[Ohio UZO News] Ukraine: Reuters; KP; EDM; RFE/RL; WoE; Jamestown; OSCE; Esquire; CBS

[Deychak, Orest]

Reuters


Tymoshenko makes promise to IMF mission


October 22, 2009

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko promised the visiting IMF mission to
improve the country's finances, but the president remains skeptical.

(Reuters) - Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko on Oct. 20
promised a visiting International Monetary Fund mission to improve the
country's finances, but President Victor Yushchenko sounded a skeptical
note - a reflection of rows between the two rivals.

The mission from the IMF arrived last week to assess Ukraine's progress
in fulfilling conditions set under the $16.4 billion bailout, and to
decide whether to release a tranche worth $3.8 billion by the end of the
year. The quarterly IMF reviews have been difficult - the fund delayed a
second tranche for months earlier this year, but it has also shown
flexibility as the crisis deepened.

The government has failed to make good on promises ahead of a
presidential election on Jan. 17 in which Tymoshenko, Yushchenko and
ex-premier Victor Yanukovych are expected to run.

"The situation in the finance sector is not easy, but there is political
will amongst the government to stabilize it despite political factors
and the start of the presidential campaign," Tymoshenko said in a
statement after meeting the mission.

With support at just 3-4 percent, Yushchenko is not expected to be
re-elected, while a harsh campaign will be waged between Tymoshenko and
Yanukovych who are seen fighting head-to-head in the final round of
voting in early February.

Yushchenko and Tymoshenko have quarreled bitterly in the past 18 months
despite being allies during the 2004 "Orange Revolution" that brought
both of them to power.

 Wages Raised

Last month Yushchenko accused Tymoshenko of populism and uncontrollable
spending. He said he was disappointed with the IMF for allowing the
government to get away with its policies.

"If the IMF takes a principled position towards the measures that are
being taken today, then maybe the plan will work," Yushchenko told a
forum of foreign investors on Oct. 20.

"But if the plan would be one of technical replacement of reforms and
the encouragement of a policy of waiting until the crisis ends, then
this will be a tragedy for Ukraine," he added.

The IMF will complete its review on Oct. 26.

The government has refused to raise household gas prices - an unpopular
move in the run up to the election but one that would have boosted the
finances of state energy firm Naftogaz, which now saps the state coffers
for support.

Some analysts have said the government will try to argue that by
restructuring Naftogaz' foreign debts, it had relieved pressure on its
finances, thus achieving the same aim as increased gas prices would
have.  

The IMF has also said it was displeased with a parliamentary bill that
forced the central bank to place over $1.2 billion of profits it has not
yet made into this budget year's budget.

This bill came into force last week.

The IMF had amended some of its conditions since the bailout was agreed
last November allowing a 2009 budget deficit of 6 percent of gross
domestic product against an initial demand of a balanced budget.

Analysts think the budget deficit by the end of the year may balloon
beyond that and beyond the 4 percent favored by the IMF for next year,
as political parties seek to increase social spending ahead of the
election.

Parliament on Oct. 20 approved a bill increasing the minimum wage,
despite protests from Tymoshenko that it would be like placing "an atom
bomb under the finances of the country."

The minimum wage will increase from Hr 744 ($93.4) a month in November
to Hr 869 in January and will continue to rise every quarter to Hr 922
($116) by the end of 2010. The average wage now is Hr 1,919 ($240).

Kyiv Post


Editorial


Immune, irresponsible


October 22, 2009

Verkhovna Rada - once again- demonstrated irresponsibility by approving
populist wage increases and failing to lift deputies' immunity.

Just one day after the Oct. 19 kickoff of the presidential election
campaign, lawmakers wasted little time in showing how fiscally
irresponsible and duplicitous they can be. Even the visiting
International Monetary Fund delegation, now in Kyiv to decide whether to
grant another $4 billion in loans, has expressed "concern" about the
randy populism. Let's also hope that President Victor Yushchenko will
heed Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's call to veto this recent
budget-busting bill.

Legislators from all parties except Tymoshenko's camp voted for an
unaffordable increase in the national minimum wage, a basic figure for
calculating salaries for public employees and pensions. The minimum wage
is set to grow gradually from the current Hr 869 to Hr 922 by December
2010, still not much more than $100 monthly.

"There are no revenues to finance such expenditures," said deputy
finance minister Volodymyr Matviychuk. The increases - backed by the
parties of Victor Yanukovych, Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn, Communist Party
leader Petro Symonenko and a portion of Yushchenko's Our Ukraine - are
transparently unjustifiable attempts to win voter favor ahead of the
Jan. 17 presidential contest.

Ukraine's minimum wage is far short of adequate, but raising it even by
a modest amount is simply not possible for a recession-plagued nation
going deeper into debt. If signed into law by Yushchenko, the bill will
cost Ukraine's government nearly $10 billion next year. Without adequate
tax revenue to cover these costs, the government can balance the budget
only by laying off 1.6 million people who rely on state salaries,
including doctors and teachers.

Meanwhile, lawmakers also this week cynically imitated action in a
so-called attempt to strip their legal immunity from prosecution. Nearly
390 of 450 parliamentary deputies gave preliminary approval for a bill
that would bring them (as well as the president and the judges) one step
closer to being equal in the eyes of the law with Ukraine's 46 million
citizens. 

But instead of voting in the second reading for a similar law that has
already been approved by the Constitutional Court, they approved new
changes to the constitution that  still need to be scrutinized by this
court.

This means that the final vote, if it ever comes, will take place safely
after the Jan. 17 presidential election. So, in the end, voters were
misled into thinking that lawmakers are really trying to curtail their
outrageous legal privileges. Citizens should not be fooled by these
tricks and should demand that immunity be stripped as quickly as
possible from lawmakers and everyone else who enjoys it, so the war
against corruption and crime can truly begin.

 

Eurasia Daily Monitor

October 21, 2009

Ukrainian Tycoon Returns to Government as Foreign Minister

On October 9 the Ukrainian parliament appointed the candy and automobile
tycoon Petro Poroshenko as the foreign minister. His nomination,
submitted by President Viktor Yushchenko, was backed by 240 deputies in
the 450-seat body. All caucuses voted in his favor except the opposition
Party of Regions (PRU) and the communists. Poroshenko's appointment is a
compromise between Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. He
might improve relations with Russia where he has business interests.
European integration and border issues are also among his priorities,
while NATO membership and relations with the U.S. are apparently not
among them.

Poroshenko was a former key ally of Yushchenko, but he has recently
drifted towards Tymoshenko. He joined Yushchenko while he was in the
opposition in 2002. Very ambitious, he was considered as a potential
candidate for prime minister several times, but was outplayed by rival
candidates; Tymoshenko in 2005 and PRU leader Viktor Yanukovych in 2006.
Poroshenko served as the Secretary of the National Security Council in
2005, but resigned amid accusations of corruption from Tymoshenko's
camp, which were never proven. At some point Poroshenko tried to
dominate Yushchenko's party but was demoted to rank and file after
Yushchenko purged the party of businessmen, and in 2007 he even failed
to secure a seat in parliament. Since 2007 Poroshenko has been chairing
the central bank council - not an influential position, since the bank
is run by the board and not the council.

The appointment of Poroshenko represents the only major personnel choice
for several months over which Yushchenko and Tymoshenko have not
disagreed. It was suggested in the press that Tymoshenko did not object
to Poroshenko's nomination because she expects his support for her
presidential election bid in January 2010 from Kanal 5, an influential
television news station owned by Poroshenko (Ukrainska Pravda, October
9; Zerkalo Nedeli, October 17). Andry Kozhemyakin, the deputy head of
Tymoshenko's caucus in parliament, expressed the hope that Poroshenko
would seek to improve relations with Russia (Interfax-Ukraine, October
9).

Poroshenko's predecessor Volodymyr Ohryzko was fired by parliament in
March primarily because relations with Russia had reached their nadir
under him. While NATO integration and relations with the U.S. were
priorities under Ohryzko, these two directions will not be high on
Poroshenko's agenda. Zerkalo Nedeli noted on October 17 that Poroshenko
omitted any mention of NATO in his speech to Ukrainian diplomats on
October 13. Also, within hours after his appointment, he rejected the
suggestion made by the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense Alexander
Vershbow that U.S. early warning systems could be stationed in Ukraine.
Poroshenko said that this would violate Ukrainian laws (Segodnya,
October 9).

Addressing Ukrainian diplomats, Poroshenko stressed that the Russian
direction will be a priority of his foreign policy. Relations with
Russia should be "less emotional, more pragmatic and equal," he said
(Interfax-Ukraine, October 13). These relations were emotional under
Ohryzko whose very dismissal was prompted by his threat to expel the
Russian Ambassador Viktor Chernomyrdin for speaking disparagingly of
Yushchenko in a newspaper interview.

Improving relations with Russia is also in Poroshenko's personal
interests. Russia is the key market for his Bogdan automotive
corporation and Ukrprominvest confectioneries and he also owns a
confectionery in Lipetsk. In 2006 Poroshenko announced an ambitious
project to build a factory to assemble automobiles in Nizhny Novgorod,
but bad relations with Russia apparently affected his plans. As an ally
of Yushchenko, whom the Kremlin holds responsible for spoiling bilateral
relations, Poroshenko was blacklisted by the Russian authorities and
denied entry to Russia in 2007. Recently, the government of Nizhny
Novgorod warned Poroshenko that he would lose the land reserved for his
factory if construction work did not start soon (ProUA, October 9).

However, among his other priorities Poroshenko listed E.U. accession and
"the eastern direction," in particular relations with China, India and
the Arab states (Interfax-Ukraine, October 13). Yushchenko instructed
him to do everything possible to sign an association agreement with the
E.U. at the Ukraine-E.U. summit scheduled for December 4. This task is
probably too ambitious and the Ukrainian envoy to the E.U. Andry
Veselovsky predicted that the agreement would not be signed this year
(www.liga.net, October 13). The agreement should include a free trade
zone clause, which will not be ready for signing because of the
disagreements over many issues ranging from visa-free travel to sanitary
norms in agriculture. The E.U. is opposed to signing the agreement
without a free trade clause.

Poroshenko is also expected to make progress in relations with other
neighbors such as Belarus, which has failed to ratify a border agreement
with Ukraine, and Moldova whose shared border has not been demarcated
(Zerkalo Nedeli, October 17). Consistent with these priorities,
Poroshenko paid his first visits to Moldova, Belarus and Sweden which
took over the E.U. rotating presidency in July. He is scheduled to visit
Moscow on October 23, where he will likely try to address Russian
concerns over U.S. missile defense plans. Poroshenko also plans to visit
the United States according to Ukraine's Ambassador to the U.S. Oleg
Shamshur (UNIAN, October 15).

--Pavel Korduban

Eurasia Daily Monitor

October 20, 2009

Ukraine's Energy Mess Threatens to Overshadow Presidential Election

As the Ukrainian government of Yulia Tymoshenko continues to struggle
with the impact of the global economic crisis, its troubled energy
sector has taken a number of new hits. The state-owned oil and gas
monopoly, Naftohaz Ukrayiny, was degraded by Fitch Ratings to
"restricted default" from C, the lowest grade before default level,
after it missed a principal payment on Eurobonds on September 30. More
positively, Naftogaz, the cash-strapped Ukrainian energy giant,
announced on October 8 that 92 percent of note holders have agreed to
restructure a $500 million Eurobond issue that matured on September 30.
The vast majority of note holders accepted restructuring by an October 8
"early bird" cut-off deadline that included incentives
(www.kyivpost.com, October 9). This represents a significant boost for
the company, as it attempts to avoid default and restructure a $1.7
billion debt. Final approval is scheduled for October 19.

Ukrainian officials believe that rolling over Naftogaz's debts should
free up finances to reform the country's debt-laden and murky gas
sector. Naftogaz resells gas to households at a lower price than what it
pays for Russian imports. "This will help keep Naftogaz afloat in the
near term," said Alexander Valchyshen, the head of research at
Investment Capital Ukraine (www.kyivpost.com, October 9).

However, this was soon reversed when Tymoshenko announced that domestic
prices would not be increased this year. Earlier the Ukrainian prime
minister had pledged to increase domestic gas prices in 2009 by 20
percent in September in order to meet International Monetary Fund (IMF)
requirements for a loan to bolster the Ukrainian energy sector and
enable it to insure that the transit of Russian gas through Ukraine to
E.U. consumers will not be interrupted. Speaking to residents of the
village of Zhuraky in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, Tymoshenko stated: "Do
not believe the claims that gas prices for people will be raised. I
promise you that the price of gas will not increase by one kopeck under
any circumstances" (www.kyivpost.com, October 4).

Her statement was seen by many Ukrainian analysts as a pre-election
ploy. Tymoshenko announced her candidacy in the January 2010
presidential election and refusing to raise gas prices for domestic
consumers is broadly seen as a populist move to maintain her popularity
among the electorate. The Ukrainian news service UNIAN earlier reported
that the national electricity regulation commission was unable to raise
gas prices for the population by 20 percent on September 1, because of
court bans and disagreements with trade unions. It was also unable to
raise the maximum gas prices for heating utilities by 20 percent on
October 1.

The Ukrainian presidential secretariat soon afterwards expressed doubt
that the IMF will disburse the fourth tranche of its standby loan to
Ukraine if gas prices for the population and heating utilities are not
raised in accordance with its conditions (www.kyivpost.com, October 4).
Nearly $11 billion in aid from the IMF has kept Kyiv afloat this year.

Ukrainian officials say that they need a fourth IMF disbursement of $4
billion to help cover a budget gap. Analysts suggest that the IMF might
delay this, after Kyiv failed to meet key conditions, including
increasing gas prices for households to bring them closer to European
market levels.

Making matters worse, Russia's Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller announced on
October 7 that it will not lower the volume of gas deliveries to Ukraine
in 2010 -as specified by the January 2009 long term contract. "We see
that Ukraine is able to fulfill its contractual obligations" Miller
stated, "and there will be no problems with Gazprom. We believe that
Ukraine can, and is able to pay for gas -it has the money"
(www2.pravda.com.ua, October 7).

Yet, the question arises: will Ukraine remain committed to the agreed
quotas and price scheme it settled with Gazprom in January 2009, and if
a serious price dispute were to arise between Kyiv and Moscow on the eve
of the Ukrainian presidential election, how will this impact gas
deliveries to Gazprom's European customers?

Adding to increased tensions, on October 12 the Deputy Head of the
Russian State Duma, Valeriy Yazev, stated: "Ukraine is not taking the
full amount of gas it contracted for...and should be forced to pay
penalties...It is possible that on January 1, 2010 this question will
arise and it will be necessary to pay for the gas it did not take"
(www.ua-energy.org, October 12). According to East European Gas
Analysis, in 2010 Ukraine will be paying more for Russian gas than the
European Union and Turkey. The prognosis is that the E.U. and Turkey
will pay in the range of $199 to $250 for 1,000 cubic meters, while
Ukraine will pay $230 to $288 (www.eegas.com, June 4).

If a new Ukrainian-Russian gas confrontation erupts in the weeks prior
to the Ukrainian presidential election, it might have a significant
impact on voters tempted to blame the incumbent Prime Minister Yulia
Tymoshenko, who is also a presidential candidate, for signing the "take
or pay" contract in January which Ukraine is unable to fulfill. This
type of backlash would only benefit the pro-Russian Party of Regions and
their presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych.

--Roman Kupchinsky

 

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

October 19, 2009 

Western Ukraine Could Decide Presidential Election Outcome

by Taras Kuzio 

 

After what is widely seen as five years of missed opportunities under
incumbent President Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine's three-month election
campaign has begun.

Past presidential elections in Ukraine have been a contest for control
of the "swing" region of central Ukraine that Leonid Kuchma and
Yushchenko won in 1994 and 2004, respectively. But to win nationwide, a
candidate needs either western or eastern Ukraine as well. 

Kuchma won by winning the east and the center, Yushchenko the west and
the center. The last three elections were won by slim majorities of
52-56 percent.

The upcoming presidential elections will be different, and the first in
which western Ukraine will play a strategic role in deciding the winner.
Central Ukraine continues to be dominated by Prime Minister Yulia
Tymoshenko, whereas opposition Party of Regions Chairman Viktor
Yanukovych has a dominant position in eastern-southern Ukraine. 

The presidential election is set for January 17, 2010; if no candidate
wins outright in the first round, a runoff will take place three weeks
later.

Presidential Fragmentation

Western Ukraine's central role in the upcoming elections is the product
of five years of infighting and fragmentation of the center-right. The
Our Ukraine-People's Self Defense bloc (NU-NS) that entered parliament
in September 2007 included nine parties that had promised to merge into
a single pro-Yushchenko party that would support his bid for a second
presidential term.

Instead, the nine have grown to 14, with the establishment of two new
parties, led by Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko (Self Defense) and
former chief of staff Viktor Baloga (United Center), plus three NGOs
that are embryo parties led respectively by former Defense Minister
Anatoliy Hrytsenko (Civic Initiative), former parliament speaker Arseniy
Yatsenyuk (Front for Change), and Vyacheslav Kyrylenko (For Ukraine!).

Of NU-NS's 72 parliamentary deputies, approximately 40, a slim majority,
support the democratic coalition underpinning the Tymoshenko government
(together with the Tymoshenko and Volodymyr Lytvyn blocs). 

Of the remaining 32 deputies, 17 belong to the single pro-Yushchenko
group, For Ukraine!, while a further 10 belong to United Center. 

President Yushchenko's election campaign is hampered not only by his low
popular support, which he routinely dismisses as unimportant, but also
his lack of a political machine. Yushchenko is honorary chairman of the
People's Union-Our Ukraine (NS-NU) party, one of the original nine in
the NU-NS bloc, and his chief of staff Vera Ulianichenko is its leader.
Both the NS-NU and Yushchenko personally can count on only 2-3 percent
support. 

The NS-NU has been bankrupt since the spring, when Ukrainian businessmen
withdrew their funding after it became evident that he was a lame duck
president unable to win a second term.

At least five of the figures who played key roles in the Orange
Revolution will be competing for the presidency: Yushchenko, Tymoshenko,
Yatsenyuk, Hrytsenko, and Yuriy Kostenko, leader of the People's Party,
one of the original nine in the NU-NS bloc. 

The nationalist-populist leader of the Svoboda Party (formerly called
the Social-National Party) Oleh Tyahnybok, who won a majoritarian seat
in 2002 and joined the Our Ukraine faction (only to be expelled two
years later for anti-Semitic remarks), will also be competing for the
western Ukrainian vote. 

Not Easy Breaking In

The two leading candidates in western Ukraine are Tymoshenko and
Yatsenyuk. Yatsenyuk leads among younger and educated voters in the
three Galician oblasts, while Tymoshenko leads in the remaining four
oblasts of western Ukraine. Overall, Tymoshenko has a 6-7
percentage-point lead over Yatsenyuk throughout western Ukraine. 

Yatsenyuk's popularity has catapulted him to third place in national
opinion polls, but this should not make him overly self-confident, and
his ratings have dropped by a third since the summer. Yatsenyuk's
popularity is being squeezed from four directions: Tymoshenko, Ukraine's
best election campaigner and most charismatic politician; incumbent
Yushchenko, who has the same voter base as Yatsenyuk; Hrytsenko; and
Serhiy Tyhipko.

In addition to Yatsenyuk, Hrytsenko and Tyhipko also figure within the
"second tier" of candidates. Tyhipko has roots in the Dnipropetrovsk
clan's Labor Ukraine Party, but is increasingly challenging Yatsenyuk
for the position of the "new face in politics" among disillusioned
voters. 

Yatsenyuk's western Ukrainian voters could also turn away from him over
his inconsistency on issues that they consider crucial to Ukraine's
national identity. Although elected to parliament in the NU-NS bloc,
Yatsenyuk has de facto ditched key elements in its platform, such as
abolishing parliamentary immunity; legal recognition of Ukrainian
nationalist partisans who fought against the Nazis and Soviets in the
1940s; NATO membership; and energy independence (Yatsenyuk supports a
gas consortium with Russia). 

He has also recently become skeptical of EU membership and withdrew his
signature from a January 2008 letter to NATO's Bucharest summit (which
he signed together with Tymoshenko and Yushchenko) seeking a Membership
Action Plan. 

These are all issues on which Yushchenko (and to some degree Tymoshenko)
are challenging Yatsenyuk. Ironically, Russian President Dmitry
Medvedev's bitterly critical August letter to Yushchenko will only have
served to improve his ratings in western Ukraine and therefore eaten
into Yatsenyuk's popularity.

Touted last year as representing the younger generation of Ukrainian
politicians and therefore by implication as "pro-Western," Yatsenyuk
looked decidedly less so at the September Yalta European Strategy (YES)
summit. 

YES, an NGO established five years ago by oligarch Viktor Pinchuk,
invited Yanukovych, Tymoshenko, and Yatsenyuk to present their platforms
to a special "Freedom of Speech" ICTV live program and to European
guests (ICTV is one of four television channels owned by Pinchuk). Of
the three, Yatsenyuk, according to Ukrainian media reports, was the most
disappointing and vacuous.

Tymoshenko Stands Up

Tymoshenko's campaign team have realized the strategic importance of
western Ukraine and reached out to the North American diaspora, which
retains its influence over the region. Addressing the annual meeting of
the World Congress of Ukrainians in Lviv on August 21-22, on the eve of
Ukraine's Independence Day, Tymoshenko stressed her support for
Ukrainian remaining the only state language, an issue of particular
concern to western Ukrainians and the Ukrainian diaspora. 

On October 13, the Tymoshenko bloc organized a parliamentary hearing on
links with the Ukrainian diaspora. Tymoshenko's reaffirmation of support
for the Ukrainian language forced Yanukovych to announce prematurely
that, if reelected president, he would elevate Russian to the status of
the second state language. This policy, which figured in his 2004
campaign program, will ruin his chances completely in western Ukraine,
and to some degree in the central region as well.

The January elections are likely to require a runoff, as in 2004, this
time between Tymoshenko and Yanukovych. But unlike five years ago, when
Yushchenko ran as the united opposition candidate, this time around the
former Orange Revolution parties and leaders are fragmented. 

Ukrainian intellectual groups are increasingly calling on the "Orange"
camp to unite around Tymoshenko, as they had united around Yushchenko.
That lack of "Orange" unity in turn improves Yanukovych's chances, so it
is likely that this time the bitter second round will pit him against
Tymoshenko.

Taras Kuzio is a senior fellow of Ukrainian Studies at the University of
Toronto, adjunct research professor at the Institute of European and
Russian Studies at Carleton University, and editor of the bimonthly
"Ukraine Analyst"

 

Window on Eurasia: Rather than Invade, Moscow Will Seek to Destabilize
Ukraine from Within, Georgian Official Says

 

Paul Goble

 

            Vienna, October 20 - The Government of Georgia is convinced
that Russia will not invade Ukraine, a country immeasurably stronger
than Georgia, the vice premier of that South Caucasus republic said
yesterday, but rather that Moscow will employ "the most clever means" of
destabilizing Ukraine from the inside during the ongoing presidential
campaign there.

            Georgy Baramidze, who also serves as Georgia's minister for
European and Euro-Atlantic integration, said that Russian forces could
not hope to defeat Ukrainian ones and therefore will "attempt to blow up
[the Ukrainian] state with [Ukraine's own] forces'     

(ru.tsn.ua/ukrayina/gruziya-predupredila-chto-rossiya-poprobuet-podorvat
-ukrainu-iznutri.html).

            Moscow, he said, will try to "create controlled chaos and an
atmosphere of hatred," to play off one group of Ukrainians against
another in order to "inflame" the situation.  Indeed, Baramidze said,
"Russia will support everyone who supports the escalation of the
situation and all who pour grease into the fire."

            The Russian authorities can do this in many ways:
distributing Russian passports as they did in Abkhazia and South Ossetia
and are now doing in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, playing up ethnic and
language differences, promoting now one and now another political
leader, and putting money in various media projects, all steps designed
to exacerbate the situation. 

            In addition to its own weakness relative to Ukraine,
Baramidze continued, Moscow has two other reasons for adopting such an
approach.  On the one hand, few in the West and indeed many in Ukraine
itself are likely to recognize that Moscow is behind many of these
covert actions, finding it more convenient in both cases to blame one or
another group of Ukrainians.

            And on the other, he insisted, "Russia needs chaos in order
to be able to say to the West: 'Here, you see, we turned out to be right
- Ukraine can't live independently. Give it to us. Under us, it will
live normally and will live quietly in the future.  You don't understand
that they are not Europeans; these are our brothers, not yours.  And we
will deal with them."

            But if Moscow's first targets in this campaign are Ukraine
itself and its Western supporters, Baramidze concluded, people in Kyiv
and the West must recognize that "Ukraine is the key to Eastern Europe."
If Ukraine does not hold out against it, then "Russia will have carte
blanche" to dominate the entire region, which is Moscow's strategic
geopolitical goal.


Jamestown Foundation Blog


Monday, October 19, 2009


The Disintegration of the Ukrainian Armed Forces


by Roman Kupchinsky

The Ukrainian military has apparently become a victim of the country's
fierce political infighting and might well be on its way to
disintegration. For five months Ukraine has been without a Defense
Minister, an unprecedented situation in the country's history. 

In June 2009, the Defense Minister, Yuriy Yekhanurov, was forced out of
office after charges of illegal land sales were leveled against him by
Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. These charges were upheld by the
powerful opposition Party of the Regions which at the time was in an
erstwhile coalition with Tymoshenko.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko disputed the accusations against
Yekhanurov and stated: "I can see no signs of corruption or any
wrongdoing which could lead to the minister's resignation." Yushchenko
praised the ministry's 3-year track record as stable, given the meager
funding the ministry gets from the cabinet.

To make matters worse, on October 5, the Chief of the General Staff,
General Serhiy Kyrychenko, resigned his post due to "health reasons."
The media, however, reported that his resignation was motivated by the
chronic underfunding of the Ukrainian military by the government. 

Defense spending in Ukraine was reduced considerably this year, and
further cuts are expected in 2010. If this trend continues, some believe
that in the next two or three years, the Ukrainian army might lose its
combat capability. 

The crisis in the Ukrainian armed forces, according to Ukrainian
analysts, is mainly due to the fact that most members of the Ukrainian
leadership are not interested in defense issues, and PM Tymoshenko has
been pursuing a policy in which welfare spending is her priority. 

The prospect of membership in NATO once provided Ukraine with an impulse
for military reform which the government saw as a platform of
co-operation with the West, but this has now become more distant as
prospects for NATO membership have almost vanished. 

Ukraine's largely conscript armed forces consist of 191,000 military
personnel and 43,000 civilian employees. They are generally considered
to be underfunded and lacking in training. 

According to a 2007 study by Marybeth Peterson Ulrich of the Strategic
Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, "The Ukrainian armed forces
have been on a starvation diet, recently receiving only 1.3 percent of
gross domestic product (GDP). If Ukraine were in NATO, it would rank
third among NATO's 26 countries in terms of size, but 127th out of 150
countries worldwide in expenditure per serviceman."

Former Defense Minister Yekhanurov once noted that "The Ministry of
Defense has a very long way to go in the area of defense, because a
systematic transformation of the Ukrainian Armed Forces requires
enormous efforts, clear coherence in actions, and heavy daily routine." 

The Armed Forces of Ukraine have been struggling with insufficient
financing for many years, which has been the main impediment to reform.
The current economic crisis has resulted in drastic cuts in the defense
budget, and left the army in a state of de facto financial collapse. In
2005-2008, the proportion of defense spending decreased from 1.3% of GDP
to 0.99% (the 2005 armed forces reform program stated that Ukraine would
allocate 2% of GDP to defense purposes). 

This year, the Defense Ministry's budget was altered, according to
critics of the Tymoshenko government, in order to conceal decreased
military spending. They claim that the Tymoshenko government appears to
have been treating the budget as an election campaign tool, and has
established welfare spending as a priority when facing finance
shortages. 

The proportion of the so-called special fund in the budget, which
consists of the Defense Ministry's revenue from the sale of the army's
fixed assets, has increased from over 10% of total spending in 2000-2008
to nearly 30% in 2009. The real amounts obtained from such sales have
always been lower than those foreseen in Budget legislation.

According to the Polish East-West Analytical Newsletter (no. 35, October
14, 2009) "Ever more serious shortages in material (including the
increasing amount of sales of the Ukrainian armies most valuable
equipment) and the loss of personnel (young officers trained to NATO
standards are leaving the services), combined with the drastic reduction
of practical test-ground training, means that the new structure of the
Ukrainian armed forces, which were trained in the middle of this decade
will become ineffective. This situation will not only delay the
completion of armed forces reform, but also pose a real risk that
Ukraine's military potential will be diminished. This in turn may
undermine Ukraine's position as a partner in its military co-operation
with the West, and weaken its standing in relations with Russia."


Link to full article  http://www.jamestown.org/blog

 

OSCE

Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR)

Recruitment for election in Ukraine (Note that this is recruitment for
consultants and  long-term, NOT yet short-term, observers for the
January 17, 2010 Ukrainian presidential elections  OD)

http://www.osce.org/odihr-elections/40568.html

 

Esquire 

October 15, 2009


John Demjanjuk: The Last Nazi


Funny thing is, he was never a Nazi, nor Ivan the Terrible, nor even
German. So why now is he standing trial in Munich as accessory to 27,900
Nazi murders? Is this one last blow struck for justice for the
Holocaust? Or is it a farce?

By Scott Raab

For full article:
http://www.esquire.com/features/john-demjanjuk-1109?click=pp

Finally, on a lighter note:

CBS News Blogs

Date: Friday, October 16, 2009

To see who's #1, go to  Obama Ranked 15th Hottest Head of State -
Political Hotsheet - CBS News
<http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/10/13/politics/politicalhotsheet/entr
y5382262.shtml> ;
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/10/13/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry
5382262.shtml

 

 

 

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