Iran: Code Orange?

WASHINGTON, DC -- "Iran is now on the verge of an Orange-style Revolution." This statement is likely to elicit enthusiasm from those working tirelessly to promote democracy in Iran.

Ukraine's Yushchenko (L) and Iran's Mousavi (R).
However, the term "Orange Revolution" has become a misnomer. Yes, the Ukrainian uprising was "Orange." But it was not a revolution. Ultimately, it brought no fundamental change to Ukrainian politics and bred further corruption.

Today, less than five years later, the vast majority of those who participated in the protests no longer support their leader. If Victor Yushchenko ran for president again, he would have no real chance of winning the election.

With Iran now closer to change than it has been over the past 20 years, a Ukrainian-style transformation should not be the goal of those who seek democracy in Iran. An incomplete revolution would be worse than a full one.

As the Ukrainian case has shown, such a half step would discredit and dishearten those who believe that fundamental change is possible and very likely bring about a political relapse.

Parallels with Ukraine

As in the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine, the current political disarray in Iran was sparked by allegations of electoral fraud and is characterized by the major role of young people. Like the dramatic events that took place in Ukraine, it's also a result of years of pent-up frustration, helplessness, and hope, especially among members of the young post-revolutionary generation.

It's also a product of serious organizational capacity, though significantly lower in Iran that it was in Ukraine due to the more oppressive nature of the regime. And in Iran, it's not yet clear who is doing the organizing.

The key ingredient in both episodes has been youth. Iran is a young country. The majority of the country's population is under the age of 30, with the median age now being 27. In fact, Iran's current youth population (between 15 and 30 years old) is the largest it has ever been in the history of the country.

The Iranian state has failed to meet young people's growing demand for economic opportunities, moral guidance, and even basic needs. A record number of young Iranians are consequently emigrating, marrying later in life, and turning to drugs. As one Iranian émigré has recently shared with me, there has also been a wave of conversion to other religions as a sign of protest against the clerical regime.

Young people played an important role in the landslide victory of reformist Mohammad Khatami in 1997, but soon became disappointed with Khatami's inability to deliver the promised reforms. Student protests were common in the early 2000s, but died down by the time Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office.

On March 17, 2009, when Khatami withdrew his candidacy for the country's June 12 election and announced that he would support fellow reformist Mousavi, few doubted that Mousavi would spark the imagination of the young.

At the same time, experts cautioned that Mousavi's victory, like the victories of Khatami in 1997 and 2001, would be no guarantee of major change in Iran due to the Islamic Republic's power structure.

Khamenei's Blunder

If it wanted to prevent fundamental change, Iran's ruling elite made a brilliant blunder by engineering Mousavi's defeat. The defeat of Mousavi acted to mobilize the population (of Tehran) and raised its expectations of fundamental change, should Mousavi come to power.

As the regime cracked down on the protesters, it inadvertently transformed the issue of contention from election fraud to the legitimacy of the clerical rule.

However, like Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine, Mousavi would not have brought revolutionary change. He has challenged the outcome of a presidential election, but he hasn't truly challenged the country's political structure and institutions. Without such a challenge, a modern revolution cannot succeed in Iran.

The Iranian government's second blunder was the arrest of members of former president Hashemi Rafsanjani's family. Rafsanjani heads both the powerful Expediency Council and Assembly of Experts, which has the authority to monitor and remove the supreme leader.

He's also the founder of the Islamic Azad University, a mega university with over a million students. In other words, angering Rafsanjani will no doubt further fuel the fire of Iranian youth discontent.

The Iranian ruling elite has learned nothing from the Orange popular uprising in Ukraine. In Ukraine, the slip-up was Russian President Vladimir Putin's premature congratulation of Viktor Yanukovych's victory.

As Yanukovych appeared to have been handpicked by the Kremlin, so did Ahmadinejad seem handpicked by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In both cases the people didn't have any say, but clearly had something very important to tell their government.

The most important lesson for the Iranian opposition to take away from the Orange uprising is the realization that bringing Mousavi to power won't be enough. Yushchenko, victor of the "Orange Revolution," now enjoys a 2% popularity rating. He has no chance of being re-elected in the next presidential election, scheduled to take place in January 2010.

In fact, Ukrainian voters may pick Yanukovich. For those inside Iran and those outside, putting all of one's faith in Mousavi as Iran's best chance for democracy is misguided.

Source: Foreign Policy in Focus

EU Says Ukraine Must Reform Gas Sector

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- The European Union said Monday it will push Ukraine to reform its natural gas sector in return for an international loan package to help pay a multibillion dollar debt to Russia.


Ukraine and Russia started talks with international banks Monday, seeking some $4.2 billion to restock Ukraine's gas stores for next winter and help it pay for monthly gas imports from Russia.

An EU official said the EU and major international banks were looking at a much lower figure after a meeting with the state-owned gas companies of both countries. He spoke on condition of anonymity because negotiations are still ongoing.

Russia sends the gas it sells to Europe through pipelines that cross Ukraine and has cut off all supplies -- including gas intended to heat European homes and fuel power plants -- in previous disputes with Kiev.

Moscow recently warned that it could shut off supplies again if Kiev does not pay on time and in full.

In a statement, the EU's executive commission said it was seeking a solution that would guarantee uninterrupted supply to European consumers during the winter.

Europeans complain they are hostage to disputes between Russia and its neighbors, warning that this forces them to seek other sources and routes for the energy it imports. Millions of people went without gas during a January dispute between Russia and Ukraine.

"Further support to facilitate gas purchases would be conditional upon continuing reform of the gas sector," the EU said. It has long sought more transparent conditions on how gas is traded between Russia, Ukraine and others and better ways to resolve disputes.

Both Russia's Gazprom OAO and Ukraine's Naftogaz are owned by their governments, leading to charges that the trade is more about politics than commerce.

Ukraine may need help making its next monthly payment to Russia on July 7 but is also looking for a loan to refill storage tanks during the summer to use up in the winter. It says it had 19.3 billion cubic meters in early June and needs to bring that to 32 billion cubic meters.

A loan would come from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and two banks backed by European governments -- the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Ukraine has been badly hit by the global economic downturn, with its economy shrinking by 21 percent in the first quarter and its currency losing more than a third of its value against the dollar as exports dropped and investors fled emerging markets.

It has already been promised a $16.4 billion rescue package from the International Monetary Fund and must curb public spending in return.

Source: AP

Ukraine: When A Budget Crisis Looms, This Mayor Dons A Speedo

KIEV, Ukraine -- Facing a reported $1.2 billion budget deficit, accusations of corruption, and a parliamentary commission investigation, Leonid Chernovetsky, mayor of Kiev, knew he needed to give the performance of his life.

Kiev Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky
He didn’t disappoint. After jogging and doing 15 chin-ups, he stripped down to a Speedo and swam 15 meters. “I want to demonstrate to the whole world that I am absolutely fit physically and mentally,” he announced.

A millionaire businessman and evangelical Christian, Mr. Chernovetsky has gained a reputation for wacky ideas. With Kiev facing an economic crisis, Chernovetsky proposed charging fees to enter cemeteries, selling his kisses in a raffle, and selling burial plots for frogs.

When thousands gathered outside his offices to protest corruption, he entertained them with a song and announced that he was launching a singing career. “I will make millions of dollars per day. Because who sings better than I do? No one does, except God,” he enthused.

He is accused by several political opponents of selling city land to insiders at knockdown prices and of accepting bribes. He denies these accusations and likes to present himself as a defender of the poor who fights corruption.

His hold on power is maintained by his support among elderly voters – his “beloved babushkas.”

Infighting among opposition members has prevented them from mounting a consolidated challenge. After the parliamentary commission ordered him to have a mental-health check, Chernovetsky took a few weeks off on sick leave.

It’s not clear how much good it did him. One of his first proposals when he returned to work recently was to offer utility price subsidies to “those who believe in God and justice,” and a reminder that “the mayor of Kiev will always be on their side.”

Source: Christian Science Monitor

Ukraine Wary Of KGB Terror Files

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine is opening up part of its old KGB archive, declassifying hundreds of thousands of documents spanning the entire Soviet period.

KGB headquarters in Kiev, Ukraine.
But the move to expose Soviet-era abuses is dividing Ukrainians, the BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse reports from Kiev.

Deep in the bowels of Ukraine's former KGB headquarters there is a deathly silence. Thousands of boxes, piled floor to ceiling, line the walls. Each box is carefully numbered and each one contains hundreds of documents: case notes on enemies of the former Soviet state.

Behind each number, there is a story of personal tragedy.

Volodymyr Viatrovych, the chief archivist, pulled out a brown cardboard folder stuffed full of documents: case number 4076. At the centre of the case is a letter, dated 1940 and addressed to "Comrade Stalin, the Kremlin, Moscow".

"Dear Iosif Vissarionovich," the letter starts. Nikolai Reva wanted Stalin to know the facts about the great famine of 1932-33, when millions died as a result of the Soviet policy of forced collectivisation.

Like many at the time, Mr Reva believed that Stalin was being kept in the dark, and that if only he knew what was happening, he would surely put a stop to it.

But his letter landed him in the Gulag. He was eventually rehabilitated - 25 years later.

Many met a harsher fate.

Leafing through one of many macabre photo albums, Mr Viatrovych pointed to a picture of Ivan Severin, shot in the head by the Soviet security services. Under the picture, in very neat handwriting, is written: "Liquidated, 3 April 1947".

Criminal prosecution

Mr Viatrovych and his team are helping people to find out what happened to relatives and loved ones, often decades after they disappeared.

But the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), now in charge of the files, is declassifying them selectively.

They are concentrating on older cases, like that of the "liquidated" Mr Severin, who was part of a guerrilla campaign against Soviet rule in western Ukraine after World War II.

The authorities are preparing to mount a criminal prosecution in relation to the famine, or Holodomor, as it is known in Ukraine, though it is doubtful whether there is anyone still alive to stand in the dock.

But SBU head Valentyn Nalyvaichenko hopes this is just the beginning.

"As soon as Russia starts to open and uncover its archives, there will be more and more truth about the real history," he said. At the moment, he added, Russia is not being especially co-operative.

But there is another obstacle to complete disclosure, and that is the Ukrainian Security Service itself. They are the ones deciding which files to declassify.

I put it to Mr Nalyvaichenko that the SBU is, after all, a successor to the KGB. He came out on the defensive.

"First and most important for me - we are not a successor to the KGB. That's according to the law," he said.

Could he state categorically that no-one working for the SBU today had formerly worked for the KGB?

He could not, admitting that 20% of his employees were former KGB officers. Some analysts in Ukraine believe that is a conservative figure.

It seems unlikely that SBU officers who worked for the Soviet KGB in the 1970s and 80s will be enthusiastic about declassifying documents that could incriminate them. Even if, as Mr Nalyvaichenko pointed out, the SBU is trying to recruit younger staff.

'Not worth it'

But not all young Ukrainians have an exclusively negative view of their 20th-Century history.

In Kiev, there is a vast monument to the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany: a sprawling bronze relief of soldiers bearing guns and bayonets.

"We love our history," said Svitlana, a young schoolteacher from the southern city of Odessa, on an outing with her class.

She was not keen for the children in her charge to be forced to examine the darker chapters of Soviet history.

"The past is the past," she said. "The history of the famine, the killings, all the things Stalin did. I don't think we should bring them up. There's enough violence today as it is. If we start blaming each other… It's just not worth it."

'Witch hunt'

The idea of airing the past as part of a healing process, and excluding members of the former regime from positions of authority - a process known as "lustration" - is being actively promoted by some in the Ukrainian administration.

But it is highly controversial. Dmytro Tabachnyk, a historian and opposition lawmaker, thinks the notion is absurd.

"It's a witch hunt," he said. "To start a process of lustration after 18 years of independence would lead society to the brink of civil war."

In a forest just outside Kiev, the tree trunks are tied with thousands of white scarves.

The scarves are embroidered in the traditional Ukrainian way, with red-and-black geometric patterns, and each one symbolically represents a life lost to Soviet oppression.

Under Stalin, the Soviet secret police would bury executed political prisoners at Bykivnia. No-one knows exactly how many bodies lie buried in this wood, but some estimates put the figure at more than 200,000.

But, says Nico Lange, the German director of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Kiev, Ukrainians must stop blaming the Russians for their past, and start looking inward.

"Ukrainians have a tendency to perceive themselves as only victims of those historical processes," he says.

"But coming to terms with the past really starts when you start uncovering also your own involvement: the oppressions by your own state, the offenders who are from your own people. If you do this work, this very painful work, the truth will finally set you free. And you will not invite new dictators to oppress you again."

The Germans have experience of confronting their own past, both following World War II, and after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

But it will take a lot of united political will for such a process to get under way in Ukraine.

And it may be that, for the moment, there are still too many people alive and in positions of power, who were involved with the Soviet regime in one way or another.

Source: BBC News

Ukraine Gambling Ban Is Implemented

KIEV, Ukraine -- Following the recent backdown over the presidential veto by President Viktor Kuschenko of the Ukraine, the gambling ban has been imposed with immediate effect in the Ukraine, reports Ukra News. And the ban includes online gambling.


The text of the law was published in the Holos Ukrainy (Voice of Ukraine) newspaper, on June 25, enforcing the vote of the Verkhovna Rada despite President Kuschenko's appeals for a more considered approach, and his unsuccessful attempt to exercise his veto to effect this.

The law defines gambling as the activity or organisation of gambling games for profit in terrestrial casinos, via slot machines, at bookmaker’s offices, and in virtual casinos.

It also covers any game requiring betting, allowing rewards for wins, and which fully or partially depends on the element of chance.

Exceptions include: Lotteries, art contests, billiards, and certain other games such as pickup reward machines that depend on player dexterity or those for charitable causes.

The law makes provision for punitive measures against offenders and the confiscation of gambling equipment.

Source: Recent Poker

Ukraine President's Party Wants To Leave Coalition

KIEV, Ukraine -- The party of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko called on its deputies to quit the pro-Western government coalition of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, the Interfax news agency reported.

The party of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, pictured, called on its deputies to quit the pro-Western government coalition of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
Relations have been strained between the two leaders, who will likely face one another in the presidential election set for January, and some lawmakers estimated the move could lead to the total collapse of the ruling coalition.

"We are ordering deputies to remove their signature from the declaration on the creation of the coalition," read a resolution adopted at a congress of Yushchenko's Our Ukraine party. The measure, however, is non-binding.

"We are not in agreement with the populist policies and non-professionalism of the prime minister."

Our Ukraine lawmaker Ksenia Liapina predicted the coalition with Tymoshenko's party would collapse in the coming week, but another Our Ukraine lawmaker, Sergui Mishchenko said the party's deputies in parliament may not go along with the call by the party congress.

Yushchenko and Tymoshenko were allies in the 2004 Orange Revolution, when street demonstrations forced the authorities to hold a fair election that swept Yushchenko in to the presidency, but the two have since become bitter rivals and their internecine squabbling has hobbled pro-Western forces.

Source: AFP

Constitutional Instability In Ukraine Leads To 'Legal Turmoil'

KIEV, Ukraine -- On June 28, 1996, Ukraine became the last Soviet republic to adopt a post-Soviet constitution, and that day was designated Constitution Day, a national holiday. Two years later, on October 21, 1998, the Crimean Autonomous Republic adopted its own constitution, recognizing the peninsula within Ukraine.

Ukraine's constitutional wrangling has turned President Viktor Yushchenko (L) and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko from Orange allies into bitter rivals.
Leonid Kuchma's reelection as president in 1999 gave rise to Ukraine's first non-left parliamentary majority that sought to ditch the country's "semi-presidential" constitution in favor of a full presidential system.

The relevant four questions were put to a referendum in April 2000 that was not internationally recognized, and were approved by a suspiciously high percentage of voters.

But Kuchma's plans were undermined by the onset of the Kuchma-gate crisis in November of that year, when tapes made illicitly in his office allegedly proved that he ordered violence against journalist Heorhiy Gongadze, who was kidnapped on September 16 and found decapitated on November 2, 2000.

Ukrainian politicians traditionally approached constitutional, and indeed all other issues, from the standpoint not of national interests, but personal advantage. Following the 2002 parliamentary elections, Kuchma shifted 180 degrees from his constitutional position two years earlier toward support for a parliamentary system.

The architect of this strategy, which had two objectives, was presidential chief of staff Viktor Medvedchuk, leader of the Social Democratic Party-united.

Disarming Yushchenko

The first objective was to split the opposition by persuading the left, perennial supporters of parliamentarism, to support the constitutional reforms advocated by pro-presidential centrists.

The second was to strip popular opposition presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko, if he were elected, of the extensive presidential powers enshrined in the 1996 constitution.

The second vote in April 2004 failed after some pro-presidential centrists rebelled in protest at the change earlier that month of the election law from mixed to fully proportional. That change had been a condition of support by the left for the constitutional reforms.

Ironically, the reforms adopted on December 8, 2004, in a parliamentary vote were identical to those rejected eight months earlier. During those eight months, the authorities waged an all-out campaign to prevent Yushchenko being elected with the powers enshrined in the 1996 constitution.

The widespread fraud that marred the presidential ballot led to the so-called Orange Revolution, triggered by Europe's largest postwar mass protests, in which one in five Ukrainians participated.

Three European Union-sponsored roundtables resulted in the December 8 compromise agreement that led to a repeat vote on December 26 that Yushchenko won. In return, Yushchenko granted verbal immunity to his defeated rival Kuchma, and Yushchenko's Our Ukraine supported the vote on the constitutional reforms to come into force in 2006. The Yulia Tymoshenko bloc (BYuT) was the only parliamentary force to vote against the constitutional amendments.

Constitutional Questions

After being elected president, Yushchenko complained about, but failed to repeal, the constitutional reforms. First, between September 2005, when the Tymoshenko government was removed, until February 2007, when the Orange alliance was reconstituted, the BYuT and Our Ukraine were at loggerheads and divided.

Yushchenko and Our Ukraine did not support the BYuT's call to invoke the October 2005 Constitutional Court ruling that constitutional reforms required a national referendum. The BYuT campaigned for such a referendum in the 2006 and 2007 elections.

Second, Yushchenko did not establish his National Constitutional Council until December 27, 2007, and only presented his reform proposals on March 31, 2009. But by then he had no hope of implementing them as his popularity rating had collapsed to 2 percent and he had no support in parliament. Our Ukraine had voted to rejoin the coalition in December 2008, against his wishes.

The conflict between the president and prime minister continued throughout 2008, and the onset of the global financial crisis in the fall failed to dampen it. During that time, legal and constitutional experts and different political factions all reached the conclusion that the president's daily intervention in economic and energy issues is unconstitutional. (Under the 2006 constitution, the government reports to the parliament, not to the president.)

In an April 2008 speech to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Tymoshenko announced a dramatic shift within the BYuT towards support for parliamentarism.

Their second conclusion was that without presidential support for the holding of a referendum, the only way the constitution could be changed was through a constitutional majority. But two successive attempts, in September 2008 and May 2009, to form a BYuT-Party of Regions coalition with the aim of pushing through constitutional reforms that would strengthen the parliament both failed, partly due to personal mistrust but also to Party of Regions' demands to have their cake and eat it.

While supporting a president elected by parliament (i.e. full parliamentary system), Party of Regions Chairman Viktor Yanukovych simultaneously sought a "guarantee" of two presidential terms with extensive powers similar to those bestowed on the president in the 2006 constitution. German Chancellor Angela Merkel pointed out to Ukrainians in May that parliamentary presidents are ceremonial.

Halfway To Nowhere

Two further factors are of direct relevance. "Semi" political systems, whether presidential (as in the 1996 constitution) or parliamentary (as in the 2006 constitution), are recipes for instability and conflict.

If Ukraine really wants political stability and an escape from constitutional and legal chaos, it should change the constitution either to a full presidential system or towards a full parliamentary system.

Prime Minister Tymoshenko acknowledged the inevitability of that choice in the course of a lengthy interview on Channel 5 on June 11. "Semi" systems do not divide powers clearly and are therefore recipes for "chaos," she stressed.

Nearly two decades after the disintegration of the Soviet empire, the 27 postcommunist states are divided into two groups: those in Central-Eastern Europe and the Baltic states have parliamentary systems, and those in Eurasia -- presidential systems. The two exceptions are Ukraine and Moldova, with semi-parliamentary and parliamentary systems, respectively.

Parliamentarism and democratization went hand-in-hand in Central-Eastern Europe and the Baltic states, facilitating their integration into NATO and the EU. Parliamentarism could therefore further integrate Ukraine into Europe.

Ukraine's transition from a semi-presidential to semi-parliamentarian constitution has completely overshadowed Yushchenko's presidency. Personality, ideological, and gender factors have been compounded by constitutionally unclear divisions of powers.

U.S. Judge Bohdan Futey noted this month in a Ukrainian legal journal that "these [constitutional] changes interlaced the power of the executive and legislative branches, leaving the country in legal turmoil to this day."

Yushchenko’s presidency has been dominated by political crises, governmental instability, elite in-fighting, and constitutional chaos that have combined to undermine the potential generated by the Orange Revolution.

With the constitutional question still unresolved as the Yushchenko era nears its end, Ukraine will enter the January 2010 election campaign in the same state of constitutional uncertainty as it did five years ago.

Source: Radio Free Europe

Anger Over Chernobyl Childrens' Visas

LONDON, England -- Charities who help children affected by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster are urging the government to allow youngsters from Ukraine to enter the UK without paying visa fees.

Experts say holidays abroad can add up to two years to the life of a child.
Children from neighbouring Belarus are allowed in for nothing, but each Ukrainian child has to pay a £70 ($115) visa fee.

The charities say the money could be better spent helping the children.

The cost of bringing in the youngsters from northern Ukraine came to light earlier this year when charities were forced to temporarily turn their attention away from Belarus due to new conditions demanded by the government in Minsk.

Several charities discovered that in certain areas of Ukraine - within a few miles of the Chernobyl reactor - there were thousands of children whose lives were being affected by living in a highly radioactive environment.

Recuperation

The Chernobyl explosion in 1986 is considered the world's worst nuclear accident.

It was caused by an explosion at one of the reactors, resulting in a massive release of radiation.

The effects were felt as far away as the UK, but the worst-hit areas, which are still experiencing the consequences, are in Ukraine and Belarus.

A dozen Ukrainian youngsters - aged between 10 and 12 - and their interpreter are currently on a recuperative holiday in Lincoln.

They were brought over by the Chernobyl Children's Project which had to pay £910 ($1,501) in visa fees to get them here.

The charity plans to bring a total of 1,200 children over to stay with British families this year, which will cost them a total of £84,000 ($138,566) in visa fees.

Dennis Vystavkin, from Chernobyl Children's Lifeline, says: "These are funds that could have been used to benefit more children.

"We could have brought more children over, we could have helped them with medical help at home in the Ukraine. But instead the money is being used for bureaucracy, for buying visas."

The young Ukrainians will spend a month in Britain, away from their home-town of Ivankiv, which lies 34 miles (55km) from the Chernobyl reactor.

Such recuperative holidays, studies suggest, can add up to two years to the life of a child.

Twelve-year-old Zhenya Tolochyn, a big Manchester United fan, says most of his own family is suffering as a consequence of the Chernobyl disaster.

"Most of my relatives are ill because of the radiation," he says. "Very often I catch colds myself because my immune system is weak, but I still score lots of goals!"

His friend, Anton Mayevsky, says: "The Chernobyl catastrophe affects all people, but especially children. The radiation continues to affect us and our health needs improving."

'Disgraceful'

The UK Border Agency has defended its decision to charge the Ukrainian children.

In a statement, it said that as the disaster had a disproportionate impact on Belarus, with 70% of the fall-out hitting that country, they had taken the decision in 1995 to only offer free visas to Belarusian children.

But that argument receives short shrift from Dunfermline and West Fife MP Willie Rennie.

He is hoping to get a meeting with the Home Secretary Alan Johnson to push for the fees to be waived.

"I think it's disgraceful for the government to come up with spurious reasons as to why they should not allow children from Ukraine to come for free," he says.

"The government has played a great part over the last 20 years in contributing to the Belarusian children benefitting from recuperative holidays.

"They should also join in the benefits that the Ukrainian children could receive as well."

Source: BBC News

Russian, Ukrainian Tug Of War Over History

MOSCOW, Russia -- Russian historians widely recognize June 27, 1709 as the date their country became a great power. Russia that day defeated an invading Swedish army at Poltava in Ukraine, where Ukrainian forces allied with Sweden were also vanquished. The Battle of Poltava is not just history, but another source of ongoing friction between Moscow and Kiev.

Ivan Mazepa's portrait on Ukraine's 10-hryvna currency note.
Poltava is recognized as the pivotal battle in the Great Northern War, a 21-year struggle, in which Russia replaced Sweden as the great power of Northern Europe in the early 18th century. Poltava also ended Ukrainian aspirations for independence from Russia.

"Traitor Mazepa"

The leader of the Ukrainian forces, Ivan Mazepa, remains a source of controversy between Moscow and Kiev. Mazepa was Ukraine's so-called Hetman, or leader of its Cossack military forces.

In Russia he is considered a traitor who betrayed an oath of allegiance to Czar Peter the Great, the victorious commander at Poltava. The term "traitor Mazepa" remains a common Russian term.

He was cast as a villain in works by Russian poet Alexander Pushkin and composer Peter Tchaikovsky, and also excommunicated by the Russian Orthodox Church.

That decision is still in effect, despite recent high level requests from Ukrainian political and church leaders to rescind the move.

But Ukrainians say the Hetman was forced to side with Sweden, because Russian ruler Peter the Great failed to honor a 1654 treaty to protect their land against Polish attacks.

But until the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia considered the same treaty to have been an agreement by Ukraine for an everlasting union with its northern neighbor.

Ukrainians also consider Mazepa to have been a great reformer, who built schools and publishing houses, expanded higher learning, and supported the arts, including a distinctly Ukrainian style of church architecture that dominates the modern skyline of Kiev.

Mazepa's portrait appears on Ukraine's 10-hryvna currency note, and the country will soon unveil a monument to him in Poltava. Last month, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement condemning the statue as divisive.

At a recent Poltava conference in Moscow, Vladimir Artamonov of the Russian Academy of Sciences told fellow historians the battle liberated Ukraine from Swedish invaders.

Artamanov says Poltava was not a tragedy for Ukraine, but rather a tragedy for Mazepa and his followers who sought to subordinate "Little Russia" to Poland.

Russians often use the term "Little Russia" as a synonym for Ukraine. Many Ukrainians resent it as demeaning.

Genocide issues

Speaking at the same Moscow conference, Ukrainian historian Serhiy Poltavets said it is important to consider why Mazepa allied himself with Sweden.

Poltavets says documentary evidence indicates that Mazepa's goal was to create an independent Ukraine; that his goal contradicted the political and geopolitical aims of the Russian state is something, which cannot be denied.

Moscow and Kiev are also at odds over historic assessments of an artificial famine during the period of Soviet land collectivization in the early 1930's that claimed the lives of millions, particularly in Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan.

Ukrainians consider it an act of genocide. The Kremlin says food was intentionally withheld from peasants as a class, but not any ethnic group, and therefore cannot be considered a violation of the United Nations Genocide Convention, which does not mention class.

Another point of contention is Ukraine's World War II guerillas, who fought Soviets and Nazis after mistakenly welcoming Germans as liberators.

They are seen as freedom fighters by Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and as fascist collaborators by his Russian counterpart, Dmitri Medvedev.

Last month, Mr. Medvedev announced creation of a government commission to help prevent what he said was falsification of history that harms the interests of Russia.

Mr. Medvedev says Russians are increasingly being confronted with what is known as historic falsification, and perhaps many have noticed that these attempts are becoming increasingly harsh, mean, and aggressive.

In Ukraine, President Viktor Yushchenko condemned foreign and domestic attempts to brand Ivan Mazepa as a traitor.

Mr. Yushchenko says enough to looking at history through foreign eyes. He calls on Ukrainians to look at Mazepa with their own eyes, with Ukrainian eyes.

Source: Voice of America News

Ukraine's President Harbours Fears About Hosting Euro 2012

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine President Victor Yushchenko believes acute financial problems caused by the global economic crisis could result in the country failing to co-host Euro 2012 with Poland as planned. "We are halfway through the year and haven't achieved one 11th of what is planned," Yushchenko told the Interfax news agency Wednesday.


Yushchenko accused his country's government of endangering Ukraine's planned chances of hosting Euro 2012 through its economic policies.

"What is there left for us to talk about Euro 2012?" Yushchenko asked of Yulia Tymoshenko's government, citing in particular the slow construction of transport infrastructure.

Only 10 per cent of the planned 239 million euros (333 million dollars) for transport projects in 2009 has so far been allocated and UEFA has repeatedly warned Ukraine about its progress in constructing stadiums, roads and hotels.

Yushchenko expressed his scepticism about whether Ukraine would be able to show UEFA's evaluation committee the necessary progress on November 30th as planned.

Source: DPA

Uncertainty In Ukraine Causes EUCOM To Cancel Exercise

STUTTGART, Germany -- The U.S. military has called off an annual multinational training exercise scheduled for next month off the coast of Ukraine, where political turmoil has crippled the former Soviet-bloc nation’s ability to make the necessary preparations.


U.S. European Command was forced to withdraw after the Ukrainian parliament failed to grant permission for foreign militaries to enter the country’s territory — a precondition for conducting maneuvers around Ukraine’s Black Sea coastline, EUCOM confirmed.

With no deal reached, time had run out for getting equipment in place for the start of the Sea Breeze exercise, which was scheduled to run July 13-26.

Some 2,000 U.S. military personnel, including sailors of the Navy’s 6th Fleet and a battalion of Marines were slated to take part in the exercise. It was to include servicemembers from 19 countries.

"That’s going to be it for this year," said Lt. Col. John Dorrian, a EUCOM spokesman, saying that the event will not be rescheduled for later in 2009.

However, EUCOM will soon begin planning Sea Breeze 2010 with its Ukrainian counterparts.

"There are no plans to cancel. Building partner capacity and interoperability, that’s what we do," Dorrian said.

But Ukraine, which has been hit hard by the global economic crisis, is in a state of political disarray.

It has no defense minister or foreign minister in place. And, infighting and an ongoing feud between the country’s president and prime minister has ground government business to a standstill.

The country is even in jeopardy of losing its position as host of the 2012 European soccer championships because it is far behind schedule in building the required facilities, according to Ukrainian news reports.

With so much political uncertainty, it is unclear what the future holds for future Sea Breeze exercises, which first started in 1997. The 2006 exercise also was nixed because of a lack of parliamentary approval.

This year’s exercise was to have a special focus on anti-piracy techniques in preparation for Ukraine’s participation in the NATO mission off the coast of Somalia, according to Ukrainian news accounts.

The joint operations are aimed at improving the capacity of militaries to communicate and work together on missions.

Source: Stars and Stripes

Ukraine State Bank Oshchadbank Sees Improved Profit

KIEV, Ukraine -- State bank Oshchadbank, a key link in financing Ukraine's troubled energy company Naftogaz, forecasts an improved first half profit in 2009 of 600 million hryvnias ($79 million), its chief executive officer said on Wednesday.

Oshchadbank headquarters in Kiev, Ukraine
The bank recorded a profit of 180.2 million hryvnias in the same period last year.

"The state has turned towards Oshchadbank and we will have good financial results this year," Anatoly Gulei told reporters on the sidelines of a government meeting.

Ukraine's government since last year has actively used Oshchadbank, the state savings bank and third largest in Ukraine, to support financially-troubled state energy company Naftogaz.

"We are an anti-crisis bank. This is our policy and I believe it is the correct policy," Gulei said. "It enabled us to boost our assets, receive capital and support real sectors of the economy and the government."

The government owns 100 percent of Oshchadbank and boosted its capital at the beginning of the year to 13.9 billion hryvnias from 900 million a year earlier.

Gulei said the bank's capital would be further increased, partly from reinvesting profits.

Oshchadbank has regularly issued credits to enable Naftogaz to make payments for shipments of Russian gas in accordance with plans overseen by Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's government.

President Viktor Yushchenko, the prime minister's former ally turned arch rival, has denounced the practice as liable to lead to the energy company's collapse. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and other top officials have suggested that Naftogaz is all but insolvent.

Despite its improved figures, Oshchadbank's credits to Naftogaz still violated rules limiting the amount of credits it can extend to a single borrower. This, Gulei said, would be corrected once the government boosted Naftogaz's capital.

"They will have their capital increased, settle their debts with us and the problem will be solved," Gulei said.

"There is a government resolution for 18 billion hryvnias. We hope the finance ministry will issue bonds which we can take ... and settle up with the central bank."

Gulei gave no figures for the amount of credits issued to Naftogaz.

Acting Finance Minister Ihor Umansky, interviewed by the weekly Zerkalo Nedeli, put the figure at no less than 18.6 billion hryvnias. ($=7.61 hryvnias).

Source: Guardian UK

Ukraine May Get IMF Loan For Russian Gas Within Days

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Ukraine’s ambassador to the European Union said today the nation may get a $4 billion loan led by the International Monetary Fund within days to pay for Russian gas.


NAK Naftogaz Ukrainy, Ukraine’s state-owned energy company, said last week it is counting on EU help in receiving credit from international financial institutions for natural-gas payments to Russia’s OAO Gazprom. Ukraine got a $16.4 billion emergency loan from the IMF last year to support its financial system amid the global economic crisis.

A dispute between Russia and Ukraine in January left more than 20 countries without gas for almost two weeks. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said this month Ukraine needs about $5 billion for pumping gas into storage this year and warned that a cut-off could be repeated unless the country pays for delivered supplies.

“We think that an additional amount of money may be given to Ukraine by the IMF in order to bridge this lack of payments for a short period, and we hope that it will end the problem,” Andri Veselovsky, head of the Ukrainian mission to the EU, said in an interview today in Brussels. “It’s a matter of days, not months.”

IMF officials couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. Ukraine says an IMF delegation is in Kiev for the second review of the original loan.

Sleepwalking

The European Union signaled last week it was concerned about the future supply of Russian gas through Ukraine. European Commission President Jose Barroso said the 27-member state bloc “must not sleepwalk into another gas crisis.”

Veselovsky said the problem needs to be addressed. “Yes, we would like to solve it. Yes, we addressed the IMF and other financial institutions and some banks.”

Kiev-based Naftogaz got a 3.8 billion hryvnia ($500 million) loan from state-run lender VAT Oshchadbank earlier this month to ensure payment to Gazprom for fuel delivered in May. Naftogaz has a 2009 financial deficit of 27 billion hryvnias, Ukraine’s President Viktor Yushchenko said June 11.

The east European state will buy natural gas valued at $250 million from Gazprom in June and quadruple the amount next month, Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko said in a statement on the government’s Web site last week.

There should be “no doubt” Ukraine will pay for supplies of Russian gas in June and the following months, Veselovsky said today. Under an agreement with Russia, Ukraine must pay for gas within the first seven days of each month.

Contracting Economy

Ukraine’s economy contracted 8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008, compared with 6.4 percent growth in the previous quarter as the global financial crisis curbed demand for the country’s exports.

“Ukraine coped with the current economic and financial crisis, and its economy was very severely hurt by the crisis, more than neighboring countries, so this shortage of money is specific for Ukraine and it needs specific assistance,” Veselovsky said. ‘

Source: Bloomberg

Ukraine’s Political Paralysis Gives Black Eyes To Orange Revolution Heroes

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine, which has suffered a roundhouse blow from the economic crisis, has had no finance minister since February. It also has no foreign minister or defense minister. The transportation minister just stepped down. The interior minister has offered to resign as well, after being accused of drunken behavior.

Orange Revolution heroes Yulia Tymoshenko and Viktor Yushchenko are no longer on speaking terms.
The president and the prime minister are no longer speaking, though they were once allies and heroes of the Orange Revolution, which brought a pro-Western government to power in 2005. The spirit of that uprising has apparently been squandered in a country that seems permanently gripped by political paralysis.

The public appears so frustrated that the leader of the opposition, who has close ties to the Kremlin and is often portrayed as the villain of the Orange Revolution, is the early favorite to win the presidential election next January.

The mood here is reflected in the popularity of a video clip that has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times in recent days. It shows the prime minister, Yulia V. Tymoshenko, who once enthralled Ukraine with her rousing slogans and peasant-braid-as-tiara hairstyle, just before she was to give a televised speech this month.

Her teleprompter suddenly malfunctions, and she snaps, “It’s all gone.”

Ms. Tymoshenko was referring to her text, but her words — which can also be translated as, “Everything’s fallen apart” — have been viewed as something of an epitaph for her political movement.

The deadlock has led the major European nations to voice growing alarm that Ukraine is incapable of dealing with its disintegrating economy.

They fear that an economic collapse here could reverberate throughout the former Soviet bloc and beyond.

On Wednesday, the foreign ministers of Germany and Poland made an unusual joint visit to the capital, Kiev. The German, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, declared that he was “extremely worried” about Ukraine, suggesting that its politicians must stop feuding if they wanted more assistance.

European officials also warned that Ukraine had fallen drastically behind on its preparations for serving as a host of the European soccer championship in 2012, and risked losing the event.

The major cabinet posts are unfilled in part because Ms. Tymoshenko and the president, Viktor A. Yushchenko, cannot agree on replacements. Ms. Tymoshenko used Parliament to dismiss the defense and foreign ministers, who are nominated by the president.

Behind the scenes, the president’s associates have contended that Ms. Tymoshenko is untrustworthy and has Machiavellian designs on power. Her side has responded that the president is a bumbling politician who is jealous of her charisma and public support.

Optimists in Kiev said the situation had worsened largely because the political class was jockeying before the presidential election, and they pointed out that the country’s leaders had always found a way to pull back from the brink. For example, they agreed on budget measures to comply with a $16.4 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund.

Whatever the discord, Ukraine is more free than most former Soviet republics, with a relatively uncontrolled news media and a far less repressive security apparatus.

Still, things have unquestionably soured. The popularity of President Yushchenko, who achieved worldwide attention during the Orange Revolution when his face was scarred in an attempted poisoning that remains unsolved, has sunk into the low single digits, and he is given little chance of winning re-election.

Mr. Yushchenko has been chided by even his own advisers for a lackluster bearing that has turned off the public, and it was in evidence this month at a nationally televised news conference.

He began with a statement that ground on for half an hour and was spoken without notable intensity, even when he attacked Ms. Tymoshenko.

Relations between the two have so deteriorated that Ms. Tymoshenko even tried this month to build a coalition with an Orange Revolution foe, Viktor F. Yanukovich, a former prime minister who leads the opposition in Parliament. That effort imploded in a cacophony of charges and countercharges.

Ukraine’s last finance minister, Viktor M. Pynzenyk, who is widely respected, acknowledged in an interview that the government had become hopelessly dysfunctional.

Mr. Pynzenyk said the politicians’ refusal to face up to the financial crisis with proper austerity measures had clearly worsened matters, and said they were running enormous deficits to pander to voters. He said he resigned because it was impossible to conduct the country’s fiscal affairs.

“People are disillusioned not with the Orange Revolution, but with the politicians,” Mr. Pynzenyk said.

He assailed the recent attempt by Ms. Tymoshenko to ally with Mr. Yanukovich. She had sought to amend the Constitution so that the president would be chosen by Parliament, not popularly elected.

Under their deal, Mr. Yanukovich would have been president and Ms. Tymoshenko would have occupied a strengthened post of prime minister. At the last moment, Mr. Yanukovich backed out.

“In my opinion, what happened in the last month represented a threat to establish an authoritarian regime,” Mr. Pynzenyk said. “Power has become the goal, and this is a very dangerous path.”

Ukraine has earned so much attention because it is one of the largest countries in Europe, with 46 million people, and serves as a vital transportation point for natural gas from Russia. Ukraine’s fractious politics have helped to strain relations with Russia, which has shut the flow of gas in payment disputes twice in recent years.

After the Orange Revolution, Ukraine was held up as an example of how countries, whether post-Soviet or elsewhere, could move past authoritarianism. But the problems here are now cited by Russian officials as evidence of what awaits countries that embrace a Western democratic model.

While Ms. Tymoshenko’s standing may have been damaged in recent weeks, she is considered a highly skillful politician who has mounted comebacks before, and polls indicate that she would be competitive with Mr. Yanukovich in the next presidential election.

Hryhoriy M. Nemyria, a deputy prime minister and Tymoshenko adviser, said Ms. Tymoshenko’s plan to change the Constitution was needed because lines of authority between the president and the prime minister were vague and bred conflict. Ukraine would be better off with a parliamentary system like Germany’s, he said.

He said Ms. Tymoshenko would be a formidable force in the election. “The thing she is definitely not lacking is leadership skills,” he said. “That is something that might be in great deficit in some of the other candidates.”

Oles Dony, a young member of Parliament who was active in the Orange Revolution and supported the president, said he believed that Ukrainians would not shy away from taking part in the presidential campaign, despite recent events.

“People are tired, not of politics, but of all these characters and their style of behavior,” he said. “But they are not tired of democracy.”

Source: The New York Times

US Vice President Biden Heads To Ukraine, Georgia

WASHINGTON, DC -- US Vice President Joe Biden will travel to Georgia and Ukraine next month for talks on boosting the former Soviet republics' economies and supporting democratic reforms, his office said Monday. Both trips involve political sensitivities with Russia, and the visit would come shortly after US President Barack Obama travels to Moscow.

US Vice President Joe Biden.
Biden's office says the trip will come during the week of July 20-24. More details will be released later.

Biden would be the highest-ranking US official to travel to Georgia since its war with Russia last year, while Ukraine has been embroiled in a natural gas dispute with Russia that threatens the European Union's supplies.

Biden will head to the region from July 20-24 and plans to meet with political leaders and opposition figures in both countries.

In a statement, the vice president's office said that Biden would "demonstrate US support for continued democratic and economic reforms and discuss issues of mutual interest in both countries."

In May, Biden visited Europe's Balkan region, meeting with political leaders in Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo.

Source: DPA

Ukraine Military Says Sea Breeze-2009 Exercise Called Off

KIEV, Ukraine -- There will be no Sea Breeze naval exercises with NATO forces in Ukraine's Crimea this summer, a source in the Ukrainian Navy command said on Monday.

U.S. sailors aboard the Guided Missile Destroyer Mcfaul take part in fire drill during the Sea Breeze-2008 NATO military exercises in the Black Sea port of Odessa July 15, 2008. Naval and air forces from 15 countries took part in the military exercises in Ukraine.
A military exercise with the participation of foreign troops requires parliamentary permission, but the Ukrainian parliament has refused to even consider the matter.

The source said the U.S. military command had informed Ukraine last week that the Ukrainian-U.S. naval exercise would not take place this year.

Sea Breeze-2009 was due to be conducted in July.

Sea Breeze exercises have been held annually in the Crimea since 1997, and have been subject to occasionally violent anti-NATO protests in recent years.

Last year's Sea Breeze drills saw protesters set up camps along the Black Sea coast, and reportedly attempt to prevent foreign warships, participating in the exercises, from leaving the port of Odessa.

Source: RIA Novosti

Ukraine Faces 'Serious' Gas Situation

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Brussels called for talks with Russian and international monetary officials in an effort to avert a gas crisis stemming for Ukrainian economic troubles.

Jose Manuel Barroso, was confirmed for a second term as European Commission president.
Jose Manuel Barroso, who was confirmed for a second term as European Commission president, said the European Union would talk with gas and financial officials to help Ukraine pay for its Russian gas supplies, the Financial Times reports.

"We must not sleepwalk into another crisis," he said. "There is indeed the risk of a crisis in weeks, not months."

A January dispute over contracts and arrears between Kiev and Moscow forced Russian gas giant Gazprom to cut gas supplies for Ukraine. With 80 percent of Russian gas bound for Europe headed through Ukrainian territory, that row left European customers in the cold for weeks.

A settlement resolving the dispute requires Ukraine to settle its monthly gas debt by the seventh of each month, but Gazprom has expressed concern each month since January over Kiev's ability to come forward with the money.

Barroso told reporters the EU does not have the resources to meet Ukrainian requests for $4 billion to cover gas payments but said that was a matter best left to the international monetary regime.

"We don't have that money in the budget. We want to help our Ukrainian friends, but they have a structural problem," he said. "They're in a serious situation."

Source: UPI

Ukraine Finds 250 Contraband Turtles On Train

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukrainian border guards seized 250 turtles being smuggled into the country on a train, where they had been hidden and strapped down with tape to prevent them from moving, officials said on Monday.


The turtles were seized late on Sunday at the Ukrainian-Russian border on a train from the central Asian country of Uzbekistan, the Ukrainian border guard service said in a statement.

The reptilian cargo belonged to an Uzbek conductor aboard the train, which came from the Uzbek capital Tashkent and was bound for the city of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine.

The turtles, some of them hidden in bags, had been stashed in toilets and inside a train carriage wall.

"The turtles were initially left on the premises of the customs service to undergo veterinary control," Mykhailo Kablak, a spokesman for the regional branch of the border guard service, told AFP.

"According to preliminary information, they are all in good health and will be taken to the zoo in Kharkiv," Kablak said. He added that the smuggler had sought to sell the turtles in Ukraine.

Source: AFP

Central European Leaders Call For Unity In The Face Of Crisis

NOVI SAD, Serbia -- Central European leaders from 14 countries have called for more regional cooperation in the wake of the global economic crisis and for a better distribution of energy resources.

Central European leaders meet for the 16th time.
At a regional summit in the Serbian city of Novi Sad, host president Boris Tadic led the calls for solidarity in dealing with both economic and energy issues.

"We cannot permit that (these matters) become a source of our division, especially in the period of crisis," he said.

The region has been battered by the global economic crisis hitting the budding economies of the formerly communist central and eastern Europe particularly hard. Measures to tackle the recession, including cuts in the welfare benefits and salaries have provoked widespread protests from Latvia to the Balkans.

Austrian President Heinz Fischer said the global economic crisis remained "the most fundamental challenge," requiring multilateral cooperation.

"We must focus on the necessity to keep social balance and cohesion in our own societies. There's a special responsibility to protect the poorer and weaker," he said.

Key region in securing Europe's energy supplies

Apart from the economic woes of the global economic crisis, the summit's focus has been on energy issues. The region suffered severe shortages of heating gas last winter, when a dispute over payments between Russia and Ukraine saw supplies cut, particularly to Bosnia, Bulgaria and Serbia.

Serbian President Boris Tadic pointed out that Serbia and other western Balkan states were key to securing energy and stability for the rest of Europe.

"Our region is becoming an energy bridge leading to consumers in other parts of Europe. I am sure that we are going to succeed in this if we pursue a common energy policy."

Polish President Lech Kaczynski and Ukrainian leader Victor Yushchenko joined the call for better distribution and diversification of energy resources.

Yushchenko urged European countries to adopt a "common policy and a common gas market" to minimize the risk of another gas crisis in the future.

The meeting brought together presidents from 14 countries - Austria, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Italy, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine - for the 16th time.

Source: Deutsche Welle

Klitschko To Fight At 60,000 Seat Venue

BERLIN, Germany -- When Vladimir Klitschko steps into the ring against Ruslan Chagaev at Veltins Arena in Gelsenkirchen on Saturday, it will be in front of the largest boxing audience in Germany since Max Schmeling fought in the 1930s.

Heavyweight boxing champions Wladimir Klitschko from the Ukraine (L), and Ruslan Chagaev from Uzbekistan (R), pose for the photographers during the official weigh-in in Dortmund on June 19. They will fight in Gelsenkirchen on June 20.
Action inside the ropes, however, might not live up to the hype.

Klitschko, the IBF and WBO heavyweight champion, was supposed to be fighting David Haye to settle a running verbal feud. But Haye bowed out earlier this month, saying he had injured his back.

Haye asked to reschedule the fight in July, but Klitschko wanted to keep the date and the 60,000-seat sellout - the biggest boxing crowd in Germany since Schmeling fought Adolf Heuser in front of 70,000 people in Stuttgart on June 2, 1939.

"It's a chance that's coming around for the first time in my entire sporting career," the 33-year-old Ukrainian said. "I'm incredibly excited about the 60,000 fans."

Chagaev, 30, was named the WBA's "champion in recess" in 2008 after withdrawing from two fights against Nikolai Valuev. After a third bout between the two scheduled for last month in Helsinki was cancelled due to Hepatitis-B antigens being found in Chagaev's blood, the WBA announced Valuev as the rightful champion and put Chagaev's honorary title "under review."

As of Friday, the WBA had not clarified whether Klitschko (52-3) will fight for a piece of that title on top of defending his belts.

Michael Ehnert, the doctor for Universum, which is promoting Saturday's fight, said Chagaev is fit to fight in Germany.

"Since getting Hepatitis B many years ago, Ruslan is simply a carrier of Hepatitis-B antigens. This has not led to an infection," Ehnert said.

Klitschko has said he has been immunized against Hepatitis B and is not worried about the fight.

In February, Chagaev (25-0 with one draw) won a technical decision over Carl Davis Drumond in Rostock, Germany. It was the Uzbekistan-born boxer's first fight in more than a year.

Source: AP

European Union: Ukraine Needs Help To Avert New Gas Crisis

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- The European Union will not help Ukraine pay for Russian gas imports but international financial institutions may help avert a looming crisis, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso listens to questions during a media conference at an EU summit in Brussels, June 19.
"That is not our responsibility, I should make that clear," Barroso told reporters when asked about EU help at a summit of leaders on Friday.

Barroso warned heads of state that Ukraine's financial difficulties might lead to Russia cutting off gas supplies next month, including gas intended for transit to Europe, just as it did in January during a mid-winter pricing dispute.

"There is the risk of another major gas crisis in weeks," he later told reporters.

Russia supplies about 25 percent of EU gas consumption and about 80 percent of those supplies flow to Europe through Ukraine's pipeline network.

Barroso told leaders he spoke on Thursday with international agencies including the International Monetary Fund and European gas companies to find a way through the impasse.

"IFIs (International Financial Institutions) and the European gas companies said they were willing... to help provide stop-gap funding," he said, according to speaking notes seen by Reuters.

Separately, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said individual consumers were paying 85 percent of their gas bills but local energy and utility companies were paying no more than 30 percent, aggravating the debts of state gas company Naftogaz.

"How can the government and Naftogaz do conjuring tricks in settling accounts with Russia for gas when within the country there are 26 billion hryvnias ($3.4 billion) in debts for gas?" she told local officials in Ukraine.

"That is the total which is to be paid for gas which we consume for the whole year and the figure is rising every month, and turning into a national tragedy."

Naftogaz says it will struggle to pay future bills and needs to raise credits worth about $4.2 billion, which it hopes will come from European banks.

But it also says large-scale borrowing can be avoided if European gas companies buy gas from Russia and store it in Ukraine to help avert a new crisis.

German utility RWE expressed interest in Ukraine's idea and said it had put proposals on the table. But Germany's biggest gas company, E.ON Ruhrgas, ruled such plans out.

European industry group Eurogas said it was still consulting its members and could not yet gauge their response.

Source: Kyiv Post

Nigeria 'Wrong' To Seize Weapons

LONDON, UK -- The owners of a Ukrainian aircraft seized in northern Nigeria with a cargo of weapons say the authorities there have no reason to hold it. Nigerian officials say they found 18 crates of weapons on board the plane bound for Equatorial Guinea.


The Ukrainian company told Russian news agency Itar-Tass the aeroplane landed in Kano city to refuel and had all the correct permits and documents.

It was initially reported that the aircraft had made an emergency landing.

The plane was flying from Croatia and Ukrainian arms export agency Ukrspetseksport said the cargo did not belong to Ukraine.

"There were all [the] permits for this flight, including from the Nigerian authorities. There were no violations regarding either the plane or the cargo, or the documents," Meridian Director-General Mykola Minyaylo was quoted as saying.

"The plane was flying from Zagreb to Equatorial Guinea and landed in Nigeria to refuel."

The seven-member crew had had their passports seized but were in good physical condition, he said.

The BBC's Mustafa Mohamed in Kano says the aircraft has been placed under guard, and security forces are continuing their investigations.

Attack on palace

Earlier this year, the authorities in Equatorial Guinea arrested a number of people in connection with an attack on the presidential palace in the capital, Malabo.

A the time of the incident, in February, state radio in Equatorial Guinea said that those detained had been operating with members of a militant group based in Nigeria's Niger Delta region.

It said some of those who attacked the palace had been killed or wounded.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) denied involvement.

Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema later dismissed several government ministers.

The president has been in power in the oil-rich former Spanish colony since seizing power in a coup in 1979.

His government has long been accused of human rights abuses and of suppressing political opposition.

Last year, a former British army officer, Simon Mann, was sentenced to 34 years in jail for plotting to overthrow him in 2004.

Source: BBC News

Are Ukrainian Journalists Missing The Real Story?

KIEV, Ukraine — Merely saying the forest’s name — Bykivnya — can cause strong emotions for millions of Ukrainians. This is where the secret police of Soviet strongman Joseph Stalin buried 100,000 of their victims between 1937 and 1941 in a mass grave northeast of Kiev.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, right, takes part in a ceremony for the re-burial of Soviet prisoners of war.
President Victor Yushchenko did not mince words during his recent speech there, on Ukraine’s Day of Remembrance for Victims of Political Repression.

“Here, at Bykivnya, Stalin and his monstrous hangmen killed the bloom of Ukraine. There is no forgiveness and there will be none,” he told several thousand mourners and, of course, Ukrainian journalists.

The mourners wept, while processing through the site behind Orthodox clergy who carried liturgical banners containing iconic images of Jesus and Mary.

“Because of the national symbolism of this ceremony, the priests there may not be important,” said Victor Yelensky, a sociologist of religion associated with the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences.

“But the priests have to be there because this is Ukraine and this is a ceremony that is about a great tragedy in the history of Ukraine.

“So the priests are there. It is part ... of a civil religion.”

This is where the story gets complicated. In the Ukrainian media, photographs and video images showed the clergy, with their dramatic banners and colorful vestments. However, in their reporting, journalists never mentioned what the clergy said or did.

Mainstream media reports also failed to mention which Orthodoxy body or bodies were represented. This is an important gap because of the tense and complicated nature of the religious marketplace in this historically Eastern Orthodox culture.

It would have been big news, for example, if clergy from the giant Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) — with direct ties to Moscow — had taken part in a ceremony that featured Yushchenko, who, as usual, aimed angry words to the north.

But what if the clergy were exclusively from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kiev Patriarchate), born after the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991 and linked to declarations of Ukrainian independence? What if there were also clergy from a third body, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, born early in the 20th century?

A rite featuring clergy from one or both of these newer churches also would have been symbolic. After all, these days almost anything can create tensions between Ukraine and Russia, from natural gas prices to efforts to emphasize the Ukrainian language, from exhibits of uniquely Ukrainian art to decisions about which statues are torn down or which are erected.

But it’s hard for Ukrainian journalists to ask these kinds of questions and print what they learn when people answer them, according to a circle of journalists — secular and religious — at a Kiev forum last week focusing on trends in religion news in their nation. I was one of the speakers, along with another colleague from the Oxford Centre for Religion & Public Life.

As in America, Ukrainian journalists often assume that politics is the only faith that matters in life. The journalists in Kiev also said that they struggle to escape Soviet-era rules stating that religion was bad, irrelevant or, at best, merely private. Many journalists lack historical knowledge required to do accurate coverage of religion, while others do not care, because they shun organized religion.

“Many would say that, if we do not play the violin, we really should not attempt to comment on how others play the violin,” said Yuri Makarov, editor in chief of Ukrainian Week, speaking through a translator.

This blind spot is unfortunate, because Ukrainian journalists may have missed a crucial piece of the Bykivnya story, said Yelensky. It’s hard to understand the soul of Ukraine without grasping the power of religion.

“For many Orthodox people in western Ukraine, it is simply unacceptable to live in any way under the leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate. At the same time, for many Orthodox in eastern Ukraine, it is simply unacceptable to not to be associated and in communion with the Moscow Patriarchate. In the middle are places like Kiev. ...

“This is a division that is inside Ukrainian society. Is it based on religion? No. Is religion right there in the heart of it? Yes.”

Source: The Houston Chronicle

Ukraine: The Politics Of Hairstyle

KIEV, UKRAINE – It was one of the icons of Ukraine’s “Orange Revolution”: Yulia Tymoshenko’s blond braid, coiled around her head like a crown, hit news pages the world over as she stood defiantly alongside Viktor Yushchenko at Independence Square in Kiev in 2004 to protest a rigged presidential vote.

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko without her signature braid.
The traditional Ukrainian braid became a permanent feature atop Ms. Tymoshenko’s head in the run-up to the elections, underlining her patriotic credentials and appeal in the nationally minded western part of the country.

It soon became the world’s most famous political hairstyle and a central part of her image as the Orange Princess.

So when Tymoshenko, now Ukraine’s prime minister, turned up to a cabinet meeting last month with her hair combed back into a modest bun, tongues were set wagging.

“No supermodel or Hollywood actress can create such a furor over a change of hairstyles as Tymoshenko,” wrote leading news magazine Korrespondent. “Ministers, journalists, and even political analysts forgot about the agenda and started guessing what had prompted her to change her image.”

With the next presidential election approaching in January, was she trying to soften her patriotic image in an effort to appeal to Russia-friendly voters in the east and south of Ukraine? After all, she has recently been courting closer relations with the Kremlin.

Or perhaps this was an “anticrisis” hairstyle, an attempt to distract from questions about her handling of Ukraine’s significant economic woes or to present a more austere, professional image.

For her part, Tymoshenko pleaded with reporters not to read anything into her new hairdo. “A normal woman is simply obliged sometimes to change her image. I, too, continually try to be a normal woman. Unfortunately, work gets in the way.”

Source: The Christian Science Monitor

Nigeria: Weapons-Laden Plane, From Ukraine, Caught In Kano

KANO, Nigeria -- A cargo plane fully loaded with arms and ammunition was intercepted by security operatives at the Malam Aminu Kano International Airport, Kano in the early of yesterday. The plane and its four crew members are now detained at the Nigeria Air Force wing of the airport.


Sources said there were eight heavy crates of various weapons and ammunition on board the plane, thought to include rifles, machine guns, rocket launchers, mortars and howitzers.

Daily Trust learnt that the plane, which arrived in Nigeria on Tuesday night from the former Soviet republic of Ukraine, was heading for the West African country of Guinea-Bissau, and it stopped over in Kano at about 4:00am to refuel.

The plane, with registration number UR-CAK, believed to be of Russian make, was being heavily guarded by fierce-looking soldiers at the time of filing in this report. A source told Daily Trust that the crew members were locked up in the office of the Airforce Commandant at the airport and were being interrogated by military authorities.

Apart from the armed soldiers guarding the aircraft, nobody was seen around the plane as there was an order by the airport commandant that movement of civilians and airport staff around the plane should be restricted for security reasons. Curious journalists who dashed to the airport were turned back by security operatives at the entry point into the airport tarmac.

Daily Trust learnt that the Guinea-Bissau-bound cargo plane ran out of luck after refueling when officials of the Nigeria Customs and Immigration Services noticed some defects in the information supplied by the crew in the flight discharge form.

The security operatives, it was also gathered, became suspicious of the crew's inability to declare in the form what the cargo plane was carrying, and therefore insisted that they must know the contents.

Under intense interrogation, the crew reportedly broke down and confessed that the plane was heading for Guinea-Bissau with arms and ammunition from Ukraine.

Officials of the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and other airport security operatives were all reluctant to speak on the matter yesterday, for what they described as "sensitive security issue".

FAAN's Deputy Director of Public Affairs Malam Ibrahim Shawai confirmed the interception of the plane, but he could not say much on the matter, since everything about it had now been transferred to the airport commandant for thorough military investigation as it involves arms and ammunition.

The airport commandant, Group Captain U. Adagbo, could not be found in his office when our reporter went there. Also scores of gun-totting soldiers right in front of the office who refused this reporter entry said the commandant did not have a second-in-command, when our reporter asked to see his deputy.

Kano Manager of the Nigeria Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) Mr. N.R. Odibikuma also confirmed the plane's detention, saying he would not discuss the matter any further because of its diplomatic implication. He however said everything would be known only upon completion of investigation by military authorities.

When Daily Trust called the Kano State Director of State Security Service (SSS) Bello Tukur Bakori for comments, he claimed ignorance of the whole matter, saying he was in Kebbi State for an official assignment. The same response was received from the police and Customs Service as their public image-makers said their bosses were all in Abuja for official engagements.

Nigeria Air Force's Director of Information Group Capt Sadiq Shehu also declined to comment, saying the Airforce would investigate the report. However, a source at Airforce Headquarters in Abuja confirmed to Daily Trust that a plane was actually detained in Kano, and Air Policemen had waded in to interrogate the crew members. The source said even though the crewmen claimed that they were going to Guinea-Bissau, there were suspicions that they were gun-running for Niger Delta militants.

Source: Africa Daily Trust

EU Ministers Warn Crisis-Hit Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine -- The foreign ministers of Germany and Poland warned Ukraine Wednesday to end its chronic political feuding in order to receive more international assistance for its crisis-battered economy.

Ukraine's Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko (R) and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (L) meet in Kiev. The foreign ministers of Germany and Poland warned Ukraine Wednesday to end its chronic political feuding in order to receive more international assistance for its crisis-battered economy.
The unusual joint visit by Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany and Poland's Radoslaw Sikorski came as the European Union and Russia compete for influence in Ukraine, which saw its old pro-Moscow elite swept from power in 2004.

Steinmeier said Berlin and Warsaw were "particularly concerned" about Ukraine -- which has borders with four EU states as well as Russia -- as it faces a double-barrelled political and economic crisis.

"A political crisis clearly because the blockade in parliament and between the president and the government has dragged on so long, and of course an economic crisis that has hit Ukraine particularly hard," he told reporters.

The ministers, who arrived aboard a German air force plane, held talks with President Viktor Yushchenko, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and opposition leader Viktor Yanukovich, who are locked in a bitter power struggle.

Steinmeier and Sikorski said they hoped to persuade Ukraine's leaders to try to break their impasse to ensure the flow of international economic assistance needed for basic services including Russian gas.

The global economic crisis has delivered a body blow to Ukraine, with the World Bank forecasting a nine-percent contraction this year and production of its export-orientated industry in freefall.

It is depending on a 16.4-billion-dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund to keep its economy afloat.

But the IMF has set conditions for Ukraine to qualify for the next, 2.8-billion-dollar tranche of the loan including instituting a measure of stability in its struggling bank sector.

"Everything is linked to everything else," Steinmeier said.

"We respect the political rivalry that every democracy needs," said Steinmeier, who is challenging Chancellor Angela Merkel in September general elections.

But he said "destructive" jockeying for power would block an IMF deal.

Diplomatic sources said Yushchenko regretted the current political stalemate was hindering a deal with the IMF, while Yanukovich said any lasting resolution of the gas dispute would require dialogue with Russia.

The EU -- which receives a quarter one-quarter of its gas from Russia, most of it piped across Ukraine -- is also deeply concerned about repeated disruptions of its supply.

Ukraine was forced to tap into its reserves this month to pay a Russian gas bill, with a summer of supply interruptions to Europe from a new Kiev-Moscow gas crisis still a real threat.

Tymoshenko said Tuesday that Ukraine wanted to borrow four billion dollars (2.9 billion euros) from European banks to pay for Russian gas to refill its storage facilities.

Russia, meanwhile, has condemned EU moves to bolster ties with countries it sees in its sphere of influence, but has urged the EU to come up with a loan for Kiev to pay for its gas.

But Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Wednesday showed Moscow was prepared to use its capacities, saying that Russia has already paid Ukraine 2.2 billion dollars for its 2009 gas transit fees to Europe.

"I hope very much that discipline within the framework of existing contracts will be maintained by both sides and in the future," he added, saying the pre-payment of the sum essentially amounted to a loan.

Steinmeier and Sikorski said Poland and Germany aimed to build on the "Eastern Partnership" extended to Ukraine and five other ex-Soviet republics by the EU in May, which offers financial incentives for crucial reforms.

Sikorski also announced a new Ukrainian-Polish agreement on opening border traffic that will come into force July 1.

"The free movement of people is important to the Eastern Partnership and we want to be helpful to the Ukrainians in that way as well," he said.

Source: AFP

Ukraine Minister Resigns Over Euro-2012 Preparations

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's transport minister resigned on Wednesday, saying Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was blocking funds needed to prepare for the Euro-2012 football championships.

Yosip Vinsky, Ukraine's transport minister who resigned on Wednesday.
Yosip Vinsky, who rivals say may run against Tymoshenko in a presidential election early next year, said the government was not doing enough to prepare for Europe's top international football competition, which Ukraine is co-hosting with Poland.

"The prime minister is blocking ... the deployment of sufficient resources for the construction of infrastructure for the Euro-2012 championships," Vinsky said, according to quotes provided by his press service to announce his resignation.

The preparations were one of a series of political and policy disagreements with Tymoshenko that forced him to resign, Vinsky said.

UEFA president Michel Platini last month warned the Euro-2012 final could be moved to Warsaw if problems with Kiev's main stadium, airport and transport infrastructure were not resolved.

Vinsky is the fourth minister to leave the government this year amid political turmoil in the run up to next year's presidential election.

Source: Yahoo News

Russia Has Paid Ukraine Total Gas Transit Fees For 2009 - Putin

MOSCOW, Russia -- Russia has already paid Ukraine in full for its 2009 gas transit fees, a payment that effectively amounts to a huge loan to the crisis-battered country, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Wednesday.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin
"We pre-paid our Ukrainian partners for the transit of our gas to Europe to the start of next year, 2010, inclusive. Essentially this is a credit of $2.2 billion," he said, quoted by Interfax news agency.

"These are very significant resources which our Ukraine partners have effectively received from Russia," Putin said at a meeting with Alexei Miller, chief executive of Russian state-controlled gas giant OAO Gazprom (GAZP.RS).

"I hope very much that discipline within the framework of existing contracts will be maintained by both sides and in the future," he added.

Russia has warned repeatedly that Ukraine - which has been hit hard by the global economic crisis - will have trouble paying its natural gas bills and that any failure to pay could trigger a repeat of the January gas crisis.

Ukraine says it has the money to pay its bills, and it avoided a looming crisis earlier this month when it paid its May gas bill. However, there is widespread doubt about whether Kiev can pay its next gas bill for June.

In the January gas crisis, a bitter price dispute between Moscow and Kiev caused Gazprom to cut gas supplies to Ukraine, leaving more than a dozen European countries without Russian gas in the middle of winter.

Some 80% of Russian gas exports to the European Union pass through Ukraine.

Source: AFP

Heated Ukraine Polls Ahead

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine is readying itself for a fiercely competitive presidential election after the collapse of a proposed coalition deal between the two largest parties that would have redrawn political boundaries.


The failed talks leave unresolved for now long-running debates on changing the constitution to make Ukraine easier to govern after 4 1/2 years of turmoil since the "Orange Revolution" swept pro-Western politicians to power.

How to resolve that depends largely on who wins the election, with the race's two frontrunners the chief players in the failed deal - Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and ex-premier Viktor Yanukovich.

But, unlike in many former Soviet republics, the result of the contest-likely to take place in January - is far from predictable given a record of hard-fought and spirited, though violence-free, campaigns. "We are heading into a mad election campaign similar to Russian roulette, where no one knows who will win or lose," said Viktor Nebozhenko of the Ukrainian Barometer think tank.

After the election, constitutional change will again be raised. No one can run the country on his own and the oligarchs will force politicians to reach a deal. If Tymoshenko and Yanukovich can't do this, it will be done without them." Yanukovich leads polls with over 20 percent support. Tymoshenko is close behind on 15 percent, with a former speaker of parliament, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, third on 12 percent.

President Viktor Yushchenko, the prime minister's estranged ally from the revolution, trails in single figures. A deal had been mooted off and on for months between Tymoshenko and Yanukovich despite their long-running, public hostility to each other dating from well before the 2004 mass "orange" protests against election fraud when they stood on opposing sides.

It was uncertain how Moscow would have seen the deal as it has exploited constant turmoil in Ukraine. The European Union has long called for stability on its eastern border.

The accord was based on a coalition with 300 seats in the 450-seat parliament, enough to change the constitution and have the president elected by the assembly rather than by popular vote. Yanukovich would have become president and Tymoshenko would have remained premier, with the two forces dividing up key jobs.

The deal's collapse prompted the sort of recriminations that have tainted politics since Yushchenko took office in the aftermath of the 2004 mass protests promising quick reforms to bring Ukraine out of Russia's shadow and closer to the West. "What we saw was the triumph of what has become the typical logic of mistrust, suspicion and egoistic interests in Ukrainian politics," said Volodymyr Fesenko of the Penta think tank. "Tymoshenko and Yanukovich can now present constitutional reform as a bargaining chip in the campaign.

The deal's proponents saw a cure for the paralysis of endless rows, most pitting Tymoshenko against Yushchenko, as the financial crisis sent industrial production plunging by a third. It was also promoted as a historic chance to overcome hostility between nationalist western Ukraine, where Tymoshenko gets most of her backing, and the Russian-speaking industrial east, Yanukovich's main support base.

In the end, Yanukovich backed out, saying he could not envisage a president unelected by voters. Tymoshenko accused him of squandering a final chance for Ukrainian unity.

Yushchenko, openly derided by most Ukrainians, said he had helped counter the deal amounting to a "constitutional coup." But even with the deal pronounced dead, officials from both have suggested they could keep talking.

Yanukovich, who was backed by Moscow, was the big loser in the "orange" upheavals. Initially declared the winner of the rigged 2004 presidential poll, he lost to Yushchenko in a rerun ordered by the courts.

The deal to proceed with the new election was underpinned by heated parliamentary debate which overhauled the constitution by trimming the president's powers at the height of the protests.

All politicians agree a new revision of some sort is needed. Parliament speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn, who played a key role in resolving the deadlock in 2004, said a consensus would have to be found after the election. "The main issue lies in how to preserve the country after the presidential campaign is over so that it does not disintegrate in the process of political confrontation."

Source: Kuwait Times

Ukraine: Living On Borrowed Time And Russian Gas

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine paid its May gas bill to Russian gas giant Gazprom in full, avoiding a new gas crisis, for now.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko gives a news conference in Kiev, Ukraine, June 9, 2009. The Russian government appears to have the Ukrainian election in mind in some form or another so it could it well be that Russia is pushing the gas situation to the brink and then negotiate a solution with its favourite candidate.
Moscow had expressed concern repeatedly that Ukraine would have trouble paying its bills and had warned it might seek full payment from Kiev in advance. “This could very well be a monthly or a more frequent event,” Chris Weafer, chief strategist at Moscow’s UralSib bank, told New Europe, reminding that Ukraine is in a dire economic situation.

But the most important issue, apart from paying the monthly bill, is that Ukraine needs to find the cash to rebuild its gas storage before the winter because Ukraine’s Naftogaz used pretty much the entire storage of gas for Ukraine during the first quarter of 2009, Weafer said.

Robert Shetler-Jones, chief executive of Group DF that holds Ukrainian billionaire Dmitry Firtash’s business assets, agreed. “The actual issue of paying for gas used now is not as big a problem as the fact that they do not have sufficient funds to buy additional gas that needs to be put in storage,” he said.

Russia has urged Brussels to loan Ukraine money to pay for gas deliveries in order to avoid possible cutoffs, hopping the EU will consider the proposal at a summit on June 18. The EU Commission last week sent a fact-finding mission to Moscow and Kiev to shed light on their gas payment dispute.

Russia is making a point in that if there is no gas in storage it will affect Europe. But Shetler-Jones said it would affect the EU only indirectly. The gas that is sent to Europe is different gas designated for export that transits Ukraine. “Assuming the Russians keep pumping that, there is no reason why that gas should not flow. However, what Russia does seem to be worried about is that the pipeline capacity will not be able to handle on one side their exports of gas to Europe and on the other side the increased demand Ukraine will have,” he said.

But for now, Ukraine appears more preoccupied by meeting in monthly payments, which are higher than previous years following the January contact agreed between Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian counterpart Yulia Tymoshenko.

Ukraine pins its hopes on the IMF. “They are talking a huge gamble in printing money in order to pay the May bill. They can’t do that two months in a row without pushing the economy absolutely over the brink,” Weafer said.

And, at this point, Russia is all too willing to push them over the edge, threatening Ukraine as every payment deadline nears. The Russian government appears to have the Ukrainian election in mind in some form or another. “Elections are coming up in autumn in Ukraine and certainly the Russian government would very much like to have either (Viktor) Yanukovych or Tymoshenko as the next president. They are easier for them to deal with. So it could it well be that Russia is pushing the gas situation to the brink and then negotiate a solution with its favourite candidate,” Weafer said.

Russia would also like the EU to become involved in some sort guarantor role. It would make Russia’s life a lot easier and then would bring the EU into the process. “Every month they do this it must make Brussels that bit more nervous and therefore they may try to be part of the solution,” Weafer said.

But above all, Gazprom would still like to get greater control of gas assets in Ukraine, ideally to have some equity involved in the pipeline that crosses Ukraine’s territory. “That option is on the table,” Weafer said. “Every time Ukraine can’t pay I’m sure someone from Gazprom is saying: ‘Well, look, give us some assets and we’ll convert the debt into that.’”

Source: New Europe

German Foreign Minister To Visit Ukraine

BERLIN, Germany -- German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Polish counterpart Radoslaw Sikorski are to jointly visit Ukraine this week, German government sources announced on Monday.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier
The tripartite talks are to focus on the global economic crisis, which has hit Ukraine particularly badly, a foreign ministry spokesman said.

Further subject for discussion was Ukraine's 'internal political stalemate,' the spokesman added. Coalition attempts by Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko and the pro-Russian opposition Party of the Regions recently failed.

Ukraine's economy has been particularly hard-hit by the world financial crisis, and is the recipient of a multi-billion-dollar IMF rescue package.

Germany and Poland agreed on a joint initiative to support Ukraine during a European Union (EU) foreign ministers' council in April.

Source: DPA

Ukraine Struggles With Euro 2012 Ultimatum

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's preparations to co-host the European Football Championship in 2012 have fallen badly behind schedule.

Ukraine has begun improving its stadia for 2012, but will the work be finished?
UEFA, Europe's football governing body, has given the country until 30 November to show significant improvement, or face losing most of the matches to the co-hosts, Poland.

In the eastern city of Donetsk, people are riding high on a tide of football fever.

In May their team, Shakhtar, won the UEFA cup. Thousands came out onto the streets to celebrate and welcome the players home.

The crowd seemed oblivious to the brooding presence of a massive bronze Lenin watching over the proceedings - a reminder of Ukraine's Soviet past.

But then Lenin too looked unmoved, almost as if he knew that the party could soon be over.

Elusive investors

Shakhtar is building a state-of-the-art new stadium in Donetsk, with a capacity of 50,000.

It is due to open at the end of August, and when it does, it will be the most technologically advanced in the country.

But the new Donbass Arena may never host a match in Euro 2012. Not because there is anything wrong with the stadium itself, but because the other infrastructure simply is not there - the airports, the highways and the hotels.

Alexander Rotov is the president of Gerc, one of Ukraine's leading construction companies.

He has plans to build a new four-star hotel in Donetsk, in time for the competition.

He has got the land, he got the planning permission. But he is having trouble financing the project.

"We have a letter of support from the government to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the EBRD," he says. "But the EBRD say they will only invest money if there are already Ukrainian investors on board."

And Ukrainian investors are proving hard to find, even though the amount of money is relatively small - $30m (£18m).

Mr Rotov blames the economic crisis, which has hit Ukraine hard.

The country's banking system is under heavy strain, and even those lenders which are not on the brink of collapse are being very cautious with their funds.

And then there are the roads.

Crumbling infrastructure

The 19th Century satirist, Nikolai Gogol, once said that Russia was a country of "fools and bad roads".

Gogol was a Ukrainian (though he wrote in Russian) and Ukraine was at that time part of the Russian Empire.

The second half of his blunt assessment certainly applies today to many of Ukraine's highways, which are crumbling and littered with potholes.

The country's transport infrastructure is in need of massive investment before it can cope with bus-loads of European football fans, let alone coaches full of footballers and their Wives-and-Girlfriends (WAGs.)

In the capital, Kiev, things only get worse.

Twice a day, the main artery from the airport into town turns itself into a vast traffic jam.

Like a metaphor for Ukraine's preparations for the tournament as a whole, it is paralysed by a combination of economic crisis, political instability, and endemic corruption.

Political interference

Andrei Kapustin is an investigative journalist who runs a website dedicated to tracking Ukraine's preparations for Euro 2012.

"As soon as it was announced that Ukraine was due to host the competition," he says, "local officials reached for their giant calculators to work out how they could get their hands on this money."

There are vast sums of money involved, and important contracts up for grabs to renovate airports, stadiums and other infrastructure.

But with a presidential election due before the end of January, Andrei Kapustin says that politics is getting in the way.

"The whole process is far too politicised. Because in Ukraine, all top managers are also political figures and Euro 2012 has become a political battleground."

The Ukrainian authorities agree they are playing for high stakes.

"Euro 2012 for Ukrainian people is not only a football event," Deputy Prime Minister Ivan Vasiukyk says.

Mr Vasiunyk is specifically responsible for Ukraine's preparations to host the competition.

"It's the biggest political and social project in the 18-year history of independent Ukraine," he adds. "It is one of the very practical steps for integrating Ukraine into the European community."

"If we will prepare to the highest standard, it means that we are equal partners, and Ukraine, as Poland, is a European country."

Delays

When Ukraine and Poland's joint bid to host the competition was declared the winner in Cardiff in 2007, the plan was that matches would be played in four cities in each country.

But after their latest assessment in May, UEFA said that so far, only Kiev was on track to host any matches at all.

If things stay that way, it will mean more than just a massive embarrassment for the Ukrainian authorities.

Kiev's Olympic stadium is undergoing a programme of expansion and renovation that has been beset by delays and disagreements over planning permission and land ownership.

Nearby are two football pitches attached to a football academy, where kids hone their ball-skills.

Progress in Ukraine's preparations for the competition over the next few months will have a direct impact not only on these children's future sports facilities, but also on the kind of country in which they grow up.

Source: BBC News

Political Popularity Ratings

KIEV, Ukraine -- After the collapse of coalition negotiations between Victor Yanukovych and Yulia Tymoshenko, both leaders announced they will run for president. Polls also show them leading a crowded field of candidates ahead of the 2010 vote.

Viktor Yanukovych and Yulia Tymoshenko
After more than a week of intrigues and intensive negotiations behind closed doors on forming a mega-coalition between opposition leader Victor Yanukovych and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, talks collapsed amid mutual distrust.

Yanukovych on June 7 said the Party of the Regions would never agree to elect Ukraine’s president in parliament. Just such a constitutional change was part of the talks, along with an extension of the current parliament's term until 2014.

A disappointed Tymsohenko addressed the nation the same day, blaming Yanukovych for pulling out of the talks “without warning.”

A telephone poll conducted among 1,000 Ukrainians on June 7 by the Gorshenin Institute, a Kyiv think tank, showed that 63 percent approved of Yanukovych’s move and supported his argument that the president should be elected by national vote. Both leaders said in their televised addresses to the nation that they would run for president, entering a crowded field as front-runners, according to most polls.

A recent poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology finds 34.7 percent favor Yanukovych and Tymoshenko trailing him with 22 percent. Behind them are former Verkhovna Rada speaker Arseniy Yatseniuk with 19.2 percent, Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko with 6 percent and President Victor Yushchenko with just 3 percent.

The next presidential election will most likely take place on Jan. 17, 2010. But the date has not been officially set by parliament.

Tymoshenko’s leader in parliament, Ivan Kyrylenko, said his faction would continue to push for a popular coalition to combat the economic crisis. “We’re not giving up hope and will not stop [negotiating.] There is no alternative to unification of effort,” Kyrylenko said on June 9.

Meanwhile, Ukrainians expressed disgust at the political infighting and gridlock that is stalling government action on a number of issues.

Source: Kyiv Post

Yushchenko Leaves Russian In Draft Constitution Out Of Respect For Russians

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said he has decided to leave a mention of the Russian language in his draft new constitution out of respect for the Russian community in the country.

Viktor Yushchenko
“I would like to make myself clear as president that the current version of the language policy in Ukraine is correct” the Ukrainian language is an official language, a maternal language that is protected and developed by a special law,” Yushchenko said during a teleconference with law students on Friday.

“As for the Russian language and other ethnic minority languages, we fully comply with the requirements of the European convention on languages [European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages],” he said.

According to the president, the Russian language is mentioned in the draft constitution “solely out of tactfulness and respect for the minority that is the biggest among ethnic minorities” in Ukraine.

He noted that the principles proclaimed in the current constitution would be continued.

“This is an ethical compromise and respect for the people who know this language,” he added.

Yushchenko believes that it won’t be possible to change the constitution before the upcoming presidential election to be held on January 17, 2010.

Earlier, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Vasily Kirilich said the problem of the Russian language in the country was far-fetched.

"I do not see any problems with the Russian language in Ukraine," he said after a visit to the country by OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities Knut Vollebaek.

In Ukraine "every citizen speaks the language which he considers native or which he more comfortable for communication", Kirilich said.

"Where else in the world is there a parliament where deputies speak a foreign [Russian] language, except for the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada?" he said.

He stressed the need "to speak about what Ukraine and Russia have in common rather then focus on what they have in difference".

"Our countries have very many common and generally positive things," Kirilich said.

Vollebaek studied the educational rights of ethnic Russians in Ukraine. During his trips to Kiev, the Crimea, the Donetsk and Lvov regions, Vollebaek visited educational institutions where teaching is conducted in Russian and meet with members of the Russian community, central and regional authorities.

Vollebaek is now expected to prepare a report with recommendations on how to ensure the educational rights of ethnic Russians in Ukraine. The document will be handed over to the Russian government.

Kirilich said the reports should be expected by autumn.

Ukraine does not have to account to anyone for its language policy, Culture and Tourism Minister Vasily Vovkun said.

"Our actions should be principled, consistent and offensive because they are based on the Constitution of Ukraine and national interests," Vovkun said.

The minister made it clear that "the development of an integral national language and cultural space based on the promotion of the Ukrainian language in all spheres of public life, on the presence of the national cultural product in proper volumes on the domestic market has been determined by the government as an important strategic objective. But the implementation of this strategic task envisages, among other things, the adoption and practical realisation of Ukraine's Language Policy Concept, the new Ukrainian law 'On the Official Language', and amendments to the Law on the Ratification of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages."

Having emphasised the need for strict compliance with language legislation in Ukraine, Vovkun expressed his readiness to "allow Russian-speaking residents of cities in the east and south of the country to learn the official language through language courses set up under cultural institutions, such as libraries, higher educational institutions, theatres, research and methodology centres."

However he did not specify whether it would be an operational or obligatory procedure for people living in regions that have been fighting for the quality of the Russian and Ukrainian languages for more than 20 years.

However Verkhovna Rada member Vadim Kolesnichnko said the rights of Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine were systematically violated.

"The Verkhovna Rada has adopted 43 laws that exclude the Russian language from our life," Kolesnichenko said.

"Over 3,000 schools have been destroyed" over the years of independence, he said.

Teaching in universities in 19 Ukrainian regions where half of the population speak Russian is conducted in Ukrainian. There are no Russian-language schools in six regions, and four regions each have only one.

According to the lawmaker, the Russian language has been barred from radio, television, films, and business. "The future of our children is not enviable" in such a situation, he added.

Source: ITAR-TASS

50 Richest Ukrainians

KIEV, Ukraine -- In its annual survey, Korrespondent magazine, the Russian-language sister publication of the Kyiv Post, found that Ukraine’s 50 wealthiest citizens lost 75 percent of their net worth since last year.


A rising tide lifts all boats. And a sinking one lowers them. Such was the case with Ukraine’s 50 richest citizens. Korrespondent magazine, Kyiv Post’s Russian-language sister publication, found in its latest survey that the elite club’s net worth dropped 75 percent since last year.

The fourth-annual rankings by the news magazine, whose special edition hit newsstands on June 12, are closely watched for what the results say about Ukraine’s economy. And this year’s results show wealth evaporated like ice cubes on hot pavement in summer.

This year, Korrespondent found that the top 50 combined are worth only $28.9 billion – roughly $2 billion less than Rinat Akmetov’s wealth in 2008 all by himself. This year, Akhmetov again tops the charts, but with only $9.2 billion to his name. Akhmetov, a steel and mining magnate whose System Capital Management conglomerate has branched out into many other industries, is just the highest-profile victim of the global financial crisis and economic downturn.

“Companies dependent on export markets, specifically in the metals and mining industry, which had led the Ukrainian stock market’s surge in 2007, were the first to suffer when the world economy started to deteriorate in the second half of 2008,” said Victor Luhovyk, research editor at Dragon Capital, the Kyiv-based investment bank that worked in partnership with Korrespondent magazine on the annual evaluations.

The combined market capitalization of domestic metallurgical companies fell by 80 percent in the last year, to $7.9 billion, while the value of mining companies slumped to a 78 percent hit, down to $5 billion. “This is why many of the top 50 with assets in mining and metallurgy saw their worth plummet by 80 to 90 percent over the past year,” Luhovyk said.

Other industries withstood the downturn better. The combined market value of listed agricultural and consumer companies (including agriculture, food processing, retail and a few other sectors) declined by 41 percent. Luhovyk said other companies with assets in agriculture and food processing suffered less, losing between 40 and 70 percent of their value.

But the upshot remains that modernization, infrastructure development and capital-raising efforts have slowed as the Ukrainian economy finds itself in crisis and companies find their survival is at stake. Yuriy Belinsky, Astrum Investment Management’s head of research, said initial public offerings “were postponed and company transparency was one of the victims.”

But with an average net worth of more than $500 million, the top dogs of Ukraine still have money for Mercedes and mansions – or even to invest into their businesses or their employees, if they so choose.

And, unlike their financial worth, their political clout hasn’t suffered, civil society experts and political scientists noted.

Ukraine’s captains of industry still finance political parties and have commanding influence on decisions made by government on all levels. Unlike in Russia, where the wealthiest have lost their “oligarch” status and have been brought to heel by the Kremlin, the clout wielded by the richest in Ukraine is enormous.

“It is pluralistic and in perpetual competition with one another since no one has a ‘controlling stake.’ They all have ‘blocking stakes’,” said Oleksandr Paskhaver, president of the Center for Economic Development, a think tank in Kyiv.

Astrum’s Belinsky says there are enough competing interests and power centers at the top – for now – to prevent the wealthiest from totally running the state. “If such a balance was to shift in favor of one group or a limited number of groups, then we would risk getting a real, full-fledged ‘captured’ economy in Ukraine,” Belinsky said.

Nevertheless, many believe that the best interests of society are still mainly ignored by the ruling elite in business.

“We have an elite that is separate from citizens. They don’t pay attention to civil society interests. Our politicians pursue, at most, a populist policy,” said Yevhen Bystrytsky, head of the International Renaissance Foundation in Kyiv, a civil society development organization funded by philanthropist George Soros.

Bystrytsky cited the recently failed talks to form a “broad coalition” between Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s eponymous bloc and the Party of Regions led by ex-Prime Minister Victor Yanukovych. The pair ignored the public and denied people access to information.

“Their coalition talks were undercover. It wasn’t public. Civil society simply accepted their talks as the private interests of the oligarchs,” Bystrytsky said. “They just wanted to freeze the political regime that has been in place since the Orange Revolution.”

But while the same old crowd dominates the new list of the 50 richest, the presence of five newcomers is seen as a welcome sign that wealth is being generated in areas of the economy that were not part of the traditional Soviet heavy-industry structure. However, Luhovyk said, Ukraine’s economy still remains heavily dependent on exports such as steel.

“This is, of course, a positive sign, both in terms of economic diversification and the strength of local demand,” said Luhovyk, referring to such entrepreneurs as Oleksandr Kardakov, who runs a successful information technology company and is worth an estimated $118 million.

Other newcomers to Korrespondent’s top 50 list include: No. 18, Yevhen Seagul, Agromars, $334 million; No. 28, Ivan Huta, Mriya, $192 million; No. 35, Stepan Ivahiv, Kontinuum, $156 million; No. 38, Volodymyr Zahoriy, Darnitsa, $141 million; and No. 47, Danylo and Mykhailo Korylkevych, Dakor, $87 million.

To crack the list, a net worth of $65 million was needed. The 50th spot is occupied in the 2009 rankings by Oleksandr Derkach.

Source: Kyiv Post

"Sexy Ukrainian Women Looking For Love": The Fight Against Sex Tourism

KIEV, Ukraine -- Late last year, as Ukraine started getting seriously hit by the financial crisis, a man in a faux-leather jacket stood on Kiev’s main avenue, Khreschatik Boulevard, strapped into a red-lettered billboard offering "Sexy Ukrainian Women Looking for Love." Next to him on a small table was a folder of pictures of potential "brides." Women walked past, averting their gazes.

Anna Hutsol, founder of the feminist organization FEMEN.
Anna Hutsol, a young woman wearing long shorts and high-top sneakers, emerged from the metro stop. She rolled her eyes at the sign before heading to a nearby café.

"People think of Ukraine as this giant brothel," she said. "They can’t tell you about any landmarks or monuments in Ukraine. But they can tell you that there are pretty girls in Kiev who wear next to nothing when it’s summer, and that Kiev’s an easy place to find so-called love."

Hutsol, 24, has cropped, tangerine colored hair. She founded the feminist organization FEMEN last spring to fight the culture of sex tourism in Ukraine. FEMEN organizes its activism via VKontakte, a Russian version of Facebook, and stages provocative protests that have won press attention.

After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1993, Russian mail-order brides became a distressing cliché, but as Russia grew wealthy its women were less reliant on foreign husbands. So foreigners looking for an easy marriage turned to Russia’s neighbor, Ukraine. Traveling there was once a lengthy process involving embassies and visa fees, but in 2005 the nation dropped visa requirements for citizens of the European Union and the United States. Consequently, more than 20 million people visit Ukraine each year, and the capital, Kiev, is now a popular tourist destination.

Unfortunately, one of Kiev’s main tourist attractions seems to be women. When the visa laws changed, Ukraine, once just a notorious source of sex-trafficked women, now became a sex-industry destination as well, a gateway from East to West. Explained one sex worker, prostituted Ukrainian women who had worked in other Eastern bloc countries such as the Czech Republic and Poland then came home. Child pornography also grew more prevalent, since it was now easy to enter this relatively poor country and exploit underage victims, especially homeless children and orphans.

Prostitution is illegal in Ukraine and difficult to track. Official police reports claim there are 12,000 prostitutes, but FEMEN believes the numbers are much higher. If someone is caught soliciting, a nominal fine is paid. No customers or johns are apprehended. In regional cities, police contact the prostituted woman’s parents, a shaming technique intended to decrease the incidence of prostitution.

But brothels remain boldly unembarrassed. The website of Gia Escorts proudly declares, "Ukraine is now the Sex Capital of Europe! …Ukrainian women are more agreeable, dress more revealingly and are cheaper than Western women. Men from the West can get away with saying and doing things they could never get away with [with] the women in their native countries."

In July of last year, FEMEN organized 30 young women to stand in Independence Square in Kiev carrying signs reading "Ukraine is not a brothel" in several different languages. The most attention-getting part of the protest was that the demonstrators were dressed stereotypically as prostituted women, in tiny skirts, thighhigh stockings and feather boas.

"The Ukrainian newspapers were angry, saying we were creating problems, talking about something that didn’t exist," says Hutsol. "But the Western press [Reuters and AFP] actually looked at the problem for what it was, and only then did Ukrainian papers follow."

The rise in sex tourism has also led to the growth of industries such as child pornography and child prostitution. "I can see a direct correlation between tourism and child prostitution," says Iryna Konchenkova, head of the international nonprofit School of Equal Opportunities in Ukraine. According to Konchenkova, 11 percent of prostitutes are between the ages of 11 and 15, while 19 percent are between 16 and 17: "So I would say 30 percent of prostitutes in Ukraine are underage. …Street kids get attracted to this. They get fed, they get cleaned, they are warm; some think it’s one of the better things that has happened to them." Konchenkova has had many cases where children became upset when they were no longer wanted by pimps: "A 14-year-old girl told me in an aggrieved voice that she was considered too old to work in pornography anymore."

Konchenkova adds that the children’s values are a problem. "When you ask [these girls] where they see themselves in 10 years, they say a nice house, a floor-length dress, an expensive car," she says. "They see Western commercials of luxury life and they want it. At the same time these girls get only threes [C’s] at school, so they must change either their intentions or their attitude towards money."

Women are drawn to accepting "dubious" proposals from traffickers by the desire to make money, provide for families and see other countries, says Katya Cherepakha, the social assistance coordinator at the international women’s rights center, La Strada Ukraine. An exacerbating factor is Ukraine’s relative poverty: The World Bank-estimated average annual purchasing power of Ukrainians is $7,000 per person, compared to $46,000 in the U.S. Women are also misled by lack of information about the true nature of trafficking and deceptive examples of successful emigrants. "Traffickers are getting smarter," says Cherepakha. "They give a piece of true information—about the process of employment, for example—but all the rest of the information is not true." Women who have a lack of familial support or problems at home, such as domestic violence, are especially susceptible to such offers.

In 11 years, La Strada’s helpline has received 38,500 phone calls, 64 percent from people applying for work overseas and checking on how safe a country is. But 4 percent are from people searching for loved ones, and another 4 percent are from family members trying to get help to trafficked relatives, ranging from paying for court cases to getting them to an airport.

Hutsol wishes Ukrainian women would be more suspicious of little-known men making promises of any sort: "My own friends think that if they meet a foreigner they will have the perfect life. …But in reality they meet men, mostly from Turkey, who sleep with them, promise them the world and don’t even leave a phone number. That’s another problem with Ukraine having a reputation for beautiful, available women: Sex tourism isn’t always solely about prostitution."

Source: Ms. Magazine

Add Stray Dogs To List Of Dangers On Kiev’s Streets

KIEV, Ukraine -- Dog may be man’s best friend. But lately in Kyiv, more of them are becoming dangerous enemies. And some believe that municipal corruption and indifference are at the root of the capital city’s growing canine problem – charges denied by a key adviser to Kyiv Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky.

These are dogs from the private Yasnogorodka dog shelter, home to 500 dogs picked up from Kiev’s streets by volunteers. Kiev’s problem with stray and dangerous dogs is growing.
Packs of stray or uncontrolled dogs run loose throughout Kyiv, an estimated 30,000 in all, up from only 6,000 two years ago.

Many of the dogs are harmless as they sleep near metro entrances and look for their next meal. But others are angry, diseased and ready to attack. They are even ready to kill. On June 3, an unleashed German shepherd killed 8-year-old Dasha Lavrova in Solomyanskiy district of Kyiv. A year ago, the same dog bit a 12-year-old boy’s ear, seriously wounding him.

“Earlier there never was a situation like this in Kyiv,” said resident Tetiana Stetsenko. “I am afraid to go to the shop in the evening. Every time when I am bringing a bag with food from the shop, dogs follow me and every time I am afraid they will bite me.’

Animal protectors say that the Kyiv city administration allocated Hr 76 million to sterilize stray dogs or build them shelters, but that the program received only Hr 1.5 million.

“The money for solving the stray dogs problem was used for the 2008 Kyiv mayor election campaign,” said Asia Serpinska, owner of a private dog shelter and director of the non-governmental organization Kyiv Animal Protection Community.

Svitlana Berzina, an adviser to Chernovetsky who is charge of managing the municipal dog sterilizing program, denied the allegation of wrongdoing or that any public money was misspent.

“Taking money from the budget is impossible,” Berzina said. “Distribution of this money is controlled by a special organ, the Control and Revision Administration, which is independent from the Kyiv City Administration. If it discovers misuse of money, it punishes the guilty.”

Berzina said that Hr 76 million is the total cost for dog neutering program for 2008-2011. The Kyiv budget was only to allocate Hr 8 million each year, and did so in 2008. She could not explain the discrepancy between her own and Serpinska’s figures.

The rest of the money was supposed to come from charity donations and income of the municipal enterprises in charge of the program. Three municipal enterprises – Dog Shelter, a center for animal identification and a Kyiv municipal veterinary clinic – are in charge.

“All the animal protection organizations do is criticize the local government. But instead, they should more actively work to collect money for the program,” Berzina said. The mayoral adviser suggested that private veterinary and other pet-related services could be a good way to get extra cash for the municipal organizations.

Olha Drosdova, director of municipal enterprise Dog Shelter in Borodianka, 35 kilometers southwest of Kyiv, said the economic crisis – not corruption – is to blame for why large-scale sterilization has not taken place. “I think the sterilization program won’t be financed to the end of 2009,” Drosdova said. “We receive money only for staff salaries.”

According to the Kyiv City State Administration, only 2,500 dogs were sterilized last year. Since the start of the year, money ran out almost completely – except for staff salaries – and only 485 dogs have been sterilized.

Drosdova agrees that sterilization is a big part of the solution. “To solve the problem, no less than 80 percent of all stray dogs in the city should be sterilized,” she said.

Animal rights organizations would like to sterilize dogs at their own cost in private clinics, but at a cost of Hr 250 per dog, they don’t have the money.

Outside of Ukraine, rounding up stray dogs and euthanizing them if no homes are found is a common practice. “Unfortunately we don’t have regulations on this issue yet. The Environmental Ministry is now working on developing them,” Berzina said. Pet owners are obliged to register dogs at the Center for Animal Identification. But often they don’t, just as they ignore laws requiring leashes and muzzles and just as they ignore cleaning up after their pets.

Meanwhile, dog complaints against the city are rising – sometimes up to 50 a day – and the number of record dog bites hit 747 in the first quarter of 2009, well ahead of the pace in recent years.

A stray dog attacked resident Larysa Budash as she walked along the street eating a sandwich. “When I was going to bite off a sandwich, a dog trying to get a sandwich bit my chin, ” she said.

Animal rights activists fear that more radical measures are going to be used to control dogs, if the city doesn’t solve the problem. “I am afraid that if the sterilization program isn’t re-started soon more radical measures that abuse animal rights would have to be used for problem solution,” said Dina Hura, head of the animal protection organization Let Animals Live. She knows of several cases in which stray dogs have been deliberately poisoned.

On the other hand, “if the problem is left unsolved, the stray-dog population could increase up to 80,000,” Hura said.

Source: Kyiv Post

Kremlin's Crimes - Is Russia Determined To Repeat Its History?

WASHINGTON, DC -- As European democracies celebrate the 20th anniversary of their liberation from communism and the Soviets, Moscow seeks to restore its dominance over former satellites. Rewriting Russian history is part of this plan. The Putinist notion of a progressive Soviet system in the past is designed to provide justification for Russia's current assertiveness in the region.

Through the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, Stalin schemed with Hitler to carve up Eastern Europe.
Take Moscow's annual May 9 parade, which celebrates the "victory over fascism" on the anniversary of Nazi Germany's surrender to the Allies. The entire exercise is based on a monumental national delusion fostered by the Kremlin.

Although Russia was one of the victorious powers at the end of World War II, Moscow continues to disguise the historic record that the Soviet Union itself helped launch the war in close alliance with Nazi Germany. Through the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, Stalin schemed with Hitler to carve up Eastern Europe.

Russia has recently intensified its revisionist campaign, claiming that it voluntarily gave up communism and the Soviet Bloc and that the Cold War ended in a draw with the West. Russia's state propagandists maintain that the USSR never occupied its neighboring states after World War II, but rather liberated them from tyranny.

And they minimize the Kremlin's imposition of a totalitarian system over the region that stifled its political and economic progress for almost half a century. Unlike post-war Germany, Moscow has never paid reparations for Soviet crimes and expropriations in Central and Eastern Europe.

Moscow also disguises the fact that Stalin murdered more Russians and other Soviet citizens than Nazi Germany. Its official figure of 27 million war dead includes several millions of Stalin's victims during Soviet civilian deportations and military purges.

Instead of admitting that it was a perpetrator and an opportunist in the destruction of Europe, Russia, as the successor state to the Soviet Union, depicts itself as a victim and a victor.

Moscow took another step to revise its history last month when it formed a presidential inter-departmental commission to promote the Soviet version of history and to tackle alleged "anti-Russian" propaganda that damages the country's international image. The commission's mandate is to formulate policy options to "neutralize the negative consequences" of what they consider to be historical falsifications aimed against Russia.

This is in particular a response to steps by neighboring governments in Estonia, Poland, Ukraine, and elsewhere to talk openly about Soviet repression and to remove monuments that glorify the Soviet occupation.

The committee has no independent historians, and is comprised of bureaucrats from government ministries, representatives from military and intelligence agencies, several pro-Kremlin spin-doctors, and nationalistic lawmakers.

The chairman of this "historic truth" commission, Sergei Naryshkin, is chief of staff in President Dmitry Medvedev's administration and a loyal supporter of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. As Russian liberals have pointed out, this commission bears an eerie resemblance to Soviet institutions that established a monopoly over scientific and scholarly truths.

Additionally, legislators from the ruling United Russia Party have proposed amendments to the penal code that will make the "falsification of history" a criminal offence. If passed by the Duma, this could result in mandatory jail terms for anyone in the former Soviet Union convicted of "rehabilitating Nazism."

This draft bill is not designed to fight neo-Nazis or fascist ideology. Instead, it would allow the criminal prosecution of individuals who question whether the Soviets really "liberated" Eastern Europe toward the end of the war or whether countries such as Georgia welcomed their annexation by the Czarist Empire.

This would open the door to possible legal campaigns against political leaders in neighboring countries, including Ukraine, Georgia, and the three Baltic states, who challenge Russia's distorted version of history.

Last month's parade, where soldiers in Czarist-style uniforms carried the red flag with the yellow hammer and sickle across the Red Square, was an almost exact reenactment of Soviet-era self-glorification. The spectacle sent an unmistakable message to all formerly occupied territories that Russia remains the strongest military continental power and continues its Czarist and Soviet traditions.

During the May display President Medvedev warned unnamed adversaries who were supposedly contemplating "military adventures" against Russia -- a thinly veiled threat to keep Ukraine and Georgia out of NATO. The Kremlin's new historiography of Russia as a proud, virtuous neighbor to those in its sphere helps provide an intellectual underpinning for such posturing.

Western countries, including the former Soviet satellites, can take steps to expose Russia's historical revisionism by sponsoring international conferences and symposia, by opening up all pertinent state archives to scholars, by educating the younger generation about communist crimes, and simply by talking openly about the Soviet era.

As Russia glosses over its dark past and flexes its muscles, the fear is that those who rewrite history may also be determined to repeat it.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

How 1989 Fanned Flames In Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine -- As the 1989 revolution swept through the countries of Central Europe, tremors went right across the Soviet Union. At that time, in the Baltic states as well as in Ukraine, the prospects of independence suddenly looked very real.

Leonid Kravchuk ran for president in 1991 and 1994.
In a richly decorated office in central Kiev, Leonid Kravchuk is happy to talk about 1989. Then a senior functionary of the Ukrainian Communist Party, he says it was totally unprepared for grassroots protests.

"We were in a full session of the Central Committee one day," he tells the BBC, "when someone ran up and said, 'There are two women with a placard outside!' My God, we stopped the session and I was sent down to investigate.

"It turned out they wanted money for a rail ticket," he laughs. "And so had decided to attract attention in this manner. I gave them 40 roubles, but the whole Central Committee was spooked by two women with one placard. There was fear because no-one ever stood against the Party."

It was the time of glasnost, of openness in the media which the then Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev introduced. Poet Ivan Drach took it very seriously.

He says he knows exactly how many people could fit into the hall at the Writers' Union headquarters in the leafy part of Kiev: 167.

"When we spoke here about the need for change, the hall was always full," Drach says. "And soon we needed bigger halls, but they were also not large enough."

No easy ride

So in smoky rooms, writers like Drach decided the time was right for bigger things - and they founded Rukh, or "Movement" in Ukrainian.

At first Rukh's aims were to support Gorbachev's reforms against the die-hard regional party elites, but very quickly it became clear that the authorities in Moscow were neither controlling the situation nor capable of grasping what they had unleashed.

"Gorbachev decided to let a little bit of genie out of the bottle," laughs Ivan Drach. "But you cannot let out just a little bit. It is just like toothpaste - once you squeeze it out, you cannot put it back into the tube."

What had started as a loyal grassroots group in time evolved into a political movement demanding full independence. This frightened quite a few people, even those who had opposed the Soviet regime for years.

Semyon Gluzman spent 10 years in gulag camps and exile for exposing the abuses of Soviet psychiatry. In his tiny office at Kiev's main psychiatric hospital with all kinds of awards and accolades displayed on the walls, he says he had genuine fears.

"I will be honest, I thought this country could be more repressive, more anti-Semitic and the party machine here could create its own independent fiefdom and run it the way they wanted. I am glad I was wrong, and Ukraine is more democratic and freer than I thought it would be."

Yet, independence was not an easy ride. The communist authorities wanted to keep power, by force if necessary.

Phone warning

Threats and intimidation were nothing unusual. "I could write a book about them," says Ivan Drach. "And the threats were really nasty. As soon as I spoke sharply about the need to break away from Moscow, my son was badly beaten."

Even high rank did not provide immunity. Leonid Kravchuk, later elected the first president of independent Ukraine, tells of his and Boris Yeltsin's escape from a hunting lodge in Belarus in December 1991, where they discussed the break up of the Soviet Union with their Belarussian host Stanislav Shushkevich.

"Boris Yeltsin took me to one side," reminisces Kravchuk, "and told me that we should fly home immediately. We got into our cars, boarded our planes and took off, but did not tell the air traffic control of our routes. Simply, Boris Yeltsin got a phone call from Moscow warning him of danger."

Of course people in Ukraine were watching events in countries like Poland closely. Writer Andrei Kurkov travelled there at the time, mostly to the mining areas in Silesia.

"I envied the Poles," he says over tea at his dacha outside Kiev. "I thought they were 10 years ahead of us. But then things in Ukraine took off really quickly."

Many in Ukraine argued that it was much easier for the Poles: one nation, one language, one religion, its own Pope and fairly recent memories of freedom.

Ukraine was and still is a more diverse if not divided country. Ukrainian and Russian compete for linguistic dominance, eastern and western regions compete for power and there are all sorts of ecclesiastical splits that would take ages to explain.

'Small steps'

Yet, there was one powerful, uniting factor for all Ukrainians: Chernobyl.

The degree of lies, secrecy and disregard for people's lives after Chernobyl critically undermined whatever was left of trust in the authorities.

A powerful Green Movement was formed. It could easily bring tens of thousands of people out onto the streets and the authorities could do nothing about it.

Very quickly the Green demands merged with those of Rukh - a better, freer and cleaner Ukraine in every sense of the word.

Yuri Scherbak, a doctor, a writer and later a diplomat was one of the key figures of the Chernobyl movement.

"It was such an amazing time," he tells me in his top floor flat where his desk is adorned with pictures of him with US presidents and other top politicians.

"We were romantics, we believed we would change the world quickly. Of course it was an illusion."

Indeed, it was naïve to believe Ukraine would become a European democracy overnight, but in terms of freedom, according to Semyon Gluzman, it is doing much better than most other ex-Soviet states.

"What we need is small steps", he says. "In fact, I am a specialist in small steps."

There have also been big leaps in Ukraine over the past 20 years: it may still be building its identity as a nation, but it has a functioning state, relatively free media and, even though it is still a poor country, there have been marked improvements in the standard of living.

The global crisis is hitting Ukraine very hard, and an IMF pledge to help with $16bn (£10bn) may not be enough to put its export-based economy back on track.

In 1991, two years after Leonid Kravchuk's Central Committee meeting was disturbed by those two women with a placard, I was standing in what is now Independence Square in central Kiev. Next to me was a huge statue of Lenin - but a Lenin with a difference.

Daubed in red paint, with the word "hangman" written across him, he did not survive long.

A week or so later a crane lifted the Lenin off the pedestal and transported him into oblivion.

Over the years Ukraine has travelled a long way, but looking now at the challenges facing it - in the economy and, crucially, in sorting out its messy politics - I keep feeling that winching away Lenin was actually the easy bit.

Source: BBC News

Russian MP Returns From Ukraine After Detention On Aircraft

SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine -- A Russian lawmaker who is blacklisted from entering Ukraine has returned from the country after a failed attempt to attend a Russian language festival, Russia’s consulate in Simferopol said on Tuesday.

Konstantin Zatulin
Konstantin Zatulin was declared persona non grata by Ukraine last July over his “anti-Ukrainian” statement that the Crimea should be returned to Russia.

Zatulin flew from St. Petersburg to the Crimean city of Simferopol on Saturday, but was prevented from leaving the plane. After waiting on board for several hours, he complained of high blood pressure, and was admitted to a local hospital.

After arriving in Moscow, the lawmaker told reporters that Ukraine’s security officers refused to give a satisfactory explanation for refusing to admit him, and said he had been let into the country on January 31 this year.

“I understand that Ukraine can deny access to its territory if it wants to, but it should give reasons for such a move,” he said.

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) says that Zatulin’s ban on entering Ukraine remains in force.

However, Zatulin said that the last document on the issue that he received from the Ukrainian authorities was the August 7, 2008 note from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, granting him free entrance to Ukraine.

“They have not notified me that I’m banned from entering Ukraine since them,” he said, adding that he and the Russian Foreign Ministry notified Ukraine of the visit in advance.

As well as his controversial comments on the Crimea, where the Russian Black Sea Fleet still has a base, Zatulin angered the Ukrainian government with his participation in anti-NATO protests. He earlier appealed his ban with a Ukrainian Court.

He stood by his statement, saying: “The main thing I want to say is that Crimea, of course, wants to come home… The Ukrainian authorities, which do not want to see us on their territory, could easily resolve this problem by returning the Crimea to Russia.”

Russia’s consulate in Simferopol has protested over the incident, while Russia’s Foreign Ministry has called Ukraine’s continued blacklisting of the lawmaker “unfriendly.”

Vladimir Pashedko, Russia’s senior consul in the Crimean city, said Zatulin will continue to work to have the ban lifted. “Zatulin is known for his positive feelings to Ukraine and Ukrainians - this is a fraternal love to a brotherly nation,” Pashedko said.

The Crimea was part of the Russian empire and of Soviet Russia until Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev handed it in 1954 to Soviet Ukraine. After the Soviet Union’s breakup in 1991, the peninsula became part of independent Ukraine.

Source: RIA Novosti

"Sex Pats" Discover Ukraine's Alluring Women

KIEV, Ukraine -- In the early summer evenings you see them individually and in groups: foreign men, of all ages and nationalities -- ex-Soviet, European, North American, Middle Eastern and African. They sit in the outdoor cafes that adorn Kiev's winding central streets, or patrol about the main Independence Square like guerrilla squads. At night they pack the discos and restaurants and bars.

Activists of FEMEN, a women's rights organization, protest during their action "Ukraine is not brothel " on Independence square in Kiev.
Some of them study and work here. Others have come to take in the architecture, history and museums of this breathtaking Eastern European capital, or are on their way to a vacation in one of the picturesque outlying towns.

Many, however, have a less exalted purpose in mind: to meet women. And the more the better.

It's called sex tourism, and the practitioners "sex pats" -- a play on the word expat or expatriate. The phenomenon is all-too-common throughout the world, including in South America, Asia and Africa.

Now it seems that it has arrived in the former Eastern Bloc with a vengeance.

Riga, Prague and Krakow have been overrun by the planeload, aided by budget airlines like Ireland's RyanAir. The men are lured by perceptions that the pickings are easier than at home, whether because of reported liberal attitudes, a possible preference for foreigners or difficult economic circumstances among the local population. And that thanks to their anonymity, they can behave as boorishly as they want.

Ukraine, where the women pride themselves on their beauty and femininity, has become one of the most popular destinations. ("What country has the most alluring women?" is a favorite and legitimate conversation topic here -- pondered by men and women alike. Any answer other than "Ukraine" usually elicits disappointment or even outrage.)

The stag parties that have blighted other Eastern European cities -- drunken, rowdy and often British hordes who accost locals and regularly expose themselves -- thankfully have not arrived here. But a multitude of other parties have.

For many, the purpose is straightforward enough: find a girlfriend or even a wife. (Western Internet introduction and marriage sites, with names like "Ukrainian Brides," are a worldwide business that rakes in the millions, if not billions.) This often bleeds into a quest simply for easy sex -- often among the marriage agencies, where men abuse the service, trying to meet and bed as many women in their short stay here as possible.

Unsurprisingly, prostitution has by all appearances metasized, and with it a host of other ills. According to the International HIV/AIDS Alliance in Ukraine, the country has the one of the highest HIV rates in Europe, and for the first time last year, infections through sex exceeded those from drug injection. Human trafficking for the sex trade also remains a chronic tragedy, though no official figures exist to pinpoint whether it is actually rising or remaining constant.

Anna Hutsol of the organization "FEMEN" wants to change all this. For a year, she and her group of activists have carried out a series of eye-catching demonstrations -- for example, parading around the city in skimpy and provocative clothing to attract attention, and then handing out fliers to expatriate men, informing them that, among other things, prostitution is illegal in Ukraine.

"We are certain that the aim of your visit to our country is absolutely decent," one flier says. "Unfortunately ... your compatriots come to Ukraine to get easy sex using the fact that Ukraine girls are poor, unprotected and naive."

FEMEN strives to add teeth to laws against prostitution. At the moment, sex workers and pimps pay a a fine (although very small), while clients are left alone. The organization would like to see sex tourism defined in the legal code and clients punished as well, and possibly deported from the country. Recent anti-prostitution legislation was introduced at the beginning of the year, but so far has languished, Hutsol said.

Ultimately, FEMEN wants to change how all foreigners regard Ukrainian women, who suffer from an association with the sex trade throughout Europe, as well as how Ukrainian women view themselves.

"The basic problem is that we lack emancipation," Hutsol said. "Men take care of us economically -- men provide everything. Very few women see any kind of independent future."

On a recent Friday night, Hutsol and her cohorts conducted a major action under Kiev's central monument. German electronic-music celebrity DJ Hell provided the sounds for a mini rave, while dozens of college students paraded in avant garde fashion from local designers. At the end, a group of protesters, dressed only in bikinis, held up a banner and shouted, "Ukraine is not a bordello!"

Many young women among the hundreds of onlookers supported FEMEN's message that foreign men should also appreciate Ukrainian culture and history, and that it was insulting when they spent their days simply chasing introductions.

The majority of those questioned, however, said that the foreigners were in general very respectful, and in many cases better behaved than their own male population. Many said that they had foreign friends and boyfriends, and that men would not come here if local women were not themselves interested in meeting non-Ukrainians.

"We love you all very much," said Yana Pashchits, 19, a student, who was participating in the fashion show. "We want you to come here."

Nevertheless, FEMEN's message was lost on some of the crowd.

Three Danish 30-year-old professionals happened upon the action, just three hours after arriving in Kiev for a long-weekend. "This is what it's all about," pointing to one of their number's T-shirt, which read, bluntly, "I Love Ukrainian Girls," and staring at the half-dressed beauties parading around him. However, when told what the demo was actually for, and that they were in fact being interviewed for a Western publication, they insisted that they had not come just to meet women.

But Rasmus Anderson, a product manager, added, almost as an afterthought: "You have to agree that there are some very pretty girls here."

Source: GlobalPost

Tymoshenko Blames Yushchenko For Obstructing Government's Fight Against Crisis

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has blamed President Viktor Yuschenko for obstructing the government-proposed anti-crisis measures and efforts to form a broad coalition to battle the crisis.

PM Yulia Tymoshenko and President Viktor Yushchenko in a file photo.
"The president is using flashy words today to deprive the nation, first of all its government, of the opportunity to counter the crisis, and to leave the nation without a government it logically needs," Tymoshenko said at a news conference in Kyiv on Tuesday in remarks about the president's criticism of her moves.

The president "has been living and working to the country's detriment," she said.

"This is not only my personal opinion, I think. I think almost all citizens share it," the prime minister said.

"Viktor Yushchenko has no right to any criticism. He is the incumbent president. He only has the right to work and to serve Ukraine. He will have the right to criticize when he joins the opposition. Now he must work and answer for his moves," she said.

Concerning the talks between the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc and the Party of Regions on the formation of a coalition and on constitutional amendments, the prime minister said, "We would carry the job through to the end, if the president did not initiate a hysteria and if he did not make statements about what he is not informed of, or has not the slightest idea of. It's too sad everything that was being built with so much difficulty has fallen apart due to the dirty campaign staged by high-placed officials," she said.

Source: Interfax-Ukraine

UPDATE: Six Dead, Seven Missing In Ukraine Mine Accident

DONETSK, Ukraine -- Rescue teams on Tuesday pressed on with efforts to find seven miners missing deep underground in Ukraine's Donbass coalfield more than 24 hours after an accident that killed six of their comrades.

A miner surfaces from the Skochinsky coal mine outside the regional capital Donetsk.
Rescue workers have conceded there is little chance of finding the missing men alive at the Skochynsky colliery, with gas levels still high and underground temperatures of 43 Celsius (109 Fahrenheit).

Thirty-one teams of rescue workers and medics have been dispatched to the mine in Donetsk, the coalfield's main centre.

Officials say the accident, 1,000 metres (3,300 feet) below the surface, was caused by a release of methane and a rock fall during maintenance work at the pit, equipped with some of Ukraine's most sophisticated safety equipment. Thirty-eight miners reached the surface safely.

Accidents are common in Ukrainian mines, many constructed in the 19th century and barely modernised since Soviet times.

About 200 miners died last year in accidents, but the toll has been declining. In 2007, more than 100 in three explosions occurring over two weeks. An explosion in 1998 killed 63 miners at Skochynsky mine.

Source: Yahoo News

Ukraine Mine Accident Leaves 26 Workers Missing

DONETSK, Ukraine -- Twenty-six workers were missing after an accident at a Ukrainian coal mine, an industry official said on Monday.


The official said some 27 of 53 miners had managed to reach to the surface after the accident in the Skochynsky mine near the eastern town of Donetsk.

"There was an ejection of coal and gas," a spokeswoman for the state industrial inspectorate told Reuters, adding that the exact situation in the mine including of those missing was as yet unclear.

Accidents are frequent in Ukrainian mines, many constructed in the 19th century and barely modernised since the Soviet times. More than 100 miners died in 2007 after three explosions in two week. A dozen died last year in similar blasts.

Source: World Bulletin

Tymoshenko Slams Yanukovych For Sabotaging Plans To Form ‘Unity’ Coalition, Launches Presidential Campaign

KIEV, Ukraine -- In a televised address to the nation that aired at 8 p.m. on June 7, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko slammed opposition leader Victor Yanukovych. She accused him of sabotaging talks to form a coalition that would have united four leading political groupings in the country, and helped to pull Ukraine out of economic recession.

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
“I believed that on this day we would unite all major political forces into a unity coalition. All agreed to unite,” Tymoshenko said referring to plans to form a coalition including her Byut bloc, Yanukovych’s Regions party, the Volodymyr Lytvyn bloc and a part of the Our Ukraine political grouping.

“But unfortunately, Victor Yanukovych put a period on these plans. Without warning anyone, he put a cross, killing plans to unite our political forces.”

Tymoshenko also accused Yanukovych and President Victor Yushchenko of sabotaging her government’s attempts to deal with the economic crisis, saying: “The anti-crisis program of the government is being burned, on the one side by Victor Yushchenko and on the other by Yanukovcyh.”

“Unfortunately, betrayal and sabotage still dominate Ukrainian politics,” she added.

Tymoshenko also declared “I will run for president and will win.” She insisted that Yanukovych tried to discredit her by misleading Ukrainian voters earlier in the day when he suggested that he did not support plans for the new coalition to adopt a new constitution which would have stripped citizens of the right to elect Ukraine’s next president, shifting this authority to parliament.

Tymoshenko said it was Yanukovych’s party which supported such constitutional amendments and also sought a clause in the constitution which would have only allowed candidates older than 50 years of age to run. Yanukovych is over 50 years of age. This clause would have eliminated other candidates, including Tymoshenko and former speaker Arseniy Yatseniuk.

Tymoshenko said the “chaos” which has ruled in Ukrainian politics in recent years was the result of constitutional amendments which were adopted in the heat of the Orange Revolution. She reminded voters that she opposed these constitutional changes, which Yushchenko accepted back then as part of a political compromise that opened the door for him to become Ukraine's president.

Tymoshenko pledged to fix the “dis-balances” in Ukraine’s constitution after the presidential elections. She also pledged to continue seeking unity in Ukrainian politics, and would continue to try forming a broad coalition that would more effectively help Ukraine battle economic recession.

“To end the economic crisis, we need to end the political crisis. The crux of this political crisis is this political reform which I opposed. We needed to give Ukraine a European constitution,” Tymoshenko added.

Source: Kyiv Post

A Vacation With Cold War Games? Head For Russia And Ukraine

LOS ANGELES, USA -- Forget ballerinas, St. Petersburg's frothy architecture and the herbal aromas of bathhouses. There's another, harder edge to tourism in the former Soviet Union.

After attending the KGB Military School, located near Kiev, no one will ever call you a "woosie".
For the Tom Clancy lovers, survivalists and others who like to play at war, a crop of tour companies offers Russian vacations with a dash of gun-toting machismo.

You can fire small arms, Kalashnikov assault rifles or rocket-propelled grenades. You can ride aboard a variety of tanks: World War II-era, or those used in the Afghan invasion or the Chechen war. You can fly a MiG fighter jet.

Sure, suburbanites pay for military-flavored wilderness jaunts in other countries, notably the U.S. But the Russian tours offer a dash of intrigue and play out against a backdrop of neo-Cold War stirrings.

"It's the history. For a lot of our customers, they grew up when you were supposed to hate the Russians," said Jane Reifert, president of Incredible Adventures, a Florida-based tour company that has designed packages for tourists interested in hand-to-hand combat training or flying Russian MiG fighter jets.

"They want to go to the KGB museum. They want to go to the air museum," she said. Moscow is crammed with museums celebrating nearly every imaginable security organization and equipment, including the air force, border guards, armored vehicles and Russia's FSB intelligence service.

Russia's neighbors offer their own military-themed vacations.

The KGB Military School in neighboring Ukraine offers lessons as diverse as lie detection, explosives and knife fighting. Also in Ukraine, Alaris offers the opportunity to play soldier, complete with grenade launchers, sniper rifles and tanks.

Tour prices appear to be negotiable, depending on the scope of military ambitions.

Source: The Los Angeles Times

We Had Our Perestroika. It's High Time For Yours

MOSCOW, Russia -- Years ago, as the Cold War was coming to an end, I said to my fellow leaders around the globe: The world is on the cusp of great events, and in the face of new challenges all of us will have to change, you as well as we. For the most part, the reaction was polite but skeptical silence.

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, heads the International Foundation for Socio-Economic and Political Studies, a Moscow-based think tank. He is the author of this article.
In recent years, however, during speaking tours in the United States before university audiences and business groups, I have often told listeners that I feel Americans need their own change -- a perestroika, not like the one in my country, but an American perestroika -- and the reaction has been markedly different. Halls filled with thousands of people have responded with applause.

Over time, my remark has prompted all kinds of comments. Some have reacted with understanding. Others have objected, sometimes sarcastically, suggesting that I want the United States to experience upheaval, just like the former Soviet Union. In my country, particularly caustic reactions have come from the opponents of perestroika, people with short memories and a deficit of conscience. And although most of my critics surely understand that I am not equating the United States with the Soviet Union in its final years, I would like to explain my position.

Our perestroika signaled the need for change in the Soviet Union, but it was not meant to suggest a capitulation to the U.S. model. Today, the need for a more far-reaching perestroika -- one for America and the world -- has become clearer than ever.

It is true that the need for change in the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s was urgent. The country was stifled by a lack of freedom, and the people -- particularly the educated class -- wanted to break the stranglehold of a system that had been built under Stalin. Millions of people were saying: "We can no longer live like this."

We started with glasnost -- giving people a chance to speak out about their worries without fear. I never agreed with my great countryman Alexander Solzhenitsyn when he said that "Gorbachev's glasnost ruined everything." Without glasnost, no changes would have occurred, and Solzhenitsyn would have ended his days in Vermont rather than in Russia.

At first, we labored under the illusion that revamping the existing system -- changes within the "socialist model" -- would suffice. But the pushback from the Communist Party and the government bureaucracy was too strong. Toward the end of 1986, it became clear to me and my supporters that nothing less than the replacement of the system's building blocks was needed.

We opted for free elections, political pluralism, freedom of religion and an economy with competition and private property. We sought to effect these changes in an evolutionary way and without bloodshed. We made mistakes. Important decisions were made too late, and we were unable to complete our perestroika.

Two conspiracies hijacked the changes -- the attempted coup in August 1991, organized by the hard-line opponents of our reforms, which ended up weakening my position as president, and the subsequent agreement among the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus to dissolve the Union. Russia's leaders then rejected the evolutionary path, plunging the country into chaos.

Nevertheless, when I am asked whether perestroika succeeded or was defeated, I reply: Perestroika won, because it brought the country to a point from which there could be no return to the past.

In the West, the breakup of the Soviet Union was viewed as a total victory that proved that the West did not need to change. Western leaders were convinced that they were at the helm of the right system and of a well-functioning, almost perfect economic model. Scholars opined that history had ended. The "Washington Consensus," the dogma of free markets, deregulation and balanced budgets at any cost, was force-fed to the rest of the world.

But then came the economic crisis of 2008 and 2009, and it became clear that the new Western model was an illusion that benefited chiefly the very rich. Statistics show that the poor and the middle class saw little or no benefit from the economic growth of the past decades.

The current global crisis demonstrates that the leaders of major powers, particularly the United States, had missed the signals that called for a perestroika. The result is a crisis that is not just financial and economic. It is political, too.

The model that emerged during the final decades of the 20th century has turned out to be unsustainable. It was based on a drive for super-profits and hyper-consumption for a few, on unrestrained exploitation of resources and on social and environmental irresponsibility.

But if all the proposed solutions and action now come down to a mere rebranding of the old system, we are bound to see another, perhaps even greater upheaval down the road. The current model does not need adjusting; it needs replacing. I have no ready-made prescriptions.

But I am convinced that a new model will emerge, one that will emphasize public needs and public goods, such as a cleaner environment, well-functioning infrastructure and public transportation, sound education and health systems and affordable housing.

Elements of such a model already exist in some countries. Having rejected the tutorials of the International Monetary Fund, countries such as Malaysia and Brazil have achieved impressive rates of economic growth. China and India have pulled hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.

By mobilizing state resources, France has built a system of high-speed railways, while Canada provides free health care. Among the new democracies, Slovenia and Slovakia have been able to mitigate the social consequences of market reforms.

The time has come for "creative construction," for striking the right balance between the government and the market, for integrating social and environmental factors and demilitarizing the economy.

Washington will have to play a special role in this new perestroika, not just because the United States wields great economic, political and military power in today's global world, but because America was the main architect, and America's elite the main beneficiary, of the current world economic model.

That model is now cracking and will, sooner or later, be replaced. That will be a complex and painful process for everyone, including the United States.

However different the problems that the Soviet Union confronted during our perestroika and the challenges now facing the United States, the need for new thinking makes these two eras similar.

In our time, we faced up to the main tasks of putting an end to the division of the world, winding down the nuclear arms race and defusing conflicts. We will cope with the new global challenges as well, but only if everyone understands the need for real, cardinal change -- for a global perestroika.

Source: The Washington Post

Ukraine Party Blocks Coalition Deal: Leader

KIEV, Ukraine -- The leader of Ukraine's pro-Moscow Regions Party on Sunday rejected proposals for parliament to elect the president, wrecking the chances of a government coalition with Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

Pro-Moscow Region Party leader Viktor Yanukovich.
Regions Party chief Viktor Yanukovich had for the last days been in coalition talks with the faction of his one-time rival Tymoshenko, in search of a deal that would have caused a political earthquake in Ukraine.

"I am unambiguously taking this decision," Yanukovich said in a statement posted on his party's Web site.

"My heart tells me that the election of a president in direct nationwide elections is the only correct decision which we can make," he said.

The coalition talks between Yanukovich and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, or BYUT, were reportedly aimed at installing the Regions Party leader as Ukraine's next president with Tymoshenko staying on as a powerful premier.

They were also focused on implementing changes to the constitution that would have seen the president elected by the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) rather than universal suffrage.

"He (Yanukovich) wasn't able to agree with becoming a president of the Ukrainian parliament but not of the Ukrainian people," Regions Party lawmaker Anna German told AFP.

Ukraine is due to have presidential elections early next year with the approval ratings of pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko in single digits and the economy in deep recession.

The statement didn't explicitly say that the talks had collapsed but Yanukovich said that "the approach of the presidential elections removes all sense from the creation of a new government."

He added: "I have no intention to politicize the negotiations or their collapse for short-term political ends."

Reports last week that a coalition deal was imminent had sent shockwaves through Ukrainian politics partly because Yanukovich and Tymoshenko were bitter foes in the 2004 Orange Revolution that ousted the old elite.

Yanukovich said the talks with the BYUT had created chances for the future and working together amid the economic crisis remained a priority.

"We are obliged to use it. This will happen immediately after the presidential elections."

The latest opinion polls on the presidential race have given Yanukovich around 25%, well ahead of the 15% rating of Tymoshenko, whose government's popularity has been hit by the dire economic downturn.

Ukraine's economy - still heavily dependent on export markets - has been pummeled by the economic crisis and is expected to enter a deep recession this year.

Polling a similar rating to Tymoshenko is the man who could yet emerge as the election's dark horse, Areseniy Yatsenyuk, a youthful pro-Western protege of Yushchenko and ex-parliament speaker.

The Regions Party traditionally draws its support from the Russian-speaking east of Ukraine, where the country's heavy industry is concentrated, although it also campaigns actively in the Ukrainian-speaking west.

Tymoshenko - a former businesswoman once known as the "gas princess" - has been seen as the champion of the pro-Western cause in Ukraine but has repeatedly shown readiness to embrace old foes.

Source: AFP

Ukraine Leader Vows To Block Election Changes

KIEV, Ukraine -- President Viktor Yushchenko appealed to the world community Friday to uphold democracy in Ukraine, vowing to block an opposition proposal to change the constitution and have the president elected by parliament.

President Viktor Yushchenko
The pro-Western Yushchenko, whose popularity has slumped, met ambassadors from G7 industrialized nations as Ukraine's two biggest parties proceeded with plans to form a broad coalition to end 4 1/2 years of political upheaval.

The coalition would bring together groups led by two rivals, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and former premier Viktor Yanukovich. Both are also rivals of the president.

Yushchenko was dealt a new blow when parliament dismissed the defense minister, one of his few remaining stalwart allies.

Neither Tymoshenko nor Yanukovich has commented publicly on the coalition talks and there was no sign a quick deal was in the works as Ukraine headed into a long holiday weekend.

Both Yanukovich's Regions Party and Tymoshenko's say a coalition would command more than 300 seats in parliament, enough to change the constitution to have the president elected by parliament rather than by a country-wide vote.

"As head of state, I guarantee that I will permit no illegal election of the president of Ukraine by parliament and will do everything in my power for Ukraine to meet all its international obligations ensuring human rights," Yushchenko was quoted by his Internet site as telling G7 ambassadors.

"But it is clear that such actions will not be enough. I therefore appeal to the international community to extend its assistance to ensure the democratic process in Ukraine."

PRESIDENT DEMANDS REFERENDUM

Addressing journalists later, Yushchenko said any change in electoral procedures had to be submitted to a referendum.

"This is a serious threat. I am therefore appealing to the nation. You must unite, the time has come," he said.

He said he would take part in the next presidential election "as I see this as my duty as a citizen, regardless of my poll rating and how my record is assessed."

Yushchenko swept to power with backing from Western leaders after mass "Orange Revolution" protests against poll fraud in 2004. Infighting, mostly pitting him against Tymoshenko, has reduced his poll ratings to single figures.

Sniping brought down one government with Tymoshenko as premier within seven months of taking office. The government she now heads is underpinned by an unsteady coalition in parliament.

A coalition with Yanukovich would likely improve Kiev's relations with Moscow, which has been irritated by Yushchenko's drive to join NATO and criticism of Russian intervention last year in Georgia.

In parliament, the two groups voted together Friday to produce an overwhelming majority to dismiss Defense Minister Yuri Yekhanurov, a longstanding ally of the president.

Tymoshenko had demanded Yekhanurov resign after public accounts found instances of corruption in his ministry.

"Yekhanurov is a gaping hole in Ukraine's defense capability and it must be plugged," Oleh Lyashko, a senior member of the prime minister's bloc, told the chamber before the vote.

Proponents say that despite the two leaders' divergent styles and power bases, a coalition deal would ensure stability.

But meetings of the two parliamentary groups appeared to have been postponed and Oleksander Yefremov, a top member of Yanukovich's party, said no agreement was likely before Tuesday.

"If those taking part in consultations see no point in proceeding, everything will be halted," he told reporters.

Another of Yanukovich's lieutenants, Borys Kolesnikov, told the daily Segodnya that deal only stood a 50-50 chance and said the constitution could be changed without a formal deal.

Yanukovich was backed by Russia when he lost a re-run of the rigged 2004 presidential election to Yushchenko. He has since adopted a more moderate stand, while Tymoshenko has made determined efforts to improve her standing in Moscow.

With a nationwide presidential election still on the cards by January, Yanukovich leads opinion polls with more than 20 percent support, followed by Tymoshenko at about 15 percent.

Source: Washington Post

Yanukovych, Tymoshenko Working To Join Forces

KIEV, Ukraine -- The once-bitter rivals are close to forming a power-sharing pact that will allow their parties to dominate Ukrainian politics.

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and ex-Prime Minister Victor Yanukovych seem to be close to forming a power-sharing agreement that would preserve the strong grip their parties hold over Ukraine’s politics.
After years of bitter rivalry and rhetoric, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and opposition leader Victor Yanukovych are reportedly closing in on a coalition agreement between their two parties.

While the talks remain opaque, deputies from both sides hinted that the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko, or BYuT, and Yanukovych’s Party of Regions could come to an agreement as early as the end of this week. Observers say that while the moves are driven by concerns that upcoming presidential elections could loosen their grip on power, they could also bring a measure of stability to the country’s chaotic politics.

BYuT and the Party of Regions have been in intermittent talks for several months, which have intensified in recent days. While details of any agreement remain unclear, deputies from both sides confirmed that they are close to making a decision on forming a new coalition.

Other points reportedly under discussion are a constitutional change that would see the president elected by parliament rather than popular vote, and extending the work of the current parliament until 2014.

Some form of agreement between the two largest parties in parliament appeared close on June 4. BYuT deputy Serhiy Mishchenko said his party would vote on a new coalition on the evening of June 5. Hanna Herman, deputy leader of the Party of Regions parliamentary fraction, said a decision on working with BYuT was close, but that the question of how to elect the president was still under discussion.

Deputies and some political analysts said an agreement could help to stabilize and consolidate Ukrainian politics, given the significant majority that a BYuT-Party of Regions coalition would enjoy, with 331 out of 450 Verhkovna Rada seats. Deputies from both parties have repeatedly called on other political forces to join the new coalition, but so far no-one rushed to join the duo.

In a speech in parliament on June 2, Dmytro Tabachnyk, a lawmaker from the Party of Regions, said a new coalition was necessary to overcome the economic crisis and that it represented a “historic chance” to unite the country. “Only a grand coalition can unite the country and pass the necessary constitutional amendments, without which effective work by the government is impossible and without which it is impossible to tackle the crisis,” he said. The Party of Regions is traditionally strong in the east and south, while BYuT has enjoyed popularity in the west and center.

Despite their rivalry, the two sides have come together recently on key pieces of legislation. They agreed to move up the presidential election from January 2010 to Oct. 25 of this year, but the Constitutional Court nixed the move as unconstitutional.

The two sides also joined in passing a temporary ban on gambling establishments in Ukraine until new regulations are developed. President Victor Yushchenko vetoed the law on June 4 and suggested amendments.

“It’s rational. No one can defeat the crisis alone,” said Victor Nebozhenko, director of the Ukrainian Barometer think tank. He said that if Tymoshenko won the presidential elections, she would be hampered by not having a majority in parliament, as would Yanukovych.

A coalition and agreement on division of power would also find favor in big business circles, experts say, as the country’s richest are keen to preserve stability and avoid expensive election campaigns amid the painful economic crisis.

“Business and industry leaders didn’t need the support of the state before the crisis. But now they need them to solve problems, to create a program to fight the crisis with their agreement,” Nebozhenko said.

But critics warned that an agreement on electing the president in parliament, rather than by popular vote, would be an anti-democratic step. President Victor Yushchenko, who would be left isolated by a new coalition, decried the reported agreement on constitutional change as an “anti-constitutional plot.”

Observers say that Tymoshenko and Yanukovych have been pushed closer together by the recent ratings surge of presidential candidate and former parliamentary speaker Arseniy Yatseniuk. Tymoshenko’s rating has fallen during the crisis, and Yanukovych has failed to take advantage. At the same time, Yatseniuk’s star has risen to such an extent as to raise concerns that both could lose out to him in the upcoming presidential elections, set for January.

Yatseniuk called the reported deal “African democracy,” Itar-Tass reported.

The camps of Tymoshenko and Yanukovych are also wary of Yatseniuk’s calls for a snap parliament election. They are currently the dominant forces in the legislature but could lose this grip in a fresh parliamentary election.

Ilko Kucheriv, director of the Democratic Initiatives Foundation and a strong NATO membership advocate, said Tymoshenko and Yanukovych are more interested in a distribution of power than fighting the crisis. “It’s more like a putsch by two leaders who want to grab power.”

He added that it couldn’t bring long-term stability, as it would leave the decision-making in the hands of a few people, which people at home, and leaders abroad, would find difficult to accept.

“Big business doesn’t want elections,” Kucheriv said. “But it wants an agreement with the European Union and the West. This decision would act against those interests, as the West could react very negatively.”

Many remain surprised at the possible joining of such bitter enemies, who only five years ago were on the opposite sides of the 2004 Orange Revolution. Tymoshenko then stood with the crowds in overturning a rigged presidential election that declared then-Prime Minister Yanukovych the winner. A rerun of the Yushchenko-Yanukovch showdown on Dec. 26, 2004, led to Yushchenko’s election victory. He took power in January 2005.

Tymoshenko and Yanukovych have sniped at each other repeatedly over the years. Here’s just a sample of their incendiary rhetoric from one day alone – Oct. 17, 2008.

Tymoshenko, referring to Yanukovych: “Thank God, the mafia is in the opposition today. Spending money to return the mafia to power [through a new election] is senseless.”

And Yanukovych on Tymoshenko: “They [the Orange Revolution gang] have to do their usual things. ... Most of them could be actors, someone could become a model in various modeling houses, and so on. We have to assist them in that. They are false democrats, who can do nothing but blather.”

Since Yushchenko took presidency, the trio of Yushchenko, Yanukovych and Tymoshenko has been involved in a series of coalitions and political deals that have drawn criticism from the side left out.

Speaking of the coalition between Yushchenko and Yanukovych in May 2007, Tymoshenko ironically told a joke. “A hare and a squirrel fell in love and created a family. They began to live together, to make love but they had no children. So they went to a wise owl and asked: ‘What can we do? We, a squirrel and a hare, created a family but we have no children. Why is that? Is it because we are so different – we are a squirrel and a hare?’ The owl looked and said, ‘No! It is because you are boys,’” she said.

Perhaps the coming weeks will show if the new pairing can have more success.

Source: Kyiv Post

Drinking Nation

KIEV, Ukraine -- Alcohol abuse and addiction take a heavy toll on the nation’s health, longevity and productivity. Drinking starts early and the beer and booze are cheap.

Two men share a bottle of vodka in front of the monument to Taras Shevchenko, the great 19th century Ukrainian writer who suffered bouts of heavy drinking. The 21-year-old man at right says he started drinking vodka at age 15.
The sight of teenagers drinking beer, champagne or even vodka in public places – often with cigarettes dangling from their mouths – has become so commonplace that many adults in Ukraine don’t even give the young drinkers a second look.

But public health advocates believe that more adults – including the nation’s lawmakers – should be paying closer attention. They say the nation as a whole needs to take a hard look in the mirror at its culture of drinking.

“This problem is becoming a national tragedy,” said Elina Shyshkina, a member of parliament with the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko. Shyshkina is developing legislative measures to curb teenage alcoholism.

There are many telling facts, including the existence of more than 40 brands of Ukrainian-produced vodka alone. But beer is often the first encounter that teenagers have with an alcoholic drink. And in Ukraine, beer is regarded more as a soft drink, akin to Coca-Cola, under the law. The domestic brands are very cheap and widely available through street kiosks. And, unlike the minimum age of 18 for purchasing hard alcohol, any child can buy beer legally.

“Beer isn’t alcohol, according to legislation, so anybody can legally sell it even to a 5-year-old child,” said Konstantin Krasovsky, head of the Alcohol and Drug Information Center in Kiev.

But beer isn’t the only accessible alcoholic beverage to Ukraine’s teenagers, despite the law.

According to a poll by the European School Survey for Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs, 70 percent of Ukrainian teenagers don’t face any problems buying light alcohol, 60 percent easily get wine and 40 percent are able to buy vodka with no obstructions.

Where all this permissiveness leads is not surprising.

Figures from the World Health Organization suggest that adult Ukrainians consume about the same level of alcohol per year as Europeans. But Ukrainians have a preference for hard alcoholic drinks, and their children drink much more than in the rest of Europe.

A 2008 World Health Organization study found that 40 percent of children in Ukraine drink alcohol – mainly beer – at least once per month.

Ukraine had the highest rate among nations surveyed, followed by Israel. According to the European School Survey for Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs, many start drinking at age 13 or 14.

Moreover, alcohol abuse and addiction continues into adulthood, contributing to the nation’s declining population (now 46 million people) and increased mortality rates. An estimated 30 percent of men aged 25-30 are alcohol addicted, for instance.

According to the Health Ministry, about 40,000 deaths annually are caused by alcohol poisoning and other related diseases, as well as alcohol-related accidents. So far this year alone, traffic police recorded more than 140,000 accidents caused by drunk drivers, in which 1,683 people died.

Then there are social costs that are not so easily quantifiable.

Heavy drinking impairs judgment and lowers inhibitions – contributing to a host of social problems, from economic productivity to crime rates and even careless behavior that, for instance, can lead to an increase in the number of sexually transmitted diseases.

Whatever the reasons – enjoyment, boredom, depression – that lead people to drink, attitudes get formed early at home and reinforced as children go out onto the streets and see that everyday drinking is a normal part of life and a big part of celebrations and holidays.

“If a child sees people drinking alcohol in public places, if mothers give their 4-year-old children beer to drink, then children will drink alcohol and nobody will stop them,” said Iryna Vasylenko, mother of a 6-year-old child. Vasylenko said a majority of her friends who are parents allow their children to drink wine and beer.

Konstantin Myzhanovskiy, a therapist for alcoholics and drug abusers at Ukrainian Medical Center for Traffic Security, agreed. “If children often see their parents drinking alcohol during dinner, they will never believe it is wrong,” Myzhanovskiy said.

Anatoliy Viyevskiy, head of Ukrainian Monitoring Center for Alcohol and Drugs, said 40 percent of children get their first taste of alcohol after being offered a drink by their parents.

Secondary school teacher Iryna Rudenko from Vinnytsya was shocked by the results of an anonymous poll in her school. “Almost all of them said they regularly drink alcohol and smoke,” said Rudenko, who has seen teenagers coming to school drunk. The Kiev prosecutor’s office last year counted 132 cases of medical aid being provided to alcohol-poisoned children, while Kiev police counted at least 110 crimes committed by drunk teenagers.

So what is the solution? Drink less, certainly. But how does society get people to do that?

Public health advocates say that Ukraine has taken positive steps recently by modestly increasing excise taxes on alcohol and adopting partials bans on alcohol advertising. Beer excise was hiked this week by parliament, and is awaiting the president’s approval.

Advertising is now banned outdoors, on TV from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. and on the first and last pages of newspapers and magazines. However, many experts believe only a total ban on advertising is effective and that beer should be included in such alcohol advertising prohibitions.

Experts also say that stiffer tax hikes are needed to curb consumption, since Ukraine’s beer and liquor remain among the cheapest in Europe.

Krasovsky of the Alcohol Drug and Information Center believes alcohol should be sold in special stores where children are forbidden to enter. He also believes beer should be reclassified as an alcoholic beverage on the legislative level.

Others, such as Viyevskiy, head of Ukrainian Monitoring Center for Alcohol and Drugs, call for better education in schools about the health effects of alcohol abuse and addiction.

Verkhovna Rada member Shyshkina of Tymoshenko’s Bloc wants to stiffen fines for selling alcohol to minors or offering them alcohol. Shyshkina also proposes forbidding sponsorship of TV and radio programs, concerts and sport events by alcohol-producing companies. She would also increase tax from advertising of alcohol and beer up to 20 percent of its cost.

Other nations have banned drinking in public, requiring the alcohol beverages to be consumed in bars or regulated settings such as cafes.

Experts, however, say that Ukraine is far from adopting a coordinated national strategy and comprehensive response. Such a strategy and the will to carry it out may emerge in individual homes throughout the nation, the way that attitudes to alcohol are formed now.

Psychologists say teenagers drink alcohol because they don’t feel their parents are helping them solve their problems. Rudenko said, among the children she polled, those who drink alcohol regularly said they badly crave more communication with their parents.

“They don’t need the most expensive computers, they need understanding,” Myzhanovskiy, the therapist for alcoholics and drug abusers, said.

Source: Kyiv Post

Expert: None Of Kiev’s Water Outlets Is Suitable For Summer Recreation

KIEV, Ukraine -- “Swim at your own risk” is a sign commonly seen in Western nations at lakes and pools that have no lifeguard to save you from drowning.

A young boy walks alongside a heavily polluted lake located in Kiev near Kharkivska metro station.
But the same sign could be posted at all of Kiev’s 400 or so lakes and ponds – and the banks of the Dnipro River as well. Only the warning would apply to the unsanitary state of the water, as well as the lack of lifeguards.

None of the capital’s water outlets is suitable for summer recreation, warned Anatoliy Yatsyk, former deputy head of the Environmental Ministry.

“Well, you can swim if you want but your fingers may peel,” said Yatsyk, who now heads the Kiev-based Scientific Research Institute of Hydro-Economic and Ecological Problems. “No need for a chemical analysis, just have a look at it. Our fish are always ill and [I wonder] why we still don’t have an endemic from what we eat, drink and where we swim.”

Yatsyk said he would never swim in any of the water in Kiev.

“Don’t forget about Chornobyl,” Yatsyk said despondently. “Ninety million tons of radioactive waste is silted in the [Dnipro] reservoir. That would fill 330,000 train carriages. Some not-so-smart people want to build a bridge above it to connect the belt highway. If they stir up this slime, the catastrophe will be worse than Chornobyl.”

But the sight of blooming algae in murky water does not always stop those willing to cool off, sometimes to their regret.

Health problems stem from water sources becoming contaminated by animal or human waste. Aside from causing chronic diarrhea, contamination can also lead to more serious diseases, such as cholera and leptospirosis, an infectious disease that can cause jaundice, meningitis and kidney failure. Malaria, tuberculosis, hepatitis and round worm are also water-borne.

Ecologist Mykola Shchepets said that six cases of leptospirosis – a disease spread by rats and mice in public water pools -- have already been registered this year. “The grass is not being mown, foliage is not collected, disinfestations are not conducted properly,” said Shchepets in May, complaining about lax preparations for the summer season.

However, rodents are not the only reason to stay clear of the water. High ecological standards set by the government are often ignored at industrial and agricultural enterprises in Ukraine. Yatsyk said his institute analyzed 1,670 factories around the Kaniv reservoir, one of the six large man-made pools on the Dnipro.

By law, every company should be classified by ecological standards and receive an eco-passport, specifying the degree to which they can pollute. But none of them do, said Yatsyk. “They [businessmen] don’t get these passports because they don’t want to be controlled. If the quality of water was checked, they would all run away abroad,” he said.

The chief inspector from the Kiev Oblast Ecological Inspection, Galyna Pernikoza, said her agency has problems making the rounds. “When we come to inspect, businessmen say they pay taxes and it’s enough. The problem is with their mentality. They know how to sell water to people, but somehow never heard of certain safety standards,” she said.

Vladyslav Goncharuk, director of the Colloidal Chemistry and Chemistry of Water Institute, said that “the Dnipro is wastewater” and that the city’s wastewater treatment stations aren’t adequate enough to purify it. Nevertheless, over 60 percent of Ukraine’s population – about 30 million – uses this water at home.

In 2006 alone, 650 tons of petrochemicals, 12,000 tons of nitrogen and 67,000 tons of nitrates were dumped in the water, according to rough estimates of the institute of ecological problems.

However, Pernikoza from the state inspection service said that Kiev’s lakes and ponds were safe enough to swim in.

“Apart from the Nivka River where Kiev dumps untreated sewage, water pools are fine and pollution does not exceed norms. That is unless they have been created for technical purposes only,” Pernikoza said. However, she continued, they are certified to check water only against some harmful substances, such as petrochemicals and pesticides. To make more complex analysis, they need specialized bacteriological equipment, which is too expensive to buy.

The problems, however, get stranger than chemical waste from the fields and factories.

Victor Akimov is the chief sanitary doctor in Kremenchug, an industrial city south of Kiev on the Dnipro River. He said that erosion of riverbanks there has reached an old cemetery.

“You can see bones [hanging above the water]. Another cemetery has already sunk,” Akimov said. “And we drink this water.” He is worried that people buried there in 1920s may have had anthrax or cholera, and the bacteria could still be alive and kicking.

But Kremenchug municipal eco-services department did not get any money from the city budget this year to prop the banks and avert further erosion, according to Akimov.

And more erosion is on the way, as laws against building closer than 25 meters to shore are routinely flouted by builders.

The Environmental Ministry is aware of the problem but has little leverage against high-flying owners. “I come to the river bank. There’s a house with a guard who warns me he will shoot if I come any closer,” Pernikoza said. “When we reach the [Kiev] regional administration for explanation, they either say they lost documents on this property or [make up] something else.”

Meanwhile, homeowners “fish from their windows, but I wouldn’t do that if I were them,” Yatsyk said, citing the state of disrepair of Kiev’s sewage collector. “It cleans little and then dumps everything into the water,” he said.

It may be hard to believe in the extent of pollution, but everything is a lot worse than it seems on the surface, concluded Pernikoza of the state inspection agency.

Source: Kyiv Post

Ukraine Zoo Director Says Animal Poisonings Politically Motivated

YALTA, Ukraine -- The Ukrainian State Science and Research Institute in Kyiv confirms that 10 animals in the Crimean Zoo died earlier this year as a result of poisoning, RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service reports.

The zoo in Yalta is run by a prominent politician.
The 10 rare animals in Yalta's Kazka (Fairy Tale) Zoo suddenly died one after another in March and April. Institute officials say the animals were poisoned by a highly toxic drug that is not available in regular drug stores.

Zoo director Oleg Zubkov told RFE/RL that he gave the forensic test results to Crimean police and urged them to find the perpetrator.

Zubkov, who is a well-known Crimean politician, says the poisoning of the animals in his zoo was meant as a message to him, as he has enemies in business and politics.

He added that the animals were poisoned after Yalta's prosecutor was sacked for allegedly taking bribes, and claimed that the prosecutor's nephew has been trying to take over a property in front of the zoo which is currently a parking lot.

Source: Radio Free Europe

European Leaders Mark Fall Of Communism In Poland

KRAKOW, Poland -- Dozens of European leaders and anti- communist icons celebrated the 20th anniversary of Poland's first partly-free elections since World War II. Iconic former Solidarity union leader Lech Walesa was to take part in celebrations in Krakow along with former Czech leader Vaclav Havel.

Poland's former president Lech Walesa gestures as he speaks during a special parliamentary session marking the 20th anniversary of first free parliamentary election that signalled the end of communist role.
The ceremonies were to include German Chancellor Angela Merkel and government leaders from the Czech Republic, Romania, Hungary, Ukraine and Lithuania.

The celebrations were to take place at a royal castle in the heart of Krakow, with a rare ringing of the historic Zygmund's bell.

President Lech Kaczynski - a long-time political rival of the country's prime minister - was to celebrate in the city of Gdansk, which is famous for its Solidarity protests.

A mass was also to be held at the Baltic shipyards in front of a monument to the shipyard workers who died in the struggle against communism.

Later at night Gdansk was to host classic rock stars the Scorpions, pop singer Kylie Minogue and 1980s Polish punk bands reunited for the occasion.

The elections of June 4, 1989 came after tough negotiations on power sharing between communist authorities and union leaders after decades of protests and resistance against the Soviet-backed government.

Many see the day as sparking changes throughout Europe that lead to the fall of the Iron Curtain.

The elections gave a landslide victory to Solidarity with a win of 160 out of 161 open seats in parliament, and 92 out of 100 open seats in the Senate.

Source: DPA

Viktor Yanukovych Promotes His Presidential Credentials In Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine might shortly become a parliamentary republic if a constitutional reform plan is agreed. This is a joint plan by Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and Viktor Yanukovych, the leader of the Party of Regions (PRU) which has been the largest opposition force.

Ukrainian Party of Regions leader Viktor Yanukovych.
The plan is opposed by President Viktor Yushchenko. According to its details, the next president would be elected in parliament, which means that the popular presidential election expected in January 2010 might not occur. The PRU would form a ruling coalition and a cabinet jointly with Tymoshenko's bloc (BYT).

Coalition talks have been continuing between the PRU and the BYT for more than one year. Since Tymoshenko and Yanukovych have been portrayed as bitter opponents for almost a decade, it was feared that the electoral supporters of the two parties will not welcome the proposed alliance.

For this reason, the talks were conducted secretly and the two parties' representatives often denied their existence. A law on the cabinet resulted from these talks, which curtailed Yushchenko's authority and was passed by the votes of the two parties in parliament in September 2008.

Yushchenko's team left Tymoshenko's coalition in protest, forcing Tymoshenko to form a new coalition by the end of 2008, whose existence has not been recognized by either Yushchenko or the PRU.

Yanukovych's reluctance to accept the election of the president within parliament was reportedly the main stumbling block. The first indication that the PRU and the BYT might soon come to a final agreement appeared towards the end of May, when the PRU withdrew its demands for Tymoshenko to resign and Yanukovych admitted in a televised interview that talks with the BYT had proceeded without interruption.

On June 1, several Ukrainian newspapers quoted their sources within both camps as saying that Yanukovych and Tymoshenko at their meetings on May 30-31 agreed on a plan to change the constitution and form an alliance, as follows:

1. The constitution will be changed to allow the president to be elected in parliament, and this could be Yanukovych (his election should be a formality as the PRU and BYT jointly control more than two-thirds of the parliament).

2. Presidential powers will be curtailed, but he will retain control over the Siloviki.

3. Tymoshenko will carry on as prime minister presiding over a cabinet consisting of representatives of the BYT, the PRU and possibly several more parties

4. The local self-government system will be reformed, enabling regional governors to be elected locally.

5. The party scoring the largest number of votes in a parliamentary election will control 226 seats in parliament, i.e. an overall majority.

6. The next parliamentary election will be held in 2014 rather than 2012 - this should convince hesitating deputies to support constitutional reform as they will be guaranteed two more years in parliament.

It is possible that the alliance will not be formalized until after the constitution has been amended. Only then will the two parties form a new cabinet. This way Yanukovych and Tymoshenko might try to prevent mass disillusionment among the electorate and any harsh reaction from Yushchenko who has been a bitter opponent of parliamentary democracy.

Yushchenko has firmly rejected the new coalition plan. During a visit to the Vatican, he said that a PRU-BYT coalition would be tantamount to a constitutional coup. Yushchenko opined that the planned constitutional reform would be against democratic and European values as the country, according to Yushchenko, will be de facto divided between Yanukovych and Tymoshenko.

The reaction of the former parliamentary speaker Arseny Yatsenyuk, a young liberal who is regarded by many as a potentially strong rival for both Tymoshenko and Yanukovych in a popular presidential election, has been no less harsh.

He repeated Yushchenko's thesis concerning Ukraine's division between the duo, and called the plan to elect the president in parliament and postpone parliamentary elections "African democracy".

Several recent opinion polls have shown that Yatsenyuk might overtake Tymoshenko as the second most popular presidential candidate after Yanukovych. If the PRU-BYT union succeeds in changing the constitution, Yatsenyuk will have no chance of becoming president.

Constitutional reform requires approval by two-thirds of the deputies in the unicameral parliament. The BYT and the PRU jointly control more than that, suggesting that their alliance will not have to ask for either Yushchenko's or Yatsenyuk's approval in order to change the constitution.

However, the process of amending the constitution is potentially long and complicated. It requires the approval of amendments twice by two sessions of parliament and a positive verdict from the constitutional court in the interim.

This might give Yushchenko time to derail the BYT-PRU plan by either disbanding parliament or resigning and thereby automatically launching the mechanism for an early presidential election -denying his rivals sufficient opportunity to pursue constitutional reform.

Source: Eurasia Daily Monitor

Soviet Bank Deposits And Fulfilling Election Promises

KIEV, Ukraine -- The question of Soviet bank deposits lost to Ukrainian citizens after the disintegration of the U.S.S.R. and during the hyperinflation of 1993 continues to be both applauded and condemned.

A five ruble coin from the time of the demise of the USSR.
On May 22, the Yulia Tymoshenko government issued a resolution to repay 250 million hryvnia in 2009 towards the lost deposits by giving 1,000 hryvnia to individuals. Former Defense Minister Anatoly Hrytsenko believes that they should be returned as this would return public trust to the Ukrainian state.

The state should take responsibility and return these lost savings. But this should be done without provoking inflation. Hrytsenko did not explain how one (returning the deposits) can be undertaken without the other (inflation), especially during a global financial crisis when proceeds to the budget have declined.

Hrytsenko simply explains that it is necessary to balance between financing of the budget and a returning the lost costs. The presidential secretariat’s socio-economic department thinks otherwise. They believe that returning the deposits will be a farce and again reduce public trust in the state.

The secretariat pointed out that in 2008, when the process of returning the deposits was first undertaken, 12.8 million Ukrainians registered, of whom only 6.4 million obtained 1,000 hryvnia each.

To compensate all 12.8 million Ukrainians would have required an additional 5.8 to 6.4 billion hryvnia. Similarly in 2009, the majority of Ukrainians registered to receive compensation will not receive it, according to the presidential secretariat.

In the 2004 elections, Hrytsenko headed the Razumkov Center (Ukrainian Centre for Economic and Political Studies) and then went on to head the analytical-research division of Victor Yushchenko¹s election campaign.

Hrytsenko and other experts in the Razumkov Center wrote the majority of Yushchenko¹s social-populist election program (Ten Steps) and 14 draft decrees. Draft decree No. 2 outlines how businessmen and oligarchs would be required to pay a one-off tax surcharge for enterprises they privatised at below-market prices. The monies collected from the one-off tax would be used to repay the lost bank deposits.

What conclusions can be drawn from the bank deposit affair? Hrytsenko is being consistent in supporting this policy in 2004 and today.

Yushchenko ignored his 2004 election program after he became president, while his condemnation of the government’s populism in seeking to fulfill his own election program by repaying the deposits is duplicitious.

The Tymoshenko bloc included this policy in its 2007 election program and began fulfilling the election pledge in 2008.

The method of how it was undertaken and if it caused inflation should be subject to public discussion. At the same time, the message is very clear: If you fulfill your election program, Ukrainian voters will back you (in the first half of 2008, Tymoshenko rose to first place in popularity of Ukrainian politicians). If you don’t - as seen with Oleksandr Moroz’s Socialist Party and Yushchenko, Ukrainian voters will drop their support.

It is time that Ukrainian politicians began to realize that Ukrainian voters are far more savvy than they realize.

Source: Kyiv Post

Constitutional Changes Needed, But Yushchenko's Plan Is Misguided

WASHINGTON, DC -- U.S. Judge Bohdan A. Futey says that President Victor Yushchenko's proposed changes don't solve the problems of executive branch authority or parliamentarians' legal immunity from prosecution.

Bohdan A. Futey is a judge on the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C., appointed by President Ronald Reagan in May 1987. Judge Futey has been active in various rule of law and democratization programs in Ukraine since 1991. He served as an adviser to the working group on Ukraine’s Constitution adopted on June 28, 1996.
The constitutional changes of 2004, the eminent law of Ukraine, resolved the presidential elections and prevented a political crisis (the 2004 Orange Revolution) from turning into chaos. Unfortunately, these changes interlaced the power of the executive and legislative branches, leaving the country in legal turmoil to this day.

To remedy the situation, on March 31, four years into his presidency, President Victor Yushchenko introduced to parliament the draft law “On Amending the Constitution of Ukraine.” The draft alters the entire text of the constitution – the basic law of the land. It would create a system that is somewhat problematic. Additionally, the changes have raised questions about the motivation of presidential aides who drafted them. It is unclear whether the president’s advisers are giving him the best, legitimate advice, and whether they act as “honest brokers.”

Before examining the proposed constitution, one must ask: What is the legal procedure for its approval? In 1997, the Constitutional Court in its decision explained that “the process for approval of a new constitution can only be initiated after ascertaining the will of the Ukrainian people.” This can supposedly be done through a nationwide referendum. The approval of a new constitution must also be made according to adopted rules and procedures, and as provided for in the current constitution.

If adopted, the president’s proposed constitution would introduce a radical change by creating a two-chamber legislature. The Verkhovna Rada will be renamed as the National Assembly, which will consist of the Deputies’ Chamber and the Senate. The question of what type of parliament is best for state development is more of a political and social issue, which needs deep comparative analysis and discussion.

In 1996, when adopting the Constitution of Ukraine, the “founding fathers” could have used a foreign analogue to name the Ukrainian parliament. Instead, they chose century-old Ukrainian history of state building as a cornerstone.

Aside from the creation of a two-chamber legislature, the proposed constitution removes from Article 91 the clause that people’s deputies are guaranteed immunity from prosecution. Further review of the proposed constitution reveals, however, that there is another clause that, in effect, preserves the deputies’ immunity: “A people’s deputy or senator cannot be detained or arrested without the consent of the deputies’ chamber or senate.” This inconsistency does not meet recent calls and demands to cancel deputies’ immunity.

There are provisions in the proposed constitution that one can agree with, for example, the proposed cancellation of the political practice of creating a parliamentary coalition, on which the executive powers existence currently depends. Formation of the coalition failed to add stability and increase efficiency of both the legislative and the executive branches of government.

If the proposed constitution is adopted, there will be several centers of executive power preserved: the Cabinet of Ministers, the president (and his Secretariat) and the National Security and Defense Council. This is unfortunate. Ukraine’s experience of dualism between the president and the prime minister has clearly illustrated that a misbalanced executive branch leads to inactivity and paralysis.

The proposed constitution does not optimize the legal status of the head of state, nor does it establish an effective system of checks and balances. The cabinet, formed by parliament, retains its status as highest executive power. Simultaneously, the president preserves considerable powers, including the right to submit to the senate the candidacies of prosecutor general, chief of the security service and others. The national security council, headed by the president, is preserved. The proposed constitution allows the president to cancel the cabinet’s acts on the issues of foreign policy, defense and security, after consulting with the prime minister. But it is unclear how this is to be performed. It would be expedient to introduce a counterbalance, where certain acts issued by the president are also counter-signed by the head of the government. This would guarantee a certain balance between the two representatives of the executive branch.

Under the proposed constitution, the president will have influence over legislative and judicial branches. The president has the right to dismiss the Deputies’ Chamber. He has the right to appoint (with the senate’s approval) all Constitutional Court judges, as well as, to appoint and dismiss a number of judges of general jurisdiction. This is another attempt to preserve the president’s ability to penetrate into all branches of power, leaving the head of state above all other branches. The principle of checks and balances is not preserved.

It is essential to consider what the proposed constitution means to the judiciary. The new modification which provides life tenure for judges is very positive. This provision will secure judicial independence and impartiality, which is crucial in a democratic state where the rule of law is recognized. The new draft, however, does not ensure that judicial salaries cannot be diminished. Both the current constitution and the draft law foresee the participation of citizens as jurors. Bearing in mind that Ukraine does not have a well-developed concept of jury trials, it would be important to detail jurors’ rights in laws and the constitution. It is also crucial not to delay the implementation of the right to trial by jury guaranteed in the constitution.

In addition, special attention should be given to judicial self-government, which is one of the most important guarantees of judicial independence and impartiality. In Ukraine, the body which is responsible for the financial and technical support of courts is the State judicial administration which currently is part of the executive branch. It should be part of the judicial branch of government in any revised constitution.

The current constitution created a pyramid-like judicial system with the Supreme Court at the top. The proposed constitution envisages a court system “under one umbrella,” where both the Supreme Court and specialized courts will exist at the same level. The proposed draft also introduces elections for judges in the oblasts, supposedly with the aim of bringing better justice to communities. But this proposal is disturbing. There is a real threat that the judges, influenced by their electors, will not produce fair and honest decisions.

Lastly, the draft proposes a method for approving a new constitution, which will weaken the vitality of the main law as a stable legal document.

Generally, it is questionable whether this proposed version of the constitution merits approval. The flaws of the existing constitution are due to the changes made in 2004 coupled with the failure to implement some of the clauses from the 1996 constitution. Moreover, it should be remembered that the adopted 1996 constitution had very positive reviews from the Council of Europe and the Venice Commission for its high level of human rights protection.

Changes to the current constitution, are, of course, needed; however, approval of a new constitution, with a new state order, needs a weighted approach. Ukraine has already experienced the consequences of making hasty changes to its basic law. By trying to solve current problems and patching old holes, plenty of new problems could be created. After careful study of the proposed constitution, it is neither supportable as a better legal document, nor would it help Ukraine function better as a state. Equality among the branches of government will not be established.

It seems that history’s lessons are not learned. Simply making changes does not guarantee improvement. It is important that the advisers who are working to revise the constitution, in addition to good professional training, must have a yearning for national self-identification and a sense of responsibility for the fate of Ukraine.

The constitution needs to provide stability for the Ukrainian state for many years to come. The authors have to clearly understand that the constitution – the main Ukrainian law – has to stimulate national state-building. A constitution that only reflects short-sighted political ambitions will suffer defeat and will not win over support of the Ukrainian people.

Source: Kyiv Post

Russia And Ukraine Revisit Gas Conflict

WASHINGTON, DC -- In what is becoming a monthly ritual, the Russian leadership has publicly stated that they fear Ukraine will be unable to pay its upcoming bill for Russian gas delivered in May. On May 27 Gazprom's spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov stated "Naftogaz is finding it enormously difficult to pay its bill for May".

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev
Furthermore, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told EU leaders gathered at the EU-Russia summit in Khabarovsk on May 22 that Ukraine will be unable to pay the $4 billion to fill its underground storage facilities with the 19.5 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas it requires to supply both its domestic needs and to meet the EU's demand during the fall and winter.

The consequence of such a default, according to Medvedev, might result in another stoppage in the deliveries of gas supplies to the European Union at the height of the heating season.

On May 22 Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko met with Putin during the CIS summit in Astana, but failed to negotiate the $5 billion loan from Russia needed to fill the underground storage facilities.

On May 27, the Warsaw-based East Week Analytical Newsletter alleged that Medvedev had proposed during the Khabarovsk summit that the E.U. and Russia might jointly offer a loan to Ukraine, as the first step towards creating a Russian-E.U. consortium to manage the Ukrainian transit gas pipeline network.

The Ukrainian state-owned gas company, Naftohaz Ukrayiny has promptly paid its recent monthly bills to Gazprom, yet Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Medvedev continue to warn E.U. leaders that this is about to end and that Naftohaz is on the verge of bankruptcy.

During the height of the fall-winter heating season, Ukrainian households obtain gas from Russia, while deliveries to the E.U. originate from its underground storage facilities. These underground caves traditionally begin to be filled on April 15, however Ukraine only managed to purchase 800 million cubic meters of gas for storage in April -and in May it purchased no gas for storage.

The almost 20 bcm in reserves which were in storage from 2008 were used in the first quarter of 2009 to replace expensive imports from Russia, and are now mostly depleted.

In the first quarter of 2009, Naftohaz bought only 2.5 bcm of gas from Russia, while the quantity envisaged by the annual supplies contract signed in January 2009 was 35 bcm, or 8.75 bcm per quarter. Under this "take or pay contract" Ukraine is obligated to pay for the total quantity regardless of whether it decides to receive it.

In order to pay for gas purchases in the first quarter of 2009, Naftohaz was able to obtain from Gazprom a prepayment for the entire gas transit fee for Russian gas transiting to Europe in 2009. This prepayment was used to pay Gazprom for delivered gas. Naftohaz also relied on the state budget and loans from state-owned banks, which the government insisted on being lent to the company in order to settle its debts with Gazprom.

Gazprom can, under the terms of the January 2009 contract, demand a penalty payment from Naftohaz for $2 billion for the first quarter of 2009 for gas it did not receive. In addition, Naftohaz is obligated to buy its existing bonds for $500 million in September, although this unlikely to occur.

As the East Week Analytical Newsletter concluded: "In the absence of external financing, Naftohaz will be unable to buy any gas to build up the necessary reserves." If this indeed transpires, Europe might be faced with another major gas supply crisis by the autumn of 2009."

As the relentless Russian pressure on Naftohaz proceeds, Moscow appears intent on modifying the Ukrainian-E.U. agreement on renovating the Ukrainian main gas trunk pipeline. Russia not only wants to be included in the project, but to play a decisive role in its development.

This went not only against the Ukrainian-E.U. concept of making the Ukrainian pipeline a more reliable route for Russian gas, but provided further proof of Moscow's intention to obtain ultimate control over the pipeline, and further consolidate its monopoly on gas transit routes to the E.U. for political purposes.

The European Union's response to the Russian proposals has been cautious. According to statements made by the European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso following the Khabarovsk summit, the E.U. is ready to discuss the Russian proposals concerning the rules for energy cooperation and take them into account, but it will only do so as part of the Energy Charter Treaty review currently in progress.

The ultimate reason behind these maneuvers however, appears to be the Russian insistence that the E.U. accepts its strategy of building the South Stream and Nord Stream pipelines. By convincing the E.U. that Ukraine is an "unreliable" transit route for Russian gas, the Kremlin gas monopoly can sabotage the Nabucco pipeline; gain full control over gas transit routes to the E.U. and reduce Ukraine to subservience to Moscow.

Source: Eurasia Daily Monitor

Update: Tymoshenko, Yanukovych Close To Coalition Deal

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and former premier Viktor Yanukovich, longstanding rivals, are on the verge of clinching a deal to form a "broad coalition" in parliament, Ukrainian media reported on Sunday.

Ex-Prime Minister Victor Yanukovych and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
Talks between groups led by the two politicians have taken place intermittently for more than a year amid recurring bouts of the political upheaval that have buffeted Ukraine since the 2004 "Orange Revolution" brought pro-Western leaders to power.

The authoritative Internet news service Ukrainska Pravda quoted its sources as saying the leaders, the country's two most popular politicians in the run-up to a presidential election, had reached a "preliminary agreement" on Saturday.

The deal called for forming a coalition, drafting a programme of common action until 2024, including running jointly in parliamentary elections, and altering the constitution to have the president elected by parliament.

Interfax Ukraina news agency said consultations were proceeding, with a deal expected within days. "Everything could be decided today or tomorrow," Interfax quoted a source as saying. "The issue is providing guarantees for the two sides."

There was no comment from either Tymoshenko's bloc or Yanukovich's Regions Party. Nor was there any comment from President Viktor Yushchenko, whose standing lies in tatters more than four years after the mass "orange" rallies in his favour.

PREMIEr, PRESIDENT AT ODDS

Tymoshenko was allied to President Viktor Yushchenko in the 2004 mass "orange" rallies against election fraud and was named premier by him twice, but the two have been constantly at odds.

Yanukovich was the revolution's main loser.

Initially declared the winner of the 2004 presidential poll, he lost a re-run election to Yushchenko after the result was overturned. He returned as premier for a time in 2007 after the collapse of an "orange" government.

Russia backed Yanukovich in 2004 and has been irritated with Yushchenko, especially his drive for Ukraine to join NATO and his denunciations of Moscow's intervention in Georgia last year.

Moscow has developed better ties with Tymoshenko after a spat over a plan for the EU to upgrade Ukraine's gas transport system.

Tymoshenko and Yanukovich have a long history of hostility, at least in public. It is unclear whether they could overcome differences and produce the stability long sought by the European Union after more than four years of political sniping.

The current premier is a vocal defender of disadvantaged voters and draws much of her support from nationalist western Ukraine and the centre of the country. Yanukovich's electoral heartland lies in the Russian-speaking industrial east.

The two sides have voted tactically together, mainly to counter Yushchenko's interests.

Yanukovich leads polls with over 20 percent, while Tymoshenko, hit by the effects of economic crisis, stands at about 15 percent. Yushchenko lags far behind in single figures.

Parliament set the next presidential election but Oct. 25, but that ruling was struck down and a new date must be set.

Source: Kyiv Post

Russia-Ukraine Gas Feud: Something’s Gotta Give

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Ever since the January Ukrainian-Russian gas agreements reached by Ukrainian Premier Yulia Tymoshenko and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow one-on-one, a second chapter fall-out of the European gas crisis has been imminent.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (R) and his Ukrainian counterpart Yulia Tymoshenko attend a joint news conference following their talks in Astana, Kazakhstan.
“We have been waiting for a relapse to begin with. Even when the original deal was done back in January, we were noting that Ukraine’s economy is in terrible shape and not getting better and it almost seems a matter of time before they have to go back to the table to renegotiate something else,” Ron Smith, chief strategist at Alfa Bank, told New Europe telephonically from Moscow. “We are watching it on a month-to-month basis and at some point something’s gotta give — it may well be Russia giving them more credit, selling them gas on credit, whatever, but I think both sides would want to avoid having another shut down of gas.”

Tymoshenko’s bitter rival, Ukraine’s President Viktor Yushchenko said that Ukraine and Russia should return as soon as possible to the issue of establishing a market price on natural gas and its transit, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported on May 29. Yushchenko, who is scheduled to visit Russia in early June, stressed once again that the January Ukrainian-Russian gas agreements are unacceptable for him both politically and economically.

Ukraine agreed to a transfer to market gas prices. It would be correct considering the simultaneous introduction of a market price on gas transit, Yushchenko said. In this case, nobody would comment on the gas price, even that determined by the formula that is assessed as the most imperfect in Europe by many experts, he claimed. “However, during the talks, the Ukraine side, probably, following, first of all, political reasons, left the transit price at the level that was three years ago.

What results did it lead to? As early as in the first quarter, the Russian gas transit became unprofitable for us,” Yushchenko stressed as the long-running dispute between Moscow and Kiev over gas continues.

Russian gas monopoly Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said on May 26 it fears that Ukraine will not pay in full for May gas supplies and threatened to make Ukraine’s national gas company Naftogas Ukrainy pay in advance for supplies. Two weeks ago, Putin and Tymoshenko failed to agree how Ukraine’s underground storage facilities would be filled and who would pay for this.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev urged the EU to help with the bills during the EU-Russian summit at Khabarovsk on May 21-22. Putin also called European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso on May 29 to warn him of difficulties he anticipates in payments coming from Ukraine to Gazprom. Barroso said the EU’s top leaders are set to discuss the Russia-Ukraine gas issue at a summit on June 18-19.

Barroso’s comments came a day after Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said he would put forward at the next European Council meeting Russia’s proposal to have the EU pay part of Ukraine’s gas bills. “It’s been obvious for a few weeks, even months, that Italy is partnering up with Russia. I think they see it in their interest, which is one of the problems the EU as a political body has always had – it’s a collection of sovereign countries and their interests will diverge substantially,” Alfa Bank’s Smith told New Europe.

He reminded that Italy’s ENI and Gazprom plan to double the capacity of the South Stream pipeline. “Between that and Nord Stream suddenly the need to transit through Ukraine becomes questionable,” Smith said.

He said the deal might be partially in response to an EU-Ukraine agreement signed in March to modernise Ukraine’s gas transportation system without Russia’s involvement, which angered Moscow. According to Smith, Russia may say something along the lines of “Okay, if you want to pour a few billion dollars in upgrading the Ukrainian gas system feel free, it may not be necessary because we may be able to bypass it entirely.”

Source: New Europe