[Ohio UZO News] Ukraine: LAT; KP; RFE/RL (3); EDM

[Deychak, Orest]

Los Angeles Times

Ukraine's legislators hold up business; The disarray is fueled by a feud between two democracy leaders. Chaos looms as the presidential vote nears. 

Maria Danilova 

Danilova writes for the Associated Press.

18 October 2009

A-13

KIEV, UKRAINE

The lawmaker strode through parliament recently, smiling politely and clutching a chair -- his contribution to a barricade designed to paralyze proceedings.

Fresh from summer vacation, lawmakers were back to the shenanigans that have made Ukraine's parliament a source of entertainment and fodder for YouTube.

But as the former Soviet republic struggles with a devastated economy and fears for the stability of Russian gas supplies this winter, many Ukrainians say it's time the 450-member legislature got serious.

In addition, all signs point to more chaos as the Jan. 17 presidential election approaches.

The power structure that emerged from the 2004 Orange Revolution, the high point of Ukraine's struggle to banish Soviet-era politics, is in disarray.

The heroes of the mass protests, President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko, have become bitter enemies who don't talk to each other. The feud between these two Western-oriented leaders has hurt their popularity, and the man they vanquished, Russian-favored Viktor Yanukovich, now tops the opinion polls.

Yushchenko's rating, on the other hand, has tumbled below 5%.

Experts say it is early to pick a winner, and there's no guarantee any presidential outcome will end the paralysis in parliament and usher in long-awaited reforms, such as rewriting the constitution yet again.

Still, Ukraine's vibrant, unpredictable democracy stands in contrast to Russia and some of the other former Soviet republics, where elections are choreographed and government opponents sidelined.

Some say it's a sign of progress in shedding the legacy of single-party Soviet-era rule.

"This is political competition, really, not a crisis," said political analyst Ivan Lozowy. "The more, the merrier."

Few Ukrainians find much to be merry about, however.

They have lost nearly half their savings, and the International Monetary Fund expects the economy to shrink by 14% this year. To qualify for a $16.4-billion IMF bailout loan, the government will have to make painful spending cuts.

With the collapse of the hryvna, the national currency, the price of most food items, from a pint of milk to a helping of salo (pork fat), has nearly doubled.

Then there's the long-running dispute with Russia over fuel. Russia exports gas to Ukraine and Western Europe through pipelines that cross Ukrainian territory. It has raised the price of the gas it sells to Ukraine, and Ukraine wants it to pay higher fees for using the pipeline. The fear is that the dispute could lead to a repeat of last January's gas war, when Moscow briefly cut off supplies to Ukraine and millions of European consumers.

In the last year, parliament has repeatedly been stymied by chairs and beefy lawmakers blocking access to the rostrum to prevent the speaker from starting a session. Proceedings are halted when fistfights break out or lawmakers vandalize the chamber's electronic voting machinery.

Yushchenko called early parliamentary elections last October, but the vote was never held because Tymoshenko opposed it. Her party's lawmakers paralyzed parliament, preventing passage of the necessary election legislation.

Frustrated parliament speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn sought to bring lawmakers in line recently, ordering their pay withheld until they stopped disrupting proceedings.

Everyone would suffer the penalty, he said angrily. "I am not going to be compiling lists and checking who is standing near the rostrum . . . and who is lying down near the rostrum."

Now, all the candidates are the people's friend.

Tymoshenko, glamorous and sharp-tongued, has plastered the capital with posters proclaiming: "They destroy. She works."

Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the reformist former parliament speaker who has emerged as a strong contender, has set up dark-green military-style tents in Kiev, the capital, vowing war on corruption and mismanagement.

And Yanukovich has set up a hotline, promising that his staff will listen to every caller's complaint. His office says calls are pouring in.

Kyiv Post

Rising Star in Ukraine Vows Reform

By MARIA DANILOVA 

Associated Press Writer

19 October 2009

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - Ukraine's youngest leading presidential hopeful says he flies economy class, vows not to take advice from either Moscow or Washington and promises to fight corruption with "a truncheon in my hands."

Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a 35-year-old millionaire banker, is trailing in third place in opinion polls ahead of Ukraine's January 17 presidential contest, which kicked off Monday. But he told The Associated Press in an interview that he believes he can win because the public is fed up with official corruption and a government polarized by infighting.

"They are taking the country for idiots," he said of the current political leaders.

Bristling with energy and sarcastic humor, Yatsenyuk positions himself as a new-generation reformer who will break with Ukraine's Soviet past while building better relations with both Moscow and the West.

A recent opinion poll showed Yatsenyuk garnering just 9 percent support, behind former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych who had 30 percent and enjoyed the open support of Moscow when he ran for president five years ago.

Prime Minster Yulia Tymoshenko, heroine of the Orange Revolution, the 2004 street protests that ushered in a pro-Western government, was second with 19 percent in the October poll by Research and Branding group.

The study surveyed 3,119 people nationwide with a margin of error of 2.2 percent. President Viktor Yushchenko, who is running for a second term, has 3 percent support.

But both Washington and Moscow seem to recognize Yatsenyuk as a rising political star.

Russia's state-controlled media has given Yatsenyuk extensive coverage. Meanwhile U.S. Vice President Joe Biden met with him, as well as Yanukovych and Tymoshenko, during a July trip to Kiev, in what was seen as an effort to size up potential future presidents of Ukraine.

"The support that Yatsenyuk has suggests that there are people looking for an alternative," said Alex Brideau, a Ukraine analyst at Eurasia Group, a U.S.-based firm that advises on geopolitical risks.

Yatsenyuk portrays himself as more independent than the leading candidates. "I don't need dictation either from Washington, Brussels or the Kremlin," said Yatsenyuk, a former central banker, foreign minister and speaker of parliament. "We don't want to be a middleman, we want to be a player."

In a shot at his former mentor, Yushchenko, Yatsenyuk says he will stop "begging" to be invited to join NATO and the European Union. Instead, he would strengthen trade ties with the EU while continuing the current level of cooperation with the Western military alliance.

Yatsenyuk also wants good relations with Moscow, proposing cooperation in energy and agriculture.

He painted Ukraine as an essential ally and trading partner for Moscow, saying that given the current global financial crisis, Russia needs to maintain its ties with its neighbor or face its economy being dominated by Beijing.

If Russia turns down trade cooperation with countries such as Ukraine, "in 10 years they will have everything 'made in China,'" he said.

Yatsenyuk has avoided taking sides on bitterly divisive topics, such as the country's painful history under the Soviet Union. Some political analysts therefore see him as an unknown quantity.

"We don't see a clear political face, we still don't have answers to many questions, his ideology is still unclear," said analyst Oleksiy Haran.

A lawyer by training, Yatsenyuk was a first-year college student in the western Ukrainian city of Chernivtsi when he set up a law firm helping transfer state companies into private hands.

That eventually landed him a job as a top manager at a leading Kiev bank. He went on to become Ukraine's economic minister, then foreign minister and finally speaker of parliament.

He resigned from that post last year to form his own political movement, Front of Change.

He promises action in a country long gripped by political paralysis.

"I will not succeed without a truncheon in my hands," he told voters in western Ukraine on a recent campaign trip. "Unless about a dozen (officials) are put in jail in Ukraine, so that millions would see that violating the law leads to punishment, there will be no order in the state."

Yatsenyuk says his campaign contributions come from small businessmen, denying allegations that he has received heavy support from Ukraine's notorious oligarchs. He acknowledged, though, that a foundation he runs promoting the rights of the disabled has been supported by Viktor Pinchuk, a billionaire steel magnate and political power broker.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

October 18, 2009 

The Rise And Fall (And Rise?) Of Arseniy Yatsenyuk 

by Andrew Wilson 

The one enduring symbol of Ukraine's problems since the 2004 Orange Revolution has been the constant, wearisome guerrilla warfare between its main personalities: the predictable triptych of President Viktor Yushchenko, current Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, and Yushchenko's defeated rival in 2004, Viktor Yanukovych.

When the economic crisis hit Ukraine in October-November 2008, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, leader of the newly created Front for Change, initially seemed like a breath of fresh air. His Obama-lite campaign turned the contest for the next president into a three-horse race, with himself in third place as Yushchenko dropped out of contention. By this spring, Yatsenyuk was polling at 12-13 percent, almost catching up with Tymoshenko in second place behind Yanukovych.

But Yatsenyuk's rise stopped abruptly in May. He had clearly started his campaign too early, and by summer it seemed the bubble had burst. Private polls now put him at 9 percent or less. 

Now Yushchenko hopes to climb back from political death and rise above him in the polls. So what went wrong? What explains the rise and fall of Arseniy Yatsenyuk?

Yatsenyuk's rise has indeed been meteoric. He only reached age 35, the minimum required to stand for the presidency, in May. He served as foreign minister for a few months in 2007 and chairman of parliament in 2007-08, though he has never been in any position for long. 

In the beginning, this seemed like an asset. On closer inspection, it seems he has been given a series of leg-ups by his patrons: unlike most politicians in Ukraine, Yatsenyuk has little wealth and few resources of his own. 

Supported By Oligarchs

He was plucked from obscurity to become deputy head of the National Bank in 2003 by Serhiy Tyhipko. His main patrons now are two of Ukraine's biggest oligarchs -- Viktor Pinchuk and Dmytro Firtash -- along with smaller versions such as Donetsk tycoon Leonid Yurushev.

Pinchuk is an independent force, but has apparently made his peace with Tymoshenko. Firtash was with Yushchenko, then shifted to the Party of Regions, and more recently has been at daggers-drawn with Tymoshenko over the fate of the shadowy gas intermediary company RosUkrEnergo, where he controls the Ukrainian half. Yatsenyuk was therefore pulled in different directions by his different sponsors.

A turning point came in June when the putative coalition between Tymoshenko and Yanukovych fell apart. Yatsenyuk demanded that Firtash switch to backing him full-time, but Firtash stuck by Yanukovych. 

Yatsenyuk was suddenly no longer omnipresent on the Inter TV channel then close to Firtash. Pinchuk became the more important sponsor, and replaced Yatsenyuk's Ukrainian team with Russian-connected "political technologists:" Timofei Sergeitsev, Dmitry Kulikov, and Iskander Valitov. 

As well as working for Yanukovych's controversial campaign in 2004, the new Russian team came from the Duma Expert Council under Konstantin Zatulin. It is headed by Sergei Markov and notorious for its attempts to set up Russia-friendly NGOs and politicians throughout the CIS. If Russia cannot control or confront Ukraine directly, it has an interest in helping to build up a "satellite ideology."

The new team pushed a version of a Russian "third way" ideology, which stretches from the nationalist right to earlier campaigns for the Union of Rightist Forces and Anatoly Chubais's infamous "liberal imperialism." It combines business-friendly policies with attacks on the bankruptcy of the West and Western liberalism, the consequent degradation of structures based on them like the EU, and the rise of an alternative pole centered around Russia in the east. 

'Greater Europe'

Yatsenyuk shifted from his plague-on-both-your-houses rhetoric and so-called "New Ukrainian Pragmatism" to something more like a new Ukrainian isolationism, suddenly repositioning himself as the Sinn Féin ("Ourselves Alone") candidate and lambasting the EU and everything non-Ukrainian. His campaign slogans - "Productive Village," "A Battle-Ready Army," and "New Industrialization" - suddenly sent a different message, one that also sounded more like "feed and support Russia."

Yatsenyuk has even toyed with the idea of announcing a Ukrainian-led Eastern European Union as a kind of club for all those disappointed with the EU within what he likes to call "Greater Europe" -- which would almost inevitably be a Trojan horse for Russia.

The new Russian team also tried to sell Yatsenyuk as Putin-lite, the new tough kid on the block. His campaign color became khaki green. But these messages were too Russian and didn't sell well in Ukraine. 

Most Ukrainians would actually quite like to join the EU. Yatsenyuk's khaki-colored tough-talk was uncomfortably reminiscent of Michael Dukakis's ill-fated tank ride in 1988 and never sounded convincing coming out of the mouth of someone whose nickname is "Kinder Surpriz." Yatsenyuk even staged his own Dukakis moment, careering around on a combine harvester. 

Vladimir Putin is popular in Ukraine, and many would vote for a "strong hand" as an alternative to disorder. This sentiment is also exploited by Tymoshenko. 

But Ukrainian political culture is different. There is no cult of power, or of the KGB.

So Yatsenyuk has faded in the polls. He has three choices when the actual campaign begins on October 17. He can switch back to Plan A and act as a genuine "third force." Otherwise, he risks losing this niche to other candidates like Tyhipko or Yatsenyuk's successor as chairman of parliament, Volodymyr Lytvyn. Or his sponsors can keep him in the field with Plan B -- siphoning votes from Yanukovych. 

Yatsenyuk's chances of winning a powerful post like prime minister after the election depend on either a strong performance or the eventual winner owing him a favor. Or Yatsenyuk can play a long game and aim to be a player in the next parliamentary elections -- possibly even holding the key "golden share" between Yanukovych and Tymoshenko. In that case, we may not have seen the last of him or his supporters.

Andrew Wilson is a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) and a coeditor of the new volume "What Does Russia Think? <http://ecfr.3cdn.net/5924925faca4a75e4a_0xm6bl09i.pdf> " The views expressed in this commentary are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of RFE/RL. 

 

RFE/RL 

October 18, 2009 

Russian Black Sea Fleet Objects To Ukrainian Checks 

KYIV -- Russian Black Sea Fleet commanders have raised objections to spot checks of their military vehicles by Ukrainian traffic police, RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service reports. 

After two unsanctioned convoys carrying missiles drove through Sevastopol this summer, Ukrainian authorities began checking Russian naval convoys for proper documentation. 

According to Ukrainian-Russian agreements, Ukrainian authorities must be notified of all movements and maneuvers by the Russian Black Sea Fleet and show documents allowing permission for such movements. 

Military sources told RFE/RL that the Russians have once again recently moved a convoy of equipment without proper permission from Ukrainian authorities. 

In recent days the Russian fleet has built a large tent camp between two villages near Sevastopol. Ukrainian military sources say military equipment is being transported to this camp at night. 

The Russian Black Sea Fleet has reportedly moved 12 of its missile systems to the newly built tent camp. 

 

RFE/RL

October 16, 2009 

Ukrainian Envoy, Pentagon Deny U.S.-Kyiv Talks On Missile Defense 

WASHINGTON -- The Ukrainian Embassy in Washington has denied a report that U.S. and Ukrainian officials have met to discuss using radar stations in Ukraine for U.S. missile defense, RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service reports. 

Western agencies cited a report from Interfax Ukraine that quoted U.S. Ambassador Oleh Shamshur as saying that preliminary talks with members of the Obama administration have taken place. 

But Ruslan Nimchynski, a counselor at the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, told RFE/RL on October 15 that the report is incorrect. 

Nimchynski said Shamshur told him from Kyiv that there have been "no talks whatsoever" between the two countries on the use of Ukrainian radar. 

A Pentagon official, Major Shawn Smith, also said the United States has not held such negotiations with Ukraine. 

He added, however, that "a number of countries in Europe, including Ukraine, have indicated they may have the capability to cooperate with the United States through the use of radar stations." 

Former U.S. President George W. Bush had planned to deploy interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic. 

Moscow objected to the plan, complaining that Russia was the real target of the antimissile shield. Last month, President Barack Obama announced he was scrapping the Bush plan in favor of a mobile, sea-based system, a decision that Moscow tentatively welcomed. 

Eurasia Daily Monitor

October 16, 2009

Yatseniuk's Presidential Election Campaign Stagnates

On October 1 the central election commission laid out the timetable for Ukraine's January 17, 2010 presidential elections. However, the candidate who began his campaign first -Arseniy Yatseniuk- might already be in trouble before the registration of candidates begins on October 20. A poll published by Ukrayinska Pravda (October 8) showed Yatseniuk's popularity declining by a third to 8 percent since July, while the gap between Yulia Tymoshenko and himself has grown as her popularity has increased, currently standing at 19 percent.

Yatseniuk began his election campaign first and with a promising launch. After being ousted as parliamentary speaker on November 12, 2008 with the support of President Viktor Yushchenko and his chief of staff, Viktor Baloga, Yatseniuk's ratings dramatically increased to 10-12 percent, a few percentage points below Tymoshenko. He gained popularity from the widespread public disillusionment with quarrelling politicians and the onset of the global financial crisis.

In spring his popularity stopped growing, and he failed to capitalize on the collapse of the Party of Regions-Tymoshenko bloc (BYuT) coalition negotiations on June 7. Moreover, his campaign replaced Ukrainian political consultants (whose leaders were from the presidential secretariat), with odious Russian political technologists who had worked for Viktor Yanukovych's 2004 election campaign where they were involved in propaganda directed at Yushchenko.

Yatseniuk is the only leading candidate who is using Russian political technologists and, as Alyona Getmanchuk, the editor of the weekly magazine Glavred has observed, only Yatseniuk seems to believe they are good for his campaign. Getmanchuk quoted a participant in the Yalta European Strategy (YES) summit on September 26-27 as saying: "It is time to pass on to Yatseniuk that he should throw those Russians out" (www.glavred.info, September 28). YES was established as a pro-European lobby NGO by oligarch Viktor Pinchuk (www.yes-ukraine.org). European Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Andrew Wilson noted that the YES annual summit is the closest event Ukraine has to Russia's Valdai to promote its image (Kyiv Post, October 1).

Over the last four months Yatseniuk's election campaign has slowly unraveled and seems to be in a process of stagnation. On September 7 Glavred was one of the first to notice this in an article entitled: "The star that is falling." Yatseniuk's support is "soft" based on disillusionment against other politicians, rather than on any clear backing for him. Yatseniuk's support is regionally based in Western Ukraine and popular among voters with higher education. Many of these are former Yushchenko voters who also dislike Tymoshenko. By contrast, the two leading candidates, Tymoshenko and Yanukovych, have strong support bases for their campaigns.

On the issue of future NATO membership, Yatseniuk has reversed his stance. In the January 2008 letter to NATO seeking a Membership Action Plan co-signed by Yushchenko and Tymoshenko, only Yatseniuk has since removed his name. Tymoshenko has agreed to Our Ukraine's demands for their support of her candidacy that includes backing NATO membership (www.dt.ua., September 19).

At the YES summit Yatseniuk confused European politicians about his views on European integration, and adopted the Leonid Kuchma and Viktor Yanukovych position that integration into the E.U. is in the hands of Brussels (not Kyiv). Yatseniuk disillusioned Ukrainian voters (who watched the candidates live on ICTV) and European politicians by the shallowness of his "pro-European" views.

Two journalists concluded after Yatseniuk's presentation that he has changed compared to the 2008 YES summit and that the "new" Yatseniuk had given the greatest "contradictory impressions" to those present. "This was not the politician who only a year ago could speak about the arrival of a new generation of politicians," Yatseniuk no longer spoke in a natural manner but as an "actor" speaking the "language of his billboards" (www.pravda.com.ua, September 28).

Yatseniuk proved unable to delineate his "ideology" and seemed to constantly shift his position. Indeed, his current position does not agree with the platform of Our Ukraine within which he was elected to parliament in September 2007 among its top five candidates. At the YES summit it remained unclear if he supported Ukraine's membership in the E.U. (www.pravda.com.ua, September 28).

Yatseniuk is proving to be neither different nor a change from establishment politicians, and is not proposing anything new to Ukrainian voters (Glavred, September 7). The youngest candidate is proving unable to establish a dialogue with voters because he is widely perceived as arrogant and elitist. This is a common problem for those individuals in Ukraine, and other post-Soviet states who made a lot of money quickly while they were young (Yatseniuk turned 35 in May, the legal minimum age to be a candidate). Yatseniuk has sought to overcome his distance from voters by traveling economy class to watch Shakhtiar Donetsk play soccer in Turkey, eating at fast food outlets that serve Ukrainian food and switching his expensive watch for a cheaper brand. These steps are scrutinized and ridiculed by the Ukrainian media as they do not fit the image of a person who drives a Bentley.

Yatseniuk's third place position in the polls is being strongly challenged by two other candidates -Anatoliy Grytsenko and Serhiy Tyhipko- whose popularity are growing. Grytsenko is a former defense minister and head of parliament's committee on national security and defense who headed the analytical-research department of Yushchenko's 2004 campaign. Tyhipko is from the Dnipropetrovsk clan and a former head of the National Bank who headed Yanukovych's 2004 election campaign.

Among the presidential candidates, Yatseniuk launched his campaign first and possibly prematurely. His position as the candidate of the "new, rising, younger generation" has failed to take root among Ukrainian voters and commentators, Europeans and Americans and his chances of entering the second round on February 7 look increasingly slim.

--Taras Kuzio

 

 

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