[Ohio UZO News] Ukraine: White House; WoE; NYT

[Deychak, Orest]

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

________________________________________________________________________
_______________

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 23, 2010

 

 

President Barack Obama today announced the designation of a Presidential
Delegation to Kyiv, Ukraine

to attend the Inauguration of His Excellency Viktor Yanukovych,
President-elect of Ukraine on February 25, 2010

 

The Honorable General James L. Jones, USMC (Ret), National Security
Advisor to the President, will lead the delegation.

 

MEMBERS OF THE PRESIDENTIAL DELEGATION:

 

The Honorable John F. Tefft, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine

 

The Honorable Melanne Verveer, Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's
Issues, U.S. Department of State

 

The Honorable Philip H. Gordon, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of European
and Eurasian Affairs, U.S. Department of State

 

Ms. Kristina A. Kvien, Director for European Economic Affairs and
European Union Relations, National Security Council

 

 

Window on Eurasia: Moscow Makes New Demands on Ukraine after
Yanukovich's Victory

 

Paul Goble

 

            Vienna, February 22 - Moscow has demanded that incoming
Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich among other things end Kyiv's
contacts with the CIA and allow the FSB to return to Crimea, part of a
more general effort by Russia to exploit the election outcome in Ukraine
and an indication of what will be at stake there in the coming months.

            In an article in today's issue of "Vlast'," journalist
Vladimir Solovyev, drawing on both Russian and Ukrainian diplomatic
sources, describes Moscow's pleasure at the election of Yanukovich and
its expectations that he will reverse many of the "orange" policies of
his predecessor Viktor Yushchenko
(www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1323691).

            Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Solovyev notes, has
not been able to hide his delight that Yushchenko will soon be out of
office and that the "orange" revolution which brought him to office in
2005 will now be overcome, bringing Ukraine back into Moscow's orbit.

            Last week, when Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev
visited Moscow, Putin said that he well "remembers 2005 and those
quasi-revolutionary events which took place in Ukraine.  Then, the
leaders of this 'color revolution' used the dissatisfaction of people
and their expectations for change." Now, however, Ukrainians have
recognized that they were "deceived."

            An anonymous Russian foreign ministry source told the
"Vlast'" journalist that Moscow was pleased "not so much by the victory
of Yanukovich than by the defeat of Yushchenko" and by the ways in which
this change represented a defeat of the American policy of "promoting
'orange revolutions' and democratic ideals."

            "For us," a Kremlin source said, "the main thing is that
Yushchenko will no longer be ruling in Ukraine." But unlike his foreign
ministry counterpart, the Kremlin source indicated that Moscow was
prepared to work with Timoshenko but feels that "it will be easier to
resolve certain questions, such as the presence of Russia's Black Sea
Fleet in Crimea" with Yanukovich.

For Moscow, "Vlast'" continues, "the five year administration of
Yushchenko is recalled in Moscow as a terrible dream," and the paper
says that "Russian diplomats are joking that February 7th (the date of
the second round of elections in Ukraine) should be made a red letter
day like May 9th."

That is because, one Russian diplomat told the paper, "the last five
years became a test. We struggled in order not to allow Ukraine to enter
NATO and to preserve our fleet there. [And] not without difficulty, we
saved the canonical unity of the Orthodox Church," by means of a complex
"special operation."
            Last week, Solovyev continues, "Putin outlined Moscow's
expectations from the new Ukrainian powers that be: 'We would like to
hope that the difficult period in the life of the fraternal to all of us
Ukrainian people is behind and that it will be possible to develop
normal inter-government relations, to build plans in economics and
strengthen social cooperation."

Moscow has already delivered its list of what it expects from Ukraine,
the "Vlast'" journalist says. On February 13, Sergey Naryshkin, the head
of the Russian Presidential Administration, spent "about six hours
together with Yanukovich" during which the Kremlin official outlined
Moscow's requirements for better relations.

According to a Ukrainian diplomatic source, Solovyev continues, Moscow
has prepared "a whole list of concrete steps which the new powers that
be in Kyiv could undertake as a sign of the renewal of the former
friendship between the fraternal peoples."  Moscow "would like," the
source continued, to see Ukraine's security services drop its relations
with the American CIA.

In addition, Moscow would like to "renew the work of the Russian FSB
office in the Black Sea Fleet, the officers of which [Yushchenko] had
required to quit Crimea at the end of last year." And it has indicated
that Moscow "expects" Yanukovich to "end any military cooperation with
Georgia, a link that had flourished under his predecessor.

"All these questions in principle are in the competence of the
president," the Ukrainian source said, and consequently positive actions
on them can become "gestures of good will by the new powers that be of
Ukraine on the path to the full restoration of relations" between Kyiv
and Moscow.

            Naryshkin's visit is the first sign Russia wants to restore
high-level ties. And some in Kyiv expect President Dmitry Medvedev to
come to Yanukovich's inauguration on February 25th to show that
relations have resumed in that way.  And he noted that some will
remember that Medvedev was responsible for Ukrainian affairs at the time
of "the orange revolution."

            Meanwhile in another Moscow comment on the shift in Ukraine,
Avtandil Tsuladze in today's "Yezhednevny zhurnal" writes that "even for
people who are not professionally interested in politics, it is obvious
that the US had surrendered Ukraine to Putin's Russia in order to solve
more immediate tasks - "sanctions against Iran and help for NATO in the
Afghan war."

            But Tsuladze says, it is clear that the Americans are not
going to get what they want either on those issues because "Russian
'hawks' consider the US to be their chief enemy," and "their logic is
simple: the worse things are for the United States, the better it will
be for them (www.ej.ru/?a=note&id=9900). 

            Meanwhile, in another indication of the reordering of the
Eurasian geopolitical space, the Russian state statistics committee has
now shifted Georgia from the "near abroad" category to the "far abroad,"
putting it outside of the area that Moscow has made clear it considers
to be its immediate sphere of influence
(www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1326396).

 

The New York Times

WORLD BRIEFING EUROPE

Ukraine: Losing Candidate Reiterates Fraud Charge 

By CLIFFORD J. LEVY 

125 words

23 February 2010

Late Edition - Final

6

English

Prime Minister Yulia V. Tymoshenko of Ukraine, who conceded the
presidential election on Saturday when she withdrew her legal challenge,
reiterated her accusation on Monday that the winner, Viktor F.
Yanukovich, prevailed only through fraud. In a speech, Ms. Tymoshenko
said that she would not resign her post and that she would instead build
a new coalition in Parliament in order to prevent Mr. Yanukovich from
ousting her. ''A president who came to power through deception will not
last long,'' she said. The inauguration of Mr. Yanukovich, who won by
3.5 percentage points in an election on Feb. 7 that monitors described
as fair, is planned for Thursday.

 

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