[Ohio UZO News] Ukraine: WT (2); UW; OSCE; FP; EDM

[Deychak, Orest]

The Washington Times


http://www.washingtontimes.com/


 


Tuesday, December 15, 2009 


Embassy Row


James Morrison


 


UKRAINE'S SECURITY

Ukraine must overhaul its oil and gas industries if the country ever
hopes to maintain energy security, U.S. Ambassador John Tefft said in an
interview in Kiev. 

"Modernization and changes in the oil and gas sector are required for
Ukraine to feel itself secure and to have reliable access to fuel
sources," he told the Dzerkalo Tyzhnia, or Weekly Mirror. 

Russia has cut off energy supplies to Ukraine several times over price
disputes and other issues. 


 


The Washington Times


Danube and Dnieper Rivers flow differently after Soviets


By Arthur Max ASSOCIATED PRESS

December 14, 2009

DNIPRODZERZHYNSK, Ukraine 

Twenty years ago, when the Iron Curtain came down, the world gagged in
horror as it witnessed firsthand the ravages inflicted on nature by the
Soviet industrial machine. 

Throughout the crumbling communist empire, sewage and chemicals clogged
rivers; industrial smog choked cities; radiation seeped through the
soil; open pit mines scarred green valleys. It was hard to measure how
bad it was and still is: The focus was more on production quotas than
environmental data. 

Today, Europe has two easts: one that has been largely cleaned up with
the help of a massive infusion of Western funds and the prospect of
membership in the prosperous European Union, and another that still
looks as though the commissars never left. 

The contrasting story lines are written in the ripple and flow of two
rivers. 

Drifting along Ukraine's Dnieper River, past this one-time powerhouse of
Soviet rule, requires slicing through clouds of black-and-orange exhaust
from a metallurgical plant. 

Over a hill, passengers may catch a whiff of a burning garbage dump.
Nearby fields are fenced off by barbed wire with signs warning of
radioactivity. Farther along, the cruise passes the world's
third-largest nuclear power station. 

Upstream from Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, the Dnieper picks up water
from the Pripyat River, with sediment still laced with radioactive
caesium-137 from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. 

To the southwest, in countries that have joined the European Union,
another river, the Danube, is bouncing back. Pleasure boats sail past
public bathing areas, and people of dozens of nationalities stroll down
esplanades alongside a glittering waterway that inspired the music of
Johann Strauss. Protected woods and wetlands are being extended along
its meandering course. 

In 1989, the stretch of Danube that flowed through the communist
countries was like the Dnieper - an ecological disaster of epic
proportions. Oil slicks glistened in rainbow colors on the water's
surface. Long stretches were empty of fish, and stinking algae
proliferated along the banks. Worse than the visible pollution was the
insidious invasion of microcontaminants that poisoned the ecosystem. 

But at the intersection of geography and history lie insights into the
rivers' contrasting fates. 

Originating in Russia and ending in the Black Sea, the Dnieper flows
south through Belarus, cutting southeast across Ukraine, countries that
have remained, in varying degrees, almost umbilically tethered over the
past 20 years to the might of the Kremlin. 

The Danube, on the other hand, traces a triumphant march through the
European Union's eastward expansion, starting in traditional EU
heavyweight Germany and flowing through or forming the border of new
member states - Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria. 

The river ambles 1,775 miles from the Black Forest to the Black Sea.
About 83 million people in 19 countries live in its basin. 

Five years after the Berlin Wall fell on Nov. 9, 1989, most of the
countries sharing the Danube signed a convention to manage the river,
its tributaries, the basin and the ground sources. It was one of the
iconic projects in a broader mission among Western powers to make
billions of dollars available for a massive cleanup of Eastern Europe. 

In five years of peak action from 2000, the Danube countries spent $3.5
billion building wastewater treatment plants in hundreds of towns and
villages along the river and its 26 major tributaries. They spent $500
million more restoring wetlands and cleaning industrial spillage and
agricultural runoff befouling the water. 

Chemicals that feed plant-choking algae and threaten human health have
dramatically declined since 1989, although their levels remain far
higher than in 1950, before the industrial buildup and growth of
riverside cities. 

Along with direct Western aid, many poor ex-Soviet-bloc countries had a
huge incentive to throw themselves into the region's cleanup: EU
membership. Racing to meet the bloc's environmental standards, they put
scrubbers into coal-fired plants, built water-purification stations and
capped emissions that had been returning to Earth as acid rain. 

It was a monumental task. 

One area known as the Black Triangle at the junction of Germany, Poland
and the Czech Republic was notorious. A concentration of coal mines and
heavy industry suffocated the region under industrial ash and gas. 

 

For the Danube, the cleanup was more than just an environmental project.
The Danube Convention changed mindsets, breaking down barriers between
former enemies, forcing countries and riverside populations to work
together across previously hostile borders. 

"The Danube is a living river that is bound up with the culture and the
peoples who live there," says Philip Weller, the commission's executive
secretary. 

"It is not a wild river, in the sense of salmon jumping or white-water,"
Mr. Weller said. "It is the lifeblood, the circulation system" that
connects the richest part of Europe in Western Germany to the poorest in
Ukraine and Moldova. 

The river is still not pristine, but "over the past 20 years much has
changed for the better," said Andreas Beckmann of the World Wildlife
Fund. After 150 years of abuse and the loss of 80 percent of the river's
wetlands, "the Danube has significantly recovered." 

In contrast, Sergei Rudenko, a teacher at a vocational school in
Dniprodzerzhynsk, has been throwing a fishing line into the Dnieper for
50 years. Springing from the mountains of central Russia, the 1,420-mile
river was once rich at this spot in eastern Ukraine with perch, carp and
bream. 

Now its yield is miserly, he says. 

Dniprodzerzhynsk, a name that combines the river's name with that of
Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Soviet secret police, once was so
crucial to the Soviet economy that it was closed to outsiders. With
250,000 people, it has 60 factories, some looming over the city in a
permanent haze. 

On the outskirts of town eight fields are fenced off with barbed wire,
hung with yellow triangles warning of radioactivity. Nuclear waste was
dumped here many years ago. Uniformed officers patrol the area and
stopped two Associated Press journalists to ask why they were there. 

Next to a chemical plant is the city dump, where three decades worth of
garbage is now a steaming landfill 100 feet deep. 

"When the wind is from there, I can't breathe," said Gregori Timoshenko,
a 72-year-old waste site employee, nodding toward the fresh garbage. He
shrugs when asked whether working in such a polluted place affects his
health. "I have lived my life, I have nothing to lose." 

Not far away, Evgen Kolishevsky of the Voice of Nature, a local
environmental group, takes a reporter to the foot of a mountainous slag
heap, below which runs the Konoplyanka river that feeds into the
Dnieper. "This is the waste from chemical enterprises and of processing
and enrichment of uranium," he said. 

Victor Lyapin, a local health official, acknowledges the damaging
effects. 

"The first mistake of the Soviet Union," he said, "was to put factories
and people shoulder to shoulder." 

 

The Ukrainian Weekly 

http://www.ukrweekly.com/

Editorial 12/13/09

Five years ago, and today

Five years ago at this time, in our December 13, 2004, issue, our top
story was headlined "Ukraine headed for rerun of presidential run-off."
It was, in short, a victory for the Orange Revolution. The country's
Supreme Court on December 3 had overturned the Central Election
Commission's declaration that Viktor Yanukovych won the presidential
election, and the Verkhovna Rada on December 8 approved a new law on
presidential elections and amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine in
what was a compromise that defused the electoral crisis.

The court ruling came after 12 days of protests in the city center of
Kyiv - on the famed "maidan" (Independence Square) - by Ukrainian
citizens who saw the Yanukovych victory as rigged, stolen. Orest
Deychakiwsky of the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in
Europe, who served as an observer at the November 21 election, told
RFE/RL at the time these events were unfolding: "The countless numbers
of protesters in Kyiv and across Ukraine were the front lines in the
struggle for democracy, human dignity, respect for the will of the
people and against a return to the past. They were on the front lines in
the struggle against any return to Ukraine's colonial past. They were
struggling for freedom and, in a very real sense, true independence."

The Supreme Court concurred with the demonstrators, concluding that the
electoral fraud was systemic and widespread. Democracy won.

Thus, Ukraine had a new run-off on December 26. The result was that
Viktor Yushchenko was elected president and the Orange Coalition came to
power. The promise of the Orange Revolution was great. And the
expectations for Ukraine's new leaders were likewise great. In
retrospect, they were, perhaps, unrealistically huge. As we all know,
the Orange Coalition collapsed, and Ukraine became mired in political
battles.

Five years later, Ukraine is looking ahead to a new presidential
election. And the news is not good. The citizenry is disenchanted, and
the squabbling and posturing among Ukraine's political leaders has had
deleterious effects on all spheres of the country's endeavors. At the
Ukraine-European Union summit, Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the
European Committee, said Ukraine needed to preserve "political and
economic stability" by putting aside destructive politics. He told Mr.
Yushchenko: "I will speak honestly with you, Mr. President. It often
seems to us that commitments on reform are only partly implemented and
words are not always accompanied by action. Reforms are the only way to
establish stability, closer ties with the EU."

But there is some good news as well, for the Orange Revolution forever
changed the Ukrainian people's view of themselves. They saw they had the
power to effect change, that their votes - their legitimate votes -
counted.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking at a press conference
with Ukraine's Foreign Affairs Minister Petro Poroshenko, underscored
what most observers consider to be the lasting legacy of the events of
2004: "...the promise of the Orange Revolution, which was so moving to
so many of us, is that the people of Ukraine have the right to choose
their leaders without interference, without any kind of electoral
abuse." 

Let us hope the people of Ukraine make good use of that right, and that
power, on January 17, 2010. 

 

 

OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights

Election Observation Mission

Ukraine

Presidential Election 2010

INTERIM REPORT No. 1

24 November - 8 December 2009

15 December 2009

 

I.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

 

* The Verkhovna Rada (parliament) set the date of the presidential
election for 17 January 2010. If no candidate receives more than 50 per
cent of the votes in the first round, a second round of voting will be
held on 7 February between the top two candidates.

 

* The legal framework for the election includes the Law on the Election
of the President, as amended in August 2009. A joint opinion by the
Venice Commission and OSCE/ODIHR concluded that some amendments raised
serious concern as they represent a step backward and do not comply with
OSCE commitments and other international standards.

 

* In October the Constitutional Court found several provisions of the
amended election law unconstitutional. Its ruling addressed some of the
concerns expressed by the joint opinion including the right to challenge
election results in the courts. The ruling also affected the
requirements for membership in election commissions and for voting
abroad.

 

* The elections will be administered by a three-level election
administration: the Central Election Commission (CEC), 225 District
Election Commissions (DECs) and some 38,000 Precinct Election
Commissions (PECs). The CEC has thus far conducted the process in an
efficient manner, but the lack of a state budget for its 2010 activities
raises concerns.

 

* Voter lists will be extracted from the new state voter register (SVR).
Data for the SVR are being compiled by 755 register maintenance bodies
(RMBs), based on the 2006 and 2007 voter lists. Since its launch,
490,819 duplicate entries have been deleted. As of 8 December the SVR
contains 36,282,480 voters. Voters may check and correct their entries
in the SVR. However, the recently introduced amendment allowing
registration or removal of voters from the voter list on election day
raises concern due to insufficient safeguards. It also lowers incentives
for voters to check and correct mistakes in the voter list prior to
election day.

 

* Eighteen candidates representing the various political forces in the
country have been registered by the CEC. The start of the campaign has
been relatively calm. Prevalent campaign techniques include political
advertising in the mass media, posters and billboards, campaign tents on
sidewalks and leafleting.

 

* Media provisions grant candidates specified amounts of free airtime
and print space on state-owned media. Private mass media outlets are
obliged by law to offer paid political advertising on equal conditions
and at equal rates. The amount of paid advertising is thus only limited
by a candidate's financial resources.

 

* The OSCE/ODIHR EOM opened its office in Kyiv on 24 November, with a
16-member core team and 60 long-term observers; these are deployed to 24
locations throughout the country. They are drawn from 24 OSCE
participating States.

 

Full report: http://www.osce.org/documents/odihr/2009/12/42126_en.pdf


 


Foreign Policy


Eastern Europe's Third Wheel


NATO and Russia are getting closer -- and leaving Ukraine out. 


http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/12/14/eastern_europes_third_w
heel?page=0,1


 


BY SIMON SHUSTER | DECEMBER 14, 2009 


 

Ukraine has sought membership in North Atlantic Treaty Organization for
more than a decade, turning its back on Moscow to seek closer security
ties with the West. But after years of being rebuffed, Ukraine now looks
like the unwanted third wheel in the Moscow-NATO relationship. Two weeks
ago, NATO told Ukraine that its difficult road to membership was going
to get even tougher next year. A day later, at a summit in Brussels,
Russia agreed to do more for NATO in Afghanistan. 

 SHARE: 

Digg 

 

Facebook 

 

Reddit 

 

 

Left out in the cold, Ukraine might have to turn to Moscow rather than
Brussels for military protection, becoming part of the Russia-dominated
Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) rather than NATO. Indeed,
Ukraine's presidential elections next month might well put a decisive
end to the country's NATO hopes if a more Russian-oriented leader wins,
as now seems likely. It is an amazing shift. Less than two years ago,
Russia was threatening to point missiles at Ukraine if it went ahead
with NATO membership. But now, the U.S.-led alliance has prioritized
ties with the Kremlin, while stringing Ukraine along with promises it
might never fulfill. The ultimate result might be an increasingly
Russia-dominated Eastern Europe, with the CSTO resembling a modern
version of the Soviet-era Warsaw Pact. 

"In 1996, when we agreed to give up all our nukes, [NATO] agreed to
guarantee our security. But they haven't done that," explains retired
Major Gen. Vadim Grechaninov, president of the Atlantic Council of
Ukraine, which advises the government on NATO relations. (Before it
disarmed, Ukraine had the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal behind
Russia and the United States.) "The demands are increasing, but
membership isn't getting any closer." 

Staying neutral and detached is not really an option for Ukraine. Aside
from the permanent defense dilemma of being stuck between two
superpowers, Ukraine's economy is in shambles and its military is
desperately poor. "Our servicemen now can't actually serve," says
Grechaninov, who has been a leading voice in support of NATO membership
since the 1990s. "They do a year on guard duty somewhere and then get
discharged, because the government has no money to train them for
anything else." 

Hopes of being taken under NATO's wing have fallen flat, he says, and
the meeting in Brussels gave no signs of encouragement. According to a
draft of the document discussed at the meeting, NATO will ask Ukraine to
carry out ever-tougher reforms in 2010 on the way to membership, even
though in 2009, Ukraine was unable to meet some of the most basic
targets. "Most high-cost combat training has been canceled or
rescheduled for next year," says the document, obtained last month by
Foreign Policy. This includes essential military exercises, such as
practice jumps for paratroopers. 

"We just don't have the internal resources to carry out the reforms [for
joining NATO]," says Grigory Perepelitsa, the head of the Ukrainian
Foreign Ministry's Institute of Foreign Policy. "Instead we are getting
stuck in what was called the Warsaw Pact before, and has now just
changed its name to the Tashkent pact," he said, using the unofficial
name for the CSTO. 

Founded in 2002 in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, the CSTO is Russia's
attempt to guard military influence in the former Soviet space, which it
still sees as its geopolitical birthright. So far the CSTO includes
Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan --
a motley crew, and not much of a threat to NATO's 28 members, including
most of the major military powers in the world. But that hasn't stopped
the CSTO from barking, even if it can't yet bite. At its annual summit
in Moscow last year, it said it would not stand for NATO's eastward
expansion -- a clear reference to Ukraine. "Serious conflict potential
is developing close to the CSTO's zone of responsibility," it said in a
formal declaration. "The members of the CSTO call on NATO countries to
weigh all possible consequences of the alliance's expansion to the
east." 

Now, the CSTO's expansion to the west seems far more likely, and at the
same time, Russia's relations with NATO are flourishing. Coincidence?
Probably not. At NATO's Bucharest summit in April of last year, Russian
President Vladimir Putin agreed to let NATO ship supplies to troops in
Afghanistan across Russian territory. It was a pathway the United States
desperately needed, as the southern supply corridor through Pakistan was
coming under heavy attack. It was also widely seen as a thank-you gift.
The day before, NATO had refused to put Ukraine and Georgia on the
accelerated Membership Action Plan (MAP), which would have greatly eased
their accessions. This allowed Russia to breathe easy about the
alliance's eastward growth.  

"At the Bucharest summit, even if Ukraine had had Britain's democracy,
Germany's economy, and America's army, they would still not let us in,
because for [Russia] it was too early," says Anatoliy Grytsenko, head of
the Ukrainian parliament's defense committee and a former defense
minister. "Russia's voice today is not exactly a veto on NATO decisions,
but it is a deciding factor for some of the key members of the
alliance." 

Officially, of course, Ukraine is still on the path to membership, as
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen pointed out on Friday when
he opened the NATO-Ukraine meeting in Brussels. But what he chose to
emphasize was the difficulty of the road ahead. "Much work is needed of
course for Ukraine to reach the ambitious goals it strives to attain.
Allies do expect very high standards from Ukraine in all domains of
public life," Rasmussen said. He has consistently declined to comment
when asked for any deadline on Ukrainian accession. 

Robert Pszczel, a NATO spokesman in Brussels, insists Russia cannot
stand in the way of Ukraine's NATO ambitions. "We have a NATO-Russia
Council and we have a NATO-Ukraine commission. One thing certainly does
not impede the other," Pszczel says. But, he adds: "There is a huge
amount of homework that still needs to be done primarily by Ukraine." 

The standards to the east are not nearly so high; in fact, if Ukraine
decided it wanted to join the CSTO tomorrow, the deal might be done
within a month. Vitaly Strugovets, chief spokesman for the CSTO at its
Moscow headquarters, says rather than making demands, his organization
would help pay for Ukraine to develop its cash-strapped military, all
while building on the Soviet hardware it already shares with Russia.
"With us, Ukraine would not have to carry out the kind of overhaul of
its entire defense and security system that NATO demands," he says,
noting that NATO wants Ukraine to uproot the Soviet groundwork of its
military, from Kalashnikovs on up, and replace it with a Western model.
"If you look at it from an overall security standpoint, Ukraine is
fundamentally a lot closer to the CSTO's way of doing things. I'm
talking about everything from military hardware to the basic mentality
of the officer corps." 

Ukrainian voters going into the presidential elections next month seem
to agree. A survey released on Nov. 26 by polling firm Ukrainian Project
Systems showed that only 12 percent of Ukrainians support NATO
accession, 36 percent support staying out of military alliances
altogether, while the largest proportion -- 40 percent -- said they
support joining the CSTO. 

In June, the Ukrainian parliament created a committee to look into
cooperation with the Russian-led bloc. The committee paid a visit to
Moscow in September to meet with the head of the alliance, Nikolai
Bordyuzha, who showcased the free military training and cheap weapons
Ukraine could get as a CSTO member. Ukraine's starved security forces
are in urgent need of both. 

And next month, Ukraine's presidential elections are set to push NATO
entry off the government's agenda, possibly for good. The most powerful
force for joining the alliance has so far been Ukraine's president,
Viktor Yushchenko. But he will need a political miracle to be
re-elected. His approval ratings are in the single digits, and neither
of the frontrunners in the presidential race are fans of NATO
membership. 

Yulia Tymoshenko, the current prime minister, supported joining the EU
and NATO during the U.S.-backed Orange Revolution, which swept her and
Yushchenko to power on the back of huge street protests in 2004. But the
two have since become enemies, and Tymoshenko's presidential campaign
has turned its focus toward fixing ties with Russia. To this end, she
has built up a strong rapport with Putin in the past year, especially
thanks to the natural gas crises that have afflicted their relations and
cut off gas supplies to Europe in January. The two prime ministers
always seem to resolve or forestall these gas disputes after Tymoshenko
comes to meet Putin in Russia, most recently in Yalta on Nov. 19. 

Ironically, the frontrunner in the race is the same politician whom
Putin openly supported during the rigged election of 2004, Viktor
Yanukovich, the man who was shouted down by Yushchenko and Tymoshenko's
Orange Revolution. Now he has a firm lead in the polls, and although he
has not come out in favor of CSTO membership, he gave a strong hint of
his preference in televised comments last month. "We are surrounded by
strong governments," he said. "Naturally, this means above all Russia,
as well as other Eurasian countries, for whom Ukraine is desirable as a
stable country, a reliable link in a system of collective security." 

 Eurasia Daily Monitor

http://www.jamestown.org/programs/edm/

Viktor Yushchenko's Foreign Policy Agenda

Viktor Yushchenko has trailed badly in opinion polls in the last year
with ratings of less than 5 percent, but has benefitted from the
collapse of Arseniy Yatseniuk's election campaign (rankings of
candidates in 2008-2009: www.uceps.org/ukr/poll.php?poll_id=91).
Yushchenko is now the main "Orange" competitor to Yulia Tymoshenko in
Western Ukraine (EDM, October 16, November 3, 16, 20).

In foreign policy terms, Yushchenko is a different candidate to five
years ago, when he presented himself as a centrist (patriotic)
politician to broaden the appeal of national democrats like himself
beyond their Western Ukrainian heartland (Ukrayinska Pravda, November
24). This strategy won Yushchenko the crucial swing region of central
Ukraine and the presidency. Yushchenko's move away from centrist
patriotism to nationalism in the 2010 elections echoes the retreat of
Our Ukraine from central Ukraine, which won four Galician and
Trans-Carpathian oblasts in 2006 and only Trans-Carpathia in 2007.
Yushchenko's nationalist platform is only a threat to Tymoshenko in the
three Galician, and to a lesser degree in the four other Western
Ukrainian oblasts. Yushchenko will compete with the rising contender
Serhiy Tihipko, Viktor Yanukovych's election manager in 2004, for third
and fourth place in round one.

In the 2004 elections, Yushchenko's "Ten Steps to the People" election
program never mentioned NATO, Trans-Atlantic integration or even the EU
(Our Ukraine has also not referred to NATO in any of its election
programs). The only mention of foreign policy was a vague reference to
Russia and Belarus (but nothing on the CIS). This unwillingness to
highlight Yushchenko's pro-Western orientation was an outcome of his
2004 centrist-patriotic platform that sought to appeal beyond western
Ukraine (www.president.gov.ua/docs/10krokiv.pdf).

Yushchenko's 2010 election program also makes no reference to NATO but
does, unlike in 2004, state: "Together with European neighbors, we will
strengthen the Euro-Atlantic system of collective security"
(www.cvk.gov.ua/pls/vp2010/WP0011). On the European Union, Yushchenko's
2010 election program calls for a visa-free regime and membership with
the EU. The program overlooks the Free Trade Zone between Ukraine and
the EU that will be signed next year.

Yushchenko has at least supported Ukraine's integration into NATO and
the EU. Under the 1996 and 2006 constitutions, Yushchenko can appoint
the Foreign and Defense Ministers, National Security and Defense Council
(NRBO) secretary and Security Service chairman providing him with
institutional control over Ukraine's security policy.

Four problems bedevil Yushchenko's foreign policy:

1. The translation of Kuchma-era rhetoric on trans-Atlantic integration
into action requires a president to work together with a parliamentary
coalition and government of like mind. Addressing Yushchenko at the
recent EU-Ukraine summit, European Commission President Jose Manuel
Barrosso said, "I will speak honestly with you, Mr. President. It often
seems to us that commitments on reform are only partly implemented and
words are not always accompanied by action. Reforms are the only way to
establish stability, and build closer ties with the EU" (Ukrayinska
Pravda, December 4).

During Yushchenko's five years in office there have been four
governments, three of which have been "Orange." Yushchenko has only had
good relations with one of the four governments and with only one of the
three "Orange" governments led by Yuriy Yekhanurov in 2005-2006.

2. The successful implementation of trans-Atlantic integration requires
an understanding of the inter-connection between domestic and foreign
policies, which Yushchenko has never understood. The consequences have
been a domination of rhetoric over substance, as in the Kuchma era.

3. Yushchenko has taken one step backwards compared to Kuchma with
regard to his mis-use of the NRBO, whose four secretaries were chosen
not for their experience in trans-Atlantic integration, but for their
value in battling unfriendly governments. All four pale in comparison
with Kuchma's NRBO secretaries, Volodymyr Horbulin and Yevhen Marchuk.
The NRBO under Yushchenko has been used not to coordinate Ukrainian
institutions on national security, but as an alternative government to
Tymoshenko and Viktor Yanukovych.

4. In 2005-2006 the EU failed to rise to Ukraine's democratic
breakthrough because of a lack of strategic vision, enlargement fatigue
and constitutional chaos. The US and NATO did rise to the occasion and a
Membership Action Plan (MAP) could have been offered to Ukraine in Riga
in November 2006. The US and other NATO members sympathetic to Ukrainian
membership pushed for an "Orange" coalition to be established quickly
after the March 2006 elections, which would have been followed by
President George W. Bush's visit to Ukraine in June and a MAP in
November. Yushchenko's hostility to the return of Tymoshenko as Prime
Minister undermined this plan, which was ultimately undone when an
"anti-Orange" and anti-crisis coalition was established in July. Prime
Minister Yanukovych told NATO in Brussels two months later that Ukraine
was not interested in receiving a MAP. From 2007 onward Ukraine's
trans-Atlantic integration was hamstrung by a combination of Ukraine and
then Yushchenko-fatigue and Germany's increasingly independent line in
the EU and NATO and Russia-first foreign policy.

Three Ukrainian factors led to skepticism in Western Europe towards
Yushchenko's rhetoric on Trans-Atlantic integration. Frequent government
turnovers negatively impacted upon the ability of three "Orange"
governments to launch information campaigns in support of NATO
membership which has remained at 20 percent throughout Yushchenko's
presidency (polls conducted between 2002-2009:
www.uceps.org/ukr/poll.php?poll_id=46). Moreover, political instability
and elite in-fighting was repeatedly raised by Germany as a concern.
During the election campaign Yushchenko continues to hurl insults at
Tymoshenko on a daily basis, calling her "homeless" and a "bum."
Finally, the Party of Regions alliance with Russian
nationalist-separatists in the For Yanukovych! Bloc in the Crimean
parliament led to the first ever violent anti-American/NATO protests in
the Crimea. These de-railed joint military exercises with NATO that had
peacefully occurred for a decade under Kuchma.

Yushchenko's 2010 election program is more pro-Western than in 2004, but
following five years of a widening gulf between rhetoric and substance
few Ukrainians believe in his ability to deliver on foreign (or
domestic) policies. When giving their vote to Yushchenko, Galician
Ukrainians do so out of a misplaced fear that Tymoshenko's mix of
pragmatism and ideology means she has sold out to Russia
(www.day.kiev.ua, November 12). In reaching this conclusion, they forget
that Tymoshenko's 2010 centrist-patriotic election program is not
fundamentally different to the platform upon which Yushchenko won the
presidency five years ago.

--Taras Kuzio

 

 

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/ms-tnef
Size: 38955 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://clevelanduzo.org/pipermail/uzonews_clevelanduzo.org/attachments/20091216/d82b5dd6/attachment.bin>