Ukraine through this crisis and beyond, but it also needs to feel more confident about the country's political direction. This once seemed clear, but now there is doubt. Efforts to secure a $7.4 billion loan from Russia appear odd coming so soon after a dispute in which Ukraine expressed concern about excessive energy dependence on the same country.

A country committed to European integration should enjoy a close and intimate partnership with the EU, leading to eventual membership. A country seeking to exploit its intermediate position between Russia and the EU for short-term gain deserves a different kind of relationship.

Ukraine is too important to be relegated to the sidelines of European policymaking. Ukraine's difficulties should galvanize the EU to develop new policies of engagement and assistance. This should be a pragmatic endeavour, focused on practical results and backed by adequate financial support and real political will.

The agreement signed by Yushchenko and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barros on EU funding to increase safety and capacity of Ukraine's gas pipelines is an important step for future cooperation.

There is only so much that can be done from Brussels. The leaders in Kiev have to meet their side of the bargain, too.

Source: The Moscow Times

Ukraine Missing Man 'Safe And Well'

LONDON, England -- A tourist on holiday in Ukraine has described how a violent gang threatened to cut off his ears and remove his kidneys unless a ransom was settled by his family.

Eren Parker, 25, went missing earlier this month.
Eren Parker says he was bundled into the back of a car as he returned to his hotel in the southern city of Odessa on April 7.

The 25-year-old claims he was then guarded day and night before his family stumped up $16,000 and successfully secured his release.

Mr Parker, of Cornish Grove, Penge, said: “The gang said they would take my ears. They also threatened to cut out my kidneys and sell them.

“The people holding me would lose their temper when I couldn’t understand the Russian they spoke and so they beat me.

“I was terrified.”

The Foreign Office has confirmed a British national was missing in the city for a week until last Thursday (April 16).

Alerted by his Croydon-based family, the Met Police say they helped Ukrainian authorities with their investigations into the incident.

Taser attack

Describing his ordeal, unemployed Mr Parker said: “I was on the last day of my holiday and had gone to a restaurant in a casino.

“When I came out it was 5am and as I returned to my hotel in the city I was hit with a taser and thrown into the back of a car.

“They covered my eyes. I can’t remember exactly but there were about three or four men.

“I was taken to a garage and made to sit on the floor. I had no idea where I was.

“They took all my possessions.

“They told be nothing and I was sure they were going to kill me.

“I didn’t even know they were asking for money from my family. I was confused and scared.”

The keen footballer and Arsenal fan says he was moved to a flat after two days where he survived on bread, tomato sauce and mayonnaise. He said he drank only water.

During his time on the sixth floor apartment he claimed he tried to escape through a bathroom window.

He said: “I thought I could do it but I was so far up if I had jumped I would have broken my legs.

“Every 12 hours the two men guarding me would go and two more would arrive.”

He added: “I have no idea why they took me.”

$60,000 ransom

Single Mr Parker says he was suffering from shock when, last Thursday (April 16), he was taken to a hotel in the city where his sister and father were frantically trying to negotiate his release.

News of his kidnapping and a $60,000 ransom first came to light when the family received a call from a woman who allegedly helped to translate and broker a deal.

Mr Parker’s brother, 27-year-old Erol Kesen from Beckenham, says the family initially paid $5,000 but were forced to pay another $11,000 to end the ordeal.

After receiving the ransom money, the gang is understood to have released Mr Parker and handed back his passport, allowing him to fly back to the UK yesterday (April 20).

The Foreign Office admitted a British national was reported missing on April 9 in Odessa but was found “safe and well” on April 16.

But a spokesman added: “We cannot comment or speculate on whether a ransom was paid.”

Source: London News

All The King’s Horses, And All The Kings Men*...

KIEV, Ukraine -- "Ukrainska Pravda" today reveals that the European People’s Party, the "largest European-level party on the continent", have been trying for some time to act as peacemaker between president Yushchenko and premier Tymoshenko.

EPP president Wilfried Martens
EPP president, Wilfried Martens has even suggested assembling a heavyweight crew comprising former British PM Tony Blair, former Spanish PM Jose Maria Asnar, and former Polish president Alexander Kwasniewski to help bring Yush and Yulka together into some kind of working relationship again. Yushchenko has been against the idea all along, whilst Tymoshenko has been agreeable.

Maybe its because just over a year ago, Martens, at a meeting with Yushchenko, blamed the president’s secretariat of criminal acts against the Tymoshenko government. Martens allegedly declared: "Mr Baloha is a criminal!" To which Yushchenko apparently replied, "Look into my eyes! Do you consider these to be the eyes of a criminal?" "No, you are not a criminal - but the head of your secretariat is!" continued Martens.

"Financial Times" reports that the Yulia Tymoshenko government had unilaterally adopted initiatives needed to unlock an International Monetary Fund loan after MPs failed to adopt the required conditions in parliament.

It seems that the IMF Ukrainian mission head was OK with this, but, NUNS deputy, Ksenya Lyapina, who is one of Yushchenko’s closest confidantes, says lawsuits against the cabinet from entrepreneurs will follow and the resolutions will be eventually cancelled by the cabinet.

* From an English nursery rhyme about a character normally portrayed as an egg sitting on a wall:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses,
And all the king’s men,
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.

Source: Agoravox

Hard-Core Investors Staying Put Despite Endless Crises

KIEV, Ukraine -- Weak competition, high profits still make nation a promised land for some businesses. No matter what Ukraine throws at them, a small, hard-core group of foreign investors – from giant multinational corporations to lone expatriates – weathers the turbulence.

A conveyor line at the Trostyanets chocolate factory in Sumy Oblast, the biggest Kraft Foods factory in Ukraine.
They stay through crisis and boom times, “blue” and “orange” politicians, a hryvnia worth 4.6 to the dollar and a national currency that trades closer to 10.

They stay put when other foreigners get scared away by headlines of rampant corruption, a sea of bureaucratic red tape and political chaos. Who are these determined businesspeople? Do they make a lot of money here? If so, how do they manage to swim in Ukraine’s muddy waters?

“Ukraine is the best kept secret in Europe,” insisted George Logush, vice president of Kraft Foods International and area director for Ukraine, Eastern Europe and Central Asia. “The European media did a wonderful job, focusing on negative things and rarely showing positive aspects. [To them, I say]: ‘Thank you for sheltering this market for us from the competitors.”

Kraft Foods Ukraine is part of Kraft Foods, the world’s second-largest food and beverage company. It is one of the most successful investors in Ukraine, known by Ukrainians for Korona and Milka chocolate, Jacobs coffee, Lux potato chips, holding a leading position in all three categories. In 14 years, Kraft invested more than $150 million into Ukraine’s economy and increased its business by 100 percent, Logush said, a feat that “would not be possible in very many countries.” Today, the Kraft group boasts annual revenue in Ukraine of about $400 million on domestically-produced products, and more on imports, such as coffee.

The company arrived in 1995, when the economy was still reeling from the collapse of the Soviet Union four years earlier. The hryvnia, the new national currency, had not yet arrived. In its place, until 1996, Ukrainians used the karbovanets, a coupon-like form of payments.

One of the keys to Kraft’s success, Logush said, has been the company’s ability to take advantage of hard times to introduce new product lines. “Now we launch biscuits,” Logush said. “Crisis is the time when you can shake up the established order, because it’s being shaken anyway.”

Yet Kraft remains one of a relatively small number of multinational corporations and foreign investors who have ventured into Ukraine, a vast and largely untapped market of 46 million citizens.

The nation has attracted a mere $35 billion in foreign investment since independence. By comparison, nearly $200 billion has poured into neighboring Poland, a European Union member with eight million fewer citizens than Ukraine, since the Soviet Union's collapse.

Many investors have stayed out because of corruption, red tape and political squabbles between ex-Prime Minister Victor Yanukovych's "blue" forces and the "orange" ones led by the now-dissolved alliance of President Victor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

Jorge Zukoski, president of the American Chamber of Commerce, said Kraft’s success is shared by many foreign investors brave enough to tiptoe into the market. They stay, Zukoski said, because they’re generating higher profits than they might in other nations. By establishing themselves first, companies such as Kraft grew fast, faced limited competition and can look forward to high growth rates ahead.

Zukoski said it helps to be in a place for the long run.

“At the end of the day, the large strategic and institutional investors that we represent see the current global financial crisis as a short-term blip on the radar screen. They look at Ukraine as a 50- to 75-year play and understand that there are very few countries left in the world that have the potential to drive future growth for their companies.” Despite the challenges and difficulties, chamber members keep striving for a Ukraine that is “competitive and well-positioned when global growth resumes,” Zukoski said.

But for some investors, the headaches of doing business in Ukraine are simply too much. And, while normal economic cycles are manageable, sometimes Ukraine’s off-the-charts corruption is not.

“The crisis did not affect our business in Ukraine as much as the corruption,” said Hanan Mor, owner of an investment company, in an interview with Israel’s Calcalist newspaper. “That is why we are stopping any business initiatives in this country.”

But the cheerleading and individual success stories cannot hide the fact that, by many measures, Ukraine’s business climate remains unfavorable. The list of grievances is long: unstable legislation, corruption, red tape, non-transparent taxation system, raider attacks, abuse of intellectual property and auctioneer rights.

Politicians are aware of the problems, even if they seem unwilling or unable to improve the situation. As parliamentarian Nataliya Korolevska told an investors' conference in February: "As the world investment capital reaches $1.5 trillion, Ukraine has to do everything to participate in the process under competitive terms.”

Hard-core investors say instability is part of the game.

“I’ve been here for 15 years and this country has never been stable. I wouldn’t advise anybody to stay out of Ukraine, just because they want to wait for the next election,” said Glen Willard, a 15-year business veteran in Ukraine and founder of Willard, an advertising and public relations company.

Willard admitted that the worst part of doing business in Ukraine is its unpredictability. “Other than that, business is not easy anytime, anywhere,” Willard said: “So just get over it.”

Kraft’s Logush also said Ukraine is not for the squeamish.

“If you need to find an excuse to leave the country, you’ll find it,” Logush said. “Particularly, in terms of political instability, I think people are just extremely shortsighted and purposely blind. How long has democracy been in Ukraine?”

American businessman Paul Waters is one of hundreds of expatriates who have thrived on the Ukrainian market. Since arriving 17 years ago, Waters appears to have done a little bit of everything in Ukraine and he has no intention of leaving. From steel trading to the construction business, software and solar panel systems development, Waters said that “Ukraine has been very kind to me. I could be sitting on my boat in California fishing. But in Ukraine, I am enjoying everything. It’s not a Disneyland, it is real,” Waters said.

Waters did, however, confess that it took him awhile to get accepted. He also was cheated several times by Ukrainian partners.

“When I arrived, there were all these Soviet bosses, running businesses and, certainly, they were not as open to our ideas,” Waters said. Ukrainian companies still lack efficient administrators, but they have plenty of highly educated people, computer wizards and other professional standouts to choose from, according to Waters.

Seasoned foreign investors have had success in the financial, insurance and telecommunication sectors, as well as food production and construction, according to Konstantin Stepanov, chief analyst at Sokrat investment group.

The leading individual foreign direct investment in Ukraine’s all-important metal sector came from the $4.8 billion re-sale of the former Kryvorizhstal steel mill in Kryviy Rih, the nation’s largest steelmaker, to ArcelorMittal Steel in 2005. The sale followed a scandalous purchase by a group led by Ukrainian billionaires Rinat Akhmetov and Victor Pinchuk, who bought the steel mill for six times less than what ArcelorMittal, the world's largest steel company, paid in an open auction.

So, 18 years after independence, Ukraine still represents a big gamble with big potential payoffs – and terrible downsides. It’s a high-risk, high-reward game, Logush admitted. But many are betting that emerging economies will get out of the crisis more quickly than developed ones.

“Which of them will [foreign investors] gamble on first? The ones with the greatest multiplier effect, the largest scales, like China and Brazil. But they always want to spread the risks,” Logush said. “I think those who’ll go into the Ukrainian economy will do very well.”

Source: Kyiv Post

Voronin Set To Return To Liverpool

BERLIN (AP) — Andriy Voronin is set to return to Liverpool when his loan deal with Hertha Berlin expires at the end of the season.

Ukraine striker Andriy Voronin
Hertha manager Dieter Hoeness said his club could not afford the Ukraine striker's transfer fee and salary.

"It looks like I'll be going back to Liverpool," Voronin said Friday. "It's a pity, I am little bit disappointed. But I can also understand the financial problems."

Voronin, who is serving a three-match suspension because of a red card and won't play Sunday against Werder Bremen, has scored 11 goals for Hertha this season.

Hertha led the Bundesliga but has dropped to fourth after losing three straight matches.

If Hertha qualifies for the Champions League, Voronin said a deal might be possible but "nobody knows now if we'll get there."

"And I can't buy out my own contract," he added.

Voronin's contract with Liverpool runs for another two seasons.

Source: USA Today

Yanukovych's Rating Almost Twice As High As Rivals' - Poll

KIEV, Ukraine -- The leader of Ukraine's pro-Russian opposition Party of Regions is the most popular potential presidential candidate, according to a poll conducted by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology whose results are published in the Zerkalo Nedeli weekly on Saturday.

Pro-Russia Viktor Yanukovych
Ukraine will elect its president on October 25. Viktor Yanukovych leads the ratings with 25.6%, which is almost twice as high as Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko (14.4%) and ex-speaker Arseniy Yatsenyuk (13.6%).

Tymoshenko's rating is falling and Yatsenyuk's rating is rising. Other potential runners for president are far behind, with figures below 3%.

On April 1, Ukraine's parliament voted overwhelmingly in favor of presidential elections to be held on October 25, three months ahead of the date President Viktor Yushchenko had pushed for.

Yushchenko's popularity ratings have fallen to single figures amid political instability and a shrinking economy.

The current president's former "Orange Revolution" ally, Tymoshenko, now an arch-rival, is likely to run against him at the election.

The poll was conducted March 26-April 17 in all Ukrainian regions. A total of 1,984 people were polled.

Source: RIA Novosti

Political Instability In Ukraine Raises Fears Of Intervention By Security Forces

WASHINGTON, DC -- On April 13 Parliamentary Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn said on ICTV, "There is a potential threat of a forced takeover of power (in Ukraine)." A possible cancellation of elections could be part of an "attempt to maintain oneself in power by undertaking any risky action" Lytvyn added.

Ukrainian Parliamentary Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn.
Ukrainian political consultant Kost Bondarenko warned that Ukraine was on the verge of "chaos and dictatorship" and that such a threat, "appears where there is the temptation to seek simple solutions to problems".

Ukraine, together with Latvia and Hungary, are the three post-communist countries hardest hit by the global financial crisis. Ukraine's crisis is made worse by political instability and political in-fighting, as seen in the second failure on April 13 to adopt legislation required by the IMF before it releases the second tranche of its stand-by agreement to Ukraine.

Opinion polls suggest as many as 76 percent of Ukrainians do not feel "protected" by the state from internal threats. Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko has threatened to deal harshly with what he believes to be the inevitable "revolution" and "social explosion" caused by unemployment.

The unregistered NGO Shchyt (Shield), drawn from security service veterans and Interior Ministry (MVS) cadets, recently destroyed a peaceful protest and volunteered to "counter anarchy, corruption and paid for political actions in order to bring order to Ukraine". Shchyt promised to "assist in undertaking order on the streets of our cities".

Politicians incessantly debate the possible consequences of pre-term presidential and parliamentary elections and whether there is sufficient time or enough parliamentary votes to change the constitution again (the last time being in 2006). While there is also continued speculation concerning a possible impeachment of President Viktor Yushchenko.

Lytvyn's warnings are reminiscent of ex-President Leonid Kuchma and his presidential administration head Viktor Medvedchuk attempting to extricate themselves from impending election defeat. The current political atmosphere is similar, with Yushchenko now in his last year in office, and his chief of staff Viktor Baloga exploring ways to remain in politics and receive immunity from prosecution.

To achieve this, Yushchenko and Baloga have three options: the use of force to introduce presidential rule, becoming a life senator if Yushchenko's constitutional reforms proposed on March 31 are adopted (leading to a bicameral parliament), or being elected to parliament through simultaneous elections on October 25.

The second failure to adopt IMF-mandated legislation rested on the lack of support from the United Center and For Ukraine, two pro-presidential wings of the Our Ukraine-People's Self Defence (NUNS) faction. The two groups, accounting for 27 of the 72 NUNS deputies, are holding Ukraine to ransom because Yushchenko and Baloga desperately want simultaneous elections in order to transfer from the executive to parliament and receive immunity.

This would protect them in the event of Yulia Tymoshenko being elected president. The Tymoshenko bloc (BYuT) political scientist Oleh Medvedev suggested that Yushchenko, in seeking to bring down Tymoshenko, might inadvertently destroy Ukraine.

First Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Turchynov warned that "in the presidential team there is a persistent desire to utilize the security forces -Security Service (SBU) and Procuracy- to defend its political and corporate interests". Yushchenko has drawn on the security forces more often than his predecessor. In the spring 2007 crisis SBU, presidential guard and Interior Ministry units clashed and the president dispatched Interior Troops to Kyiv.

The head of the military general staff was brought into the National Security and Defense Council (NRBO) and the Interior Troops were placed under the president's command, which were unconstitutional acts. In the fall of 2008 Yushchenko was prepared to dissolve parliament if a grand coalition of BYuT and the Party of Regions had been established following their joint voting on September 2, 2008. The vote led to the withdrawal of NUNS from the orange coalition.

Yushchenko has gathered the greatest number of security forces under his control, to a far greater extent than Kuchma ever attempted. He has tried to transfer military hardware and units to the presidential guard, re-create a National Guard from the MVS Interior Troops and place the border troops and the special government communications service under his sole command. During the 1990's Ukraine's National Guard was under joint parliamentary and presidential control.

On April 14 Deputy Prosecutor General Renat Kuzmin, revealed in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda that the SBU continued its Kuchma-era practice of illegal surveillance on the opposition as well as politicians who had fallen foul of the president. This confirmed allegations first made by Yushchenko's former staunch ally and former Defense Minister Anatoliy Grytsenko, who said "today the SBU is dealing more with repression of the presidents opponents" instead of undertaking its professional duties.

On March 4, the SBU raided Naftogaz Ukrainy in what Ukrainian deputies saw as a blatant defense of the RosUkrEnergo (RUE) gas intermediary. Grytsenko told parliament that the SBU was unprofessional and was setting a bad example in failing to separate business and politics with the first deputy head of the SBU Valeriy Khoroshkovsky being described as a "hryvnia billionaire". Khoroshkovsky also has close links to RUE co-owner Dmytro Firtash.

Constitutionally the president already controls the NRBO, Defense and Foreign Ministries as well as the MVS, if his coalition is in government (through the government quota allocated to the president's NUNS). Grytsenko, who heads the parliamentary committee on national security and defense, represents the main barrier against this threat of authoritarianism and the further intervention of the security forces in Ukrainian politics.

Political instability risks delaying Ukraine's recovery from the affects of the global financial crisis and threatens one of Yushchenko's legacies - the holding of free elections.

Source: Eurasia Daily Monitor

IMF Mission Agrees New Loan For Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine -- The IMF has reached an initial agreement with Ukraine on a multi-billion dollar loan, breaking months of deadlock on a crucial lifeline for the country's battered economy, officials said on Friday.

Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko (R) and Ceyla Pazarbasioglu, International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission chief to the Ukraine, smile during their press-conference in Kiev. The IMF has reached an initial agreement with Ukraine on a multi-billion dollar loan, breaking months of deadlock on a crucial lifeline for the country's battered economy, officials said on Friday.
The International Monetary Fund's mission to Ukraine said it would recommend the fund's board to release a second instalment of loans worth 2.8 billion dollars (2.1 billion euros) from a 16.4-billion-dollar package agreed in November.

"We have agreed with the authorities that we would propose to the IMF management that the next disbursement would be of 2.8 billion US dollars," Ceyla Pazarbasioglu, IMF mission chief to Ukraine, told reporters after talks in Kiev.

"We hope by mid-May that the (IMF) board of directors considers it appropriate," she said at a news conference with Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

The release of the credit -- the second tranche of the 16.4-billion-dollar loan package to help Ukraine deal with the economic crisis -- had been held up by IMF worries about the country's budget deficit and unstable politics.

"The resumption of cooperation with the IMF is more important than the money," said Olena Belan, analyst at Dragon Capital.

"It is a good signal for the investors, showing that Ukraine is taking anti-crisis measures and the economic situation is under control," she added.

According to Belan, there was an 80-90 percent chance the IMF's board would approve the disbursement.

The loan, Ukraine's biggest source of foreign income this year, is seen as essential for state finances as the economy battles a massive slump in industrial production.

The World Bank predicted the Ukrainian economy would shrink by nine percent in 2009 to make it one of the worst performing economies in the world.

The global crisis triggered a slide in the value of Ukraine's currency and caused a plunge in prices for metals, the country's main export, leading to thousands of layoffs in its industrial east.

But Pazarbasioglu said in a statement released later that while the economy was still badly affected by the crisis, the exchange rate had stabilised, the current account deficit had narrowed and inflation was falling.

The authorities had committed to maintaining a budget deficit of 4.0 percent of GDP in 2009, she added.

The loan programme would pave the way for a return to economic growth so long as the authorities showed "strong political commitment to decisive implementation of these policies."

The sum of 2.8 billion dollars in the staff-level agreement is bigger than initially planned -- the second instalment of the loan was initially only believed to be worth 1.9 billion dollars.

Payment of a third tranche, also of 2.8 billion dollars, would be dependent on a new review of the authorities' economic policies, the IMF said.

If the IMF board of directors takes its decision by mid-May, the money will be disbursed "in a few days," Pazarbasioglu said.

Ukraine received the first tranche of the credit -- worth 4.5 billion dollars -- in November.

Ukraine's ability to deal with the crisis had been severely hampered by a scorching and sometimes farcical row between Tymoshenko and her one-time ally, pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko.

However the pair earlier this year agreed to act in harmony to fight the economic crisis, a condition set by the IMF for releasing the credit.

The government had first warned in February that it risked losing out on the loan and Standard and Poor's subsequently slashed its ratings on Ukrainian debt to reflect a vulnerability to default.

Analysts have said Ukraine is paying the price for failing to diversify its economy after the collapse of the Soviet Union and remains dependent on heavy industry, which is vulnerable to declines in export markets.

Source: AFP

Ukraine's Environmental Crisis

DONETSK, Ukraine -- Late last year, a tire repair factory in the Donetsk area of eastern Ukraine decided to bury smoking rubber waste in the ground not far from its building. The stench lingered in the air, drifting out over nearby villages.

Donetsk, Ukraine vista
Upset inhabitants finally had enough, and, in December, arranged a mass protest near the tire factory's gates. The press came and a scandal broke. In just a few days, the situation in Donetsk was known throughout the country.

Anyone, however, who had hoped that the case would draw attention to the wretched state of the environment in Ukraine and improve the situation has been brought back to earth since then. The factory received a fine, and the controversy quickly quieted down. Despite factories in Donetsk and elsewhere in Ukraine continuing to break laws on waste disposal and management, prosecutors and lawmakers have been slow to react.

"They constantly bring old tires for processing, and putrid smoke hangs above our city all the time," Igor Kolodyazhnyi, a resident Makiivka near the rubber factory, said. "The air smells like cinders and chemicals. Living in such circumstances is simply impossible." Kolodyazhnyi said that although the problem in the Donetsk region is widely known about, no efforts are made to solve it.

He believes that the interests of powerful local business groups are enough to discourage any pressure from the authorities. Other regions are also in bad shape, including those still scarred by the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident more than 20 years ago.

KNOWN OFFENDERS

The air pollution in the Donetsk area is exacerbated by the fires that are common there due to the presence of flammable material. In January, for example, a large fire partly destroyed a local factory that produces nitric acid and ammonium nitrate.

Although the Ukrainian Ministry of Extraordinary Situations cited carelessness as the reason that flammable waste products in the factory's storage facilities had been ignited, the authorities downplayed the seriousness of the accident and did not take significant action.

In this industrial belt, accidents such as these are common, both in factories and in the mines. Officials have repeatedly declared their awareness of lax safety standards and environmental hazards and their intentions to take steps to prevent future occurrences.

However, both state environmental officials and environmental activists say those words rarely, if ever, take the form of action.

"Accidents happen because chemical companies and those who oversee them … have become accustomed to the release of fumes into the atmosphere and the regular disposal of toxic waste in rivers," Oleg Kruglov, a specialist in environmental protection with the environmental advocacy group Chistaya Zhizn ("Pure Life"), said. Mariupol, a southeastern port city, has the most polluted air of any city in Ukraine, followed closely by Donetsk, he said. "The main question is, what must we do for the air in the region to become clean again?"

State officials in charge of environmental protection readily admit the seriousness of the problem but say their hands are tied. Sergey Tretyakov, head of the State Administration of Ecology and Natural Resources in Donetsk Oblast, said that "reorganization and reconstruction of companies is the only way of solving this problem today."

Nikolai Kostrov, chief of the Ukrainian State Ecological Inspection agency, said time is running out, however, as city and suburban sources of water, as well as the air and soil quality in cities, have reached critical levels. "At this time the area of garbage dumps exceeds the area of preserved territories in Ukraine," he said. "In the capital Kyiv, the most critical situation can be found at the water purification station in Bortnichi [a city suburb]. All sewage waste in Kyiv heads there. Impurities could break through the dike and flow into the Dnieper River if the equipment isn't updated quickly," he said.

Anatoliy Golubchenko, deputy head of the Kyiv City administration, recently promised that Bortnichi station would be modernized and a new rubbish recycling plant would be built.

Kostrov said his agency fines environmental law-breakers but admitted that such punishments, in reality, exist only on paper. In practice fines are often blocked in courts and by local authorities without explanation. In addition, environmental cases remain relatively low on the agenda of the office of the public prosecutor, with economic or criminal offenses given priority.

Without the threat of punishment, or some form of state pressure, companies are unlikely to upgrade technology on their own. "We don't have extra money to put special filters in the factory, or to replace out-of-date equipment. I work and live at the plant, and I dislike the air-quality situation, but I can't do anything," the director of a factory in Donetsk, who asked to remain anonymous, said. He also noted that his factory belongs to a huge corporation that likely has the money to make the necessary changes but has not done so.

IN THE DARK

Activist groups have tried to increase public awareness of the problem, hoping to spur pressure on the authorities. The Crimean organization Ekologia i Mir regularly recruits members of the public to participate in environmental activities like cleaning up the city or planting trees. "Various waste products are gradually engulfing the Crimea, some produced here and others deposited here from other regions," said Svetlana Berezina, president of the national public ecological organization Zhivaya Planeta ("Alive Planet") who regularly takes part in Ekilogia i Mir's activities. "We're trying to show people the need to reduce the amount of waste they generate, to reuse or repair items rather than throwing them away, and to separate waste to be recycled. We also work to teach our children about environmental safety and waste management."

The Ministry for Environmental Protection is working on its own concept for ecological education programs. According to ministry statistics, there are currently 326 departments in both middle and higher education establishments in the Ukraine for environmental studies. However, these programs often use old textbooks that do not cover modern methods of environmental protection, and leave students unable to successfully grapple with current environmental problems once they leave school.

Heorhii Philipchuk, the Ukrainian minister of environment protection, said his ministry plans to create centers in every region to provide public information about the state of the environment. "Ukrainians live in the dark ages and don't know what they drink or eat, what they breathe, and what dangers come from the enterprises located next to their homes," he said.

Without public pressure, critics say Ukraine's lawmakers devote little attention to environmental issues. "The ecological problems of Ukraine are actively ignored in parliament," said Kostrov, from the state inspection agency. "The necessary laws and measures for the preservation and defense of the environment and natural resources are not examined." Others say that even those measures that exist are ambiguous and based on antiquated norms. "For successful development to occur on environmental issues, changes in state legislation are necessary," said Alexander Belyakov, a professor in the environmental department at Kyiv National University. "For instance, the Ukrainian laws on environmental information and environmental protection need precise definitions of violations and punishments."

That is even less likely to happen during these dire financial times, said Kruglov, of Chistaya Zhizn. "They have never focused on the environment, and now, during this financial crisis, even less so." The Ukrainian budget for 2009 provides less money for ecological programs than in recent years.

A SILENT MEDIA

Still, Philipchuk pledged to fight on. "Ukraine desperately needs a better ecological code, and we aim to create it this year, together with the representatives of scientific establishments and public organizations," he said. While the need for better environmental protection has long existed, he said, Ukraine "until recently has lived by Soviet standards." Saying the country has accumulated 30 million tons of waste (of which 5 million are toxic), Philipchuk said he ecological situation is catastrophic.

The disproportional concentration of industrial companies within populated areas has decreased the lifespan of Ukrainians by 11 years compared with other Europeans, he said. "For example, in the city of Dneprodzerzhinsk, the average lifespan of the residents is only 47 years because of the terrible environment."

Despite such disturbing statistics, the media seldom call politicians to task for their lack of action, and then again only when a particularly egregious polluter such as the Donetsk tire repair factory gets caught or an accident occurs. "When Ukrainians are a little more concerned for their health and for active defense of environmental laws, the situation will be different. Currently, though, these issues are rarely in the media," said Zhivaya Planeta's Berezina.

Alina Horina, a journalist who covers environmental topics for various publications, concurs. "There are always other things newspapers deem more important. Topics on the environmental are only covered when some great disaster has occurred—no one will write about the environment for its own sake," she said.

Source: Business Week

Tymoshenko Plans To Launch Ukraine's First Satellite

DNIPROPETROVSK, Ukraine -- While visiting Ukraine’s Pivden rocket design bureau in Dnipropetrovsk on April 10, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko unveiled bold plans to put the country’s first satellite into orbit by September 2011.


Tymoshenko said the government would give Hr 2 billion ($0.25 billion) this year to fund the project.

The Pivden bureau and the closely-linked Pivdenmash rocket factory in Dnipropetrovsk were the Soviet Union’s main producers of rockets.

Former Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev once said they were capable of churning out rockets like “sausages.”

He said: “Our missiles come off the assembly line like sausages, one every minute.”

Since independence, Ukraine’s factories have used this Soviet technology to produce dozens of rocket boosters used by Russia and the West to launch satellites into orbit.

With much of the technology already in place, Ukraine has a chance to produce and operate its own satellite network, using it for national communication needs and charging customers for access.

Source: Kyiv Post

IMF Team To Leave Ukraine, Loan Prospects Unclear

KIEV, Ukraine -- A mission of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) headed by Ceyla Pazarbasioglu will complete its work in Ukraine on Friday and so far Ukrainian prospects for obtaining the second tranche of the stabilization loan are vague.

Mission of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) headed by Ceyla Pazarbasioglu (C).
“The decision on granting the second tranche of the credit has not been made yet,” a representative of the IMF office in Kiev said.

Pazarbasioglu arrived in Ukraine on April 8 and held negotiations with President Viktor Yushchenko, Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko, parliament speaker Vladimir Litvin, National Bank Chairman Vladimir Stelmakh, and opposition leader Viktor Yanukovich.

She said the decision on the second tranche will depend on new political realities in the country.

On Tuesday Ukrainian parliament refused to consider the lawbills necessary to secure the second tranche. However, Timoshenko said the government has found a possibility to balance the budgets of the Pension fund and Naftogaz Ukrainy Company by its own resolutions.

In November 2008, the International Monetary Fund approved a decision to allocate a stabilization loan worth US $16.43 billion to Ukraine to maintain confidence in the financial sector and help the country’s economy, which was suffering from the global financial crisis.

At that time, the National Bank of Ukraine received the first tranche of this IMF credit, US $4.5 billion “to maintain the stability of the national currency and recapitalize banks.”

In Washington, Secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Raisa Bogatyreva, who met senior US administration officials, refused to disclose whether she succeeded to secure US economic and financial support. “This is simplification of the question. We have not asked for financial aid. Not all questions can be settled, of course, but we nevertheless hope that we can count on receiving the next loan tranche,” she told Tass on Thursday.

In Kiev sources in the National Bank said the decision on the second tranche will be made during a US visit by National Bank chief Stelmakh next week.

Source: ITAR-TASS

Family Held To Ransom As Brit 'Kidnapped' In Ukraine

LONDON, England -- A British man has been kidnapped in Ukraine with a ransom on his head, according to his terrified family.

Eren Parker's family claim he has been kidnapped in Ukraine, while the Foreign Office has confirmed a man has gone missing in the city of Odessa.
News Shopper understands 25-year-old Eren Parker was snatched from Odessa, a city in the south of Ukraine.

His family claim Ukrainian “mafia” are demanding thousands of dollars to ensure he is released safely.

His cousin Erol Kesen, 27, from Beckenham, England claims Mr Parker’s sister and father are already in the country negotiating his release with the kidnappers.

He says the family have paid out $5,000 but the men holding Mr Parker want more.

He added: “His mother just wants to hear his voice but they won’t even allow that.

“He was supposed to fly out of the country with his uncle but went missing before that happened.

“The initially wanted $60,000. The family have already transferred $5,000 via Western Union but they want more.”

Mr Pekin says his cousin, from Cornish Grove, Penge, was last seen in a casino before he was kidnapped in the early hours of last Tuesday (April 7).

It is understood Mr Parker, who is not married and has no children, was on a two week holiday in the country.

Mr Kesen added: “The police have done nothing. They advised us not to pay the money but nobody seems to know what is going on.”

The Foreign Office has confirmed a British man is missing in the eastern European country.

A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: “We can confirm a British national has gone missing in Odessa, Ukraine.

“He was reported missing on April 9."

She said Ukrainian authorities were investigating the case, adding: “Our consular staff are in regular contact with the British national’s family.”

Source: News Shopper

Platini: Ukraine Will Not Lose Euro 2012

KIEV, Ukraine -- UEFA president Michel Platini has calmed fears Ukraine could lose the right to jointly host Euro 2012 over doubts about whether its Olympic Stadium will be ready in time.

The Olimpiysky National Sports Complex is expected to host the final match of Euro 2012.
Platini is visiting Ukraine and co-hosts Poland on Wednesday and Thursday to assess preparations after previously criticising sluggish work progress and warning the two countries risked losing the tournament.

"It will be impossible for Ukraine to lose the championship," Platini told reporters.

"I have listened to the guarantees of the Ukrainian government and I feel the stadium will be ready by 2011. I don't think there are any concerns about that."

Legal wrangling over the demolition of a shopping centre adjacent to Kiev's Olympic Stadium delayed work for more than six months.

Elsewhere, the western city of Lviv has had problems finding designers and contractors for its stadium.

The rush to build motorways, extra airport terminals and enough hotels to accommodate tens of thousands of fans has also been a worry for Ukraine.

There has been media speculation, mainly in Ukraine and Poland, that European soccer's governing body UEFA is looking at possible alternatives as championship hosts but Platini routinely says there is no "plan B".

Next month UEFA decides which cities will stage the matches.

Source: ESPN Europe

Ukraine's Yushchenko Says To Seek Re-Election

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, his public image in tatters after 4 1/2 years in office beset by constant bickering, said in an interview published on Wednesday he intended to seek re-election.

Viktor Yushchenko, whose rating stands at about 2%, has announced that he will run in both the parliamentary and the presidential elections.
Yushchenko also told the Kommersant Ukraina daily he would run for parliament if an early election for the assembly was called at the same time.

"I will be taking part in both elections. When I look at the ratings it does not mean that I have to reach for some sort of heart medication and change my mind," Yushchenko told the daily.

"I know that behind me are millions of people who share my values. If I change my mind, these people will see that as a sign of weakness or betrayal, a refusal to finish something that has been started."

Yushchenko enjoyed huge popularity after being swept to power in 2005 by mass "Orange Revolution" protests, his standing boosted by worldwide sympathy for having survived poisoning by dioxin which disfigured him for a time.

He won the presidency after the Supreme Court ordered a re-run of the election, Moscow-backed candidate Viktor Yanukovich having won the initial vote which was judged rigged.

His poll rating stood at a huge 60 percent as he called for Ukraine to move out of Moscow's shadow and work towards long-term membership of the European Union and NATO.

But most Ukrainians now speak of Yushchenko with open derision after constant quarrelling with the "orange" camp which proclaimed democratic values during weeks of mass protests.

With his poll ratings now in single figures, he is widely viewed as a figure on the way out of Ukrainian politics, with no chance of winning re-election.

Most of the rows pitted him against Yulia Tymoshenko, his ally from the revolution who was twice appointed prime minister. Each accuses the other of hindering reforms and betraying the national interest.

Yanukovich, who has also twice served as prime minister, leads opinion polls with more than 20 percent support. Following close behind is Tymoshenko, who still enjoys widespread support despite irritation among voters at the constant rows.

Both are almost certain to run in the presidential poll.

Parliament this month called a presidential election for October 25, earlier than had been expected, but the president has challenged the decision in the Constitutional Court.

Yushchenko's supporters and Yanukovich's Regions Party, favour holding an early parliamentary election at the same time as the presidential contest.

Source: Telegraph UK

Ukraine Adopts Reforms For IMF Aid

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko on Tuesday went around President Viktor Yuschchenko and his supporters in parliament and unilaterally adopted anti-crisis reforms necessary to get more International Monetary Fund aid.

IMF's Ceyla Pazarbasioglu (L) at joint press conference with PM Yulia Tymoshenko, on April 14, 2009.
Tymoshenko's government took the dramatic measure after parliament again failed to adopt a package of laws needed to launch the reforms, this time because President Viktor Yushchenko's allies in parliament refused to support the vote.

Talks on receiving a second $1.9 billion installment of the $16.4 billion rescue loan have been under way for months, but the stabilization measures were never fully enacted due to Tymoshenko's bitter rivalry with Yushchenko and political turmoil ahead of the presidential vote set for the fall.

Tymoshenko said Tuesday's government decisions essentially substituted the necessary legislation and won't need parliament approval. The reforms are aimed at trimming government spending and include increasing pension fund payments for businesses and raising electricity and heating bills for well-off consumers. The IMF wants Ukraine to run a budget deficit not exceeding 3 percent of economic output.

There was no immediate comment from Yushchenko's office or from parliament, but the move was likely to prompt more infighting and turmoil.

Ceyla Pazarbasioglu, the head of the IMF mission to Ukraine, praised the move, even though it showed a lack of unity between the country's branches of power. "It's encouraging to see that progress is being made," she told reporters at a joint news conference with Tymoshenko.

Ukraine, which is suffering from a severe financial crisis, one of the worst in Europe, desperately needs the IMF money. Its economy shrank by nearly 30 percent in the first two months of this year, the national currency lost nearly half of its value against the dollar and nearly 1 million people are unemployed.

Source: AP

Ukraine, Turkey Not Rivals But Partners, Says Ambassador

ANKARA, Turkey -- After the Ukrainian government was forced to adopt austerity measures to tackle the economic crisis in a move aimed at restoring the flow of payments under a $16.4 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan, the country is looking for private equity funds and government loans to fund public infrastructure projects, a senior Ukrainian diplomat has said in Ankara.

Ukrainian Ambassador to Turkey Sergiy Korsunsky.
Sergiy Korsunsky, the Ukrainian ambassador to Turkey, told Today’s Zaman that his government will finance major projects through private funds and is especially looking to Turkey for direct foreign investment to keep the economy going.

Stressing that current investment by Turkish firms has reached $2 billion, Korsunsky finds Turkish investors to be in an upbeat mood. “None of them said they would be shelving expansion projects in the Ukraine,” he said, referring to a meeting with senior managers of Turkish firms in Ankara.

Noting that Ukraine is an investor friendly country, the ambassador said the prime minister and legislators are working in tandem to improve regulations and the legal environment to attract foreign investment. “If you are patient and serious in your engagement with the Ukrainian economy, you will be welcome no matter which party is in government,” he assured.

Turkey and Ukraine have no outstanding issues in bilateral relations and both countries are working together on many regional issues. “It is a problem-free relationship,” Korsunsky reported, adding, “I have an easy job here.” Turkey was one of the first countries to recognize Ukrainian independence. On many issues, both countries take a similar stance, ranging from energy transit to safety and security in the Black Sea which connects them.

Ukraine joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) last year after 14 years of negotiations, increasing investors’ confidence and clearing the way for a valuable free trade agreement with the European Union. At the suggestion of Korsunsky, who helped broker the agreement with the WTO as part of the negotiating team, Ukraine also started negotiations with Turkey to establish a free trade agreement. “The agreement with Turkey will pave the way for immense opportunities for the Ukrainian economy as the goods will easily flow to the Turkish market,” he noted.

The trade volume between Turkey and Ukraine stood at $8 billion annually as of 2008 -- up from $5 billion in 2007. The projection for 2009 is grim though. “I would be satisfied if we keep the same volume for this year,” he said, underscoring the difficulties in the economies of both countries because of the global economic crisis. Still, the volume represents a stark contrast when compared to Russia’s $38 billion trade volume with Turkey -- $26 billion in the energy trade alone, mostly gas and oil exports to Turkey. “When you subtract the energy portion from Russian trade, the Ukraine becomes far more important for Turkey, as trade consists of many commodities including steel, chemicals and agricultural products, making Turkey Kyiv’s second most important trading partner after Russia.

Pipeline diplomacy

Korsunsky pledged that his government has not and never will use transit pipelines carrying Russian natural gas through Ukrainian territory to Turkey and western European markets as a tool to pressure governments. “We have officially declared that we would like to have very good relations with our neighbors, especially with the West and EU member states,” he said. “The idea that we could use a pipeline to blackmail others goes right against this policy.” He added, “We would never think of harming our relations with strategic countries like Turkey just for gas.”

Relations between Ukraine and Russia were strained in January over Russian gas supplies and resulted in Russian gas being cut off to Europe for more than two weeks. It ended after Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko struck a deal with Russia for a long-term supply deal. Korsunsky blames the Russians for the gas crisis and mentions the EU findings that laid the blame on Moscow. “I would not say I’m happy with the current deal but it is a deal anyway,” he acknowledged.

Another rift recently occurred with Russia over the modernization of pipelines in Ukraine. Kyiv urged the EU to allocate $5.5 billion to improve the pipeline systeM, rather than embark on expensive alternative routes bypassing Ukraine. Moscow reacted negatively to the deal and claimed it had not been consulted on the plan, resulting in a threat by Russian Gazprom to issue fines to its Ukrainian client for failing to buy enough gas as directed by the contract -- a reversal of the previous announcement by Gazprom, which had said it wouldn’t impose fines in recognition of Ukraine’s dire financial plight.

The ambassador dismissed the accusations and said the deal is for the benefit of Russia as well. Korsunsky argued that the Russian alternative -- the 900-kilometer-long South Stream pipeline going through the continental shelf of Ukraine in the Black Sea, thus requiring Kyiv’s approval -- is environmentally dangerous. “It comes with a large bill as well,” he said, noting that the 25 billion euro price tag for a 31 billion cubic meter annual gas flow simply does not add up. “What we are saying to Russia is that if you invest $5 billion in our existing pipeline for upgrades, you can increase the pumping capacity to 60 billion cubic meters annually,” he underlined, adding “I would be very happy if I were in Russia’s shoes.”

NATO membership

The Ukrainian diplomat says he appreciates Turkey’s full support on the membership of his country in NATO -- a strategic goal reaffirmed by successive Ukrainian governments and staunchly opposed by Moscow. Korsunsky says the alliance is much more than a military pact, rather a security bloc dealing with energy and other nonmilitary issues as well. “As such we need to be in NATO to maintain our safety,” he emphasized. Ukraine is currently the only non-member state of NATO that participates in all of the alliance’s operations.

He concedes that Ukraine has many issues to deal with before it can be considered in full compliance with NATO standards. “We need to upgrade our military forces, stabilize our economy and work harder to get increased public support for membership,” he said. Around 30 percent of the public rallies behind NATO -- an increase of 10 points over last year -- and 50 percent remain uncommitted while the remainder is opposed. Korsunsky cites NATO’s operations in Bosnia and Kosovo as the reason for low public support but largely blames Russian propaganda. “We need to do a much better job informing our citizens about what NATO means for our future,” he added.

Source: Today's Zaman

UEFA Head Platini In Ukraine For Euro 2012 Inspection

KIEV, Ukraine -- UEFA president Michel Platini started a two-day visit to Ukraine on Tuesday to check on the country's preparations for Euro 2012.

UEFA president Michel Platini.
Ukraine is set to co-host the tournament with neighbors Poland.

Platini and a UEFA delegation are to visit the capital, Kiev, as well as five other cities, Donetsk, Dnepropetrovsk, Lvov, Kharkov, and Odessa. Only four Ukrainian cities will host games however, and a final decision is expected either during or shortly after the UEFA delegation's visit.

UEFA earlier expressed disappointment with Ukraine's preparations for Euro 2012, and there was speculation that the tournament could be taken away from the former Soviet republic.

However, in early February, a UEFA delegation, led by UEFA secretary general David Taylor, reported that it was happy with Ukraine's progress.

"I and the delegates have been amazed, both by the city itself and the preparation being currently done by the local and regional authorities as a united team," local media reported Taylor as saying in Kharkov.

Despite this, with Ukraine in the midst of a crippling economic crisis and plagued by seemingly endless political instability, problems could yet arise before the festival of football kicks off in just over three years' time.

This is the first time that a major football tournament has been awarded to Eastern Europe, and a successful competition is likely to benefit Russia's bid to host the 2018 World Cup.

Russia's main rival for the right to host the 2018 competition is likely to be England, which has not hosted the World Cup since 1966.

Source: RIA Novosti

3 Arrested In Ukraine For Trying To Sell Plutonium

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's security service says it has arrested a regional lawmaker and two companions for trying to sell radioactive plutonium for $10 million.

A ring of weapons-grade electrorefined plutonium-239, with 99.96% purity. This 5.3 kg ring is enough plutonium for use in an efficient nuclear weapon.
The service says the legislator and two businessmen from the western Ternopyl region were detained last week in possession of a suspected 3.7 kilograms (8.2 ponds) of plutonium-239, which can be used to make a so-called dirty bomb.

Such a bomb spreads radioactive material over a wide area.

The service said in a statement Tuesday it believes the material was produced in Russia during the Soviet era and smuggled into Ukraine through a neighboring country.

Ukraine renounced nuclear weapons after the Soviet Union's collapse.

Source: AP

Gazprom To Fine Ukraine $530 Mln For Gas Import Cut - Newspaper

MOSCOW, Russia -- Russia's Gazprom has demanded that Ukraine pay a fine of around $530 million for its failure to import the contracted volume of natural gas, business daily Kommersant Ukraina reported on Monday.


The paper cited an unnamed source in the Russian gas monopoly as saying the company sent official notification of the fine to the Ukrainian state oil and gas company Naftogaz last week.

The demand comes despite pledges from both Gazprom and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in March that Moscow would not seek reparations from Ukraine for the low import level.

The source said the fine would apply to supplies in March, when Ukraine was obliged to buy 2 billion cubic meters of gas, but bought only 0.9 billion cu m. Under the contract, the supplier has the right to demand reparations totaling 150% of the value of the import shortfall during the October-March period, and 300% during the rest of the year.

For the first quarter as a whole, Ukraine imported roughly half the level stipulated in the supply contract.

The dispute has had a knock-on effect on Russia's gas dealings with Turkmenistan, the paper said. Most of the gas sold by Gazprom to Ukraine is bought from the Central Asian country and piped through the Russian grid.

Supplies from Turkmenistan to Russia were halted after an explosion on the Central Asia-Center-4 pipeline in the early hours of April 9. Turkmenistan blamed the explosion on Gazprom, saying the company had reduced the volume of gas taken at the Russian end by 90% without informing the Turkmen side. The surplus gas reportedly caused an increase in pressure, which burst the pipeline.

Speaking on March 12, Putin gave assurances that Russia would not fine Ukraine.

"Ukraine is currently not buying the volume of gas from us that it was contracted to do, and should pay a fine for this. We are waiving this fine, based on realities - they can't pay. They are now on the verge of bankruptcy, and you perfectly understand that you cannot finish off your partners," the prime minister said.

However, less than two weeks later Putin issued an angry statement over a deal between Ukraine and the European Union, under which the EU agreed to provide up to $5 billion to modernize Ukraine's gas pipeline system.

Russia froze intergovernmental talks with Ukraine and threatened to review ties with the EU, saying Moscow's interests had been ignored in the deal.

Ukraine has been hard hit by the global economic crisis, with unemployment doubling, the economy shrinking by at least 25% in the first two months of 2009 alone, and demand collapsing for the country's main exports, steel and chemicals. The national currency, the hryvnia, has lost around 40% of its value.

Source: RIA Novosti

A Wild Cossack Rides Into A Cultural Battle

MOSCOW, Russia -- Russia’s latest action hero galloped onto movie screens here this month, slicing up Polish noblemen like so many cabbages. Taras Bulba, the 15th-century Cossack immortalized in Nikolai Gogol’s novel by that name, disdains peace talks as “womanish” and awes his men with speeches about the Russian soul. When Polish soldiers finally burn him at the stake, he roars out his faith in the Russian czar even as flames lick at his mustache.

Bohdan Stupka, a Ukrainian actor, in "Taras Bulba," a film based on Nikolai Gogol’s novel about a 15th-century Cossack.
A lush $20 million film adaptation of the book was rolled out at a jam-packed premiere in Moscow on April 1, complete with rows of faux Cossacks on horseback. Vladimir V. Bortko’s movie, financed in part by the Russian Ministry of Culture, is a work of sword-rattling patriotism that moved some viewers in Moscow to tears.

It is also a salvo in a culture war between Russia and Ukraine’s Western-leaning leadership. The film’s heroes are Ukrainian Cossacks, but they fight an enemy from the West and reserve their dying words for “the Orthodox Russian land.”

Mr. Bortko aimed to show that “there is no separate Ukraine,” as he put it in an interview, and that “the Russian people are one.” Filing out of the premiere, audience members said they hoped it would increase pro-Russian feeling in Ukraine.

“The political elite there will not like it,” said Nikolai Varentsov, 28, a lawyer. “But there are certain ideas that unite us and must be shown. For regular people in Ukraine, this film will be understood.”

The tension between Russia and Ukraine, which grew during a winter standoff over natural gas payments, has now shifted to the cultural arena. Both countries marked the 200th birthday of Gogol, who was born in Ukraine but wrote in Russian and is considered central to the Russian literary canon.

On April 1, Gogol’s birthday, Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin hailed him as “an outstanding Russian writer.” Meanwhile, at a ceremony at Gogol’s birthplace, President Viktor A. Yushchenko of Ukraine declared him unambiguously Ukrainian.

“I think all the arguments about where he belongs are pointless and even humiliating to some extent,” Mr. Yushchenko said, according to the Interfax-Ukraine news service. “He no doubt belongs in Ukraine. Gogol wrote in Russian, but he thought and felt in Ukrainian.”

There has been a vigorous tug of war over Taras Bulba, a character who combines the outsize proportions of Paul Bunyan with the speechifying of Henry V.

Gogol himself set the stage for the fight, devoting lyrical passages to praise of Russia and its people. Ukrainian scholars, translating the book, replaced references to Russia with Ukraine or other phrases, arguing that it better reflected Gogol’s original manuscript, which he expanded and rewrote into the text most readers know.

Three days before the premiere, Ukrainian state television broadcast the first Ukrainian-language film adaptation, produced hastily on a budget of less than $500,000.

But there was no way it could compete with the Russian epic, the culmination of three years of work by Mr. Bortko, who is admired for faithful adaptations of Dostoyevsky’s “The Idiot” and Mikhail Bulgakov’s “Heart of a Dog.” Much of it was filmed by the Dniepr River in southern Ukraine, where horsemen shrink to black dots on the rippling steppe. Inside the encampment where Cossacks mustered four centuries ago, a thousand extras gorge themselves on brandy and war, crimson pants billowing.

At the heart of the film is great Russia. In the opening scene, Bulba, played by the extraordinary Ukrainian actor Bohdan Stupka, rallies his soldiers with a speech that was committed to memory by generations of Soviet schoolchildren: “No, brothers, to love as the Russian soul loves is to love not with the mind or anything else, but with all that God has given, all that is within you.”

Bad reviews began coming in from Kiev, Ukraine’s capital, well before the film opened.

“Russian history is short of heroes, and they are borrowing others’,” sniped Oleg Tyagnibok, the leader of the nationalist Freedom Party. Writing for the Unian news agency, Ksenia Lesiv asked, “Israelis and Palestinians — are they also one people?” And Volodymyr Voytenko, a prominent Ukrainian film critic, said long stretches of Mr. Bortko’s film “resemble leaflets for Putin.”

“It’s a very imperial film, that’s what I’d like to say,” said Mr. Voytenko, who founded the film journal Kino-Kolo. “Everything else follows from that fact.”

Top Ukrainian officials did not attend the opening in Kiev on April 2. But viewers who emerged from the first showing said they found Mr. Bortko’s message of pan-Slavic unity deeply moving. Yulia Velichko, 20, a student, hesitated at the idea of rejoining the Russian fold, saying, “We fought so hard for our independence.” But her companion, Valery Skuratov, was convinced.

“We should join Russia,” he said. “We’re closer to them than we are to the Amerikozy,” a mildly derogatory term for Americans.

Russians showed no such restraint. The premiere inspired viewers in Krasnodar to shave their heads into Cossack haircuts, and early this month Russian Fashion Week devoted an afternoon to a collection called Cossacks in the City.

At the film premiere in Moscow’s Kinoteatr Oktyabr, which seats 3,000, the audience applauded at Bulba’s “Russian soul” speech, and then again when the Cossacks thundered through western Ukraine, holding torches, to drive out the Poles. Among those who felt exaltation was an ultranationalist politician, Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

“It’s better than a hundred books and a hundred lessons,” he told Vesti-TV after the premiere. “Everyone who sees the film will understand that Russians and Ukrainians are one people — and that the enemy is from the West.”

Mr. Bortko, in an interview, said the state-owned Rossiya television channel had commissioned him to make “Taras Bulba” because the conflict with Kiev made it “politically topical.” He shrugged off the suggestion that Ukrainians might view the film as divisive, noting that he spent the first 30 years of his life in Ukraine.

“I have more right to speak about Ukraine than 99 percent of those who say otherwise,” he said. Ukrainians and Russians, he said, “are like two drops of mercury. When two drops of mercury are near each other, they will unite. You’ve seen this. Exactly in the same way, our two peoples are united.”

Anyway, he said: “I just filmed Gogol. I didn’t make up a single phrase.”

But as his blockbuster opened at more than 600 theaters across Russia and Ukraine, that conversation was just beginning. In Nezavisimaya Gazeta, a newspaper in Moscow that is often critical of the government, Yekaterina Barabash noted small alterations that Mr. Bortko made to Gogol’s text, which she said served to transform a wild Cossack into a respectable patriot, suitable for wide distribution.

“What can we do: exaggeration is one of the tokens of our time,” she wrote. “The cultivation of patriotism, which our government focuses on now, is a token and part of our filmmaking industry. One hope: history will show that such filmmaking does not live long. It will fall into irrelevance, when times change. And Gogol — hooray! — will remain.”

Source: The New York Times

Tarasiuk Opposes Ukraine's Resuming Visa Regime With EU Member Countries

KIEV, Ukraine -- Borys Tarasiuk, a Verkhovna Rada deputy of the Our Ukraine - People's Self-Defense Bloc faction, the head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee for European Integration, opposes Ukraine's possible resumption of visa regime with EU member countries, the deputy's press service said.

Former Foreign Minister Borys Tarasiuk.
"I do not see any advantages of this move. It is rather populism than a reasonable decision. I hope it will not be made," Tarasiuk said in an interview with Polish reporters.

If the visa regime for EU citizens is resumed, this might wrap up the dialogue on a visa-free regime for Ukrainians held since 2008, Tarasiuk said.

Ukraine's possible resumption of the visa regime is a negative step towards the European Union, according to Tarasiuk.

"One wastes time and is naivete expecting any EU concession in response," Tarasiuk said.

Moreover, the visa resumption may bring about a revision of the agreement arranged between Ukraine and the European Union on the simplified visa regime, the people's deputy admitted.

Tarasiuk said Ukraine had benefited from the visa-free regime for EU citizens because Europeans had increased their tours to Ukraine and thus were replenishing its national budget.

As Ukrainian News earlier reported, Germany's Ambassador to Ukraine Hans-Jurgen Heimsoeth considers it unreasonable to resume the visa regime with EU member countries.

Ihor Popov, deputy head of the President Viktor Yuschenko's Secretariat, president's representative in Verkhovna Rada, predicts that Ukraine can resume the visa regime for EU member countries before May 7.

Ukraine considers possible resumption of the visa regime for EU citizens because it was not actually eased, and the agreement on the simplified visa regime that came into effect more than a year ago is only a formal document.

EU citizens have enjoyed the visa-free regime with Ukraine since May 1, 2005 when they are staying here for 90 days or are in transit.

Source: Ukrainian News

Russian “National Identity” And The Ukraine-EU Pipeline Deal

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's gas pipeline deal with the EU on March 23 led to an avalanche of Russian outrage that had less to do with the agreement, but exposed the Kremlin's use of Russian national identity. Russia apparently felt 'betrayed' by Europe and Ukraine.

Gas compressor station in Ukraine.
Russian state-controlled media attacked its exclusion from the negotiations, maintaining that without Russia the modernization of the pipelines would not be viable, cast doubt on the viability of the plans and vilified the $5 to 7 billion promised by the EU as far too little.

On March 23 Rossiya TV said the EU had forgotten that the pipelines are “mere junk without gas.”

Far more was involved than a show of anger over Moscow's exclusion from the deal. On March 25 Rossiyskaya Gazeta claimed, “Europe does not want to see our country [as part of Europe] and sometimes does not even want to listen to it.”

While Komsomolskaya Pravda noted that, “Europe wants to control our gas all by itself, so to speak. Russia has been assigned the role of a docile gas supplier, an appendix which possesses natural resources.” Elsewhere, the Russian media was no less critical, describing the EU and Ukraine as adopting a “disrespectful attitude towards [Russia's] interests.”

A report on Center TV International on March 28 concluded that, “Our European partners are incapable of being loyal on either geopolitical or economic issues”.

The March pipeline deal also revealed the immaturity of Ukrainian domestic politics. Since mid-2008 Tymoshenko has been savagely attacked in Ukraine by the president and his secretariat because the prime minister was allegedly doing the bidding of Putin in return for Russian support in the presidential elections. They demanded the prosecutor's office institute criminal charges of “treason” against her, which the prosecutor found insufficient evidence to warrant.

Fedor Lukyanov, editor of the Russia in Global Affairs journal, pointed out that one reason for Putin's over-reaction was that he felt “betrayed” by Tymoshenko. Putin was committed to the January gas agreement signed with the Ukrainian prime minister as the basis, “for building a political and energy partnership.”

As a former FSB officer Putin knows that duplicity is central to the post-Soviet psyche. Tymoshenko explained the deal as protecting national interests and that she did not “betray” Russia. Instead Ukraine “has decently and clearly protected its main gas transit pipeline”.

On March 29 Tymoshenko told Ukraine's 1+1 TV, “One needs courage to defend Ukraine's national interests and I have never backed the strategic aims of other countries to by-pass Ukraine with alternative pipelines and thereby leave our gas transit system without gas, without transit fees, without at a minimum $3 billion dollars each year for Ukraine's economy.”

In February 2007, Tymoshenko mobilized 430 deputies to vote for a law that banned the sale, lease or rent of Ukraine's gas pipelines. The move was a response to a threat by the Viktor Yanukovych government to create a Ukrainian-Russian consortium for the pipelines.

Tymoshenko pointed out that, “I have always defended the gas transit system from dishonest privatization, from dishonest consortiums and knew that in doing so Ukraine is protected from being a geopolitical object of energy supplies to a direct partner and player”.

Deputy Prime Minister Hryhoriy Nemyria (Tymoshenko's unofficial “foreign minister” on her visits to the West) explained that Ukrainian politicians were wrong to portray Ukraine's relations with Russia as a zero-sum game against its relations with the West. In fact, “the absence of a deep strategic analysis has made Ukrainian politicians uninterested in Europe, the USA and Russia”.

On March 26 a discussion between Ukraine's Ambassador to Russia Kostyantyn Hryshchenko, shadow foreign minister in the pro-Russian Party of Regions, and Russia's representative to NATO Dmitriy Rogozin on NTV showed that Russia's over-reaction was a product of its inability to see Ukraine as a fully fledged independent state.

In addition, the pipeline deal was evidence that Ukraine was continuing to distance itself from Russia. Rogozin, like most Russians, regards the Orange Revolution as Ukraine, “embarking on a course of splitting the East Slav world.” Russia had not criticized Ukraine for seeking EU membership until now because it had always been seen this as an unrealistic objective (unlike NATO membership which Moscow thought was imminent after Yushchenko's election).

Hryshchenko stated that Ukraine seeks good relations with Russia. NTV refuted this, saying it is not perceived in Moscow and said it was a “tragedy for Russia” that Ukraine, “does not want to be with us and instead they want to be in NATO, which means that our former neighbors and our fraternal countries do not believe in Russia, do not believe in its course and do not want to be part of it.”

Ukraine's integration into the EU rather than into NATO (whose current expansion drive is stalled), might be raising fears in Moscow following Kyiv's pipeline agreement and an imminent free trade agreement with the EU. These steps make Ukraine appear as a more realistic candidate for EU membership.

Ironically, Tymoshenko and Nemyria might be more of a threat to Russia's interests than Yushchenko as they both emphasize Ukraine's priority as integration into the EU, which unlike possible NATO membership has popular support within Ukraine.

Source: Eurasia Daily Monitor

Former Ukraine Prime Minister's Conviction Upheld

SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko's conviction on money-laundering and conspiracy charges was upheld by a federal appeals court Friday, a judgment that will keep the long-incarcerated politician in U.S. prisons for at least several more years.

A U.S. appeals court lets stand eight of 14 laundering and conspiracy charges against Pavlo Lazarenko, who fled Ukraine in 1999.
Lazarenko, 56, was head of the Ukrainian government from May 1996 to June 1997, during which, prosecutors said, he siphoned at least $200 million from the nation's coffers through elaborate schemes of extortion, cronyism and kickbacks.

Ukrainian authorities have also sought his extradition to face charges of complicity in the killings of several political opponents in the 1990s.

In U.S. custody since February 1999, when he fled a pending indictment in his homeland and arrived in New York with an outdated visa and an invalid diplomatic passport, Lazarenko was prosecuted in America because much of his ill-gotten money was funneled through U.S. banks.

He was initially charged with 53 counts stemming from schemes involving monopoly natural gas sales, inflated government purchases of foreign property and unauthorized transfers to his personal bank accounts in Switzerland, Hungary, Panama and the Caribbean island of Antigua.

In May 2004, a federal jury found Lazarenko guilty on 14 of the counts, and the rest were dismissed by the trial judge, mostly because of lack of documentation that money shuffled among his bank accounts was directly traceable to criminal activity. He was later sentenced to nine years in prison.

On Friday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco overturned the conviction on six counts but upheld the remaining eight.

The opinion also noted that the defendant's request for rehearing of his case by an 11-judge panel had been denied, and Friday's ruling was therefore the final judgment of the appeals court.

Lazarenko was also tried in absentia in Switzerland in 2000 and convicted of money laundering. The Swiss government seized $6.6 million from his account there in addition to imposing an 18-month sentence, which was suspended because the defendant was already incarcerated at the federal prison in Dublin, Calif. Lazarenko is also sought by Antigua for suspicious activity in Euro Fed Bank there, in which he had $104 million deposited.

The appeals court sent Lazarenko's case back to the trial court in San Francisco to recalculate his sentence in view of the overturned counts of fraud and interstate transport of stolen property.

Lazarenko has been at the minimum-security facility in Dublin for a decade. It is primarily a women's prison but has an administrative detention area for pretrial prisoners. He probably will be moved to another federal prison after sentencing.

Source: Los Angeles Times

Russian MP Slams Decision To Remove WWII Statue In West Ukraine

MOSCOW, Russia -- A senior Russian lawmaker blasted on Friday the decision by a regional parliament in western Ukraine to remove a Soviet-era statue to the Red Army soldier.

Lyubov Sliska, deputy speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament.
The assembly in Lvov passed a decision on Thursday to remove the statue from a square in Stryi and place it in a museum of Soviet totalitarianism, saying the statue had no historical or cultural value.

Lyubov Sliska, deputy speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament, said such decisions could only be made by a "criminal regime."

"They have long turned a blind eye to Nazi marches, portraying those who massacred people as heroes," Sliska said, adding the decision revealed lawmakers' disrespect for the soldiers who liberated Ukraine.

Lawmakers in the fiercely nationalistic Lvov region argued on Thursday that such statues - the monument depicts a soldier holding a sword in one hand and a child in the other - are scattered across Ukraine.

Local communists said on Friday they would protest against the decision, which they said ran counter to a law making authorities responsible for the preservation of World War II monuments.

Western Ukraine was the stronghold of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, a nationalist group initially set up to protect ethnic Ukrainians from Poles, engaged in guerrilla fighting with Soviet troops, collaborating with Nazi Germans during the war.

President Viktor Yushchenko has sought recognition for the group, and a statue to one of its founders, Stepan Bandera, was unveiled in Lvov in 2007.

The relocation of the Bronze Soldier, a Soviet-era monument to the Red Army, in Estonia in 2007 sparked violent protests from ethnic Russians. One person was killed and several dozen injured in clashes with police. Moscow issued strong protests with some lawmakers calling for cutting diplomatic ties with Tallinn.

Source: RIA Novosti

Ukraine Army Can't Pay To Feed Overseas peacekeeper troops

KIEV, Ukraine -- Cash shortages have left Ukraine's military unable to feed peacekeeping troops deployed overseas, Sehodnia newspaper reported Friday. Ukraine's Ministry of Defence for peacekeeper troop maintenance has thus far been budgeted 9.2 million dollars, against a planned 40 million dollars, said Viktor Korendonovych, an Army spokesman.

Ukrainian peacekeepers in the Middle East.
"At this rate, we will not be able to feed out troops past May," he said.

Peacekeeping operations affected by the shortage would include Ukrainian troop deployments to Liberia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan.

The first two operations are under UN control. Less than 10 Ukrainians were working with NATO forces in Afghanistan, according to Ministry of Defence statements.

The Ukrainian mission to Liberia is of some local importance locally, as the Ukrainians operate one of the few relatively reliable helicopter transport units in the region.

Withdrawal of the Ukrainian helicopter squadron from Liberia is now impossible, Korendonovych said, as there is not enough money to pay to bring the aircraft home.

Since January, Kiev has attempted to reduce expenditures with dramatic cuts to funds supplied to state agencies, particularly ones not contributing to the economy. Among the hardest-hit has been the Ukrainian military.

A plan to convert Ukraine's still-substantial draftee army to a modern professional standard has become impossible, as the country lacks sufficient funds to pay professional soldiers, army officials said last week.

More than 550 Ukrainians currently are serving abroad in peacekeeping missions.

The duty is highly sought within the Ukrainian military as salaries average from 700 to 2,000 dollars a month - well below rates paid in European armies, but still some ten times what a Ukrainian soldier currently earns at home.

Source: DPA

Ukraine's Dangerous Game

KIEV, Ukraine -- As Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko rushes out of her Kiev office to greet me, her tight handshake and tense smile make it clear that she didn't get to be the most powerful woman east of Berlin by being a soft character.

PM Yulia Tymoshenko
This is a tough day for her and an important time for Ukraine. Later she will speak before parliament to defend controversial new budget measures demanded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in exchange for unblocking a badly needed financial rescue package.

The amount at stake is relatively small, a $1.8 billion second installment of a $16.4 billion loan. But without the IMF, there is little hope Ukraine will regain enough market confidence to roll over the $40 billion in bank loans and bonds coming due this year.

By mid-April, Tymoshenko needs to push pension reform and higher gas tariffs through the legislature - hardly a comfortable position for a leading candidate in the presidential elections expected on Oct. 25.

The 2005 Orange Revolution made Tymoshenko an international media icon. With her fiery rhetoric and political savvy - not to mention her stunning looks and famously distinctive braids - she seemed destined to be the face of the post-Soviet world's new wave of democratic revolution.

Four years later, it's not so easy to be Yulia Tymoshenko. The adoring crowds in Independence Square are a distant memory. She feels under fire from all corners, most of all from her former Orange Revolution ally, President Viktor Yushchenko.

She was late for our coffee conversation because she first needed to focus on this morning's attacks from the president, who accused her in parliament of running the economy into the ground. She is careful to avoid any explicit reference to him, but notes "I am not here to please everybody."

In attempting to manage Ukraine out of a crisis while attending to both her country's desire to rejoin Europe and its fear of an increasingly expansionist Russia, it's becoming more and more difficult to please anybody.

The global recession is turning conventional wisdom upside-down as even the IMF now calls for large deficit-spending policies (for advanced economies, at least). One might think the conditions imposed on Ukraine, where unemployment is rising fast and salary delays are now widespread, are too strict and socially painful.

The hardship in turn could encourage political radicals and the pro-Russia Party of Regions of former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych.

But Tymoshenko isn't complaining. "You are never popular when you ask a sick person to undergo surgery," she says. "But what has to be done, has to be done. Cooperating with the IMF requires a serious budget policy for any country. It's never easy. But it's a guarantee of stability."

The political challenges Tymoshenko faces as she struggles with Ukraine's financial crisis might be treacherous, but the subject matter, at least, is familiar. She received a typical Soviet-era education as an "economist-cyberneticist" -- Soviet-speak for management -- in Dnepropetrovsk, the mostly Russian-speaking eastern Ukrainian town where she was born in 1960.

She started her career as an "economy engineer" at a local machine-building plant during the Gorbachev years. With the demise of the Soviet Union and national independence, she was quick to seize the opportunities of the new era. During the 1990s, she was a top manager at Ukrainian Petrol and United Energy Systems of Ukraine and is understood to have made a fortune at that time.

It was a tough, unsparing environment to prosper in, to say the least. Tymoshenko has come a long way from then. It is especially ironic that this businesswoman turned anti-Russian revolutionary is now disparaged by Yushchenko as a thinly disguised Russian pawn.

Not that dealing with Russia has gotten any easier. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin did not like Tymoshenko's recent deal with the European Union on the modernization of Ukraine's gas infrastructure, and Moscow is holding up a $5 billion loan to Ukraine to mark its dissatisfaction.

"All this crossfire shows what I really stand for is our own national interest," she says. Then she is quick to add: "The Russians worry that we are trying to privatize our pipelines by stealth, but that's not the case and would be illegal. We have to reassure them on that."

Tymoshenko returns frequently to the challenges presented by Ukraine's position between Russia and the European Union. "There is no doubt we want to join the EU. At least 60 percent of our public opinion favors this option, and we are now closer to this goal than, say, one year ago. This policy must be the essence of all our actions," she says. But, she warns, it cannot succeed by confronting Moscow or ignoring its concerns.

This is balance-of-power politics of the post-Soviet, post-Georgia-war variety. To her critics, it looks a bit like squaring the circle. To her, it's simply a matter of recognizing reality. "I try to defend our interests so that we can find a balance in our relations both with the EU and Russia," Tymoshenko explains, meaning she wants her country to get into the EU without giving the impression of antagonizing Russia.

Could the same strategy apply to Ukraine's relations with NATO? Here the prime minister sighs for a split second: "There, it's more complex." It's not so much that she is frightened by Georgia's experience, something she never mentions though it's clearly on her mind. While recognizing it would be "uncomfortable" for Ukraine to remain "in a void, outside all existing security systems," she still sees several "political barriers" between Kiev and NATO.

Although famous for her sharp tongue, Tymoshenko is treading carefully these days. The first problem she sees is that barely 25 percent of Ukrainians favor joining NATO. "Even the president accepts we need to hold a referendum on this," she acknowledges.

The second "problem" is rather a carefully managed swipe at those Europeans cozying up a bit too much to Russia -- especially Germany and Italy, one suspects. In Tymoshenko's own words, "There is no unanimity in the EU on Ukraine's joining NATO as we have not yet witnessed a favorable attitude in every country."

As Tymoshenko goes on, one cannot help but notice her trying to contain her anger when she feels misunderstood in her actions and purpose. She laughs softly at my attempts at humor, but when she finds my questions misjudge her intentions, she bursts out: "It's not fair to say that!"

In the same spirit, she reserves her harshest criticism for the G-20's grandstanding on protectionism: "Everybody is pursuing some stronger or weaker form of protectionism. Some people create hurdles for foreign participation in tenders; others withdraw capital or create tariff and nontariff obstacles to goods. All this proves damaging to us all. But lofty declarations will not prevent it; we need effective rules," she says.

At the moment, Tymoshenko narrowly trails Yanukovych in opinion polls but remains far more popular than Yushchenko, whose support has fallen to the single digits. Nonetheless, she remains a controversial figure. In an identity-obsessed Ukraine that declared independence six times over the last 90 years, even her family origins fuel much debate.

She grew up speaking Russian and perfected her Ukrainian only after she moved to politics in her 30s. Through a spokeswoman, she also "doesn't comment" on rumors that part of her family comes from Armenia. It's hard to imagine her receiving the kind of voter acceptance enjoyed by Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy with their foreign-born fathers.

Despite the sometimes harsh treatment from her constituents and the media, Tymoshenko's national pride and attention to the everyday lives of Ukraine's citizens remain intense. I experienced it myself when I mentioned in a story that Kiev stores were having a serious shortage of salt.

Ukrainian TV had previously aired stories on locals hoarding salt in anticipation of inflation and salary cuts. I was called soon after by an angry Tymoshenko spokesperson: "It's media speculation, nothing true. Did you try to buy salt in Kiev? I did last night: I found it. Immediately."

Why all this fuss over one anecdote in a foreign reporter's story? Tymoshenko has learned over the years that with countries -- as with their leaders -- image is everything.

Source: Foreign Policy

Moldova Seeks Extradition Of Business Tycoon From Ukraine

CHISINAU, Moldova -- Moldova has demanded the extradition of a businessman detained in Ukraine recently, a source in the Prosecutor General's Office said on Thursday.

Gabriel Stati
Ukrainian media earlier reported Gabriel Stati, one of Moldova's richest people, had been detained.

The Ukrainian Interior Ministry has neither confirmed nor denied the detention.

The Moldovan Prosecutor General's Office has said Stati could have been involved in sponsoring and masterminding the latest protests in Chisinau, although the source did not specify what he was accused of.

Protests against the ruling Communist Party's victory in Sunday's elections turned violent on Tuesday, with some 10,000 rioters seizing of the presidential residence and nearby parliament building.

Some 170 police officers and more than 100 civilians were injured in the clashes.

Source: RIA Novosti

Yanukovych: The Man Who Wouldn't Be Ukrainian President

KIEV, Ukraine -- He first rose to national political prominence in 2002, when he was appointed Ukrainian prime minister under President Leonid Kuchma. Analysts immediately foresaw a shift in power toward the country's so-called Donetsk clan, which Yanukovych represented.

Viktor Yanukovych
After years of stagnation and corruption, and a string of murdered journalists, Kuchma had become a pariah at home and abroad, with no hope of imposing himself into a third term.

The Donetsk region, a flotilla of industrial assets in a sea of criminal activity, was looking to drop anchor in Kyiv.

Yanukovych - or Yanuk as he's sometimes called - was an ideal leader of the Donbass revival: He spoke Russian rather than Ukrainian, knew how to manage a hierarchical structure and himself had served time for violent crimes committed as a youth.

These very characteristics, however, made him all the less appealing to a majority (although not a vast majority) of Ukrainians.

So when Yanuk tried to steal the presidency in 2004, the result was an outpouring of public and international support for the country's new, democratic "messiah'Viktor Yushchenko.

Just the opposite of the Donetsk strongman, Yushchenko was mild-mannered, seemingly squeaky clean and Western looking.

By the time the non-violent Orange Revolution was over, Yanuk had become the archetypal post-Soviet bad guy.

But to his credit, and helped by the self-interest and idiotic infighting of Orange leaders, Mr. Yanukovych returned as prime minister in 2006.

With fresh momentum, a democratic mandate and an imported PR team, he quickly tried to stage himself as a standard center-right politician, while rabbit punching Yushchenko off stage.

After several successively nasty political standoffs, the Orange team briefly regained their unity and retook control of the government, if only to start fighting over it among themselves before the ink on the ballots had dried.

Yanukovych was once again out of a job. Yes, he still heads the parliament's biggest faction, but that faction is breaking apart.

With presidential elections scheduled for January of next year, Yanukovych can, however, hardly afford to lose control of his own party.

"Now, the Party of Regions is more mobilized than ever. We don't have any schisms, we have no disagreement," he recently announced during a visit to Crimea.

But the more he talked, the less convincing he seemed.

"As for those who for whatever reason have changed their views or decided to betray their principles, the door is not only open for them [to leave], we will help them to leave the party," he threatened ominously.

Does this sound like the words of a man who can lead a nation? If it does, then things don't bode so well for Ukrainians who don't share Mr. Yanukovych's point of view.

What Mr. Yanukovych really sounds like is a man desperate to hold on to what little power he has left.

But it was Yanukovych who let the much weaker Yushchenko call early parliamentary elections in 2006 and regain the government for the Orange.

This put the Donetsk strongman in no good stead with the Kremlin, virtually the only country to recognize Yanukovych's claim to the presidency in 2004.

Not only can he not hold on to power dropped into his very lap, Yanukovych has still not even managed to make Russian an official language in Ukraine, the Kremlin must be thinking.

Under Yushchenko, Ukraine has, on the contrary, attempted to join NATO, kick the Russian navy out of Crimea, accuse Moscow of genocide, etc. etc.

Surely as the leader of the largest party in parliament and having been in charge of the government for a year, Mr. Yanukovych could have done something to show Moscow he's useful.

The split in the Regions Party is in fact one between the party's business wing and those keen on closer ties with Russia.

Without the support of Moscow or his party's business wing, Yanukovych might end up resorting to drum beating among unpaid pensioners and angry young men with crew cuts.

Either to remind voters that he still exists or as an attempt to kick start his presidential bid, the former premier held a rally in Kyiv on Friday.

As predicted by analysts, the expected protest against "Orange chaos" by Regions loyalists was a flop, with only two or three thousand showing up.

Didn't the Regions learn their lesson during the Orange Revolution about trying to stir up Kyivans?

Yanuk had promised that he had no intention of destabilizing the country, and he kept his promise better than he had ever intended.

Maybe the party of the opposition will have better luck blocking the parliamentary rostrum, as they also recently promised to do.

But don't expect such passé antics to win them any more votes.

Ukrainians are tired of their indecisive president, but not so tired to have warmed on Yanuk. If Yushchenko is a wimp, then Yanukovych is a bully, and their countrymen can stand neither.

The third candidate, Orange premier Yulia Tymoshenko, has also dropped in the ratings, but she's fallen on Yushchenko's head, while challenging Yanukovych in Moscow and Eastern Ukraine along the way.

Yanukovych still scores much higher than Yushchenko and even tops Lady Yu on a good day, but points do not make a president.

His latest efforts are a little too little, a little too late; they still smell of vodka-fuelled rallies and sound more like "what's wrong?" instead of "what are we going to do?"

There is something about Yanukovych's rise from an orphaned hoodlum to a post-revolutionary leader that could almost be romantic and inspiring if it weren't for Yanukovych himself. In the end, the man offers nothing new and, indeed, has a hard time making anything out of the old.

It's far from clear who will take the reigns of power from Ukraine's fallen "messiah', except that it won't be Mr. Yanukovych.

Source: Turkish Weekly

Europe Wary Of New Russia Tensions Over Moldova

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Protests against Moldova's Communist rulers are the latest threat to stability on the European Union's eastern border but the bloc is wary of wading into a row that could stoke wider tensions with Russia.

Protestors gather during a protest in central Chisinau April 8, 2009. Western powers urged all sides to keep calm and avoid a repeat of Tuesday's post-election riots in which one person died, more than 270 people were injured and 193 were arrested. The European Union said it was deeply concerned about escalating tensions.
Western diplomats say it is too early to judge whether street anger at alleged vote-rigging in a weekend election won by the incumbents will lead to a change of power, as seen in Georgia, Ukraine and other ex-Soviet states.

But Moscow's move on Wednesday to join President Vladimir Voronin in blaming neighbour and EU-member Romania for stoking the violence -- an accusation denied by Bucharest -- highlighted the risk of escalation.

"The EU should go and it should go now," said Andrew Wilson at London's European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), urging EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana to go to Moldova and act as a mediator between the government and opposition.

"But, yes, that would annoy the hell out of Russia," he said of the possibility for new Russia-West tensions just as U.S. President Barack Obama is offering Moscow a fresh start.

Europe and Russia have been jostling for years over the group of ex-Soviet states Moscow calls its "near abroad" and which Brussels refers to as its eastern neighbours.

Moscow sees NATO's enlargement eastwards as an aggression, while Europe and the United States accuse Russia of using its dominance to bully neighbours.

Ukraine, the main transit route for Russian gas exports to Europe, clashed with Russia in January in a dispute that cut supplies to many European countries in the middle of winter.

A fresh dispute over supplies is now brewing between the two neighbours, and oil and gas export routes to Western markets are a constant source of tension between Russia, its former Soviet satellite states and the West.

Russia has flexed its military muscle too. Georgia lost a five-day war with Russia in August when Moscow sent in troops and tanks to repel Tbilisi's bid to seize back a pro-Moscow breakaway region.

European reaction to events in Moldova has been cautious.

So far, the EU has agreed to send a special envoy to the capital Chisinau to monitor events but there has been no talk of any direct role, a diplomat close to talks said.

In a statement, the bloc urged all parties to refrain from violence but stressed the right of protesters -- many of them pro-EU -- to demonstrate in peace, noting election observers were not fully happy with how the vote took place.

MADE WORSE BY ECONOMY

With Voronin's allies having regained control of parliament and presidential offices occupied by protesters on Tuesday, EU diplomats pointed to a relative calm on Wednesday and said the bloc planned no further steps at this point.

Fitch Ratings agency said Moldova's credit rating could be threatened if the political unrest persisted but said the fallout to the rest of the region appeared to be contained.

"People are trying to say this is some kind of Ukrainian 'Orange Revolution', which for us makes no kind of sense," said Commerzbank strategist Luis Costa of the 2004 protests in Kiev.

But any impression of a lull could be misleading.

Joanna Gorska of consultant Exclusive Analysis said anger in Moldova had been exacerbated by an economic crisis that has hit foreign investment and led to a fall in remittances, a main source of income in Europe's poorest country.

"The closest comparison would be Ukraine, where again the economic crisis has come on top of existing political instability," she said of a collapse in Ukraine's economy which has triggered protests at job cuts and falling living standards.

The unrest broke out at a delicate time in efforts to solve the "frozen conflict" in Moldova's Russian-speaking breakaway Transdniestria region, a source of instability in Europe's backyard since the end of the Cold War.

Moldova, Transdniestria and Russia agreed last month that a European mission could replace Russian peacekeepers there after any peace deal is concluded.

"In terms of the Transdniestria dispute, there may not be any direct impact but obviously to resolve that you need stability in Moldova," Gorska said.

In the short-term, the troubles in Chisinau could add to the uncertainties hovering over the May 7 launch in Prague of an "Eastern Partnership" scheme for enhanced economic and political ties between the EU and six ex-Soviet states, Moldova included.

Already there were doubts over whether Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko can attend the summit given concerns over human rights in his country.

On Wednesday the EU would not comment on whether Voronin's accusations of meddling directed at Romania would be a factor in whether he was invited to attend.

"No invitations have gone out yet," an EU Commission spokeswoman told a regular briefing.

Source: Telegraph UK

IMF Mission Arrives In Ukraine To Resume Loan Talks

KIEV, Ukraine -- The International Monetary Fund said it hopes to reach a quick agreement with Ukraine after resuming talks on disbursing the second tranche of the former Soviet state’s $16.4 billion loan.

Ceyla Pazarbasioglu, IMF mission head in Ukraine.
The Washington-based lender came to Kiev after receiving “strong assurances” from Ukraine’s leaders last week that laws needed for resuming the loan program will be passed by lawmakers next week, said Ceyla Pazarbasioglu, the IMF mission head in Ukraine.

“Much was achieved in the past and we look forward to further discussion,” Pazarbasioglu said after meeting with Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko and central bank Governor Volodymyr Stelmakh in Kiev. “We hope we will reach an agreement as soon as possible.”

Ukraine, like other countries in the region, including Hungary, Romania and Latvia, was forced to seek support from the IMF to avert a default and stabilize its banking system because of the global financial crisis. The IMF approved the two-year loan in November and $4.5 billion was disbursed that month.

Ukraine’s proposal to run a budget deficit of 5 percent of gross domestic product forced a delay in the second installment, originally scheduled for mid-February.

Budget Financing

The eastern European country has since assured the IMF it will find “non-inflationary” ways of financing the budget gap and approved laws to raise tobacco, alcohol and diesel taxes last week. Ukraine needs to pass several more laws, including one on bank restructuring, the IMF has said.

“We hope important measures will be taken next week that will help Ukraine out of the crisis,” said Pazarbasioglu. “It is very important to restore confidence and financial stability in Ukraine.”

The IMF mission will finish its work in one week, Ukraine’s Deputy Finance Minister Andriy Kravets told reporters. “We’re counting on positive results,” he said, adding the mission has shown “support for the government’s work.”

“Financing will resume when we reach certain state budget deficit indicators,” Kravets said. “There are no unresolved issues on financing the 2009 state budget deficit.”

Ukraine is in “quite successful” talks with the World Bank on how to fund the budget deficit, Kravets said, adding the issue will be solved “in the coming months.”

The World Bank and the government are also deciding on a loan for recapitalizing banks, Kravets said, without providing details.

Source: Bloomberg

EU Bans Thai, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Benin Airlines From EU

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- The European Commission banned airlines from Thailand, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Benin from flying to the European Union because of safety concerns, it said Wednesday.

Motor Sich Airlines AN-24RV
The commission, the E.U.'s executive body, has added Thailand's One Two Go Airlines, all airlines from Benin, six carriers from Kazakhstan and Ukraine's Motor Sich Airlines to its blacklist of airlines not allowed to fly to the bloc, it said in a statement.

The commission regularly publishes a list of passenger and cargo airlines which are banned from flying to its 27 member countries because they aren't considered safe enough.

Air Company Kokshetau, ATMA Airlines, Berkut Air, East Wing, Sayat Air and Starline KZ are the Kazakhstan carriers banned Wednesday.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

World Bank Says Ukraine's Economy To Shrink 9 Pct

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's faltering economy will plunge into a deep recession and shrink by 9 percent this year, far worse than previously expected, the World Bank said Tuesday.

World Bank headquarters in Washington, DC.
After nearly a decade of robust growth, the economy is being hit hard by the deterioration of the global economy and the national government's failure to implement anti-crisis measures, the Bank said in a statement.

Inflation will hit 16.4 percent this year, better than last year's 22.3 percent but still very high.

In December, the Bank had forecast that Ukraine's economy would shrink by 4 percent and projected inflation at 13.6 percent. The International Monetary Fund expects the economy to contract by at least 6 percent this year.

Those estimates contradict sharply with government expectations of 0.4 percent growth and 9.5 inflation this year, which many analysts dismiss as unrealistic.

Ukraine's economic crisis is one of the worst in Europe. Industrial output slumped by 32 percent in January and February compared with a year ago, and output in the construction industry dropped by 57 percent during that period, according to the World Bank.

The national currency, the hryvna, has lost about 40 percent of its value to the dollar since the crisis hit last fall.

Furthermore, constant political turmoil has worsened the effect of the global crisis on Ukraine by stalling the implementation of key anti-crisis policies.

The IMF withheld the second tranche of an emergency $16.4 billion loan this year after the government failed to trim spending and adopt other stabilization measures.

Source: AP

Economic Crisis Sweeps Eastern Ukraine

MAKEEVKA, Ukraine -- Few areas of Europe have taken such a body blow from the world economic crisis as the industrial heartland of eastern Ukraine, home to giant enterprises in the steel and metals industry in which orders have dried up nearly completely and prices have plummeted.

A scene at the Ilyich Metallurgical Combine, the second-largest steel producer in Ukraine, in Mariupol.
In the Donetsk region, home to 4.6 million people, around 80 percent of the economy is tied to the metals industry. In January, when industrial production dropped by a precipitous one-third throughout Ukraine as a whole, in Donetsk it fell by half against the previous year.

Small wonder, then, that Sergei Yeryomin is looking for some place to vent his rage and despair. Mr. Yeryomin, his wife, Tatyana, and thousands of others lost their jobs at the giant Kirov Metallurgicals Factory in this city on Jan. 1.

“If we had a leader to lead us out on the streets, we would go,” he said, sitting in his living room and wondering how to support his wife; his son, Anatoli, 15; and his daughter, Ekaterina, 8. “In Makeevka, everyone was connected to the factory. If it wasn’t the father, then the son worked there.”

In the absence of a galvanizing voice rallying the workers, or a politician in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, to marshal the popular anger, Mr. Yeryomin and many others are focusing their unhappiness on the borders of this part of Europe, sliced and diced in countless wars through the centuries.

“I look with pride at Russia,” said Mr. Yeryomin, who lived in Russia as a child and counts himself among the 40 percent of inhabitants of the Donetsk region who are considered ethnically Russian. “We should cut Ukraine in two, and give half to Poland and half to Russia.”

This part of eastern Ukraine has always felt more attached to Russia than to western Ukraine and neighboring Poland. For many here, the fraying economy is accompanied by a sense that officials in Kiev, where the government is paralyzed by political infighting, have abandoned Ukrainians to their fate.

Just last week, more than 10,000 protesters gathered in Kiev to demand a change of government, prompting President Viktor A. Yushchenko to issue a surprise announcement that he was considering early presidential and parliamentary elections.

Whether any politician can allay both the global and the homegrown troubles of the metals industry in Ukraine is unclear. For now, the national currency, the hryvnia, has lost 40 percent of its value against the dollar from its high last year, and the reforms demanded by the International Monetary Fund as a condition for receiving a life-giving $16.4 billion loan are the subject of endless wrangles in an argumentative Parliament.

The Ilyich Metallurgical Combine, the second-largest steel producer in Ukraine, epitomizes the recent plunge back into poverty. Even by the maximalist standards of the post-Soviet metals industry here, it is huge: 50,000 employees; production facilities scattered over more than five square miles in Mariupol, some 75 miles south of Makeevka; disparate sidelines including fisheries and an airline.

Today, it is operating at only half capacity. Orders for March were anemic; those for April are trickling in. Workers have taken an average 30 percent cut in salary to avoid layoffs. Of the six furnaces in the open-hearth shop, only one is working full time. Another has been stripped for parts. Storage yards that a few months ago were stuffed with steel slabs for shipment are bare. Silence has descended over large swaths of production, close to 80 percent of which went to export.

Global steel orders — for cars, ships, construction or heavy machinery — dropped to virtually zero last fall, analysts say. Prices for a ton of semi-finished steel dropped from around $1,000 to just $250.

That is not enough to cover the relatively high cost — $360 per ton — of producing at Ilyich’s open-hearth furnace. Steel-company owners who gobbled up the state enterprises of the Communist era have not done enough to modernize, according to industry analysts in Kiev, and are now paying the price.

Similarly, employment rolls remain bloated — another homegrown problem and a relic of Soviet times, when full employment was a government tenet. “Ilyich could easily cut 20,000 to 25,000 people and keep the same output,” said Sergiy Gayda, a steel analyst with Dragon Capital, an investment bank in Kiev.

Where, however, do those workers go?

“Nobody wants an uncontrollable mass out on the streets,” said Yevgeny Shendrik, deputy chairman of the regional council of trade unions in the city of Donetsk. It is a city where unemployment has officially almost doubled, to 67,500, in the past two months, and the authorities suspect that up to one-third of the 1.2 million registered workers are toiling for a small fraction of their nominal salary.

In Ukraine, statistics are as murky as prospects for the future. Some analysts argue that the recent slump has helped Ukrainian steel become competitive because of the fall of the local currency. Last year, some companies’ profits were as high as 60 percent. Ilyich Steel, the main shareholder of the Ilyich metal works, in March issued a $31.3 million dividend to shareholders for 2008.

“The situation is not as bad as people say,” said Eugene Cherviachenko, a metals and mining analyst for Concorde Capital, another Kiev investment house. “Ukraine has huge resources — everything you need for steel production.”

In Makeevka, with 400,000 residents, just outside Donetsk, the Kirov factory laid off nearly all its workers in December and January. Now, an average of four people vie for every job. In nearby towns, that ratio soars to 70 or 80 people for every available job, officials say.

Mr. Yeryomin and his wife accepted severance pay of about $7,000 on Dec. 31. Since then, he has received one month’s unemployment benefits, the equivalent of about $240, and found no new job despite searching daily. “I don’t know how to do anything,” he said, “except work with pig iron.”

Source: The New York Times

Russia Fumes Over Gas Bill From Ukraine

MOSCOW, Russia -- Russia threatened to fine Ukraine for failing to buy enough natural gas in the first quarter, increasing pressure on its neighbor at a time when the World Bank said Kiev's economy was contracting fast.

Gazprom chief, Alexei Miller
Alexei Miller, chief executive of Russia's state-run gas giant OAO Gazprom, said in an interview that the corporation was in talks with its Ukrainian counterparts regarding possible sanctions over lower-than-agreed-upon gas imports.

"We are discussing this with our Ukrainian colleagues. This is spelled out in our agreements," he said.

The threat dealt a further blow to Ukraine, which is facing anger sparked by the authorities' handling of the economic crisis and political wrangling over the date of the next presidential election.

Gazprom had previously said it wouldn't impose fines, in recognition of Ukraine's dire financial plight.

Russia's apparent rethink comes after Ukraine's leaders -- squeezed between traditional loyalty to former Soviet master Moscow and a desire to move closer to the West -- angered the Kremlin by signing an agreement in Brussels to overhaul Ukraine's aging pipeline network.

Adding to Kiev's woes, the World Bank predicted on Tuesday Ukraine's economy would contract 9% this year, rather than the 4% it had forecast before. Things could get worse, it added.

"We...still see downside risks to this forecast should the external environment deteriorate further and/or the authorities delay critical anticrisis steps," the bank said.

The World Bank also predicted that inflation, fueled by a big devaluation of the hryvnia currency, would spiral to 16.4% this year against an earlier forecast of 13.6%.

Inflation last year was even higher at 22.3%.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Sheva Seeks Milan Stay - Striker Not Keen On Chelsea Return

MILAN, Italy -- The Ukraine international is currently on a season-long loan at Milan from Chelsea after failing to impress at Stamford Bridge.

Andriy Shevchenko has revealed he would like to stay at AC Milan beyond the end of the season.
Shevchenko has endured a difficult return to Milan, struggling to hold down a regular place in Carlo Ancelotti's side and starting just two games in Serie A.

The 32-year-old has shown glimpses of his old form in recent weeks with a goal against England for Ukraine and then he created Milan's second goal in the 2-0 win over Lecce on Sunday.

Shevchenko admits he is not looking to return to Chelsea and hopes to secure a permanent move to Milan.

"I'm hoping to stay at Milan next year but no decision has been taken yet," said Shevchenko.

"I am on good form after a goal at Wembley for the Ukraine and an assist yesterday for Milan.

"I want to continue on this road and to give my best up until the end of the season.

"I want to be better for the fans and if they are pleased with me then that makes me happy."

Source: Sky Sports

Ukraine Powers Chinese Carriers

KIEV, Ukraine -- China is working closely with Ukraine to supply key components for the aircraft carriers China is building. Ukraine supplied many components for Russian carriers back in the days of the Soviet Union (which Ukraine was a part of).

Ukrainian UGT-25000 turbine
Now independent, Ukraine is eager to find customers for local manufacturers that can produce carrier components. Russia is no longer building carriers, despite talk of restarting that program.

Last year, Chinese officials visited Ukraine and inspected the naval aviation training facilities that were built there before the Soviet Union dissolved. Ukraine wants to use those facilities to establish an international center for training carrier aviators.

A major Ukrainian product the Chinese are interested in are ship engines, especially the large ones a carrier would require. Chinese gas turbines are not all that efficient and reliable.

The Ukrainian UGT-16000 and UGT-25000 turbines, developed from the DT-59 they have been making since 1975, are major competitors for General Electric models used in large ships.

Ukrainian firms build a number of other world class components for large ships, and China is looking to acquire equipment, and technology. Ukraine is aware of the fact that the Chinese steal technology, but right now Ukraine needs the business, and China needs the turbines.

Source: Strategy Page

Russian Black Sea Fleet Should Be Guarantor Of Ukraine Security

MOSCOW, Russia -- Speaker of the Ukrainian parliament Vladimir Litvin reckons that the Russian Black Sea Fleet should be a guarantor of Ukraine’s security. He expressed this opinion in an interview with the Russian Ekho Moskvy radio station.

Ukraine's one and only submarine
“Ukraine should not just live according to the principle ‘Russia or NATO’, but it should be guided by an idea of ensuring its own security,” Litvin claimed. “I shall not reveal a big secret if I say that the Ukrainian navy is a 100-percent junk. But it is necessary to defend our own water spaces,” the speaker continued.

“Besides, we have the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on guarantees of Ukraine’s security, which was signed by Russia apart from other countries, possessing nuclear weapons.”

In this connection, Litvin deems it expedient to sign “a document on guarantees of Ukraine’s security”, in compliance with which “the Russian Black Sea Fleet should fulfil functions of protection of Ukrainian water frontiers and act as one of guarantors of Ukraine’s security”.

Source: ITAR-TASS

European Union's Eastern Partnership Plan Disappoints Ukraine

WASHINGTON, DC -- President Viktor Yushchenko was vexed when European Commission President Jose Barroso suggested that he and Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko should make peace for the sake of Ukraine's stability. "I don't want to get advice on what to do anywhere in Europe, this is humiliating," said Yushchenko, reacting to Barroso's peaceful initiative at the summit of the EU's right-of-center People's Party, which Yushchenko and Tymoshenko attended together in March.

European Commission President Jose Barroso.
Yushchenko's reaction betrayed the degree of disappointment with what is widely seen in Ukraine as betrayal by the European Union of the past-Orange Revolution hopes for faster integration into the EU.

On his election as president in 2004, Yushchenko set the goals arguably too ambitious for both Ukraine and the EU to meet. The then head of his administration, Oleg Rybachuk, spoke about joining the EU within five years, and EU membership was one of Yushchenko's main promises to his voters.

As Yushchenko is approaching the end of his presidency with a personal rating of just 2-3 percent, it must be especially painful for him to realize how naïve his European dream probably was.

The economic crisis has made the EU perspective for Ukraine even more distant. The richer European neighbors are afraid that cheap labor and commodities from the east would exacerbate their problems, unemployment first and foremost. Ukraine hoped that the EU initiative for the integration of the eastern neighbors, Eastern Partnership (EP), would help Ukraine attain EU membership faster. However, the EU apparently saw EP differently from the very start.

It was originally meant to complement the Northern Dimension and the Union for the Mediterranean by providing a forum for discussing visa agreements, free trade deals and strategic partnership agreements with Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, and Belarus. By proposing EP, the EU hoped to avoid the topic of eventual accession to the EU for the eastern neighbors.

EP was formally launched on March 20, and the declaration by the European Council - the EU's top political body - that accompanied the event was a big blow for Ukraine, again because it expected too much. Yushchenko's aide Andry Honcharuk bitterly criticized the "corrections" made to EP.

He said that, unlike the EU's December 3 proposal to set the goal of political association and political integration for EP members, the March 20 declaration spoke only about "creating the necessary conditions" for that. Also, unlike earlier documents, the declaration provides only for visa facilitation agreements rather than cancelling visas altogether, according to Honcharuk. Last but not least, he said, there is no mention of future EU membership in the new document.

Ukraine's former Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk, who chairs the parliamentary committee for EU integration, noted that the EU provided for allotting only 600 million euros ($800 million) to EP for four years while the same amount was foreseen for the facilitation of Turkey's EU integration in 2009 only. He said EP would have little practical meaning if the EU did not revise its approach.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry expressed its concern over the EU's proposal to introduce a more liberal visa regime instead of granting a visa-free regime to Ukraine. That proposal "does not correspond to the level of relations between Ukraine and the EU," said Vasyl Kyrylych, the ministry spokesman.

Yushchenko got more confirmation of the failure of his hopes on visas during his recent visit to the Czech Republic, which currently holds the EU rotating presidency. His secretariat head Viktor Baloha said that Yushchenko did not receive any positive signal on visas. He suggested that Ukraine should re-introduce visa requirements for the EU, which were withdrawn in the wake of the Orange Revolution in 2005.

Baloha said that "profits of several million hryvnyas from the visits of European tourists cannot even partly compensate for the enormous discomfort awaiting Ukrainians travelling to Europe." According to Baloha, the number of EU visitors in Ukraine doubled since 2005 while the number of Ukrainians travelling to the EU halved.

The disappointment with the EU's visa policy in Yushchenko's camp is shared in other parties. Parliament deputy speaker Mykola Tomenko - one of the leaders of Tymoshenko's party - asked the Foreign Ministry to re-introduce visa requirements for the EU in February due to the EU's failure to liberalize its own visa regime. The Communists demanded immediate re-introduction of visas for the EU and the US in the wake of the March 20 declaration on EP.

A recent incident at the German passport control, involving heavyweight boxing champion and politician Vitaly Klichko, added insult to injury. German customs officials decided that a bag and a watch that one of the world's richest athletes carried were too expensive and confiscated them.

Klichko called his lawyers and reported the incident to the German press. "I can defend myself but what would a compatriot of mine who is not famous and has no connections feel in my case?" Klichko speculated in his blog. Klichko happens to be a senior Kyiv city councilor and a long-time ally of Yushchenko's.

Source: The Jamestown Foundation

Ukrainians Lament 'Lost Hopes' After Orange Revolution

KIEV, Ukraine -- Night after night, he appeared onstage here in a downtown plaza, his face ashen and pocked with cysts from a poisoning attempt on his life. At his feet were legions of Ukrainians wedged shoulder to shoulder, gleefully screaming his name until their throats were raw.

Yushchenko in December 2004.
Viktor Yushchenko was the agent of change, followers of the 2004 Orange Revolution believed, a pathway to an era when rule of law would supplant corruption and cronyism. In the West, politicians held him up as the bulwark against Russian aggression. Not long after he led daily demonstrations that culminated in his ascent to the presidency, oddsmakers had him on their shortlist for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Today on the streets of Kiev—where Ukrainians cram into bank lobbies to pull their life's savings out before the money vanishes into Ukraine's economic black hole—Yushchenko is the incarnation of dashed dreams.

"This presidency has been all about lost time, lost opportunities and a lot of lost hopes of Ukrainians for a better life," said Dmitro Kazmirchuk, 28, a Kiev businessman. "No leader has ever been as trusted by Ukrainians as Yushchenko was. And now the people won't trust anyone anymore."

Yushchenko's tumultuous first term as president is in its final year. He can run for another term in elections scheduled for this winter, but with approval ratings that have plunged to under 2 percent, his chances for victory would be minuscule.

By all accounts, it's an ignominious end to a presidency that began on the shoulders of one of most improbable events in post-Soviet history.

In a country where Kremlin-connected autocrats kept a population of 46 million on a tight leash, tens of thousands of Ukrainians rose up and compelled the government to overturn a rigged presidential vote. The Kremlin's candidate, Viktor Yanukovych, was forced into a rematch with Yushchenko that Yushchenko won through the appeal of people power.

The 2004 bloodless uprising would come to be known as the Orange Revolution, and it gave Yushchenko a powerful burst of momentum as he tried to steward Ukraine toward integration with the West.

That momentum disappeared long ago. In a series of interviews in Kiev, former members of Yushchenko's team talk of a president who was fatally distracted by political dogfights with his onetime Orange Revolution ally and current prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, and with Yanukovych.

Yushchenko's advisers say he also lacked the political will to combat corruption, a cancer in Ukrainian society that Yushchenko had told throngs of orange-clad Ukrainians in Kiev he would eradicate.

Yushchenko made his country a staunch ally of the U.S., but the political and economic stability that Washington wanted for Ukraine never took root. The Bush administration had hoped Ukraine would one day join the European Union and NATO; today those goals seem distant.

Oleg Rybachuk, Yushchenko's former chief of staff and a longtime friend, says five years of warring with political foes in Kiev and the Kremlin have taken a harsh toll on the Ukrainian leader.

"My impression is that I feel my president is very lonely," said Rybachuk. "You can feel that, you can see that. He's not smiling anymore."

Yushchenko declined a request for an interview. He has said that his leadership has been hamstrung by political power plays and changes to Ukraine's constitution that diminished presidential authority. And, he has said, the country has ably detached itself from the authoritarianism of years past.

"Believe me, the last four years have not been the worst time in the life of Ukraine," Yushchenko told a Kiev magazine earlier this year. "I do not want the nation to live as it did in 1990, 1991, 1993 or 2000—any of those years."

Unlike Tymoshenko, known as a fiery speaker and crafty political strategist, Yushchenko was an unlikely choice to lead the opposition movement.

As Ukraine's Central Bank chairman in the 1990s, he won praise as a skillful economist who reined in runaway inflation and steered the country from the brink of default during the 1998 Russian financial crisis. But he was never seen as a charismatic figure.

That was Tymoshenko's job. When they appeared on stage in 2004 to rally Ukrainians against elections rigged to put Yanukovych into power, Yushchenko was professorial and stiff while Tymoshenko was the firebrand exhorting people to form human blockades around key government buildings.

After his inauguration in 2005 with his wife, Chicagoan Kateryna Yushchenko, and then-Secretary of State Colin Powell nearby, Yushchenko took the helm of a country braced for sweeping political and economic reform.

In certain areas, he succeeded. Elections since 2004 have been regarded as fair contests. The media, muzzled in the 1990s during the rule of Kremlin-backed leader Leonid Kuchma, broadcast and wrote freely about Ukrainian politics and society under Yushchenko.

But other crucial reforms including the battle against corruption never got off the ground, because Yushchenko failed to purge government of wealthy, power-hungry businessmen who exploited their offices for personal gain.

With every crisis Yushchenko faced, his popularity with Ukrainians diminished. The latest row with the Kremlin over natural-gas prices doubled the price Ukraine pays for gas, putting a severe strain on the country's steel mills and factories. Ukraine is on the verge of economic collapse, a crisis triggered by the global financial meltdown but worsened by wrangling between Yushchenko and Tymoshenko.

"He never sought ways to actually influence the economy or put forward an anti-corruption agenda," said Rostislav Pavlenko, a former analyst in Yushchenko's administration. "Instead, he paid more attention to speeches and accusations."

Along the way, Yushchenko has had to cope with the pain and disfigurement associated with the poisoning attempt on his life in 2004, a crime Ukrainian authorities have yet to solve. Doctors determined that dioxin was the toxic agent used, and the toll that it exacted on Yushchenko was more than physical.

"Yushchenko was handsome and liked by women, very relaxed and good-humored," Rybachuk said. "After the poisoning, he told me that every time he saw himself in the mirror, it shocked him. He felt like his identity has been stolen."

Those close to Yushchenko's team say he hasn't ruled out a run for a second presidential term. "If he runs," said Pavlenko, "it would be to deliver his message that he was right all along, and that he was misunderstood."

Right now, that message would be a hard sell for most Ukrainians.

"At a time of financial crisis, I see no actions from the president, not a single project or law to support people who have lost almost everything," said Irina Svitovskaya, 44, owner of a beauty salon in Kiev. "He has lost the people's trust."

Source: Chicago Tribune

IMF Plans To Return To Ukraine Next Week For Loan Talks

WASHINGTON, DC -- An International Monetary Fund mission plans to return to Ukraine next week to discuss granting the country additional access to its credit facility in expectation fund-supported legislation will win parliamentary approval.


"The IMF has received strong assurances by the President and the Prime Minister about their intention to obtain parliamentary approval, during the week of April 13-17, of laws to strengthen the financial position of the pension fund and Naftogaz, and laws agreed with the IMF and the World Bank to facilitate the implementation of the bank restructuring strategy," the IMF said in a statement Friday.

Ukraine's Parliament passed a portion of an anti-crisis package earlier this week, with the goal of freeing up more of the $16.4 billion rescue loan the fund granted last fall.

However, lawmakers have delayed taking up other bills the fund has been pushing for, including measures to balance the finances of the pension fund and of state energy firm Naftogaz.

Ukraine has already received $4.5 billion of the IMF standby arrangement, but the fund halted a second $1.9 billion loan disbursement in February pending additional steps to rein in fiscal spending.

Source: Dow Jones

'Nazi Guard' Deportation Blocked

WASHINGTON, DC -- A US judge has blocked an order to deport an alleged Nazi concentration camp guard, two days before he was due to be extradited to Germany.

Mr Demjanjuk says he was a prisoner of war of the Nazis during World War II.
John Demjanjuk, 89, is accused of involvement in the deaths of 29,000 Jews at a camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

He denies any involvement and has asked for asylum in the US, arguing that deportation would constitute torture.

An immigration judge said the block would stay until a decision had been reached on whether to re-open his case.

Lawyers for Mr Demjanjuk say his health is far too poor for him to make the journey.

In March, Germany issued an arrest warrant for the Ukraine national over the deaths of thousands of Jews at the Sobibor camp during World War II.

But Mr Demjanjuk, who migrated to the US in 1952, says he was a prisoner of war of the Nazis rather than a prison guard.

In 1986, he was extradited to Israel and sentenced to death for war crimes, after being identified by witnesses as "Ivan the Terrible" - a notorious prison guard at the Treblinka camp.

But the Israeli Supreme Court overturned his conviction, when new evidence emerged suggesting he was not the same guard.

He returned to the US but was accused of lying on his immigration application about working for the Nazis.

In 2002, a US immigration judge ruled that there was enough evidence to prove Mr Demjanjuk had been a guard at several Nazi death camps and stripped him of his citizenship.

German authorities now say they have new evidence linking him to the crimes of which he has been accused.

Source: BBC News

More Opposition Protests In Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine -- Thousands of Ukrainians jammed Kiev’s main square today to protest government policies amid a worsening financial crisis, as tensions builds ahead of presidential elections later this year.

Supporters opposition Party of Regions, shout during a rally in Kiev, Ukraine, Friday, April 3, 2009.
In the second major anti-government rally in over a week, at least 15,000 protesters waved flags of the opposition Party of Regions and chanted "No!" as they protested what they said was the government’s failure to battle the effects of the financial crisis here, one of the worst in Europe.

"Look what they’ve done to the country," said Heorhiy Lukash, a 55-year-old unemployed train driver waving a giant blue flag. "They don’t care about ordinary people."

Ukraine’s economy shrank by nearly 30 percent in the first two months of this year, the national currency lost nearly half of its value against the dollar and close to 1 million people are unemployed. With elections scheduled for Oct. 25, political tensions are running high, with fears that election posturing and infighting will only prolong — or deepen — the crisis.

The International Monetary Fund has offered a $16.4 rescue loan to help the country, but a struggle between President Viktor Yushchenko, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and other political groups has blocked the much-needed second installment.

Parliament needs to pass a series of stabilization measures in order to receive the IMF aid but a crucial vote stalled Thursday, when Party of Regions members blocked parliament doors with chairs and prevented the session from starting. Talks on reviving the legislation are still under way.

Addressing supporters at the rally, Party of Regions leader Vyktor Yanukovych called for early parliamentary elections and demanded that the government resign.

Even though Yanukovych’s party holds the largest share of seats in the 450-member Verkhovna Rada, he hopes to capitalize on the widespread disillusionment with Yushchenko and Tymoshenko and garner even more seats.

Yushchenko on Friday ruled out early elections, saying there were no legal grounds for dissolving the legislature.

"The sooner they go, the sooner we can bring order to our country," Yanukovych told cheering supporters. "Down with these authorities and let us begin building a country we dream of."

The Russia-friendly Yanukovych is seen as a key contender in Oct. 25 vote.

His likely main opponent is Tymoshenko, who led the pro-Western 2004 Orange Revolution with Yushchenko, but who has recently also courted Russia.

The beleaguered Yushchenko, whose approval ratings have sunk to below 3 percent, however, wants the vote to be held in January and has challenged the date.

Source: Boston Herald

Chinese Regime Offers ‘Unlimited Financial Aid’ - Ukraine Rejects Shen Yun

KIEV, Ukraine -- Shen Yun Performing Arts was forced to cancel its debut in Ukraine due to pressure from the Chinese Embassy on the Ukraine government.

Shen Yun Performing Arts’ advertisement outside of the Kiev Ukraine Art Palace.
Shen Yun was scheduled to perform at the Ukraine Art Palace in Kiev on April 1 and 2. However, at the last moment the members of the group were denied visas to enter Ukraine, making Ukraine the only country in Europe that has canceled its 2009 Shen Yun shows.

Shen Yun Performing Arts is a nonprofit organization that is independent of China’s communist regime and which seeks to revive the true, five-millennia-old artistic tradition of China that thrived before decades of suppression by the Chinese communist state.

Threats and Temptation by the Chinese Regime

The global financial crisis has had a huge impact on Ukraine’s economy, causing climbing unemployment rates and currency depreciation. The Chinese Embassy has used this as a lever to force the Ukraine government to deny visas to members of Shen Yun.

Sources said that Chinese regime promised “unlimited financial aid” to the Ukraine government, in an effort to stop Shen Yun from performing in Ukraine.

An Epoch Times reporter called several Ukraine deputies to find out the reason behind this. One deputy said, “The Chinese Embassy has put pressure on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, claiming that the show contains anti-China programs, and that Falun Gong practitioners would distribute anti-China flyers to audience members during and after a show.”

Visa Issue Creates Huge Pressure

Shen Yun Performing Arts submitted its application for visas to the Ukraine Consulate in New York on January 8, at which time the Ukraine Consulate indicated that a big performing arts company’s visit to Ukraine had to be determined by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and that Shen Yun would find out within a month.

However, Shen Yun had not heard anything from the Ukraine government by February 14.

Ukraine's Falun Dafa Association, the host of the Shen Yun shows in that country, contacted Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and asked for a reply as soon as possible, but no one answered the phone.

One representative of the Ukraine Falun Dafa Association said, “A clerk from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told me that the official who was responsible for issuing visas was under enormous pressure and had refused to answer any phone calls, and that the official felt he could not help.”

President to Determine Visa Status

A few days later, an official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs suddenly said that the visa issue had been turned over to Ukraine’s President. Two days later, the Ukraine Art Palace cancelled the contract with Shen Yun, stating that they had received a letter from the president that the president was to host a state event on April 1st and 2nd at the theater.

Nevertheless, the posters advertising an upcoming comedy show originally scheduled for March 20 at the theater said the show had been rescheduled to April 1, with a side note claiming that the change had nothing to do with the theater.

Art Is Above Politics

After learning about the cancellation, Mr. Leonid Makarovych Kravchuk, the first President of Ukraine, who left office in 1992, commented that art should not be restricted by power, government, or politics; it is not art if it is restricted.

Ukraine Falun Dafa Association said that their hotline continued to receive inquiries for the tickets after the cancellation of the show. Many people called many times to ask about the visa issue and indicated that they were willing to buy the tickets first, and that they could return the tickets if Shen Yun indeed could not visit Ukraine.

This season, Shen Yun's three companies are performing to a live audience of over a million people worldwide.

Source: Epoch Times

Ukraine Lawmakers Block Parliament Doors

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukrainian opposition party members blocked parliament's doors with chairs and swarmed the podium on Thursday, stalling a vote on crisis measures necessary for a crucial International Monetary Fund loan.

Ukrainian opposition party members blocked parliament's doors with chairs and swarmed the podium, stalling a vote on crisis measures necessary for a crucial International Monetary Fund loan.On the posters are written: "Stop crisis!Power to resignation."
The move deepened the country's political turmoil ahead of presidential elections called for October and soured hopes for a quick recovery from a devastating financial crisis.

The main opposition Party of Regions prevented the parliament session from starting because it says the government does not have a comprehensive anti-crisis program.

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko says it does and accuses the opposition of seeking to sabotage her work like "Somali pirates."

Stalling parliament's work by swarming its podium and starting shouting matches and even fist fights has become a trademark ploy in chaotic Ukrainian politics. Tymoshenko's allies in parliament dismissed Thursday's protest as an effort by Party of Regions to generate publicity ahead of presidential elections. Ukraine needs to pass a series of stabilization laws to reduce budget deficit to an estimated 3 percent of GDP in order to receive a second installment of a $16.4 billion loan from the IMF. But the tense rivalry between President Viktor Yushchenko and Tymoshnko and other political forces has stalled those efforts.

Lawmakers passed some of the necessary laws earlier this week, such as raising taxes on alcohol, tobacco and fuel.

But they still needed to vote on measures to cut government spending on pensions and lower state subsidies in the energy sector.

Ukraine is in dire need of the money. The economy is expected to shrink by at least 6 percent this year, according to the IMF. Yushchenko estimated that the economy contracted by up to 30 percent in the first months of this year, largely due to a drop in the global demand for steel, Ukraine's key export commodities, and troubles in the banking sector that slashed lending to enterprises.

The national currency, the hryvna, lost over 40 percent of its value to the dollar since the crisis hit last fall. The number of Ukrainians officially registered as looking for a job jumped from about 600,000 at the end of last year to about 900,000 now.

Experts said the IMF aid was crucial to rescue the economy.

"I think the allocation of the second tranche of the IMF loan needs to be resolved in the next month, otherwise the problems for the Ukrainian economy will just get more and more severe," said Peter Vanhecke, CEO of the Renaissance Capital Ukraine investment bank.

Vanhecke said he was optimistic that the IMF reform package will eventually be implemented and the aid will come through.

"This is so essential that in the end ... people will use their common sense," he said.

Source: AP

England Beat Ukraine, On Track For 2010 World Cup

LONDON, England -- John Terry's late winner ensured England took another significant step towards next year's World Cup finals after a 2-1 win over Ukraine here on Wednesday.

John Terry of England (C) celebrates scoring his goal against Ukraine during their 2010 World Cup qualifying, group six international match at Wembley Stadium in London.
Terry's 84th-minute goal ensured Fabio Capello's squad reached the half-way stage in their campaign to reach South Africa with five wins out of five in Group Six, and maintained their five-point lead over Croatia, 2-0 winners over Andorra earlier in the day.

England just about deserved the three points but the outcome hung in the balance after Andriy Shevchenko came off the bench to cancel out Peter Crouch's first-half strike with just over quarter of an hour left.

Capello admitted his side had been below par but said the win had been testimony to their character.

"It was not a rich game, a little bit poor," the Italian said. "But the result is very important. When the referee blew the whistle I was very happy.

"We suffered a bit in the second half but we showed a lot of character and patience and I am very happy for John Terry. I think this is the reason he is the captain."

Ukrainian coach Oleksiy Mykhaylychenko bemoaned the poor defending from his side that had enabled England to score both their goals from crosses

"England did not exactly win the match, Ukraine helped them get the result," the former Rangers midfielder said.

Shevchenko had initially had to settle for a substitutes role as Ukraine started with a forward pair of Artem Milevskyy and Andriy Voronin.

Capello's only selection dilemma was resolved in Aaron Lennon's favour, the Tottenham winger's pace preferred to the superior crossing ability of David Beckham from the right.

It was down the opposite flank however that England made initial headway, Steven Gerrard combining with Ashley Cole before finding Wayne Rooney in the box with his back to goal.

A heavy first touch sent the ball spinning into the air but the Manchester United forward made amends with an improvised overhead kick that shaved the top of the crossbar.

Rooney's threat was underlined again when Taras Mykhalyk upended him on the edge of the area, conceding a freekick that resulted in Gerrard striking a drive inches wide.

The growing confidence in Capello's squad was being illustrated by some slick build-up play, most of which revolved around Rooney.

But the opening goal, when it finally arrived in the 29th minute, was a more traditional English affair.

Rooney's goalward header from Lennon's cross secured a corner on the left. Lampard's delivery was floated to the back post where Terry outjumped Mykhalyk to nod down for the unmarked Crouch, who hooked in a volley from three yards out.

Ukraine had offered little to suggest they could find a way back into the match, although they were unfortunate that the referee failed to spot Gareth Barry -- who had already been booked -- using his arms to check Milevskyy's pursuit of a cross deep inside the England box.

There was a further moment of alarm for the home supporters when Anatoliy Tymoschchuk's long-range drive skidded off the Wembley turf with sufficient pace to catch David James unawares, the ball bouncing to safety off the goalkeeper's chest.

England, though, were generally in control with Rooney clearly in the mood to celebrate his 50th appearance for his country.

The approach of the hour mark saw both coaches make changes with Beckham replacing Lennon and Shevchenko coming on in place of the ineffective Voronin.

Beckham had the first opportunity to make an impact with a 63rd-minute free-kick which he curled on to the roof of the net.

Eleven minutes later, Shevchenko demonstrated that his predatory instincts remain in place after England's defence made a mess of dealing with a free-kick whipped in from the right.

The ball cannoned off Glen Johnson and Shevchenko reacted faster than anyone around him to fire past James from ten yards out.

England though were to have the last word and when Gerrard knocked down a Beckham free-kick, Terry was on hand to force the ball over the line.

Source: AFP

Tourism, Travel In Slow Lane

KIEV, Ukraine -- In a blitz television promotion on CNN, a bird’s eye view of Ukrainian landscapes made for stunningly beautiful images of the nation. Had the camera zoomed in closer, however, one would see dilapidated castle walls, polluted forests and outdated infrastructure.

A woman and a man enjoy a stroll on a recent spring day amid the artwork for sale on Andriyivsky Uzviz (Andrew’s Ascent), one of the city’s premier tourist attractions.
The financially strapped tourism industry is proving to be a bit of a hard sell. Russians can find their way around easily. Sex tourists and pedophiles also seem to feel at home in Ukraine.

But while the lower-valued hryvnia might stimulate an influx of all kinds of travel, tourists still face the same old problems: Bad or over-priced service and little help navigating the nation. A visitor needs a good handle on the Russian or Ukrainian languages as well.

The State Tourism Committee audaciously cites the ever-rising influx of foreign visitors to Ukraine each coming year as evidence that a tourism boom is under way.

In 2008, their number was 25 million, up two million from the year before, with Russians leading the way. Given the historic ties and imperfection in methods of gathering statistics, many Russian “tourists” may actually be in Ukraine on business or visiting relatives.

“Confidence in Ukraine is growing,” said tourism committee chief Anatoliy Pahlya. His assurance, however, is at odds with the prevalent international posture that Ukraine is a nation perpetually on the brink of disaster.

Pahlya said the tourism industry would struggle through the crisis with the government-promotion budget cut tenfold, to Hr 2.5 million, in 2009. Apart from salaries, the scarce funds will be used to create more tourist centers and organize tourist routes. A must-have in any country, information centers are in short supply in Ukraine. There are only 48 of them in the nation of 46 million people.

The only easy-to-find tourism bureau in the capital is snug inside the Ukrainian House at one end of Khreschatyk Street. Run independently from the state, it occupies a small kiosk with dozens of books on Ukraine in different languages. “Ten years ago we didn’t even have maps or guide books,” said Yanina Gavrylova, head of the center. “Now the problem is with finding premises. The city [council] doesn’t give us anything.”

Instead, the Kyiv city administration announced that it launched a 24-hour English-speaking hotline “to help our international guests with any situation,” according to its promotional flyer. Those stuck in the lift or unable to read street signs in Cyrillic are invited to use the service for Hr 9.90 per minute. However, when the Kyiv Post rang the number, an operator could barely answer a question “do you speak English?” with a short “no, you do.” The mayor’s hotline in Ukrainian language said they were unaware of an English-language service.

The Ukrainian House bureau, on the other hand, provides culture tips, traveling advice and route calculations in three different languages for free. However, when a tourist arrives in Boryspil airport, he or she will not find their ad in free city guides as those are peppered with ads of seductive masseurs and sexy escorts. Museums and scenic walks, in comparison to a female flowerbed blooming all year round, must be a hard sell.

David Hall, an antiques and fine art dealer from England, discovered all that and more back in 2006 when he visited Ukraine for the first time. “The hotel was well up to international standards but I found it slightly odd that a receptionist felt she should tell me where the strip clubs were,” he recalled. “And the guy at the door asked if I needed any extra company.”

Brett Ousley, owner of the marriage agency Kiev Connections, is not surprised with the trend. “As a percentage of the men that are coming here, I believe there are substantial numbers of men who are inappropriate and are here only for the women.” In the last few years, Ousley noticed that men who “you would want your sister to marry” got tired of being scammed by local women and stopped coming. He blames unstable politics, economy and low moral fiber for growing sex tourism. “Ukraine reminds me of the Titanic. It’s ripped absolutely open on the side and the ship is going down but nobody knows it here. They are deaf and no one’s getting into the lifeboats. I really don’t understand it.”

Pahlya from the State Tourism Committee said that “discussions about it [sex tourism] are being held. But how to eradicate a biological need which existed for centuries?” he asked.

While the tourists are by all means welcome to Ukraine through visa-free entry for Europeans, and North Americans introduced in 2005, they are in for an experience, which may prove more authentic than they actually want. Visiting Ukraine for four years now, antiques collector Hall has found that not many things have changed, except that he now notices more potholes on the roads. “The museums, when one has found them, have interesting collections if somewhat old-fashioned in their display and the buildings somewhat neglected with buckets around for the leaks,” he said. “However, it also adds charm to the tour.”

Ousley, who has been living here since 2001, thinks that Ukraine is doing everything it can to keep tourists from coming back.

“You steal, lie and cheat tourists. You treat them like garbage. Take wallet drop scams – it happened to many of my clients more than three times in a day. If it’s happening so often, the police don’t care. At night, when my clients are walking back to their apartment, romantic with a nice girl, police stop them and hassle them for $100 and say they are going to take them to jail.”

Aware of these shortcomings, the state tourism service said they are working day and night to improve Ukraine’s image abroad. Meanwhile, the “Beautifully Yours” campaign on the CNN commercial may realistically have more to do with a particular type of Ukrainian woman than sightseeing gems and a hearty welcome.

Source: Kyiv Post

Ukraine Presidential Vote Called

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's parliament has voted to hold presidential elections on 25 October.


A clear majority, 401 deputies backed a resolution on the date for the poll, in which President Viktor Yushchenko hopes to stand for a second five-year term.

Senior MPs, including the speaker of parliament, had earlier suggested it would take place in January 2010, the end of Mr Yushchenko's current mandate.

His popularity ratings have sunk, to 2.4% in recent months, in the wake of a dispute with Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

Source: BBC News

Russia Must Be Involved In Ukraine Gas System Upgrade - Merkel

BERLIN, Germany -- The European Union and Ukraine must work with Russia in modernizing the Ukrainian natural gas pipeline network, the German chancellor said on Tuesday.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
The EU and Ukraine signed an agreement last week on modernizing Ukraine's Soviet-era pipelines, triggering an angry reaction from Russia, which exports most of its Europe-bound gas via Ukraine. Moscow said the deal failed to take into account its interests.

"Ukraine is a sovereign state, but we are talking about a gas pipeline network that serves several countries, and Russia must definitely participate in this," Angela Merkel said at a joint news conference with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Berlin.

Merkel urged for negotiations between Russia and the EU to settle differences over the cooperation agreement with Kiev reached last Monday, and to "prevent a conflict" as "Russia is not happy at having been excluded from the talks."

The latest dispute has stirred fears in Europe of a repeat of January's dispute between Russia and Ukraine, when some EU consumers were left without gas for about two weeks.

Medvedev told the news conference that Russia would soon send its gas transportation proposals to both the European Union and Ukraine.

"We need to create a proper legal basis, so that such issues do not create difficulties for us in the future," he said, while calling the Brussels talks "questionable."

"Dividing up a product that does not belong to you is not possible. It is equally impossible to build a viable gas transportation system without the country that produces the gas," he said, adding that Russia was ready to engage in talks on the issue with the EU and Ukraine.

Medvedev also warned that Russia would take into account Ukraine's pipeline agreement with the EU in considering Kiev's request for a $5 billion loan.

Moscow has delayed inter-governmental talks with Kiev, and threatened to review energy ties with Europe if its interests are disregarded.

Ukrainian Premier Yulia Tymoshenko has said on several occasions that Russia is welcome to invest in the modernization of the national gas grid.

Russian energy officials have said that Ukraine's network is part of the export system used by gas monopoly Gazprom, and that uncoordinated capacity and other changes to the network could affect exports and production.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko's recent remark that Ukraine would soon join the common European energy system have also raised concerns in Moscow, as the move would bring Ukraine legally closer to the EU in energy dealings.

Source: RIA Novosti