[Ohio UZO News] Ukraine: WSJ; VOA; WoE; UW; EDM

[Deychak, Orest]

The Wall Street Journal

June 3, 2009

UKRAINE

Coalition Talks Threaten To Isolate Pro-West Leader

Ukraine's two largest political parties are in negotiations for an
alliance that could isolate pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko and
fuel political tensions ahead of January presidential elections.

A parliamentary deputy from the opposition Party of the Regions, led by
former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, confirmed Tuesday it was in
talks with Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's party on forming a new
coalition. A representative for Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko wasn't available
to comment.

The deal would team Ms. Tymoshenko, an ally of Mr. Yushchenko during the
2004 Orange Revolution, with her rival, pro-Russian Mr. Yanukovych. Such
a coalition would be a boon for Moscow, which has enjoyed warmer
relations with Ms. Tymoshenko of late, and a blow to Mr. Yushchenko, who
has angered the Kremlin with attempts to integrate Ukraine into Western
structures such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

-- James Marson

Voice of America

Interview

Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg on US-Ukraine Relations

 

http://www.voanews.com/ukrainian/2009-05-28-voa2.cfm

 

Much of the following report is about Ukraine as well as Belarus:

Window on Eurasia: Majority of Belarusians Oppose Union State with
Russia

 

Paul Goble

 

            Vienna, May 29 - Some 54.8 percent of Belarusians are
opposed to having their country become part of a union state with the
Russian Federation, according to a new poll which also found that fewer
Belarusians back that step than support the possibility that Belarus
should eventually become part of the European Union.

 

            Only one Belarusian in five - 20.8 percent - told pollsters
from the Belarusian Institute of Strategic Research (BISS) that they
favor having their country become part of a union state with Russia, and
only one in seven - 14.4 percent - would like to see Belarus absorbed
into the Russian Federation
(www.gazetaby.com/index.php?sn_nid=21536&sn_cat=32).

 

            And while 41.2 percent of the Belarusians sampled said that
they opposed having Belarus join the European Union, 33.5 percent said
they would like their country to become part of that European
institution, 13.1 percent more than favored having Belarus be part of a
Eurasian union of any kind with Russia.

 

            The largest share of Belarusians - 74.1 percent or nearly
three out of four - said they want their country to be an independent
state, a view that only 13.7 percent disagreed with and only 12.2
percent said they were unsure or were unwilling to provide an answer,
according to the poll conducted earlier this month.

 

            In reporting the results of this BISS survey, "Solidarnast'"
journalist Anastasiya Zelenkova suggests that the number of Belarusians
opposed to integrating with the Russian Federation will "become still
greater" considering both Moscow's actions and recent statements by
President Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

 

            Meanwhile, Ukraine's "Glavred" newspaper reported that
ethnic Ukrainians living in the Russian Federation are facing a rising
tide of Ukrainophobia, yet another indication that the ties between the
three Slavic republics are becoming increasingly frayed at both the
official and unofficial levels
(www.glavred.info/archive/2009/05/20/105816-3.html).

 

            Valery Semenenko, vice president of the Union of Ukrainians
of Russia, said that "if you only focus on your work and don't discuss
political questions with Russians, then you don't feel negative
attitudes toward yourself." But if a Ukrainian says anything which "does
not correspond to the official ideology," he continued,  he or she will
feel hostility.

 

            Other ethnic Ukrainians concur with that, and polls
conducted by the Levada Center show that 53 percent of Russians have
negative feelings toward Ukraine, attitudes that they often express
toward individual Ukrainians, especially given the negative feelings
about Ukraine that are whipped up by the state controlled media in
Russia.

 

            Semen Novoprudsky, the deputy chief editor of Moscow's
"Vremya novostei," told "Glavred" that "anti-Ukrainian and anti-Georgian
rhetoric is almost the main feature of news on Russian television over
the last three or four years," a kind of "propaganda" that has promoted
negative attitudes toward members of the two titular ethnic groups as
well. 

 

            Some Russian sociologists dispute this, arguing that "the
majority of Russians clearly distinguish between the Ukrainian
authorities and ordinary Ukrainians, but that is not the conclusion the
"Glavred" article offers or that most Ukrainians in Ukraine are likely
to accept as true. 

 

            Instead, the article points out that in Russia today, "five
myths" are being propagated by the government and the media about
Ukraine, all of which promote Ukrainophobia among ethnic Russians and
are thus deeply offensive to Ukrainians whether they live in Ukraine or
in the Russian Federation. 

 

First, from Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on down, the paper
notes, there are regular suggestions that Ukraine is a state "at the
margins" of Russia and one whose territory was created by others,
specifically by Moscow. Second, Russian media say that if Ukraine joins
NATO, that would be an anti-Russian action, something Ukrainian
officials dispute.

 

Third, Russian officials and Russian media continue to deny that the
famine in Ukraine was a genocide, even though as Ukrainians continually
point out, "the majority of those who died" were Ukrainians. Moreover,
Ukrainians suspect that documents may eventually be found proving their
contention, just as the secret protocols of Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact were
found.

 

Fourth, Moscow in particular and Russians in general insist that Crimea
is a Russian land which was "given to Ukraine" and that Russia's fleet
must be allowed to stay there for all time. And fifth, bigoted comments
such as "it is  better to be raped than Ukrainianized" are increasingly
common in the Russian media and don't reflect the status of Russian in
Ukraine.

 

The Belarusian poll and the Ukrainian article highlight something few in
Moscow or elsewhere appear willing to acknowledge: Putin's increasingly
nationalistic comments and actions are having the effect of driving away
Russia's two Slavic neighbors, thus solidifying the basis of the
independence that the Russian prime minister appears to find so
offensive.

            

And consequently, just as Stalin is viewed by some as the greatest state
builder of Ukraine - the Soviet dictator added more territory to that
republic than any Ukrainian leader even though he killed so many of its
people - so too Putin may be remembered for destroying any unity of the
former Soviet space despite his clear desire to preserve it.

 

 

U.S. Department of State

 

Assistance to Ukraine

Book II of FY 2010 Congressional Budget Justification for Foreign
Operations <http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/124072.pdf> 

For detailed funding breakdowns and explanations on the various
categories of assistance to Ukraine, see
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/124072.pdf , pp. 388-394

 

 

A small slice of recent history:

The Ukrainian Weekly

Joseph Terelya and U.S. Congress

Letter to the Editor 

May 31, 2009

 

Dear Editor:

 

The Weekly article on the passing of the underground Ukrainian Catholic
Church activist Joseph Terelya  (May 17th, No. 20) rekindled memories of
some remarkable efforts by the U.S. Congress to press for religious
liberties in Soviet Ukraine, especially the legalization of the
Ukrainian Catholic Church (UCC).  Joseph Terelya's eloquent testimony,
referred to in the article,  at a hearing before the U.S. Helsinki
Commission in October 1987 helped to kick off  a two year period of
unprecedented Congressional activity focused on the plight of Ukrainian
believers.  These Congressional efforts were actively and effectively
supported and encouraged by the Ukrainian-American community, in
particular the U.S. Ukrainian Millennium Committee.

 

One such initiative was a resolution, introduced by Helsinki Commission
Co-Chairman Sen. Dennis DeConcini and Rep. William Lipinski
commemorating the millennium of Christianity in Kyivan Rus' deploring
the Soviet Government's suppression of religious freedoms in Ukraine,
especially the banned Ukrainian Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox
churches.

 

In 1988, in an unusual step, deputies of the Ukrainian SSR Supreme
Soviet sent a typically-dissembling Soviet statement to the Congress
protesting this resolution as gross interference in Ukraine's "internal
affairs".   Then-Helsinki Commission Chairman Rep. Steny Hoyer
(currently the House Majority Leader) and Sen. DeConcini responded with
a detailed, substantive rebuttal to the Ukrainian Deputies.  The
resolution passed overwhelmingly despite Soviet protests. Later that
year, in an unprecedented move, a large Helsinki Commission delegation
that included Hoyer and Rep. Christopher Smith, met in Moscow with
underground Ukrainian Catholic Bishop Pavlo Wasylyk. 

 

In Fall 1989, in addition to several joint letters signed by over 100
Members of Congress to Gorbachev expressing support for immediate UCC
legalization, nearly 200 Senators and Representatives sent individual
letters concerning the Church.   Bishop Basil Losten, working with Nadia
and Bob McConnell, Irene Jarosewych and others, was instrumental in
making this letter campaign happen.  To have such a large number of
individual letters on any subject to a foreign leader was virtually
unheard of in the annals of Congressional history.

 

In his testimony before the Helsinki Commission, Terelya spoke of the
brutal suppression of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, stating that "our
Church continues to live and our people hope that someday we will have
our day in the sun."   A mere two years later - 20 years ago this year
-- in September 1989, 150,000 Ukrainian Catholics staged protests in
Lviv to demand the legalization of their Church, 43 years after it was
liquidated by Joseph Stalin. A few short months later Soviet authorities
relented.

 

There were many actors involved in the effort to legalize the UCC,
including the Reagan Administration, Pope John Paul II, and, first and
foremost, the courageous and long-suffering Ukrainian-Catholic clergy
and laity in Ukraine, among them Terelya.  But there is no doubt that
the efforts of the U.S. Congress, with the strong support of committed
Ukrainian American community activists, caught the Kremlin's attention
and were a contributing factor in righting this horrible wrong and
helping to allow the Church to finally have its "day in the sun".

 

Orest Deychakiwsky

Washington, DC

The author is Policy Advisor at the U.S. Helsinki Commission

 

Eurasia Daily Monitor

June 1, 2009

Russia and Ukraine Revisit Gas Conflict

In what is becoming a monthly ritual, the Russian leadership has
publicly stated that they fear Ukraine will be unable to pay its
upcoming bill for Russian gas delivered in May. On May 27 Gazprom's
spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov stated "Naftogaz is finding it enormously
difficult to pay its bill for May" (Moscow Times, May 27). Furthermore,
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told EU leaders gathered at the
EU-Russia summit in Khabarovsk on May 22 that Ukraine will be unable to
pay the $4 billion to fill its underground storage facilities with the
19.5 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas it requires to supply both its
domestic needs and to meet the EU's demand during the fall and winter.
The consequence of such a default, according to Medvedev, might result
in another stoppage in the deliveries of gas supplies to the European
Union at the height of the heating season.

On May 22 Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko met with Putin
during the CIS summit in Astana, but failed to negotiate the $5 billion
loan from Russia needed to fill the underground storage facilities. On
May 27, the Warsaw-based East Week Analytical Newsletter alleged that
Medvedev had proposed during the Khabarovsk summit that the E.U. and
Russia might jointly offer a loan to Ukraine, as the first step towards
creating a Russian-E.U. consortium to manage the Ukrainian transit gas
pipeline network. The Ukrainian state-owned gas company, Naftohaz
Ukrayiny has promptly paid its recent monthly bills to Gazprom, yet
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Medvedev continue to
warn E.U. leaders that this is about to end and that Naftohaz is on the
verge of bankruptcy.

During the height of the fall-winter heating season, Ukrainian
households obtain gas from Russia, while deliveries to the E.U.
originate from its underground storage facilities. These underground
caves traditionally begin to be filled on April 15, however Ukraine only
managed to purchase 800 million cubic meters of gas for storage in April
-and in May it purchased no gas for storage. The almost 20 bcm in
reserves which were in storage from 2008 were used in the first quarter
of 2009 to replace expensive imports from Russia, and are now mostly
depleted.

In the first quarter of 2009, Naftohaz bought only 2.5 bcm of gas from
Russia, while the quantity envisaged by the annual supplies contract
signed in January 2009 was 35 bcm, or 8.75 bcm per quarter. Under this
"take or pay contract" Ukraine is obligated to pay for the total
quantity regardless of whether it decides to receive it. In order to pay
for gas purchases in the first quarter of 2009, Naftohaz was able to
obtain from Gazprom a prepayment for the entire gas transit fee for
Russian gas transiting to Europe in 2009. This prepayment was used to
pay Gazprom for delivered gas. Naftohaz also relied on the state budget
and loans from state-owned banks, which the government insisted on being
lent to the company in order to settle its debts with Gazprom.

Gazprom can, under the terms of the January 2009 contract, demand a
penalty payment from Naftohaz for $2 billion for the first quarter of
2009 for gas it did not receive. In addition, Naftohaz is obligated to
buy its existing bonds for $500 million in September, although this
unlikely to occur. As the East Week Analytical Newsletter concluded: "In
the absence of external financing, Naftohaz will be unable to buy any
gas to build up the necessary reserves." If this indeed transpires,
Europe might be faced with another major gas supply crisis by the autumn
of 2009."

As the relentless Russian pressure on Naftohaz proceeds, Moscow appears
intent on modifying the Ukrainian-E.U. agreement on renovating the
Ukrainian main gas trunk pipeline. Russia not only wants to be included
in the project, but to play a decisive role in its development. This
went not only against the Ukrainian-E.U. concept of making the Ukrainian
pipeline a more reliable route for Russian gas, but provided further
proof of Moscow's intention to obtain ultimate control over the
pipeline, and further consolidate its monopoly on gas transit routes to
the E.U. for political purposes.

The European Union's response to the Russian proposals has been
cautious. According to statements made by the European Commission
president Jose Manuel Barroso following the Khabarovsk summit, the E.U.
is ready to discuss the Russian proposals concerning the rules for
energy cooperation and take them into account, but it will only do so as
part of the Energy Charter Treaty review currently in progress.

The ultimate reason behind these maneuvers however, appears to be the
Russian insistence that the E.U. accepts its strategy of building the
South Stream and Nord Stream pipelines. By convincing the E.U. that
Ukraine is an "unreliable" transit route for Russian gas, the Kremlin
gas monopoly can sabotage the Nabucco pipeline; gain full control over
gas transit routes to the E.U. and reduce Ukraine to subservience to
Moscow.

--Roman Kupchinsky

 

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