[Ohio UZO News] Ukraine: WT; AP; NYT; EDM; WoE

[Deychak, Orest]

The Washington Times

Yushchenko advocates NATO as balance

Natalia A. Feduschak, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

EXCLUSIVE: 

KIEV | Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko blamed the Russia-Georgia
war on a security imbalance in the Black Sea region that he said could
be corrected by NATO's further expansion to the East. 

But he downplayed fears that his country is vulnerable to military
aggression by Moscow even if it does not gain admission to the Western
alliance. 

"I don't believe that kind of danger exists for Ukraine, because Ukraine
is not Georgia," Mr. Yushchenko told The Washington Times Wednesday.
"Ukraine has a different potential, different possibilities. In other
words, our relations [with Russia] can only bring about a dialogue." 

Asked about recent remarks by Republican vice-presidential candidate
Sarah Palin that NATO membership for Georgia would require a military
response from the Western alliance, Mr. Yushchenko spoke in broader
terms of the need for collective security throughout the region. 

"This showed that the Black Sea region is unbalanced and that it can be
a source of danger," Mr. Yushchenko said. "This is a problem not only
for Georgia. I am convinced this is a problem not only for our region.
This is a problem for the European continent and, in a wider sense, even
a world problem." 

Looking composed and relaxed, the silver-haired Mr. Yushchenko, 54, has
regained the youthful vigor for which he was famous before dioxin
poisoning left his face badly scarred in a purported 2004 assassination
attempt. 

He answered questions for nearly an hour, touching on a wide range of
issues, including his nation's quest for membership in NATO and the
European Union and his desire for Russia's Black Sea Fleet to eventually
leave its base in the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol. 

He also expressed disappointment at the rivalry with a one-time
political ally, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, that led to the
collapse of a parliamentary coalition this week. 

Ukraine's relationship with Russia sparked the dispute, with Mrs.
Tymoshenko accusing Mr. Yushchenko of unnecessarily antagonizing Moscow
after last month's invasion of Georgia. 

The two are expected to run against each other for the presidency when
Mr. Yushchenko's five-year term ends in January 2010. 

Mr. Yushchenko will travel to the United States next week to attend the
63rd session of the U.N. General Assembly, where he will have an
opportunity to discuss with dozens of world leaders the war in Georgia
and its impact on the centerpiece of his four-year presidency: Ukraine's
quest for NATO membership. 

"When we talk about the best answer for Ukraine, including its
territorial integrity, and the inviolability of our borders, the answer
is only one - joining a collective system of defense," he said. 

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has stated repeatedly that former
Soviet republics lie in his country's sphere of interest. 

"I'm not going to say, however, that there aren't going to be ways for
destabilization. In this country, there are instruments, and there are
many of them," Mr. Yushchenko said of Russia. 

He said he was unhappy that the leadership in Moscow has kept silent
when some Russian politicians have laid claim to Crimea. 

The peninsula has a large ethnically Russian population and was ceded to
Ukraine in 1956. Both the Ukrainian and Russian Black Sea fleets are
based there, on opposite sides of the same harbor at Sevastopol. 

Mr. Yushchenko said it was critical that Kiev and Moscow shore up the
agreement that allows Russia to base its fleet in Sevastopol until its
lease expires in 2017. 

"The Black Sea Fleet should not be a negative in our relationship with
the Russian Federation," Mr. Yushchenko said. At the same time, he said,
he prefers that the fleet leave Ukraine when its lease ends. 

The president expressed frustration that Ukraine has fallen short in its
bid for eventual NATO membership. 

He chided NATO for not offering his country a membership action plan at
an April summit in Bucharest. 

Many analysts think the Russian invasion of Georgia last month will make
it more difficult for Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO or even gain a
membership action plan when NATO foreign ministers meet again in
December. 

"Everyone needs to understand that everything Ukraine needed to do to
obtain a positive answer [on NATO membership], if we speak openly and
honestly, it has done that," he said. 

Today, he said, "when we aren't talking about NATO membership, we're
talking about a partnership agreement, that we want to have tighter
cooperation. ... We need to get a signal from the alliance itself that
we are respected, that we are valued." 

Mr. Yushchenko, however, saved his harshest words for Ukraine's prime
minister, Mrs. Tymoshenko, his ally in the 2004 Orange Revolution that
toppled a pro-Russian government. 

Their relationship has since dissolved. Earlier this month, Mrs.
Tymoshenko pulled out of a coalition government and joined forces with
Viktor Yanukovych, the president's political nemesis who heads the
pro-Russia opposition. 

"It's disgusting to speak about this because what happened in the last
two months is an example of how easily national interests can be
demolished with blackmail ... and how easily internal politics and
external politics can be changed to suit one's own self interest," Mr.
Yushchenko said of his former ally. 

Mrs. Tymoshenko, in turn, has accused Mr. Yushchenko of ruining
Ukraine's relationship with Russia. 

She urged Ukraine to follow a "balanced" policy with Moscow and blamed
Mr. Yushchenko of antagonizing Russia. 

"I think that the president carries personal responsibility for
everything bad that will happen in relations between Ukraine and
Russia," Mrs. Tymoshenko told reporters in Kiev on Wednesday, the
Associated Press reported. 

 

Associated Press

 

Ukraine's PM mocks president's dioxin poisoning, saying he's been
poisoned by power 

By MARIA DANILOVA 

Associated Press Writer

18 September 2008

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - Ukraine's premier mocked the president's nearly
fatal 2004 dioxin poisoning, saying Thursday that Viktor Yushchenko's
main problem was being poisoned by unlimited power.

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko is locked in a bitter feud with
Yushchenko that has ruined their coalition and put the county on the
brink of its third parliamentary elections in as many years.

She spoke before she was questioned again in a probe into the dioxin
poisoning four years ago. There was no evidence of her involvement made
public and many see her questioning as part of the political infighting.

"The main poisoning is the poisoning with unlimited power, a serious
intoxication in the presidential secretariat," Tymoshenko told
reporters.

The pro-Western coalition of Tymoshenko's and Yushchenko's parties fell
apart this week due to the two leaders' rivalry ahead of the 2010
presidential vote and disagreement over how to deal with Russia
following its war with Georgia last month.

Yushchenko has strongly condemned Russia's actions and accused
Tymoshenko of kowtowing to the Kremlin by taking a cautious stance on
the conflict.

Tymoshenko, while saying she does not support Russia's recognition of
two Georgian separatist regions, stressed that Ukraine needs good
relations with its eastern neighbor.

Yushchenko and Tymoshenko were the heroes of the 2004 Orange Revolution
that catapulted Yushchenko to the presidency. Experts say that a new
government is likely to include the Moscow-friendly Party of Regions and
could turn Ukraine toward Russia and away from the West.

The poisoning incident came at the height of the 2004 election campaign
and left Yushchenko's face badly disfigured. He has suggested the
poisoning may have been orchestrated by Russia.

In a sign that a tough political struggle loomed ahead, lawmakers on
Thursday gave an initial approval to a bill that could make disbanding
parliament a criminal offense in some cases.

The bill, which was supported by Tymoshenko's faction in parliament, was
a clear warning to Yushchenko, who has threatened to call a new vote if
no coalition is formed within the next month. Yushchenko's dissolution
of parliament last year led to early elections.

Tymoshenko has hinted that she may not want to resign even though the
coalition has collapsed.

New York Times

September 18, 2008

World Briefing | Europe


Ukraine: A Region Supports Russia's Recognition of 2 Areas 


By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Local lawmakers in the Crimean Peninsula, which is mostly
Russian-speaking, called for the Ukrainian Parliament to recognize the
independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the two Georgian separatist
provinces that are supported by Russia. Many European officials are
concerned that the Crimea could be the next flash point for tension with
Russia because of the large proportion of Russians who live there and
because Russia's Black Sea Fleet is based in the southern Ukrainian port
of Sevastopol. The resolution by the local Crimean assembly, which was
approved by 79 of the body's 90 deputies, came amid a political crisis
in Ukraine that was provoked by the conflict in Georgia and by tensions
within Ukraine's pro-Western coalition government. 

Eurasia Daily Monitor

September 16, 2008

  
UKRAINE, VANCO ENERGY, AND THE RUSSIAN MOB

The saga of Houston-based Vanco Energy Company's conflict with the
Ukrainian government over a shady production-sharing agreement (PSA) to
explore the Black Sea shelf for oil and gas has taken a new twist.

Recently uncovered evidence suggests that one or more of Vanco Energy
Company's partners in Vanco Prykerchenska Company (VPC), a British
Virgin Islands company formed in October 2007, which holds the rights to
subsoil exploration on the Black Sea shelf, might be linked to Russian
organized crime.

The four parity shareholder partners in VPC are Vanco International
(Bermuda), a subsidiary of Vanco Energy Company; the Donbas Fuel and
Energy Company (DTEK) owned by Ukrainian tycoon Renat Akhmetov; Integrum
Technologies of Austria; and Shadowlight Investments, Ltd., owned by
Russian businessman Evgeny Novitsky.

Integrum Technologies has refused to disclose its main investors, and
Vanco executives have admitted on a number of occasions that they do not
know the identities of the owners of Integrum. These admissions suggest
that Vanco could not have conducted due diligence about Integrum before
allowing them into the consortium. Evidence suggests, however, that Kyiv
Investment Group, a company owned by Ukrainian oligarch Vasyl
Khmelnytsky, is one of the hidden partners of Integrum.

Shadowlight Investments, however, has escaped media scrutiny until now.
The company was described by Oil and Gas Eurasia (no. 6, June 2008) as
an investment company owned by Russian businessman Evgeny Novitsky and
that it was established specifically with the objective of funding the
energy projects on the Black Sea shelf.

According to a number of reports in the press and the book Darkness at
Dawn-The Rise of the Russian Criminal State by David Satter (Yale
University Press, September 2004), Evgeny Novitsky is alleged to be a
member of, or very close to, Russia's Solntsevo organized crime gang.

Satter wrote that Solntsevo had close ties to a Russian company called
Sistema, which is linked to Moscow Mayor Yuriy Luzhkov and to the IVK,
the information technology company, of which Novitsky was director.
Solntsevo, working through the company SV-Holdings, eventually came to
own a large share of IVK.

Satter also claims that Novitsky was present at a restaurant in Prague
in 1995 where Sergei Mikhailov ("Mikhas"), one of the reputed leaders of
the Solntsevo mob, was present along with some 150 other people to
celebrate the birthday of Viktor Averin, ("Avera"), also a reputed
Solntsevo leader. Novitsky was allegedly held by the Czech police, who
raided the party. He was fingerprinted and released.

Satter wrote that the French daily Le Monde had received confidential
reports by the Russian Internal Ministry (MVD) and the Federal Security
Service (FSB) that claimed that Novitsky, as President of Sistema, did
not make any decisions without consulting the Solntsevo criminal
brotherhood.

Kommersant wrote on July 22, 1997, that an unnamed official of the FBI
had revealed the names of three individuals suspected of being "shadow
bankers" for the Solntsevo mob, one of whom was Evgeny Novitsky.

The newspaper Russkiy Telegraf reported on October 16, 1997, that
analysts from the Moscow office of the Department for Combating
Organized Crime (RUOP) suspected Novitsky of laundering money for
Solntsevo.

On August 24, 1999, the Moscow Times reported that Kirill Belyaninov, a
journalist for Novaya Izvestia, had written an investigative article
linking Novitsky and Semen Mogilevich to the Solntsevo group. Gennady
Dalalayev, a spokesman for Sistema, refuted the charges and said that
suggestions that Novitsky was tied to the Solntsevo gang were "rubbish."

The Moscow Times noted that "Retired FBI agent Jim Moody, who was cited
as a source in Belyaninov's story, confirmed...that he had spoken with
Novaya Izvestia. Moody said that Belyaninov's article was 'accurate' in
tying Mogilevich to the Solntsevo gang, but he could not confirm the
allegations regarding Sistema." Belyaninov, however, insisted that he
had documentation, including material from Moscow's Registration
Chamber, to back up his allegations. Moody served as the FBI's assistant
deputy director for organized crime investigations from 1987 to 1996.

On August 1 Vanco Prykerchenska applied to the arbitral tribunal of the
Chamber of Commerce of Stockholm to rule on the legitimacy of the
Ukrainian government's revocation in May of a production sharing
agreement (PSA) signed on October 19, 2007, with the previous government
of Victor Yanukovych.

A statement by the government of Ukraine issued on August 1 noted:
"Vanco Prykerchenska Ltd. is not a subsidiary of the U.S. Company Vanco
Energy. Vanco Energy is simply a minority shareholder in Vanco
Prykerchenska Ltd., an Offshore company dominated by Ukrainian interests
and other offshore entities whose ultimate owners remain undisclosed. It
is Vanco Prykerchenska, and not Vanco Energy or its subsidiary Vanco
International, which recently initiated arbitration against the GoU
[Government of Ukraine] in Stockholm."

The revocation of the PSA by Yulia Tymoshenko's government in May was
initially condemned by U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor, but
his position has since shifted to one of neutrality. U.S. Secretary of
Commerce Carlos M. Gutierrez said in an address to the American Chamber
of Commerce in Kyiv on June 5, 2008: "For the Government of Ukraine to
attract investors, especially in those sectors vital to its energy
security, it needs to make clear that it respects the sanctity of
contracts and the rule of law"
(http://kiev.usembassy.gov/main_eng_archive-2008.html).

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko overturned the government's
decision in June. Prime Minister Tymoshenko, however, continued to
insist that the Vanco contract was a "corrupt agreement concluded by the
previous government" ("BYuT Inform Newsletter," July 22).

If the allegations against Novitsky are proven to be true, Vanco Energy
Company in Houston could possibly face charges under the Racketeer
Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).

In the August 1 statement by the government of Ukraine, one paragraph
appears to be a warning directed at Vanco management: "Given that Vanco
Energy Company...is a U.S. corporation and subject to U.S. jurisdiction,
the GoU has kept the U.S. government apprised of the situation as it has
developed. The U.S. authorities are at the vanguard of the global fight
against corruption, and the GoU will continue to work with all of its
international partners to advance this investigation and pursue
necessary legal steps as appropriate."

--Myroslav Demydenko



Window on Eurasia: Moscow's Effort to Present Itself as Defender of
Crimean Tatars Falls Flat

 

Paul Goble

 

            Vienna, September 17 - Last week, Russian news portals and
blogs featured reports that a group of the Crimean Tatars had called on
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Tatarstan President Mintimir
Shaimiyev to defend their nation's rights against Ukraine's "unceasing
genocide," a story that some Western media outlets picked up from
Russian media reports. 

            But yesterday, the Crimean Tatar party that supposedly wrote
and distributed this appeal said that it had not done so, pointing out
that the individual member of the group that had taken this step was not
authorized to do so and would be subject to discipline, a denial that so
far has appeared only on the Crimea-L discussion list. 

            Thus, the original report and the way many have handled it
provide yet another example of the kind of disinformation campaign
Moscow has again been engaged in as well as a transparent effort to put
pressure on Ukraine by coming up with another justification for Russian
intervention there - the protection of an ethnic minority.

            On September 8th, a document purportedly reflecting the
views of the Milli Firqa Party in Crimea surfaced in the Russian media.
It called on the governments of the Russian Federation and Tatarstan to
"defend the indigenous and other numerically small ethnic communities of
Crimea" against the "genocidal" policies of Ukraine
(www.nr2.ru/crimea/196012.html).

            The appeal said that the situation in Crimea had become
serious because the Crimean Tatars had exhausted "all possible means of
defense in Ukraine" against the "rampant nationalism" there and that the
Milli Firqa Party plans to appeal to the European Union, Turkey and the
Turkic republics of the former Soviet Union as well.

            Signed by Vasvi Abduraimov, who identified himself as a
leader of the party, the document said that he and his party were not
afraid of being accused of having "adopted a pro-Russian position in
Crimean Tatar politics" because without outside support, there was
little possibility that the Crimean Tatars will be in a position to
flourish.

            Consequently, "if it so happens that the interests of Crimea
and the interests of the Crimean-Tatar people correspond with the
interests of Russia for example," Abduraimov concluded, "then why not
use this [coincidence] for the resolution of the chief problems of the
nation."

            Russian media quickly picked up the story, and Russian
politicians and commentators reacted. Konstantin Zatulin, the first
deputy chairman of the Duma's committee on CIS affairs and compatriots
abroad, said that this appeal certainly did not reflect the views of all
Crimean Tatars but was important from Moscow's point of view
(www.nr2.ru/moskow/196179.html).

            It showed that at least some Crimean Tatars are now unhappy
both with the way in which Kyiv has used them as a political football
for the last 20 years and with what he described as the often extreme
statements made by some of the members of the Milli Mejlis, the Crimean
Tatar parliament.

            Obviously, he continued, Moscow could not casually interfere
in the internal affairs of Ukraine "but the Russian Federation is
carefully following what is taking place in Crimea since it is
interested in the well-being of Crimea, the largest region beyond the
borders of the Russian Federation where Russians live."

And Zatulin added that Russia's consul general in Crimea will be open to
receiving more formal requests for Russian assistance and in the
meantime "beyond doubt will receive the assignment of clarifying the
situation," one that he doubted was as extreme as genocide but
nonetheless is serious enough to be a matter of concern.  

            Meanwhile in Crimea itself, Mustafa Dzhemilyev, the leader
of the Milli Mejlis, said that the appeal of Milli Firqa does not
reflect the position of all Crimean Tatars.  "Every nation has the right
to have a certain number of fools," he said, noting that the Milli Firqa
is "not an enormous party." It has only 20-25 members.

            But yesterday the Milli Firqa disowned the statement,
declaring in a message posted on the Crimea-L list that the appeal "was
drafted, signed and forwarded" in violation of "all Milli Firqa rules,
and therefore cannot be considered an official document of the
organization" as it purports to be.  It added that Abduraimov would be
subject to party discipline.

            Today, in Simferopol, a group of Crimean Tatar organizations
held a press conference to denounce the Milli Firqa declaration. But
these statements emanating from Crimea are unlikely to receive the same
wide dissemination that the original "appeal" to Medvedev and Shaimiyev
did. And consequently, that document has already been useful to Moscow
for two reasons.

            On the one hand, it has given some in the Russian government
the chance to test the waters for the notion that Moscow is prepared to
defend not just Russian citizens abroad, something that is a more
difficult case to make in Ukraine given that country's constitutional
ban on dual citizenship.

            And on the other, it has given Moscow another chance both to
blacken the reputation of Ukraine and at least potentially to set at
odds the Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar communities in Crimea, something
that the Russian community there and Moscow itself could in the event of
a crisis exploit.

 

 

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