[Ohio UZO News] Ukraine: FT; NYT; WoE; EDM

[Deychak, Orest]

Financial Times

www.ft.com

Ukraine shows signs of recovery

By Roman Olearchyk in Kiev 

Published: May 4 2009 

One of the world’s most depressed economies is showing tentative signs of a recovery. 

After a 25 per cent annual fall in Ukraine’s gross domestic product, there are indications of a rebound in steel production and good prospects for a bumper harvest this year, according to a senior presidential economic policy aide.

“We certainly have a tendency towards stabilisation under way, with steel exports picking up in recent months,” Oleksandr Shlapak told the Financial Times in an interview. “And, thank God, we are expecting another big harvest after a record last year.”

As one of the world’s leading steel, grain and chemical exporters, Ukraine’s fortunes are heavily dependent on international commodity demand. 

Mr Shlapak said industrial production and steel exports – Ukraine’s main sources of hard currency – had risen since February, helped by sharp devaluation of the hryvnia. 

It was unclear, however, whether the positive data amounted to a sustainable improvement, or a temporary rebound from an artificially low base, added Mr Shlapak.

Kiev halted gas deliveries to industry to keep domestic heating running after Russia cut off natural gas supplies in January. Industrial output contracted 16 per cent month on month in January as the energy crisis exacerbated the effect of waning demand for steel. 

“We are expecting improvements in the coming months, but it’s hard to say if it is sustainable. Much depends on global demand and other world factors,” said Mr Shlapak.

Confidence in Ukraine has also been undermined by the bitter rivalry for power between Viktor Yushchenko, the pro-west president, and Yulia Tymoshenko, prime minister, who has looked to Moscow for support and has sought a $5bn (€3.8bn, £3.4bn) Russian loan.

Mr Yushchenko’s camp says GDP contracted 25 per cent in the first quarter, compared with a year earlier, but Ms Tymoshenko’s government has delayed publication of the figures. 

Mr Shlapak accused her of “purposefully concealing” bleak figures for fear that they would further undermine confidence.

Some positive data have, however, been published. Steel exports rose 15.3 per cent in the first quarter of 2009 compared with the last three months of 2008. 

A survey by the market research group GfK Ukraine suggests that after months of sharp decline, consumer confidence has been inching upwards since February. “We think that consumer sentiment reached its bottom in February and that the population’s worst fears are probably behind them,” said Maryan Zablotskyy, an analyst at Erste Bank in Ukraine.

Confidence in Ukraine could be further boosted on May 13, when the International Monetary Fund’s board reviews a $16.4bn loan granted to Kiev last autumn. 

The first tranche of $4.5bn helped to stabilise Ukraine’s troubled banking sector, but the disbursement of further instalments had been frozen as a result of political bickering and concerns over fiscal prudence. 

Citing improvements by Ukraine’s “resilient” economy and government, an IMF mission visiting Kiev last month recommended unlocking the loan. 

Last month, the IMF forecast Ukraine’s economy would contract by 8 per cent this year. Mr Shlapak says the fall in GDP could range from 4-15 per cent. 

The New York Times

European Union to Reach Out to 6 Former Soviet States in Meeting 

By STEPHEN CASTLE 

5 May 2009

Late Edition - Final

7

BRUSSELS -- A European Union plan to strengthen its bond with six former Soviet republics, which was once seen as a way to draw countries away from Russia's sphere of influence, now has a more urgent purpose: to stabilize a volatile region.

A summit meeting intended to embrace the six former Soviet republics -- Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova -- under a plan called the Eastern Partnership is scheduled for Thursday in Prague. The original goal was to present the 27-nation European Union bloc as an alternative to Russia as a regional power center by offering the six nations greater engagement on economic and political issues.

But political instability and deteriorating economies in some of the countries have alarmed Western nations, especially Germany, and have intensified concern that the East-West divide would only deepen if troubled countries fall back into alignment with Russia.

''There are new priorities on the agenda which were not so obvious last year, including the need to stabilize these countries, which are moving from one crisis to another,'' said Nicu Popescu, a research fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. ''The focus is less on structural adjustments or institution-building and more on crisis management.''

In a sign of how seriously Germany views the situation, Chancellor Angela Merkel has decided to attend the meeting. Neither President Nicolas Sarkozy of France nor Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain are likely to send ministers.

Last week, the German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in highlighting the deteriorating conditions in Ukraine, said that ''the economic situation is worsening on a daily basis.'' He said that there was a ''blockade at the top level of the government'' and that the deadlock was ''heightened by tensions between Ukraine and Russia.''

Moldova is another country in turmoil. After protests and civil disturbances last month, President Vladimir Voronin ordered mass arrests and accused Romania, a member of the European Union, of trying to overthrow his government.

The organizers of the summit meeting have scheduled a discussion of the recession's impact on Eastern Europe, said Jan Sliva, a spokesman for the Czech government.

But even the Czech Republic's role as host has complicated the European Union's efforts to embrace its eastern neighbors. The Czech Republic, which holds the rotating presidency of the bloc, pushed the initiative, but the country's credibility has been undermined by the fact that its government has fallen, and that its prime minister, Mirek Topolanek, will soon be stepping down.

The initiative is a response to critics who argue that the bloc devotes too much of its diplomacy and economic resources to areas where it has little clout, notably the Middle East.

Watching from the sidelines is a wary Russian government that has grown steadily more skeptical about the bloc's intentions. The Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said he was concerned that the bloc might be about to meddle in a region that Moscow considers its backyard.

Window on Eurasia: Kyiv Disputes Moscow’s Claim Few Ukrainians in Russia Want Native Language Schools 

 

Paul Goble

 

            Vienna, May 4 –  Moscow’s assertion that ethnic Ukrainians in the Russian Federation, that country’s second largest nationality, do not have any problems with education in their own national language because they are not asking for it “does not correspond to reality,” according to a spokesman for the Ukrainian foreign ministry.

 

            A week ago, Andrey Nesterenko, a spokesman for the foreign ministry, said, in responding to an OSCE report, acknowledged that there were few Ukrainian language schools but said that reflected an absence of demand by Ukrainians for them rather than a Moscow policy against such schools (rus.newsru.ua/ukraine/27apr2009/ukrschool.html).

 

            The lack of such demands, the Russian diplomat continued, reflects what he described as “the closeness of the Eastern Slavic languages and cultures, the common history (Kievan Rus, the Moscow State, the Russian Empire and the USSR) and the common Christian faith” of the Russians and Ukrainians.

 

            Not surprisingly, Ukrainians and Ukrainian officials were outraged not only because Moscow has always insisted on the provision of Russian-language schools in Ukraine – and complained when any of them are closed – but also because Nesterenko’s claim about the situation in Russia where in fact Ukrainians would like Ukrainian language schools “does not correspond to the facts” (www.vz.ru/news/4/30/282440.html).

 

            Indeed, Ukrainian commentators have pointed out, Ukraine does support Russian language education in its schools and that last year, the OSCE commissar on national minorities declared after examining the situation there that he did not find “any violation of the rights of the Russian language population in Ukraine” (rus.newsru.ua/ukraine/27mar2008/mova.html). 

 

            Vasily Kirilich, a spokesman for the Ukrainian foreign ministry, said that Nesterenko’s statement was intended to mislead the OSCE by creating “the false impression of the supposedly problem-free nature of Ukrainian national cultural development in Russia,” a particular travesty because ethnic Ukrainians at 2.5 million are the second largest national minority there.

 

             He pointed out that in Moscow alone, there are now more than 250,000 ethnic Ukrainians but not a single middle school with instruction in the Ukrainian language, something that creates problems both for the indigenous Ukrainian population of the city and the many other Ukrainians who “work temporarily” there and plan to return to Ukraine. 

 

            Elsewhere in the Russian Federation, throughout which ethnic Ukrainians are to be found, the situation is even worse, he said.  At present “there is no school” anywhere in the Russian Federation where the entire academic program is conducted in the Ukrainian language. There exists only [a few] schools with an ethno-national (ethno-cultural) component.”

 

            The Ukrainian diplomat was clearly infuriated by the suggestion that Ukrainians living in the Russian Federation were not interested in preserving their own language through the schools and that, to use Nesterenko’s words, “citizens of the Russian Federation of Ukrainian nationality and Russians among citizens of Ukraine are in a different ethno-cultural situation.”

 

            Russian commentaries in support of Moscow’s point of view, such as Aleksandr Karavayev today, have suggested that the Ukrainians have only themselves to blame.  Moscow has routinely supported Russian-language efforts in Ukraine, but Kyiv has been largely inactive in supporting Ukrainian-programs in Ukraine (www.ia-centr.ru/expert/4599/).

 

            While there is some truth in what Karavayev says, that claim ignores two longer-standing if unfortunate realities.  On the one hand, in Soviet times, Moscow provided Russian-language schools in all republics but did not provide any schools for non-Russians in their language outside their titular territories.

 

            Thus, while Ukrainians living in Ukraine did have schools in Ukrainian, those Ukrainians living elsewhere did not, unlike Russians who in almost all cases had Russian-language schools wherever they lived.  The current situation is a survival of that past, one Ukrainians and many other non-Russians decry.

 

            And on the other, this pattern reflects an even older view, long propounded by Russians and accepted by many Western specialists. According to that view, Ukrainians and Belarusians are “byproducts” of Russian ethno-national development, and thus it is entirely appropriate that they be integrated linguistically and politically with the Russian nation and state.

 

              In fact, as the Ukrainians and Belarusians know and, as statements like that of Kirilich last week show, are increasingly prepared to defend, those two nations have a separate and distinct ethno-national and political history, one that deserves equal treatment and respect not only from the Russians but from all members of the international community as well.  

 

 

Eurasia Daily Monitor

May 1, 2009

Ukraine Witnessing Rise of Radicalism

As elections approach in Ukraine, controversial historical and linguistic issues are high on the agenda within a country divided along regional and cultural lines. The nationalists including President Viktor Yushchenko, often perceive Moscow's hand behind this, while their opponents complain that the Ukrainian language and right-wing values are being imposed by the authorities. This confrontation rarely results in violence but this year might prove an exception as the impact of the global financial crisis has hit Ukraine especially hard -radicalizing society. Incidents have thus far included a radical youth fatally stabbed and two bookshops vandalized. This situation may further deteriorate as the government fails to respond to the problem while the Russian media, popular within eastern Ukraine persistently hypes the issue.

On April 17 in Odessa a youth from a radical leftist group calling themselves Antifa (from anti-fascists) stabbed to death Maksym Chayka, a 20-year-old Ukrainian nationalist. While the incident is now the subject of a police investigation, Antifa claims this was done in self-defense. But nationalists and their opponents have already delivered their own verdicts, judging by the far from neutral newspaper headlines reporting on "a patriot stabbed" or "a neo-Nazi stabbed" depending on the ideological sympathies of individual journalists.

The Russian media hurried to portray Ukrainian nationalists as "blood-thirsty neo-Nazis," similar to their handling of the story of Hitler dolls found on sale in a small Kyiv shop last year, which made the headlines across the world after it had whipped up interest. Reports about the alleged links between Antifa and the pro-Russian Motherland group -denied by Antifa- prompted Yushchenko to take sides (www.samozahist.org.ua, April 20). He instructed the law-enforcement agencies to find links between the Antifa "extremists" and pro-Russian groups (www.president.gov.ua, April 22). Human rights activist Volodymyr Chemerys, expressed his doubts over the investigation's impartiality because of presidential interference. He openly accused Yushchenko of sympathizing with neo-Nazis (www.samozahist.org.ua, April 24).

People's deputy Oleksandr Feldman, who chairs the Association of Ukrainian Ethno-Cultural Associations and the Kharkiv Jewish community, warned Yushchenko in an open letter on April 27 about the "fascistization" of Ukrainian society. He mentioned the tragic incident in Odessa and reports about anti-Semitic leaflets distributed in the central Ukrainian city of Cherkasy, and recalled that the "neo-Nazis" from the Freedom party won a recent election in Ternopil (EDM, March 24). Feldman drew analogies with Germany in the 1920's and 1930's, where a crisis that he compared in scale to the current Ukrainian situation, had brought Hitler to power (Delo, April 27).

Feldman's exaggeration was probably due to the fact that he is a leading member of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's party, which was unexpectedly defeated in the Ternopil election by both Freedom and Yushchenko's United Center. Tymoshenko views both Yushchenko and Freedom leader Oleg Tyahnybok as her rivals in the upcoming presidential election. All three regard as their stronghold, the nationally minded western Ukraine including Lviv where advertising on matchboxes praise the SS Galichina World War II division -noted by the Russian media and pro-Russian news outlets in Ukraine in early April.

It turned out that the controversial advertisement campaign had been ordered by Freedom. Galichina fighters are respected by many in western Ukraine, where they have been viewed as freedom fighters against Communist Russia. But they are loathed within eastern Ukraine and Russia as Hitler's collaborators, as well as in neighboring Poland where they reportedly committed atrocities against the resistance. Polish officials reportedly expressed their concern (One Plus One TV, April 17).

The discovery of the controversial matchboxes was exaggerated by Russian TV channels which did not miss the opportunity to vilify western Ukraine in the eyes of Russians and eastern Ukrainians who traditionally prefer Russian to Ukrainian TV for language reasons. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said that it did not find any violations in Lviv as the controversial adverts did not carry any SS emblems or slogans (UNIAN, April 27).

Freedom did not stop at glorifying the SS. The party urged ethnic Ukrainians to organize themselves for self-defense. Its press service has issued a veiled threat against opponents saying that the party's ruling body decided to take measures to prevent "systematic manifestations of Ukrainophobia" across the country like the killing of Chayka which, according to Freedom, had been inspired from abroad. Freedom said that it will monitor society for those manifestations. In the same statement Freedom pledged to prevent Ukraine's transformation into a parliamentary republic, which is something that Yushchenko suspects Tymoshenko of planning (www.svoboda.org.ua, April 25).

Meanwhile, two bookshops have been the target of recent arson attacks. Their owners said that they had received letters demanding that they stop selling Russian books allegedly detrimental to Ukrainian culture. No-one has so far claimed responsibility for these attacks. The owners of the shops claimed that other bookshops had been vandalized in Ternopil ahead of the recent election, reportedly also for selling Russian books (UNIAN, April 25).

--Pavel Korduban

 

 

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