[Ohio UZO News] Ukraine: AP; NYT (page 1); WSJ

[Deychak, Orest]

AP

Ukrainian PM's 'Orange' coalition dissolves 

By ANNA MELNICHUK and SIMON SHUSTER 

Associated Press Writers

2 March 2010; 9:50

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's pro-Western "Orange" coalition dissolved Tuesday, losing its majority in parliament and paving the way for Ukraine's new president to consolidate his power.

The development means Tymoshenko will soon be ousted and spells the final repudiation of the Orange Revolution she helped lead in 2004. Russia-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych defeated Tymoshenko in last month's election, but she has been a thorn in his side ever since, refusing to resign and challenging the vote results.

Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn told parliament the ruling Orange coalition had been unable to prove it still had majority support in the 450-seat chamber.

"This coalition did not come up with enough votes ... I therefore announce the termination of this coalition's activity," Lytvyn said in remarks reported by the parliament's press service.

Ukraine's political parties must now form a new majority coalition and are most likely to group around Yanukovych's Party of Regions. Yanukovych says that if no majority can be reached he will disband parliament and call snap elections.

In response, Tymoshenko lashed out at Lytvyn, who is also a leader of the Orange forces in parliament, for "illegally ruining the democratic coalition" and paving the way for Yanukovych's "anti-Ukrainian dictatorship."

"This was the last barricade worth defending if we wanted to protect our independence, sovereignty, strength and the European development of our country," Tymoshenko said in a televised appeal to the public.

"History will hold him responsible." she added.

Parliament is set to hold a confidence vote Wednesday on Tymoshenko's government.

In her appeal, Tymoshenko said she would now seek to unite Ukraine's "truly democratic and patriotic forces," but she did not name any potential partners or lay out a specific plan.

The Orange coalition, formed in December 2008, was loosely centered around the political ideals of the Orange Revolution, a series of massive street protests in 2004 led by former President Viktor Yushchenko and Tymoshenko.

Those protests against vote fraud resulted in the Supreme Court overturning Yanukovych's fraud-tainted election victory in 2004, and Yushchenko, a reformer who wanted closer Ukrainian integration with the West, won a revote. Tymoshenko became his prime minister.

But their constant quarreling and inability to deliver on promises of European integration and economic growth fueled Yanukovych's comeback. He defeated Tymoshenko in a Feb. 7 runoff by 3.5 percentage points.

Tymoshenko so far has refused to concede defeat, but the failure of her coalition will likely force her into an opposition role in parliament, analysts said.

"The dissolution of the coalition makes Tymoshenko's ouster inevitable," said Viktor Nebozhenko, a political analyst in Kiev. "The Orange forces have been defeated on every front."

Russian Ambassador Mikhail Zurabov presented his credentials on Wednesday to Yanukovych, renewing diplomatic relations between the two countries for the first time since August 2009, when the Kremlin declined to send an ambassador to Kiev until Yushchenko was out of office.

Yushchenko's efforts to take Ukraine out of Russia's orbit and join NATO and the European Union infuriated the Kremlin.

Yanukovych, whose base of support is in Ukraine's Russian-speaking east, has said he would not seek membership in either bloc. He is expected to invigorate ties with Russia through energy interdependence and military cooperation, and plans to visit Moscow on Friday.

"Allow me to express my respect for the Ukrainian people and wish you success in your role as president," Zurabov told Yanukovych during a televised ceremony.

The New York Times

www.nytimes.com

 

'Hero of Ukraine' Splits Nation, Inside and Out 

By CLIFFORD J. LEVY 

1136 words

2 March 2010

Late Edition - Final

1

STARYI UHRYNIV, Ukraine -- Half a century after his death at the hands of the K.G.B., Stepan Bandera, a World War II partisan, has not lost his ability to rally Ukrainians against Russia -- and against each other.

Monuments to Mr. Bandera have sprung up across western Ukraine, his fight for the country's independence glowingly recounted to schoolchildren on field trips, as if he were the George Washington of Ukrainian nationalism. But in eastern Ukraine and as far away as Moscow and Brussels, Mr. Bandera is reviled as a Nazi puppet.

This disputed legacy has ensured him a prominent role in today's Ukraine. In a parting shot as his presidency was ending, Viktor A. Yushchenko named Mr. Bandera a ''Hero of Ukraine,'' one of the country's highest honors.

That touched off a political battle that may make it more difficult for Viktor F. Yanukovich, who succeeded Mr. Yushchenko as president last week, to address the ethnic, regional and historical passions that divide the country.

Already, eastern Ukrainians have held protests, burning Mr. Bandera in effigy. Mr. Yanukovich, who campaigned on a platform of improving relations with Russia, has come under pressure to revoke the award, not only from Russia but also from the European Parliament. Such a move, though, would stir a backlash in western Ukraine.

Mr. Yanukovich, who is from eastern Ukraine, has criticized the award, but has so far not said what he will do about it. ''I think that the president of Ukraine should be the president of all Ukraine and not just one part,'' he said.

The reactions to the Bandera honor highlight a schism that has caused so much instability in Ukraine in recent years. Nationalists in the west speak Ukrainian and loathe Russian influence. In the east are Russian speakers who feel a kinship toward Moscow. With Mr. Yanukovich's inauguration, Ukraine has gone from one pole to the other, and the question is whether a Yanukovich presidency can change this dynamic.

Mr. Yanukovich's narrow victory at the polls, while deemed free and fair by most monitors, did not give him much of a mandate. The loser in the presidential race, Yulia V. Tymoshenko, is clinging to her job as prime minister, and Mr. Yanukovich must oust her if he wants to carry out his agenda.

He can do so either by building a new coalition in Parliament or calling new elections. It may be harder for him to succeed at either if emotions are rubbed raw in the west of the country, where pro-Bandera sentiment is strongest.

Mr. Bandera is famed in western Ukraine for leading the drive for independence against the Soviet Union and Poland in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1941, at the height of the upheaval of World War II, he issued a proclamation declaring Ukraine an independent state. It did not realize that goal until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, but he is regarded by some as a founding father.

''Every people, every nationality, has a right to their own government and their own history,'' said Stepan Lesiv, director of a Bandera museum here in Staryi Uhryniv, a village in southwestern Ukraine where Mr. Bandera was born. ''Bandera, and many in Ukraine, have struggled for and died for this goal.''

Russia, Poland and Jewish groups see Mr. Bandera very differently. To them, he was a fascist who joined forces with the Nazis around the time that they attacked the Soviet Union, and whose independence movement was a front for Hitler. They said he ordered or condoned massacres of Jews and Poles by Ukrainian partisans.

Mr. Bandera's champions respond that his association with the Nazis was brief and in the service of attaining Ukrainian independence. They pointed out that he was later detained by the Nazis and sent to a concentration camp. He was assassinated by the K.G.B. in 1959 in Munich, where he lived in exile.

Still, even his supporters regard him as an incendiary figure, which accounts for the timing of the award. Mr. Yushchenko issued it only after he had failed in his bid for another term in the first round of Ukraine's presidential elections in January.

After the announcement, he visited the Bandera museum here. ''Glory to Stepan Bandera! Glory to Ukraine!'' he wrote in the museum guestbook.

Mr. Yushchenko's decision seemed intended to secure his reputation as a president who reinvigorated the Ukrainian nationalist movement. It certainly did not escape his notice that the move would enrage Russia, his nemesis.

Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin predictably lashed out, saying that in giving the award, Mr. Yushchenko had not only offended Russia, but had also ''spit in the face'' of countries that supported the 2004 Orange Revolution, which Mr. Yushchenko helped lead.

Mr. Putin himself has become a regular partisan in the conflicts in the former Soviet Union over who controls the narrative of history and whose memorials will stand. Since the Soviet collapse, former republics have tried to create identities distinct from Moscow by doing away with Soviet symbols and disseminating their own perspectives on pivotal events.

Nikolai Svanidze, a Russian historian who serves on a Kremlin panel intended to combat ''attempts to falsify history,'' said the world often failed to understand the trauma suffered by the Soviet Union in World War II, when 25 million Soviet citizens died. Mr. Svanidze said that to honor someone with links to the Nazis was to sully the sacrifice of those people.

He compared some other former Soviet republics to teenagers who were asserting their individuality.

''They reject everything that seems unpleasant to them, that seems alien to them, or unnatural to them, everything that gets in the way of their own sense of identity,'' he said.

Some Ukrainians described that view as condescending and self-serving.

''In the Russian mentality, there must always be an enemy,'' said Mykola Posivnych, a Ukrainian historian and expert on Ukrainian partisans. ''This enemy, Bandera, is very useful to them.''

Mr. Lesiv, the museum director, said the issue was even simpler: Russia has never come to terms with Ukrainian sovereignty. He said people in western Ukraine would rise up if Mr. Yanukovich tried to withdraw the Bandera award.

''For Ukrainian nationalists,'' he said, ''there is no such word as capitulation.''

Yanukovich Visits Brussels 

By THE NEW YORK TIMES 

2 March 2010

Late Edition - Final

6

BRUSSELS -- Visiting Brussels ahead of Moscow on his first foreign trip, Ukraine's new president, Viktor F. Yanukovich, promised Monday to build closer relations with the European Union and to overhaul his country's gas sector.

He sought to reassure the European Union that Ukraine would press for strong ties with the 27-nation bloc, rather than turning its focus from the West toward integration with Russia. ''For Ukraine, European integration is a key priority of our foreign policy,'' he said, adding that his aim was ''friendly and constructive relations with the Russian Federation and developing friendly relations with strategic partners such as the United States.''

The Wall Street Journal

http://online.wsj.com

EUROPE NEWS 

MARCH 2, 2010 


Associated Press 


BRUSSELS—Improving ties with the European Union is a "key priority" for Ukraine, the country's newly elected President Viktor Yanukovych said Monday, as the EU expressed support for plans to reform Ukraine's vital gas sector.

"Our priorities will include integration into the European Union, bringing up constructive relations with the Russian Federation, and developing friendly relations with strategic partners such as the United States," said Mr. Yanukovych.

During his first foreign trip since his inauguration last week, Mr. Yanukovych said that concluding an association agreement with the EU to allow free trade and visa-free travel between Ukraine and the 27-nation bloc tops the agenda of his talks in Brussels. He proposed that the EU send a technical mission to Kiev to study ways in which the bloc can support his administration's reforms.

"For Ukraine, European integration is a key priority in our foreign policy, and this is also a key element in our strategy for the social and economic reforms we are going to carry out," Mr. Yanukovych said after meeting European Commission President José Manuel Barroso.

Mr. Yanukovych, who defeated the pro-Western Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, has said he wants to pursue a more balanced foreign policy than his predecessor, Viktor Yushchenko, who alienated Moscow with his pro-American policies and as he sought membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Mr. Yanukovych is heading to Moscow on Friday to strike concrete deals with the Kremlin.

Ukrainian officials say that rather than taking Mr. sides, Yanukovych is seeking to position the country as a bridge between Europe and Russia. They say the talks in Brussels are focusing on energy policy and the easing of EU visa requirements for Ukrainians.

Ukraine is an important energy partner for the EU because Ukrainian pipelines transport Russian natural-gas exports to the 27-nation bloc.

Mr. Yanukovych has said in the past that he would seek to amend a 2009 gas deal with Russia that ended a bitter contract dispute between the two neighbors that resulted in a two-week shutdown of gas supplies to Europe. He has invited Moscow to take part in a consortium along with Western Europe to jointly operate Ukraine's pipeline network.

"We also discussed natural gas deliveries to European consumers," Mr. Yanukovych told journalists Monday. "To make that goal come true, we will enhance our relations with Russia ... and the modernization of our [gas-pipeline] infrastructure."

Mr. Barroso said an association agreement between the EU and Ukraine could be concluded within a year. This would allow Ukrainian exporters free access to a European market of 500 million people and may double trade between the two, he said.

Mr. Barroso played down suggestions that improved Ukrainian ties with Moscow would come at the expense of relations with the EU. "We don't believe that developing relations with the EU is to the detriment of Russia, or to the contrary. We too have very close relations with Russia," he said.

Mr. Barroso also called on Mr. Yanukovych to renegotiate a bailout agreement with the International Monetary Fund, which as been on hold since last fall. The IMF froze a $16.4 billion loan to Ukraine after Kiev balked at demands for cuts in energy subsidies and government spending.

Mr. Yanukovych also met with EU President Herman van Rompuy, who said they had discussed a summit between Ukraine and EU leaders later this year.

Although Mr. Yanukovych has in the past said he wouldn't follow his predecessor's policy of seeking membership in NATO, on Monday he noted there would be no change to its status as a member of the alliance's outreach program. 

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