[Ohio UZO News] Ukraine: NYT; EDM (2)

[Deychak, Orest]

New York Times

www.nytimes.com

Slavic Rivals Embroiled in Church Rift 

By ANNE BARNARD 

30 July 2008

Late Edition - Final

6

MOSCOW -- For many Russians, it is bad enough that Ukraine is pushing to
join NATO and to eject the Russian Navy from its Black Sea port. But
over the weekend, the confrontation over Ukraine's attempts to shrug off
Russian influence reached an even more emotional pitch -- when the
Ukrainian president sought to split his nation's church from Moscow's.

It was the latest round in an increasingly fraught tug of war over
history, identity and power. The two governments have fought with many
different political weapons -- from Ukraine's threat to join Russia's
cold war rivals to Russia's ability to shut off the natural gas
deliveries on which its neighbor depends. Both quickly made it clear
that the struggle over the church -- traditionally an institution
closely entwined with state power -- was at least as important.

On Saturday, President Viktor A. Yushchenko of Ukraine chose the 1,020th
anniversary of the advent of Christianity in the Slavic kingdom that
predated Ukraine and Russia -- a date that each country claims as a
founding event of its nationhood -- to issue a plea for Ukraine's
Orthodox Christians to gain independence from the Russian Orthodox
Church.

With Orthodox Church notables from around the world looking on, Mr.
Yushchenko asked Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual leader
of the world's 250 million Orthodox Christians, to bless the creation of
an independent Ukrainian church -- ''a blessing,'' he said on Saturday,
''for a dream, for the truth, for a hope, for our state, for Ukraine.''

The Ukrainian president -- who claims that pro-Russian opponents tried
to kill him with poison that pockmarked his face -- also snubbed the
Russian Orthodox patriarch, Aleksy II, by giving him a businesslike
handshake after warmly kissing Bartholomew on both cheeks.

During three days of solemn religious ceremonies, rock concerts and
political brinkmanship in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, the power
struggle was not resolved. Both sides declared victory, as Bartholomew
stopped short of supporting or rejecting the independence movement,
saying only that divisions in the church would have ''problematic
consequences for Ukraine's future.''

But there was insulted pride and inflamed nationalism on both sides as
well, and it was clear that it would be hard to resolve the dispute
without causing a schism in the church, heating up ethnic tensions in
Ukraine and deepening the division between Russia and Ukraine.

The possibility of a split in the church showed that behind the
geopolitical bluster that the two countries have directed at each other
since 1991 -- when they each became independent after the fall of the
Soviet Union -- lies an identity crisis and a deep sense of loss.

Many Ukrainians believe that the Russian empire and later the Soviet
Union robbed them of the chance to develop a national identity, while
many Russians feel that Ukraine is now claiming as its own a land and
history that belongs to them as well.

For Svetlana Dyomena, a nurse who prayed Tuesday at Yelokhovsky
Cathedral in Moscow, the idea of an independent Ukrainian church
immediately reminded her of her sadness over an independent Ukraine.

''How can Ukraine not be part of Russia?'' she lamented after lighting a
candle at the turquoise, golden-domed church, which was Moscow's main
practicing Orthodox cathedral under Soviet rule. ''We have a common
faith, a common history.''

Ms. Dyomena said it was less painful to see countries like Georgia seek
to escape Moscow's sphere of influence.

''Georgians, well, they were always from the Caucasus,'' she said,
referring to the restive mountainous region whose people have fought
wars against Russian rulers for centuries. But Ukraine and Russia, she
said, have ''one language, one religion, even one cuisine.''

Ukrainians disagree. Russian was the language of government and
education in Ukraine under the Soviet Union and Russian empire, and
Ukrainians struggled to maintain their own language. They view the
absorption of the Ukrainian state and church into Russia's institutions
under Peter the Great as an annexation that was not reversed until 1991.

''How can you live like neighbors when your neighbor says the house you
live in is not your own house, but our common house?'' said Bishop
Yevstratiy, the spokesman for one of two Ukrainian breakaway churches,
the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Kiev Patriarchate, which the Moscow
Patriarchate has declared heretical.

Establishing an independent church is essential for Ukraine to
consolidate its national identity and statehood, and it would probably
happen eventually, said Alexey Malashenko, an expert on religion and
society at the Carnegie Moscow Center.

''But for Russia it is also a tragedy,'' he said. ''I don't know how
they are going to agree.''

When Ukraine left the Soviet Union in 1991, the new nation took with it
much that was dear to Russia.

The Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, won by Catherine the Great from the
Turks for the Russian empire, was a vacation getaway for generations of
Russian nobles and, later, for Soviet laborers. Its port, in Sevastopol,
is still the home of the Russia's Black Sea naval fleet. Odessa, an
important shipping hub that is now part of Ukraine, is also the source
of shared cultural touchstones, from its bawdy jokes to the famous shot
of the baby carriage rolling down the steps in the classic Eisenstein
film ''Battleship Potemkin.''

Even historical tragedies are subject to the tug of war. There is a
Ukrainian movement to convince the world that the famines that killed
millions of Soviets during forced collectivization constituted a
genocide aimed at ethnic Ukrainians -- while many Russians object that
their ancestors also starved after being stripped of their private land.

But the biggest prize is the inheritance of Kievan Rus, the kingdom that
Prince Vladimir -- Volodymyr to Ukrainians -- converted to Christianity
in the 10th century.

In Kiev, Aleksy II, the Russian patriarch, called it ''the mother of
Russian cities, a city from where Holy Orthodoxy began to spread through
our land.''

Moscow church officials, who are close to the Kremlin, linked church
unity to political efforts to maintain close ties among Slavic
countries.

At a rock concert organized by the Moscow patriarchate, the popular rock
band DDT performed alongside Metropolitan Kirill, a Moscow church
spokesman who declared in a kind of ecclesiastical rap: ''Russia,
Ukraine, Belarus -- that is Holy Rus! Holy Rus is invincibility!''

Shots were even fired on Saturday -- though they were blanks. Ukraine on
Tuesday delivered a formal complaint to Russia over the firing of blanks
from Russian naval ships at Sevastopol to celebrate Russian Navy Day.

There is division within Ukraine over church independence. The idea is
less popular in Ukraine's mainly Russian-speaking, pro-Russian
industrialized south and east than in the Ukrainian-speaking,
Western-leaning part of the country west of the Dnieper River.

Aleksy II canceled a planned trip to Donetsk, a pro-Russian city, citing
health reasons, but he was widely seen to be either trying to avoid
stirring up conflict by rallying his supporters, or to be leaving early
because the Ukrainian president did not show him enough respect.

Eurasia Daily Monitor

www.jamestown.org/edm/

July 29, 2008


IS UKRAINE ON THE BRINK OF AN ENERGY CRISIS?

Come January 2009 Ukraine will, in all likelihood, begin paying Russia's
Gazprom in the range of $400 per 1,000 cubic meters for natural gas or
$22 billion per year. Presently the country pays $179 per 1,000 cubic
meters, or $9.9 billion per year. Will it be able to survive the new
price?

For years Ukraine has been hard pressed to pay its debts to Gazprom and
has regularly been indebted to Gazprom to the tune of about $1 billion
per year.

Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller stated that by July 2008 Ukraine had hoarded 1
billion cubic meters of gas-destined for sale to European customers-into
its underground gas storage facilities, withholding it from
RosUkrEnergo, the Swiss-based intermediary company that sells Central
Asian gas to a number of European companies (Kommersant, July 21).
Miller explained that this was a maneuver by Naftogaz Ukraine, the
Ukrainian state-owned oil and gas monopoly, to stock up on cheaper gas
in order to reduce costly imports in 2009.

All indications point to the fact that Ukraine is decidedly unprepared
for such a dramatic increase in energy costs and few believe it will be
able to convince Central Asian leaders to lessen the blow by reducing
the price at which they sell their gas to Gazprom or to make the
increase incremental over a span of five years.

Yulia Tymoshenko, the Ukrainian prime minister, held out hope by saying
that during her meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in
June 2008, Putin promised to distribute the price increase over a
five-year span (Ukrayinska Pravda, June 28). Earlier, however, Putin
told the Ukrainian leadership that Russian "subsidies" for their energy
imports had come to an end.

Both sides in the ongoing negotiations have been careful thus far in
their comments and have avoided confrontational remarks-the sole
exception being Ukrainian Economics Minister Bohdan Danylyshyn, who
stated that if the price of gas were to jump to $400, Ukraine should
block Russia's entry into the World Trade Organization.

Gazprom could, conceivably, agree to an incremental price increase for
Ukraine over a span of five years, thus allowing the country to
radically improve its highly energy-wasteful economy and reduce yearly
gas imports from the current 55 billion cubic meters (bcm) to 40 bcm or
less and to develop alternative energy sources. In the end, however,
Ukraine will need to pay the accumulated debt.

The worst case scenario would be for Gazprom to refuse to grant the
Ukrainians debt postponement and demand cash up front for gas
deliveries. This could be a death blow to Ukrainian industry and
agriculture which are highly reliant on gas for manufacturing and
fertilizer production.

Such a price increase could have unpredictable consequences for
Ukrainian politics. Many industrialists might blame President Viktor
Yushchenko and Prime Minister Tymoshenko for not preparing the country
for such a predictable escalation of energy costs and might not support
them in the 2009 presidential election.

Voters in Eastern Ukraine could lose some of their pro-Russian
enthusiasm if higher gas prices lead to wide-scale unemployment in their
region. Some would place the blame on Russia for "squeezing" Ukraine-and
them-into an economic crisis.

Others however might argue that if Ukraine were part of Russia, they
would pay low Russian domestic prices for gas and thus avoid a crisis.

The opposition pro-Russian Party of the Regions has maintained a silence
about the price increase knowing that it shares full responsibility with
the ruling coalition for Ukraine's inability to cope with rising energy
costs. Nonetheless, if the increase is not modified, Viktor Yanukovych,
the leader of the Party of the Regions, will in all probability benefit
most and be elected president.

Gazprom and the Kremlin might be tempted to play the "gas card" in order
to see Yanukovych elected and to gain control-if not direct ownership-of
the Ukrainian trunk gas pipeline, a long-time objective of Russian
policy meant to give Gazprom the ultimate say over the largest supply
route of Russian gas to Europe.

With a possible debt of over $10 billion by late 2009, the new Ukrainian
government might be forced to sell the pipeline to Gazprom-as well as a
substantial part of its industrial base, maintain the Russian Black Sea
Fleet in Sevastopol and renounce its intention to join NATO.

-- Roman Kupchinsky


Eurasia Daily Monitor

July 28, 2008

YUSHCHENKO SWITCHES SUPPORT FROM OUR UKRAINE TO UNITED CENTER

On July 12 Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko's fourth party of power
United Center held its inaugural congress in pompous style at the
Ukrayina Palace, broadcast live on state television Channel 1. Although
presidential secretariat head Viktor Baloga was touted by the Ukrainian
media as the most likely candidate, because of the use of administrative
resources in the party's construction, Ihor Kryl was re-elected as
leader (edc.org.ua).

United Center's inability to find a charismatic and well known leader is
endemic to the party's crisis from its inception. The merger of United
Center with the People's Democratic Party (NDP) failed to materialize
prior to the congress (Ukrayinska Pravda, June 27). United Center was
established on March 27 after five deputies resigned from Our
Ukraine-People's Self Defense (NU-NS) but opted to remain in the orange
coalition. At a maximum United Center may grow to number 15 out of the
72 NU-NS deputies, still far short of the necessary majority of 37
required to vote for NU-NS's withdrawal from the coalition.

United Center supports a grand coalition of NU-NS and the Party of
Regions. United Center is a "constructive alternative," Baloga said, a
codeword for pragmatists in Regions and NU-NS to unite. "We are of one
mind with the president, our aims are the same" (Ukrayinska Pravda, July
8).

The new party of power is being established administratively through
regional governors, with three joining (Ukrayinska Pravda, March 27). In
Dnipropetrovsk a large proportion of the governor's office have joined.

United Center is being established "from above, using the advantages of
administrative offices, reminiscent of Kuchma-era methods," Zerkalo
Nedeli (June 28) bemoaned. Officials employed in regional governments
refusing to join United Center have been released from employment
(Ukrayinska Pravda, July 1). In half of Ukraine's 27 regions, United
Center is headed by the governor or his deputies.

United Center has two major pitfalls. First, under constitutional
reforms supported by parliament's two largest factions, Regions and the
Yulia Tymoshenko bloc, governors would be placed under government
control, leaving the president with few "administrative resources." The
NDP halted unification talks with United Center after NP leader Ludmilla
Suprun was not offered the post of Zaporizhzhia governor.

Second, United Center's choice of allies is marginal. The NDP,
Democratic Party and the Republican Christian Party stood in the 2007
elections in the Ludmilla Suprun-Ukrainian Regional Active bloc that
obtained 0.34 percent (10th place). Two other marginal allies are the
Agrarians and the Party of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (PPPE). An
alliance with these five marginal parties would not boost United
Center's popularity (Ukrayinska Pravda, April 24).

These five allies are former pro-Kuchma centrist parties, and four
supported Viktor Yanukovych in the 2004 elections. The PPPE supported
Yushchenko in the second round of the 2004 elections but the defection
of its members from Our Ukraine to the Anti-Crisis coalition in March
2007 spurred the president's April 2 decree to disband parliament.

Kyiv Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky-who was backed by Yushchenko in the May
26 pre-term Kyiv elections-is to join United Center. The Chernovetsky
bloc came first in the Kyiv elections with 30 percent while NU-NS failed
to reach the 3 percent threshold. Kyiv City Council Secretary Oles
Dovhyi remains the link between Chernovetsky and United Center and could
become the head of its Kyiv branch (Ukrayinska Pravda, March 18).

There is growing antagonism inside NU-NS at United Center for poaching
its regional members, so pre-term elections would unravel the bloc.
United Center could have potentially gained some support if it had
successfully attracted the business wing of NU-NS, which has always been
inclined toward a grand coalition and lukewarm toward Tymoshenko. United
Center placed high hopes on attracting parliamentary speaker Arseniy
Yatseniuk as its leader, a young and respected business leader loyal to
Yushchenko, but he has repeatedly declined the offer.

Other businessmen in NU-NS told EDM that while they remained loyal to
Yushchenko, they did not want to participate in a political project
promoted by Baloga, who has poor relations with both the majority
pro-Tymoshenko and minority pro-Yushchenko wings of NU-NS. NS is
financed by Davyd Zhvannia, subject of an investigation to have his
Ukrainian citizenship annulled. The investigation is being
orchestrated-according to NS leader and Interior Minister Yuriy
Lutsenko-by the presidential secretariat (see EDM, June 2; Ukrayinska
Pravda, July 9).

It is unlikely that Ukraine will have a successful party of power for
four reasons. First, Ukraine's regional diversity makes it impossible to
have a single party that is pan-national. Second, a party of power
requires an over-arching nationalism, as in Russia under Vladimir Putin.
United Center's amorphous ideology of "patriotism, truth and pragmatism"
has already failed in Kuchma-era centrist parties (Ukrayinska Pravda,
June 9). Third, successful parties of power require a popular president
who can lead them, as is the case in Russia. Fourth, parties of power
succeed in autocratic-not democratic-systems where elites and
businessmen can be cajoled into joining them.

Ukraine has attempted to build two parties of power under Kuchma and two
under Yushchenko; all four have failed, or probably will.

The NDP was Kuchma's new party of power headed by Prime Minister Valeriy
Pustovoitenko in the 1998 elections when, despite administrative
resources, the NDP received only 5 percent of the vote. Following the
replacement of Pustovoitenko by Yushchenko as prime minister in 1999,
the NDP faction began to disintegrate. Suprun opposed "administrative
methods" to establish new parties "because we have experienced this
already and learnt our lessons" (Zerkalo Nedeli, June 28).

For a United Ukraine (ZYU) was established for the 2002 elections
consisting of five pro-Kuchma centrist parties, but it obtained only 11
percent despite administrative resources. The ZYU disintegrated a month
after the elections into constantly fluctuating factions.

In 2005 the People's Union-Our Ukraine was established as Yushchenko's
first party of power but it failed to fulfill its main objective of
merging disparate national democratic parties within Our Ukraine. Three
years later United Center is the second attempt.

United Center will likely become Ukraine's fourth failed party of power
and will therefore be unable to win Yushchenko a second term.

-- Taras Kuzio





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