[Ohio UZO News] Ukraine: AP; IHT; LAT; FT; EDM (2)

[Deychak, Orest]

AP

 

NATO chief seeks to soothe Russia, Ukraine over potential membership 

By OLGA BONDARUK 

Associated Press Writer

16 June 2008

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - NATO's chief sought to allay Russia's concerns
about Ukraine's possible entry into the alliance Monday, calling the
idea that NATO wants bases on Ukrainian soil a "big myth."

After meeting with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, NATO Secretary
General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told a news conference that eventual
membership "does not mean, ladies and gentlemen, NATO bases in Ukraine,
(nor) that any Ukrainian soldier will be forced to take part in NATO's
operations and missions."

"It is a myth -- a big myth -- and let me debunk this myth in your
presence here today," he said.

Russia views NATO as little more than an extension of the U.S. military
and has said Ukraine's membership would present a security threat. With
the pro-Western Yushchenko seeking to bring Ukraine into NATO, former
Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened earlier this year to target
the nation with nuclear missiles if it joined and hosted missile-defense
facilities.

NATO declined at a summit in April to grant Ukraine a so-called
Membership Action Plan to achieve eventual membership, but said there
would be a review in December.

Yushchenko said Monday that he wants NATO to grant Ukraine the action
plan in December. But Scheffer stopped short of naming a date.

"I cannot and will not predict any decision-making but what I can say is
that the decision making at the machinery is NATO's and NATO's alone,"
he said, implying that Russia would not have a say in the decision.

Ukraine must continue to pursue defense and security sector reforms in
order to join, Scheffer said.

He also said NATO would not interfere in a simmering dispute between
Ukraine and Russia over Sevastopol, a Ukrainian port city that hosts
Russia's Black Sea Fleet. Ukrainian officials have said they want the
Russian ships out after an agreement on their presence expires in 2017,
sparking angry rhetoric from Russia.

Ukraine's population is divided over NATO, with opinion polls indicating
that more than half, mainly of the Russian-speaking east, have a deeply
negative view of NATO.

Hundreds of supports of Russia-leaning parties that oppose membership
protested outside the presidential administration building Monday.

Yushchenko has also tried to play down the idea of NATO as a threat. He
said its efforts to join were "not a policy against anybody."

 

International Herald Tribune

NATO tests Ukraine's readiness to join 

By Judy Dempsey

Monday, June 16, 2008 

BERLIN: NATO's secretary general, accompanied by top envoys from all 26
countries in the alliance, is trying to get a sense of whether Ukraine,
the largest former Soviet republic so far to seek membership in the
organization, is making progress with preparations to join and in
resolving its disputes with Russia.

The secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, and NATO ambassadors are
holding talks in Kiev this week with the Ukrainian Defense Ministry and
with top members of Ukraine's three main political factions to try to
evaluate the extent of change in the Ukrainian military. They are also
trying to measure the gravity of a fresh warning from Russia, which says
that it will never allow Ukraine to join the Atlantic alliance.

To understand attitudes across Ukraine toward NATO, the alliance is
sending the delegation to the pro-European city of Lviv, in west
Ukraine, and to the more pro-Russian cities of Dnipropetrovsk and
Kharkiv in the east.

Alliance members promised at a meeting in Bucharest in April to hold
talks with Ukraine and the former Soviet republic of Georgia on a
Membership Action Plan, the preparatory stage for full membership.

But Europeans, particularly in France and Germany, are highly skeptical
about the suitability of Ukrainian membership. Meanwhile, Ukrainians are
deeply split over whether membership is desirable and there are
widespread misperceptions about what membership would even entail.

"Our biggest challenge in Ukraine is explaining to the public what NATO
is about," said James Appathurai, spokesman for the alliance. "Many
think that if Ukraine did join NATO, then NATO would deploy nuclear
weapons on their territory."

Ukraine has been slow to introduce the major defense changes required by
the Atlantic alliance, according to NATO officials. The requirements
include providing funding for the restructuring and reduction of the
armed forces, overhauling military intelligence and bringing more
civilian control and transparency to the military.

The idea that Ukraine could one day join NATO has provoked a strong
negative reaction from Russia. The Kremlin, seeking to influence a
meeting in December of NATO foreign ministers, recently intensified its
campaign to block Ukraine from integrating the alliance.

Dmitri Medvedev, the Russian president, made it clear during talks two
weeks ago with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany that he strongly
objected to Ukraine and Georgia joining the alliance. Instead, he called
for a new European security architecture that would include Russia but
that would weaken the Atlantic organization.

According to polls conducted recently by the independent Democratic
Initiatives Foundation in Kiev, 59 percent of Ukrainians would vote
against joining NATO, up from 53 percent last December, while 22 percent
would vote in favor, down from 32 percent.

Last month, the pro-Russian Communist Party of Ukraine announced that it
had collected one million signatures from residents in the Crimea
demanding that the Russian Black Sea Fleet be stationed there
permanently.

Under an agreement between Ukraine and Russia, the fleet - a potent
symbol of Russian presence in Crimea and the biggest employer there - is
to withdraw by May 2017.

If the petition gains momentum, it could create a conflict between
Russia and Ukraine and convince some NATO countries that even offering a
Membership Action Plan to Ukraine would be risky. The Communist Party
alleges, for example, that the Black Sea Fleet would be replaced by a
NATO fleet, which NATO denies.

Russia is using its energy reserves as a political instrument, just as
it did in 2006, one year after the electoral victory of the pro-Western
president of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko. At that time, Gazprom cut off
supplies to Ukraine, allegedly over a price dispute.

Medvedev told Yushchenko this month that gas prices would double in
2009.

Russia is also questioning the status of the Crimean Peninsula, where
more than 60 percent of the population is ethnic Russian. Through the
Moscow-Crimea Foundation that is funded in part by Yuri Luzhkov, the
mayor of Moscow, a strong anti-NATO movement has emerged there.

The Russian bid to prevent Ukraine from being offered a Membership
Action Plan has also benefited from disputes inside the Ukrainian
government and Parliament.

Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko, the leader of the coalition government,
have been involved in bitter power struggles since Tymoshenko became
prime minister last year.

This has helped the pro-Russian group led by former Prime Minister
Viktor Yanukovich to mobilize public opinion over the disadvantages in
joining NATO. The group contends that membership would seriously damage
relations with Russia.

Over 60 percent of Ukrainians want to maintain friendly relations with
Russia, according to public opinion polls.

Los Angeles Times

McCartney is back in the (former) U.S.S.R. 

Olga Bondaruk 

Associated Press

16 June 2008

Home Edition

E-2

KIEV, Ukraine -- Tens of thousands of people braved heavy rain and
thunder Saturday night to see Paul McCartney perform a charity concert
on Kiev's central Independence Square.

The outdoor show, the first in Ukraine for the ex-Beatle, was billed as
the biggest concert ever in the former Soviet republic. It was broadcast
live on national television and on giant screens in five cities.

After a half-hour delay because of the weather, McCartney, who turns 66
this week, came out on the stage and greeted the crowd in Ukrainian
before diving into the Beatles song "Drive My Car."

He followed up with a series of Beatles songs, including "Hey Jude,"
"Let It Be," "Back in the U.S.S.R." and "Penny Lane." The show also
included a rendition of "A Day in the Life," which McCartney dedicated
to his late bandmate John Lennon.

McCartney returned for his encore waving a Ukrainian flag and finished
off the two-hour show with fireworks, a rendition of "Yesterday" and a
musical finale.

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili was in attendance.

Before the concert, fans in five major cities sang Beatles songs in a
live TV linkup with the capital.

The square where McCartney played was the site of the Orange Revolution
in 2004, when peaceful mass protests overturned a fraudulent election
and brought a pro-Western opposition leader to power.

Organizers said the money raised will be spent on diagnostic equipment
for the children's department at Ukraine's National Cancer Institute.
Many children now seek treatment abroad because Ukraine lacks the
necessary equipment.

The concert was free, but the organizers were asking for donations from
Ukrainian businessmen and others.

More than 500 people have contributed about $600,000 and donations were
continuing to come in, said Tatyana Overina, spokeswoman for the Victor
Pinchuk Foundation, which organized the concert. Pinchuk, a billionaire
businessman and the country's richest man, established the foundation in
2006 to contribute to the modernization of Ukraine and bring forward a
new generation of Ukrainian leaders.

(Note:  According to some reports, up to 350,000 people attended the
concert, making it the largest gathering in Independence Square since
the Orange Revolution.  OD) 

Financial Times

Ukraine rifles its history for heroes

By Chrystia Freeland 

Published: June 14 2008 

When Mark Thompson, the BBC's director-general, learnt that 77 Ukrainian
MPs had written to him to complain about vote-rigging in a BBC-inspired
contest to name the greatest Ukrainian of all time, I suspect he
struggled to contain the mirth that made us laugh at the olde-country
scenes in Borat . Like the quip that academic politics are so vicious
because the stakes are so low, it is hard not to be entertained by a
battle over "historical" figures that few non-Ukrainians have ever heard
of.

But history may matter more to you if it has been rough, as Ukraine's
has. As Viktor Yushchenko, the president whose path to power included a
disfiguring attempt on his life, told the Canadian parliament last
month, Ukraine has declared independence six times in the past 90 years.
His job, he said, was to make sure the most recent declaration, in 1991,
was the last one. Even the national anthem takes a bleak view. Its first
line is: "Ukraine has not yet died."

With nearly two decades of independence under their belts and a booming
economy, Ukrainians today are starting to relax. Indeed, so integrated
have they become into the global economy and culture that they can buy
gimmicky television series from the BBC and adapt them for a local
audience - as they did with the eight-month television quest to identify
the greatest Ukrainian, based on the BBC series, Great Britons .

Yaroslav the Wise, the 11th century prince of Kievan Rus, was named the
winner in a last-minute surge, edging out western Ukrainian partisan
leader Stepan Bandera, who led a guerrilla war against the Nazis and the
Soviets and was poisoned on orders from Moscow in 1959. When the
programme's editor cried foul, alleging that Yaroslav's backers had
flooded the show with computerised phone-in votes, the story suddenly
became irresistible abroad. After all, stuffed ballot boxes have figured
prominently in recent Ukrainian politics, sparking the 2004 orange
revolution.

The contretemps is being framed as yet another example of the divide
between western and eastern Ukraine, where the Soviet portrayal of
Bandera as a traitor still lingers. That would be a mistake. The real
story of Ukraine is the astonishing rapprochement between east and west,
which began in 1991 and accelerated after 2004, when big business
decided it paid to buy into independence.

Most of my local friends are relieved that the latest voting scandal is
about selecting the greatest historical Ukrainian, not picking a
president. Oleksander Tkachenko, head of Odessa Film Studio, says:
"National legends, in the best sense of the word, are very important. We
have to create them." In an age of bland globalisation, there is a
quirky charm in the spectacle of Ukrainians debating the relative merits
of medieval princes and 19th century poets. The world may be flat, but
it turns out that the history of our particular corner of it can still
matter.

The writer is Ukrainian-Canadian

Eurasia Daily Monitor 

June 17, 2008

NEW TWISTS IN THE RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN DISPUTE

The continuing Ukrainian-Russian war of words took on a new twist on
June 13, when the Russian Foreign Ministry accused Ukraine of acting
jointly with unnamed foreign companies to develop oil and gas fields
illegally off the Crimean coast of the Black Sea shelf, claiming that
the legal status of the territory had not yet been determined (Interfax,
June 13).

"The Russian side," according to a commentary distributed by the Russian
Foreign Ministry on June 13, "is drawing attention to the fact that the
said areas are the subject of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine on
the delimitation of the continental shelf and the exclusive economic
zone in the Black Sea waters. In this connection, we believe that the
above-mentioned activity is of an unlawful character and should be
ceased" (Interfax, June 13).

The Russian side specified that this activity was taking place in an
area named the Structure of Subbotyne and the Rising of Pallas. A source
in the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry told Interfax that the Russian claims
were "absurd." "The Subbotyne maritime oil field is located on the
territory of the Ukrainian part of the Black Sea shelf, and the
prospecting area of Pallas, which is really located both in Russian and
Ukrainian territories, is not being developed by anybody," the source
told Interfax.

The off-shore drilling conflict appeared to be connected to the dispute
between the U.S. energy company Vanco and the Ukrainian government,
which lifted Vanco's license to drill for oil and gas in the Black Sea
shelf in the vicinity of the territory being disputed by Russia.

The government of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko claimed that Vanco had
broken the Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) by assigning the drilling
license it held to an off-shore subsidiary company registered in the
British Virgin Islands called Vanco Prykerchynsky.

Tymoshenko stated that the agreements that were concluded with Vanco in
2007 were not transparent, and she accused President Viktor Yushchenko
of lobbying for Vanco's interests. Yushchenko flatly denied the
accusation and called on Tymoshenko to review her decision on Vanco.
Meanwhile, Vanco has threatened to sue the Ukrainian government (EDM,
May 21).

On June 14 the president of Russia added his voice to the Crimean
debate. Dmitry Medvedev did so in a message to the residents of
Sevastopol during the commemorations of the 225th anniversary of the
founding of the city, which is the base of Russia's Black Sea Fleet.

Falling back on nostalgic, nationalistic images, Medvedev said,
"Sevastopol, a hero city, a city of workers, has witnessed truly
landmark events. It is the cradle of the Russian Black Sea Fleet with
which it has always shared both the bitterness of losses and the
greatness of victories" (Interfax June 14).

Medvedev was careful in not calling for Sevastopol to be returned to the
Russian Federation, thereby distancing himself from the provocative
statements made by Yuriy Luzhkov, the Mayor of Moscow, who a few weeks
earlier called for the return of the city to Russia.

A harder line was taken by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov
who told a meeting in Sevastopol, "The fleet itself is hard to imagine
without its main naval base....Russia is increasingly being reminded [by
Ukraine] of 2017, the year the fleet is to be withdrawn from Ukraine
under a Russian-Ukrainian agreement." Ivanov, playing the ethnic Russian
card designed to win the allegiance of Crimean Russians, stressed that
"92 percent of the population of Sevastopol are our fellow countrymen
and countrywomen" (Interfax June 14).

During his speech, Ivanov was interrupted by a heckler who yelled out
"It's our city!" Ivanov replied, "Yes, it is our city," adding "From the
moment it [Sevastopol] was formed, its fate was irrevocably linked to
the Russian empire and to the Soviet Union" (Ukrayinska Pravda, June
14).

Russian functionaries visiting Sevastopol appeared not to have known
about Viktor Yushchenko's meeting with Dmitry Medvedev earlier in St.
Petersburg during the economic forum where the Ukrainian president told
his colleague, "The treaty on the presence of the Black Sea Fleet in
Sevastopol, which implies that it [the fleet] will remain there until
2017, is a treaty that the Ukrainian side will fulfill to the last
letter" (Interfax AVN, June 9).

The less confrontational tack taken by Medvedev in his note to the
Sevastopol gathering, which visibly contrasted with Ivanov's hard line,
could indicate that there are differences in opinion between Medvedev
and Putin on the Crimean question. Ivanov is widely believed to be
Putin's man and appears to share his boss's views on the Crimea. In
April Putin reportedly told U.S. President George Bush during the NATO
summit in Bucharest that most of Ukraine's territory had been "given
away" by Russia and threatened to encourage the secession of Crimea if
Ukraine persisted in joining NATO (Moscow Times, April 8).

It will be important to see if these differences continue and who will
be in charge of Russian policy toward Ukraine, Putin or Medvedev.

--Roman Kupchinsky



RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN RELATIONS REVEAL DEEPER PROBLEMS

President Viktor Yushchenko's first meeting with newly elected Russian
President Dmitry Medvedev failed to resolve the outstanding issues
between Ukraine and Russia. Despite Yushchenko's optimism that all of
these issues would be resolved, "the negotiations taking everything into
account became very heated."

These issues cannot be easily dealt with, because the growing range of
problem areas between Ukraine and Russia, Russia's assertive nationalism
and the divergent transition paths of both countries that began during
Vladimir Putin's first and Leonid Kuchma's second terms in office and
accelerated following the 2004 Orange Revolution.

Eleven areas bedevil Ukrainian-Russian relations showing a close
interconnection between domestic and international affairs.

First, energy. Ukraine has absorbed Russian gas price increases from $50
to $179.50 per 1,000 cubic meters over the last four years with a threat
to double this price in 2009. Nevertheless, annual negotiations over gas
contracts continue to be over-shadowed by anger and accusations. The
energy sector continues to be very corrupt, and this factor reduces the
ability of Ukraine's elites to act in unison toward Moscow. Ukraine has
three strategic advanatages over Russia: pipelines carrying 80 percent
of Russian gas to Europe, storage facilities and World Trade
Organization (WTO) membership. The Yushchenko-Yulia Tymoshenko rivalry
and corruption undermine Ukraine's leverages and leads to angry
exchanges inside Ukraine and between Russia and Ukraine.

Second, CIS. The orange administration has continued and deepened
Ukraine's lack of interest in CIS integration, including the Single
Economic Space (SES). Yushchenko does not follow Kuchma's rhetorical lip
service to the CIS SES and CIS integration. Interest in the CIS is
overshadowed by a reorientation toward a Deep Free Trade Area with the
EU. The Party of Regions proposes not CIS integration but "neutrality"
as an alternative to NATO membership.

Third, Ukrainian exiles in Russia. High-level officials accused of abuse
of office (Igor Bakaj, Ruslan Bodelan) or involvement in Yushchenko's
poisoning (Volodymyr Satsiuk) continue to remain in exile in Russia.
Russia has a long record of harboring fugitives sought by countries such
as Georgia.

Fourth, Russian oppositionists unable to work freely in Russia are
increasingly settling in Ukraine or working from it. Exiled Russian
oligarch Boris Berezovskiy not only gave financial assistance to the
Orange Revolution but also financed the transcribing of the Mykola
Melnychenko tapes. Russians were convinced the Orange Revolution was
part of a "Western conspiracy" and could never believe that Ukrainians
were capable of undertaking a revolution without a "guiding hand."

Fifth, the nature of the two countries' relationship. The
Russian-Ukrainian relationship has always been bedeviled by Russia's
unwillingness to treat Ukraine (like Belarus) as a partner rather than a
vassal. Russia's unwillingness to treat Kuchma, elected in 1994 on a
"pro-Russian platform," with due respect turned him into an ardent
supporter of NATO. Yushchenko's demand for a change in the
Russian-Ukrainian relationship to one between two independent states is
even more demanding than that proposed by Kuchma. As seen by Putin's
comments made during the NATO-Russia Council at the Bucharest NATO
summit, Russia is unable to treat Ukraine as a foreign, serious and
coherent entity.

Sixth, borders. The 2003 territorial claim on the island of Tuzla showed
to what degree border issues continue to remain unresolved. On June 3
the State Duma voted to seek the abrogation of the 1997 treaty if
Ukraine got a NATO Membership Action Plan. The resolution followed
Moscow Mayor Yuriy Luzhkov's Crimean visit when he re-opened the
Crimean-Sevastopol issue.

Ukraine has always had a cross-party consensus on protecting its
territorial integrity, and Russia's territorial demands merely push
Ukraine toward NATO, whether under Kuchma or Yushchenko. Senior Party of
Regions leader Andriy Kluyev warned, "Anti-Ukrainian statements by
Russian politicians...are strategically very bad for the interests of
both states," because they pit both peoples against each other and give
ammunition to "anti-Russian forces in Ukraine."

Seventh, Black Sea Fleet. The Fleet pays a low rent of $100 million per
annum, its personnel take part in anti-NATO and anti-American protests
and the Fleet illegally occupies numerous buildings (lighthouses) and
land that are commercially used. The lack of respect for Ukraine is
evidenced in recent naval troop exercises conducted on Crimean land
without offering prior notification to the Ukrainian authorities. Based
on Russia's unwillingness to withdraw from Moldova and Georgia and
Russian officials' statements, Ukraine's major concern is whether the
Fleet will withdraw from Sevastopol in 2017.

Eighth, Church and language. During the Yushchenko-Medvedev meeting the
Russian side raised the perennial issues of alleged "discrimination"
against the Russian language in Ukraine and attempts at uniting the
Ukrainian Autocephalous and Russian Orthodox Churches.

Ninth, NATO enlargement. Because of Russia's unreformed world view and
historically unchanged attitude toward Ukraine, it is unable to discuss
Ukraine's drive to join NATO rationally but only in emotional and
hysterical terms, using words such as "treason." Such language was
evident during Putin's speech to the NATO-Russia Council, where he
challenged Ukraine's territorial integrity and right to exist.

Tenth, frustration. Russia has long been frustrated by its inability to
influence domestic affairs in Ukraine. Attempts to use energy pressure
have always failed, notably in January 2006, when the entire West backed
Ukraine in the gas dispute. A February 2007 Ukrainian parliamentary vote
to block privatization of the gas pipelines (i.e. transfer them to
Russian or joint control) received 420 of 450 votes. Outside of
Sevastopol Russian nationalist parties have never been able to establish
Ukrainian bases of support.

Eleventh, history. Ukraine and Russia's views of Soviet and pre-Soviet
history radically changed under Kuchma, and this divergence has
accelerated under Yushchenko. Whereas Ukraine has moved to a Ukrainian
national historiography, Russia has maintained a Soviet Russophile
interpretation of history. School textbooks in both countries give
radically different perspectives on every aspect of Russian-Ukrainian
history over the last two millennia.

Yushchenko's campaign to obtain domestic and international recognition
of the 1933 artificial famine as an act of "genocide," as seen during
his May 25 to 28 visit to Canada, has been heavily criticized by
Russia's President, Foreign Ministry and State Duma. A continuing
exhibition in Kyiv of photographs from KGB files of the Ukrainian
Insurgent Army (UPA), which fought Nazi and Soviet forces from 1942 to
1952, was countered by an anti-UPA exhibition in Russia and threats by
Russian nationalists to attack the Kyiv exhibition. Russian nationalists
destroyed a famine exhibition in Moscow last year.

In Kyiv there is a consensus among the elite and public alike that
relations between Ukraine and Russia will likely continue to deteriorate
(Zerkalo Nedeli, June 7-13; Ukrayinska Pravda, May 26-June 10).

--Taras Kuzio






 

 

 

 

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