Füle Warns Ukraine Not To Ruin Its EU Hopes

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Štefan Füle, the EU Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy, said that there were "no limits" to the possible depth and scope of Ukraine's integration with the EU, but warned that the political trial against opposition politicians risked blocking the country's European perspective.

In a highly political speech delivered at a Brussels event on the occasion of Ukraine's 20th independence anniversary, Füle said the country was on the cusp of signing an Association Agreement with a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) with the EU.

Following this step, according to Article 49 of the Lisbon Treaty, Ukraine would be eligible to apply for EU membership.

Ukraine is currently in the final stage of concluding the DCFTA, with a Brussels visit of its President Vikor Yanukovich and an EU-Ukraine summit to be held on 14-16 December in Kyiv.

On this occasion, the Association Agreement, which includes the DCFTA, is expected to be signed.

As Füle said, this would make Ukraine the most advanced country in terms of European integration among the EU's Eastern Partnership initiative, which also includes Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Belarus.

In the longer term, the EU hopes to put in place a free trade area with all the eastern partners, similar to the European Free Trade Association (EFTA).

Today's EFTA members are Liechtenstein, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland.

Ukraine however aspires to full EU membership, as President Yanukovich recently said.

From a Brussels perspective, Ukraine and Moldova are not to be excluded from EU membership in the longer term, but any discussion on such perspective is seen as premature before signing Association Agreements.

Stressing that he was speaking to Ukraine as a "friend", Füle warned that the country had recently brought upon itself the "wrong kind of publicity" with the trials which in the EU perspective appear as politically motivated, against opposition leaders, and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in the first place.

Soviet-style justice

The Commissioner said that part of the problem was the antiquated judicial system, inherited from Soviet times, in which according to his terms no dividing line existed between political and criminal responsibility.

"Through my close contacts with Ukrainian counterparts, I am convinced that the Ukrainian leaders have understood the gravity of the situation, and are able to turn things around, and choose a different track," the Commissioner said.

He also strongly appealed for a deep reform of the country's judicial system.

Many Ukraine observers expect Tymoshenko to be sentenced to jail. This in effect could bring the entire momentum in EU-Ukraine relations to a halt.

Guy Verhofstadt, the leader of the European Parliament's liberal group who played host at the Brussels conference, said that the Association Agreement should open the door for Ukraine to become a candidate country, but only if Kiev was committed to build "deep democracy".

Ukraine's First Vice Prime Minister Andriy Klyuev stressed the commitment of his country to finalise negotiations on the DCFTA, also highlighting the positive economic trends in Ukraine.

In a recent interview with EurActiv Germany, Pavlo Klimkin, Ukraine's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, said that the Tymoshenko trial was not a political one and pleaded that the EU should not link this issue to a possible freezing of negotiations on DCFTA.

USA Will Provide Technology To Ukraine In Exchange For Uranium Removal

KIEV, Ukraine -- The United States of America are ready to provide Ukrainian research institutions with new technology in exchange for removal of highly enriched uranium from the country, stated the President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych on September 22 after meeting President of the United States Barack Obama in New York City.

To compensate Ukraine's loss of highly enriched uranium, the United States have offered Ukraine new technology which would enable its scientists to conduct studies on low-enriched uranium.

"Currently, the U.S. is ready to launch production of the respective equipment for Ukraine and gradually deliver it to our research centers. All the necessary documentation will be signed, which will provide guarantees to the both parties of the agreement," stated Ukrainian president at the 66th plenary session of the UN General Assembly.

The Ukrainian President highlighted that Ukraine is consistent in its efforts toward nuclear disarmament and supports complete liquidation of nuclear arms around the world.

He also urged the leaders of other countries to follow Ukraine's example and promote disarmament and proliferation by actual deeds.

In June 2011, Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov declared that Ukraine has largely implemented its commitment of removing highly enriched uranium from its territory.

The country's decision to remove the nuclear substance was a great input into nuclear security of the world, stated Azarov at the meeting with Yukia Amano, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in Vienna.

In 2010 alone Ukraine removed 106 kilograms (approx. 234 pounds) of enriched uranium, as reported by Korrespondent.net.

The decision to get rid of highly enriched uranium was first stated by President Yanukovych in April 2010 during the Washington Summit on nuclear safety, initiated by the U.S. President Barack Obama.

In the meantime it's been noted that Ukraine would convert its nuclear reactors for the use of low-enriched uranium.

The country is set to remove the rest of the high-enriched radioactive material before the upcoming Seoul summit.

Ukrainian Multi-Vectorism: Satisfying Europe While Craving A Managed Democracy

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine’s next parliamentary election will take place in 2012. During this period the Viktor Yanukovych administration will attempt a precarious balancing act to satisfy the West.

At the same time, the administration will try to put in place a managed democracy to facilitate Yanukovych’s re-election for a second term in 2015.

The first step to satisfy Western demands is to deal with the demand to halt the criminal case against Yulia Tymoshenko and other opposition leaders so that Kiev can complete negotiations with the EU for the Deep Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) under the Polish presidency by December.

The US and EU issued this demand ahead of the planned sentencing of Tymoshenko to a lengthy prison sentence in the second week of September.

The trial was postponed until September 27, not coincidentally two days before the Eastern Partnership summit in Warsaw, and her sentencing could be delayed until the New Year.

A second step is the adoption of a new election law within one year of the elections that is aimed at appeasing the Council of Europe.

Ukraine has routinely, as in the October 2010 local elections, changed the rules of the game months before election day.

The plan is to replace the proportional system with the mixed proportional-majoritarian system used in 1998 and 2002.

A proportional system only gave the Party of Regions a 31 percent to 34 percent plurality in the 2006 and 2007 elections while a mixed system is aimed at securing half to two thirds of the seats, thereby possessing a constitutional majority with the assistance of its allies.

In 2002, For a United Ukraine bloc received only 11 percent, but President Leonid Kuchma established a parliamentary majority.

While satisfying Europe, the authorities are seeking to satisfy their craving for political and economic monopoly of power through a managed democracy that will guarantee the next decade in power.

The composition of the 2012-2016 parliament could support or hinder Yanukovych’s re-election for a second term in January 2015.

Free and fair elections could lead to a large opposition presence that may hinder Yanukovych’s re-election.

The EU has insisted that opposition leaders be permitted to stand in elections so they can be declared in accordance with democratic standards.

But, the Yanukovych administration does not want to have Tymoshenko in parliament in the three years leading up to the presidential elections.

First, because she would receive immunity from prosecution and second because she excels in the role of opposition leader from which she will harangue the authorities and mobilize the opposition.

Moreover, it is easier to win a presidential election in opposition than in power, and 2015 could therefore provide Tymoshenko with a second opportunity to defeat Yanukovych.

In February 2010 she was defeated by a mere 3 percent even though she was in government.

Three factors may contribute to fewer voters being dissuaded from voting for Tymoshenko in 2015 than in 2010.

First, Yanukovych has succeeded in antagonizing many different social groups.

Second, Viktor Yushchenko, who in the 2010 elections rallied western Ukrainian voters against Tymoshenko, is no longer a political player.

Third, the Yanukovych administration has introduced unpopular reforms demanded by the IMF, such as raising the pension age for women from 55 to 60 and increasing household utility prices to market levels.

These have reduced the popularity of Yanukovych and the Party of Regions even in their home base of Donetsk.

Plans for parliament aim to ensure it is compliant and acts as a rubber stamp.

Of the five political parties that are likely to enter parliament only one – Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchina (Fatherland) – will not be under their control:

1. Party of Regions and the Communist Party are traditional allies drawing on the same group of voters and regions.

2. Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Tigipko’s Silna Ukrayina (Strong Ukraine) party will merge with the Party of Regions. Tigipko came third with 13 percent in the 2010 elections, drawing on middle class young Ukrainians.

3. Front for Change, led by Arseniy Yatsenyuk, is in negotiations with Donetsk oligarch Rinat Akhmetov for a $140 million election war chest in return for 30 percent to 50 percent of the seats.

Inside sources in Kiev told Jamestown that Presidential Administration head Serhiy Levochkin and Akhmetov are in competition for Front for Change which will occupy Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine “constructive opposition” niche.

4. Batkivshchina will receive fewer seats than in 2007, when it obtained 31 percent, under a mixed election system. In the 2010 local elections Batkivshchina was obstructed from participating in two of its strongholds, Kiev and Lviv.

With Tymoshenko in jail, the authorities had planned to install Batkivshchina Luhansk deputy Natalia Korolevska as its new leader. Batkivshchina, like Front for Change, would have thereby been co-opted.

5. Svoboda (Freedom) nationalist party may enter parliament, if the threshold is not raised from three percent to five percent. There have long been rumors that Svoboda receives financing from the Party of Regions.

Of these six political forces only Batkivshchina, if led by Tymoshenko, would be the real opposition in parliament.

The US and EU demand not to imprison Tymoshenko and permit her to stand in elections therefore upsets the authorities plans for a managed democracy.

Nevertheless, the authorities have a card up their sleeves against parties who attempt to be a real opposition by pressuring big business to not provide financial support (all Ukrainian parties are supported by big business).

Batkivshchina, Kiev insiders have told Jamestown, are in dire financial straits after big business deserted them.

The authorities are applying pressure on big business to withdraw support from Front for Change whose leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk was funded in the 2010 elections by Viktor Pinchuk.

Kuchma, Pinchuk’s father-in-law, was charged in March 2010 as a way to pressure Pinchuk from staying out of politics and his place as Yatseniuk’s sponsor is now being taken by Akhmetov.

As one commentary noted: “The [biggest] threat the authorities’ tactics pose to Yatsenyuk himself right now is loss of financing...forcing him to consider seeking a ‘roof’ provided by one of the Party of Regions’ oligarchs and becoming a Party of Regions-operated glove-puppet opposition (leader)”.

The EU will continue to discover undemocratic practices undertaken by the Yanukovych administration whose elites want the economic benefits of Europe, with a managed democracy at home.

This neo-Soviet multi-vectorism fails to understand the incompatibility of “Belarus-Lite” and Europe.

Russia, Ukraine Leaders Tackle Gas Row

MOSCOW, Russia -- Russia's ruling tandem of Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev held rare joint talks Saturday with the visiting leader of Ukraine over the two sides' festering energy row.

The meeting with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych at the Russian government's Zavidovo hunting estate came just hours after Medvedev had dramatically asked Putin to take over the presidency from him in March polls.

The three men were shown strolling together in a park in their black autumn jackets and looking down from a scenic pond bridge before returning to the lodge for more talks.

"We have already managed to resolve lots of problems, and I am sure that we will take the right and constructive approach here as well," Yanukovych told Medvedev in televised opening remarks.

"I accepted your invitation and came here to be at your side on this symbolic day for Russia and for Ukraine as well, I am sure," the Ukrainian leader added in reference to the planned handover of power to Putin.

The political drama in Moscow overshadowed a visit whose importance escalated sharply with Ukraine's announcement last month that it was ready to take its neighbour to an international court over gas.

Ukraine currently serves as Europe's main link to Russia's natural gas supplies and a previous dispute over prices led to a cut-off that lasted three weeks in January 2009.

Russia has been gradually raising the price it charges the former Soviet republics for gas after spending more than a decade subsidising deliveries in exchange for friendlier relations.

Ukraine says it should be paying a price closer to $230 per 1,000 cubic metres than the approximately $400 it will be charged at the turn of the year.

The Kommersant business daily said Ukraine was preparing to lift the price it charges for Russia's gas transits to EU nations if no agreement is reached -- a move certain to anger Moscow.

Kiev has also vowed to take Moscow to an arbitration court in Brussels and refused to join a Russian-led customs union that Medvedev has set out as one of the conditions for a lower gas price.

Moscow is also willing to negotiate a lower price if Ukraine gives up control of its natural gas transmission to Russia's Gazprom monopoly.

Ukraine has rejected the offer and has been ready to make a counter-proposal that would see Russia and the EU take joint stakes in the pipeline network -- a condition rejected by Russia.

Yanukovych called the gas dispute "worrying" in his comments to Medvedev.

Russia, Ukraine Keep Silent After Gas Talks

MOSCOW, Russia -- Russia and Ukraine failed to announce any progress after talks on gas supplies and trade between Presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Viktor Yanukovich late on Saturday.

Ukraine is trying to persuade Russia to change the terms of a gas supply deal between the two ex-Soviet nations, saying that it is paying too much under the current deal.

Previous disputes between the two have disrupted gas supplies to Europe.

Russia has said it could only review the deal if Ukraine joined its customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan, a move that would rule out a free trade deal between Ukraine and the European Union that Kiev wants to agree this year.

Yanukovich visited Russia on September 24, hoping to reach compromise with Medvedev and his powerful Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Yanukovich said before the talks that there were "certain concerns" regarding energy issues which he hoped to resolve.

However, neither his office nor the Kremlin made any announcements on the outcome of the talks after they ended.

A statement on Yanukovich's website simply said the talks were over and Yanukovich was heading home.

His office declined to provide any additional information.

Ukraine's economy relies heavily on energy produced from natural gas.

In 2009, Kiev agreed to import no less than 33 billion cubic metres of gas per year from Russia at a price linked to world oil and oil product prices.

In the fourth quarter of this year, the bill is expected to approach $400 per thousand cubic meters, a level Kiev says is unreasonably high.

Ukraine can't save by importing less gas either, since the contract has a "take-or-pay" provision, obliging it to stick to the agreed volume of imports.

Its main leverage comes from the fact that Ukraine is also the main transit route for Europe-bound Russian gas, although Russia is trying to diversify exports and has launched the new Nord Stream pipeline bypassing Ukraine.

The current deal was agreed in early 2009, after a bitter price row which halted Gazprom's European supplies for weeks.

Tymoshenko Trial Jeopardises Ukraine Trade Deal, Warns EU

YALTA, Ukraine -- The EU is threatening to downgrade relations with Ukraine and frustrate its attempts to move closer into Europe's orbit unless the former Soviet republic drops a landmark case rapidly heading towards a verdict against its former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine's president, has been warned that Europe sees the case against Tymoshenko as a politically motivated attempt to silence his chief rival.

EU officials say a conviction would be "incompatible with EU values" and jeopardise the finalisation of a free trade agreement that would solidify the country's ties to Brussels.

Speaking in Yalta after a two-hour private meeting with Yanukovych, Stefan Fule, the EU enlargement minister, said relations would "be hardly the same between the EU and Ukraine" if the charges against Tymoshenko were not dropped.

He had made clear, he said, that the case amounted to no less than a judgment on the democratic credentials needed to forge close ties with the bloc.

Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt said: "Clearly this particular trial is conducted under laws that would have no place in any other European country and should have no place in a country aspiring to European membership."

Tymoshenko's trial is due to resume on Tuesday, after a surprise two-week delay.

Optimists saw the delay as a sign Yanukovych was looking for a way to give in to EU demands without losing face, while cynics said he hoped to avoid the topic being raised ahead of several EU-Ukraine meetings.

Tymoshenko was charged in May with exceeding her authority as prime minister when she signed a 2009 gas deal with the Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, to put an end to a disruptive gas war that had left much of eastern Europe freezing.

The deal left Ukraine saddled with what Yanukovych's administration considers an intolerably high price.

Yanukovych's attempts to renegotiate the deal with Moscow have so far been rebuffed, prompting him to threaten taking the issue to an international court.

Yanukovych flew to Moscow on Saturday for rare talks with Putin and the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev.

The informal visit, coming shortly after the announcement of Putin's bid to return to the Kremlin, was designed to ease tensions.

Russia's leaders are said to want Ukraine to forego closer ties with the EU in favour of a Moscow-led customs union that is the latest Russian attempt to solidify its influence in the region.

Tymoshenko has used the trial as a platform to denounce a growing democratic deficit since Yanukovych came to power last year.

She called the judge a puppet and accused the president of attacking his rivals "just like Stalin".

On 5 August she was detained for violating court rules and has been languishing in a Kiev jail ever since.

Supporters and friends, both Ukrainian and European, have been refused permission to visit her and have begun to worry about her physical and mental health.

"She will have to be quite strong in order to overcome this," said Arseny Yatsenyuk, a former parliament speaker and current opposition leader. "It's clear this is not a war on corruption, this a war on political opposition."

Ukrainian officials have denied Tymoshenko is the target of a witch hunt.

Mario David, a European MP, said during a visit to Ukraine this month: "This is too much of a political trial. When it's not only Tymoshenko, but 17 people in her government that are facing problems with justice, that is too much of a co-ordinated effort to make the opposition collapse."

Yanukovych, whose election was seen as ringing the death knell for Ukraine's western-leaning Orange Revolution, has been at pains to promote a "pragmatic" foreign policy that would balance the country between Europe and Russia, the country's former overlord.

Early overtures to Russia – including dropping attempts to join NATO and extending by 25 years Moscow's right to base its Black Sea fleet in the Crimea – have been overshadowed by Yanukovych's refusal to give up on the dream of EU membership.

Now, opposition MPs have introduced a bill that would change the law under which Tymoshenko has been charged, giving Yanukovych a possible exit.

Tymoshenko faces 10 years in prison if convicted.

There are worries she will be convicted and then pardoned, which would release her from prison but ban her from politics. EU officials say that is not enough.

"That would put Yanukovych in a situation like Burma," said Anders Aslund, a former adviser to the Ukrainian government, referring to the case of Aung San Suu Kyi.

"They want to sentence her and then ban her, but the cost is simply too high."

Ukraine Police Detain Nationalists Protesting Annual Jewish Pilgrimage

UMAN, Ukraine -- Riot police have detained about 100 activists of Ukraine’s nationalist party who protested the annual pilgrimage of Hasidic Jews in southern Ukraine.

About 300 supporters of the nationalist party Svoboda, or Liberty, demanded that Hasid Jews not be allowed to gather in the town of Uman, about 125 miles (200 kilometers) south of the capital.

Close to 30,000 Hasidic Jews from around the world are expected in Uman this week to celebrate Rosh Hoshana at the grave of Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, who died in 1810.

The protesters shouted “Ukraine for Ukrainians” at Sunday’s rally.

Ukraine's Gamble With The Future

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Ukraine's leadership appears incapable of getting anything right in its bid for better relations with the European Union.

Last week, it suspended the trial of Yulia Tymoshenko, an opposition leader and former prime minister.

The move was supposed to send a conciliatory signal following criticism from Europe and the United States, and ahead of a summit in Warsaw on 29 September of leaders from the EU and the Eastern Partnership, which includes Ukraine.

Instead, the suspension appeared to prove a point made by Tymoshenko from the start of her trial: that it is an entirely political affair or – as Carl Bildt, Sweden's foreign minister, called it earlier this month – a “show trial”.

The trial is scheduled to resume at the end of this month.

Its outcome is unpredictable – not because Ukraine's judiciary is independent from politics, but because the political calculus is shifting.

Since coming to power last year, President Viktor Yanukovych, at the time routinely described as “pro-Russian”, has been trying to balance Russian interests against those of the EU.

Tymoshenko's trial is part of that script.

Often seen as fighting Russian influence in her country, she now faces up to ten years in prison for abusing the office of prime minister by signing gas contracts with Russia said not to be in Ukraine's best interest.

But, says Andrew Wilson, a Ukraine expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, a London-based think-tank, the trial has failed to produce a “smoking gun” – “something that's not about high politics, but actually criminal”.

The timing of the decision to suspend Tymoshenko's trial and the duration of the suspension also suggest political rather than judicial influence.

Yanukovych visited Poland at the end of August and received tough messages from several officials on behalf of the entire EU, according to diplomats. (Poland is the current holder of the rotating presidency of the EU's Council of Ministers.)

The pressure was stepped up, a senior diplomat said, with a joint letter from Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, and Catherine Ashton, the EU's foreign policy chief, on 9 September.

Ukraine's troubles – and the implications for the EU – reach far beyond the trial of a particular individual, however.

In fact, the argument comes at a bad time for both the EU and Ukraine: both are eager to wrap up negotiations on an association agreement that would also include a sweeping free-trade deal, and ideally by December, when a bilateral summit is scheduled to take place.

Ukrainian negotiators are in Brussels this week for what they believe could be the last round of talks before the agreement is initialled.

But there is diminishing appetite for a swift conclusion, even among the EU leaders most sympathetic to Ukraine.

Bildt, whose country is – together with Poland – the main initiator of the Eastern Partnership, has said that the chances that any agreement will be ratified by EU member states and the European Parliament are “very slim” if “show trials” of the kind now under way against Tymoshenko continue. (Several other former officials have been charged with similar offences.)

Kostiantyn Yelisieiev, Ukraine's ambassador to the EU, said that the association talks were proceeding “at high speed” in order to finalise a text before the December summit.

He said that his government as “concerned” about calls to link ratification to the Tymoshenko case.

He said that the agreement “should not become hostage of a particular, although very delicate, case”.

“The sooner the agreement enters into force, the stronger the influence which the EU will have on Ukrainian internal developments. I do hope that the EU member states will demonstrate their strategic vision and find enough political courage to finalise the agreement and to sign it,” Yelisieiev said.

Failure to conclude the association agreement by the end of the year or in the first months of 2012 would be a serious blow to Ukraine's ambitions, but it would also have implications for existing economic ties.

An entrepreneur from a neighbouring country whose company has extensive interests in Ukraine said that the agreement would provide a certain level of stability in a country whose business environment has deteriorated, in his view, since Yanukovych took power.

Ukrainian and EU firms are eager for more open markets on the other side of the border in those goods and services in which they hold a competitive advantage.

Last week, Yanukovych suggested a way out of the Tymoshenko impasse in talks with Bildt, Štefan Füle, the European commissioner for enlargement and neighbourhood policy, and Elmar Brok, a German centre-right MEP. (Tymoshenko's party is affiliated with the European People's Party, the political group to which the governing parties of most EU member states belong.)

Yanukovych told news media after the meeting that the Soviet-era law under which Tymoshenko had been charged might be revised.

But with the prosecution of Tymoshenko, which is part of a broader clampdown on the opposition and the media, Yanukovych has painted himself into a corner.

“Yanukovych doesn't want to admit that the trial [of Tymoshenko] was political from the start by stopping it now, but by not stopping it he risks losing a big political prize,” said Wilson, referring to the association agreement.

The real question now is whether the EU is willing to be tough on the government, even if the Yanukovych administration finds a way out of the current impasse: it could change the law, or hand down a suspended sentence against Tymoshenko, or announce a presidential pardon following her conviction.

That would be as much a test for the EU as it is for Ukraine.

Hrihoriy Nemyria, an adviser to Tymoshenko, said that Tymoshenko's release alone should not prompt the EU to ease its pressure.

“The case is also about the full political participation of her and her party in next year's parliamentary elections,” he said.

“If the EU is unable to help resolve this crisis, it would undermine the still unrealised potential of the neighbourhood policy,” he said.

“What message would that send to north Africa? And how would the EU keep talking about ‘deep democracy' in the neighbourhood?”

Putin To Give Ukraine Ultimatum At Moscow Talks,

MOSCOW, Russia -- Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will give Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych an ultimatum at Sept. 24 talks in Moscow in their dispute over gas deliveries,

Yanukovych, who will meet both Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev, will be told that Ukraine must join a customs union with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan or it won’t get a chance to renegotiate its current gas contract, the Moscow-based newspaper said, citing unidentified Kremlin and Russian Foreign Ministry officials.

Ukraine has said it wants to reduce by two-thirds its imports of Russian gas in a phased three-year move from Jan. 1.

Russia is prepared to go to international arbitration to enforce a 10-year contract signed in 2009 that doesn’t allow Ukraine to cut purchases of Russian gas

Student Attacks Ukraine Education Minister With Bouquet

KIEV, Ukraine -- A Ukrainian woman hit the country's education minister Dmitro Tabachnyk with a flower bouquet to show her objection to a government ban on student protests Thursday.

Tabachnyk was not injured in the incident, which took place during a forum for senior European education officials in the Ukrainian capital Kiev.

The woman, named in media reports as Darya Stepanenko, a student at the country's elite Kyiv-Myhailovska academy, approached Tabachnyk after he had given a speech to a group of European education ministers.

Instead of handing him the flower bouquet, as sometimes happens in Ukraine after top officials make speeches to large audiences, she hurled the flowers in Tabachnyk's face.

Tabachnyk blocked the woman by grabbing her arm, after which she was escorted from the lecture hall by police. He later downplayed the incident.

'She gave me a charming smile ... and then she poked me in the chest with the flowers. I think it was absolutely normal and I'm quite calm about it,' he told reporters.

Tabachnyk is controversial for his support of widespread use of the Russian language, history textbook revisions to describe Ukrainian freedom fighters against the Soviet regime as bandits, and for increasing university fees.

Ukraine And The West

KIEV, Ukraine -- “I FEEL the weight of history,” said Radek Sikorski, Poland’s foreign minister, at the Yalta European Strategy forum, set up by Viktor Pinchuk, a Ukrainian oligarch.

The conference took place in the Livadia palace, where Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin decided the fate of Europe in February 1945.

Yet Ukraine’s situation as a swing state also prompted historic reflections.

Twenty years after the Soviet collapse, the country faces choices that will determine both the shape of Europe and its own sovereignty.

Bordering Russia in the east, the European Union in the west and Turkey across the Black Sea, this country of 48m people is of interest to all three.

The European Union may have little appetite for expansion just now, but it has been negotiating a free-trade and association agreement with Ukraine that would be a big step towards integration.

Carl Bildt, Sweden’s foreign minister, said in Yalta that “we see Ukraine as Europe’s future production harbour, not just as a pipeline territory.”

Turkey, which talks of regaining the influence it enjoyed in the Ottoman days, also has an interest in Ukraine, especially in Crimea, home to 260,000 ethnic Tatars. It sent senior officials to Yalta and hosted a reception on the Black Sea.

Conspicuously, there were no representatives from Russia in Yalta, but its shadow was felt.

Russia sees Ukraine as part of its sphere of influence. It wants it in a customs union with Kazakhstan and Belarus.

Russia is not in a position to rebuild its empire but Vladimir Putin, its prime minister, sees his mission as gathering in lands lost in the Soviet Union’s disintegration.

The good news, said Mr Sikorski, is that it will not be the imperial powers that decide Ukraine’s fate.

The bad news is that Ukraine’s politicians lack any long-term vision.

From his rhetoric President Viktor Yanukovich seems pro-European. But his behaviour is distinctly post-Soviet.

The trial of Yulia Tymoshenko, a former prime minister and Mr Yanukovich’s main rival, is an example.

Her arrest put a spanner in Ukraine’s negotiations with the EU. Mr Yanukovich did not expect this.

He appears to have believed that relinquishing Ukraine’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which pleased America, and eschewing Russia’s pressure to join its customs union would outweigh the arrest of the tarnished Ms Tymoshenko.

In recent weeks Mr Yanukovich has discovered how wrong he was.

He has been bombarded with statements and telephone calls from Western leaders. Hillary Clinton, America’s secretary of state, and Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign-policy supremo, sent him a stern letter.

In Yalta Stefan Füle, the EU’s enlargement commissioner, Elmar Brok, a German MEP, and Mr Bildt told Mr Yanukovich that if he wanted his free-trade deal with Europe he had better free Ms Tymoshenko, and under terms that would allow her to run in the next presidential election.

“The message has been delivered and it has been received,” commented Mr Bildt.

Mr Yanukovich could yet pardon Ms Tymoshenko, or decriminalise the offence with which she has been charged (overstepping her authority in a gas deal with Russia she agreed as prime minister in 2009).

But, like the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky in Russia in 2003, her treatment has signalled to prosecutors and the security services that they have a free hand.

Raiding of businesses by armed men is widespread. Businessmen say the climate is worse than a decade ago.

Graft has long been rife, if chaotic, in Ukraine.

Now, says Anatoly Gritsenko, a former defence minister, the regime has installed an infrastructure of corruption that makes Ukraine look more like Russia.

Yet, as Mr Sikorski told Ukrainian officials, “If you associate yourselves with us, we will hold you accountable to our standards.”

This is what Mr Yanukovich and his men worry about.

To them, convergence with Europe is not about values but interests, which include a visa-free regime and access to property, bank accounts, yachts for the elite and protection from Russia.

Yet, as Mr Sikorski told Ukrainian officials, “If you associate yourselves with us, we will hold you accountable to our standards.”

This is what Mr Yanukovich and his men worry about.

To them, convergence with Europe is not about values but interests, which include a visa-free regime and access to property, bank accounts, yachts for the elite and protection from Russia.

The souring of relations with Russia helped push Mr Yanukovich towards the EU.

Yet his core supporters in Ukraine’s east and south prefer union with Russia and other ex-Soviet republics.

That makes sense economically: Ukraine exports more to the former Soviet Union than to the EU, and joining a customs union would deliver cheaper gas, as the Kremlin has made clear.

Yet Mr Yanukovich knows that a turn to Russia could turn him into Moscow’s vassal, even if it would earn him a few extra votes.

Mr Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s president, have treated Mr Yanukovich with contempt.

The Kremlin has started a low-grade trade war with Ukraine and refused to renegotiate the clearly disadvantageous gas contract signed by Ms Tymoshenko.

Mr Putin said in Sochi this week that the idea of Ukraine joining the EU was unrealistic.

This weekend Mr Yanukovich is due to meet Mr Putin and Mr Medvedev in Moscow.

Having observed the intense engagement between Mr Yanukovich and the EU, Russia may change tack.Mr Putin says he wants to talk to Mr Yanukovich “not just as a neighbour but as a friend”. But it could also use threats.

Ukraine’s plan to get cheaper gas by reviving the idea of a consortium between Russia, Ukraine and the EU is unlikely to work.

Yet, as Petro Poroshenko, a former foreign minister, says, it should not be a question of money or gas.

Ukraine has ways to boost revenues: stopping stealing, removing restrictions on exports, privatising state property more honestly.

The chances of this may be low. Yet unless Ukraine does better, it will stay trapped in the post-Soviet space.

Russian Gas Dispute With Ukraine Threatens New Cutoff To Europe

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych visits Moscow today to spar over natural gas contracts as the two former Soviet states risk their third gas war in six years and another disruption to Europe’s supplies.

Yanukovych, who will meet his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, is angering Russia with ambitions to move his country of 46 million into the European Union, while cutting dependence on imports of Russian gas, 80 percent of which is shipped via Ukraine to the EU.

A pricing dispute between Russia and Ukraine disrupted deliveries to at least 20 countries for two weeks amid freezing temperatures in January 2009.

It also drove up next-month gas prices in the U.K., Europe’s biggest market, as much as 15 percent and prompted Slovakia’s government to consider a restart of Soviet-era nuclear reactors which it shut after joining the EU in 2004.

A new dispute would come as economies in the region slow because of the effects of a sovereign-debt crisis.

“It’s shaping up as having all the potential for a conflict,” Julian Lee, senior energy analyst at Centre for Global Energy Studies, said Sept. 21 by phone from London.

If supplies to the EU were cut, “it would be very damaging” to European confidence in Russia’s reliability as a gas supplier.

Russia, whose once close ties to Yanukovych have soured, insists that Ukraine must stick to a 10-year agreement signed in 2009.

It has said that a supply reduction may be granted if Ukraine, which plans to import less gas from Jan. 1, drops its objections to joining a Russian-led customs union.Ukraine is seeking to cut costs and to decrease by two- thirds purchases of the fuel in a three-year move starting from 2012. Russian state-gas monopoly OAO Gazprom says it will continue to charge Ukraine the full price for contracted deliveries.

A renewed cutoff would be the third since 2006 and may encourage the EU, which relies on Russia for a quarter of its gas needs, to accelerate plans to secure alternative gas supplies from the Caspian via the proposed Nabucco pipeline, said Lee.

It would also make EU support for the Russian-led South Stream pipeline to Europe via the Black Sea less likely, he said.

“If there was any suspicion that Russia was manipulating the situation to make a conflict worse than it needed to be, then it would seriously undermine EU comfort with dependence on Russian gas,” Lee said.

Ukraine’s Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said Sept. 20 he “hopes” that the talks in Moscow will “start a review of the 2009 gas contract,” which his country considers “unfair and enslaving.”

The contract was signed by former Premier Yulia Tymoshenko, who’s in jail awaiting trial on charges including abuse of power by agreeing to pay too much for Russian gas.

It requires Ukraine to buy no less than 33 billion cubic meters of gas each year.

The eastern European country, which relies on Russia for more than 60 percent of its gas needs, is seeking to reduce imports to 12.5 billion cubic meters by 2015 from 40 billion cubic meters this year.

It also wants to cut the price from next year’s expected level of $415 per cubic meter to $230.

Russia’s leverage in the talks was bolstered earlier this month when Gazprom began pumping gas through the $10 billion subsea Nord Stream pipeline, which bypasses Ukraine by running under the Baltic Sea.

The project will be able to carry enough supplies for 26 million European homes when it’s fully up and running next year and is the first direct link between western Europe and Russia.

The International Monetary Fund postponed a visit to Ukraine planned for early September to late October citing the need for stronger government policies.

The Washington-based IMF’s second review of a $15.6 billion loan with Ukraine has been delayed since March since the Cabinet failed to increase domestic fees for natural gas.

Yanukovych, who replaced his Western-backed rival, Viktor Yushchenko in 2010, is asserting Ukraine’s independence from its neighbor by rejecting an offer to hand over control of Ukrainian state gas company NAK Naftogaz Ukrainy in return for a new contract.

He’s also refusing to join a customs union with Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, in return for subsidized gas prices, as this would jeopardize his efforts to negotiate a free-trade accord with the 27-nation EU as a first step toward membership.

Putin on Sept. 16 said it was “absolutely unrealistic” for Ukraine to seek EU membership because of the monetary union’s debt crisis.

It will benefit more from regional integration with Russia than from joining the bloc, Putin said at an investment forum in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

The EU, while not willing to accept Ukrainian membership, wants to resist Russian influence in the former Soviet Union and has made it clear that Ukraine has to keep out of the Russian- led bloc, Alexander Rahr, an analyst at the Berlin-based German Council on Foreign Relations, said by phone on Sept. 21.

Yanukovych, who was a Russian-backed candidate against Yushchenko in 2004, is refusing to back down with Russia and has threatened to sue Gazprom in international court should talks over gas supplies fail.

“The legal battle is likely to be drawn out, which will poison bilateral relations between Kiev and Moscow,” said Lilit Gevorgyan, a London-based analyst at IHS Global Insight.

“Ironically, Yanukovych, who prior to his election was thought to be the Kremlin’s man, faced with resurgent Russian foreign policy toward Ukraine, could be the leader who brings Ukraine closer to the EU than the previous reformist leaders.”

Medvedev launches election campaign in Russia

The parliamentary elections in Russia will take place on December 4, President Dmitry Medvedev stated yesterday. The adequate decree, signed by the president, will come into effect from the moment of its official publication.

The president has virtually launched the pre-election campaign. The decree is to be published during the forthcoming five days, as the law stipulates.

The Federal Law "About Elections of the Deputies of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation" says that the elections are started by the president. The president is supposed to sign the adequate decree not earlier than 110 days and not later than 90 days before the date of the voting. The day of the voting is set for the first Sunday of the month when the authorities of the State Duma of the previous convocation expire.

The forthcoming elections will be the second elections in the country when all 450 members of the State Duma are elected on party lists only. It is not clear yet, how many parties are going to be represented in the ballot papers. No one doubts that the ballots will include United Russia, the Communist Party, LDPR and Just Russia. In total, here are seven registered parties in the country. The list of the above-mentioned parties also includes Right Cause, Russia's Patriots and Yabloko. The last two have not announced anything about their intentions in the current political season.

The parties represented in the parliament - United Russia, the Communist Party, LDPR and Just Russia - are relieved of the necessity to collect signatures from potential electors. Right Cause, Russia's Patriots and Yabloko will have to collect 150,000 signatures each to be able to take part in the vote.

A series of pre-election congresses of the parties is expected to take place in the nearest future. The parties will form election lists of their candidates.

According to forecasts from scientists of politics and sociologists, United Russia, the Communist Party, and LDPR will be elected in the parliament for certain. United Russia will preserve the majority of votes in the lower house of the parliament.

The future of Just Russia is vague. The party of Sergei Mironov is near the vote threshold, being one or two points below the required seven percent. Right Cause, the party of Mikhail Prokhorov, does not have much to hope for either. According to opinion polls, Prokhorov will get not more than three percent.

Most likely, though, Just Russia and Right Cause will receive one or two seats if they manage to collect five percent.

As for election prospects for Russia's Patriots and Yabloko, it appears that there are no such prospects. The maximum that they may have is one percent.

Russians value Medvedev for intellect, professionalism and modesty

Russian citizens still trust their president. The majority of Russians see Medvedev as a smart, decisive man, a man of character, with whom they associate their stable existence in the future.

On September 14, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev celebrated his 46^th birthday. All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center tried to find out the attitude of the Russian people to Mr. Medvedev. As it turned out, the portrait of the president in the eyes of Russian citizens consists of presumably positive qualities.

Most of all, please value the president's intellect (56%), activity (39%), professionalism (36%), stability, (29%), determination (20%), honesty (22%), as well as simplicity and modesty (19%). Only one in every five respondents said that Medvedev was passive (4%), unprofessional (5%) and unstable (1%).

Thus, the majority of Russians believe that Medvedev is a vigorous and decisive man (30%), an experienced and far-sighted politician (16%), who guarantees stability in the country (29%) and who is ready for compromises between various political forces (13%).

When answering the question about which values and ideas Medvedev supports, many respondents said that the president supports the increase of the living standard of the Russian population (11%), the revival of Russia and its authority in the world (10%) and social politics (4%). Eleven percent of the polled said that Medvedev defends the interests of oligarchs and of his own. The rest recollected other initiatives of the president: the struggle against corruption, the introduction of innovations, the development of science, etc.

As for most significant achievements, the respondents named the social sphere (expanding the opportunities of maternity capital, healthcare and education reforms, raising pensions, taking care about veterans and pensioners). Others named foreign politics, including Russia's successful efforts during the conflict with Georgia, the defense of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Twenty-three percent of the polled said that Medvedev did not have any special achievements at all.

As for failures, the majority of Russian citizens believe that the sitting head of state does not have many of them.

Five percent of the polled said that Medvedev had not created the professional team, so he was unable to control the execution of his decisions. Four percent of the polled reproach Medvedev for the growing inflation rate. Alas, no leader in Russia's contemporary history has been able to avoid this phenomenon. Three percent of the polled believe that the president does not take enough anti-corruption efforts.

One may thus conclude that despite a number of problems, the majority of the Russian people highly evaluate the intellectual and professional potential of the incumbent president.

Valery Fyodorov, the director of the above-mentioned research center, said that the researchers presented open questions to respondents.

"There were no variants offered. The people were saying the things that they had on their minds. So what do they have? Current events obviously distract people from strategic topics. It is impossible to reform the Interior Ministry in one day, of course, not even in one year, and everyone is aware of that. The president said in the very beginning that it was a strategic goal which he would be dealing with gradually. If something important happens - a plane crashes, for instance - then the event pushes everything else into the background, especially such complex issues. Therefore, I would not say that the results of the poll are not satisfactory for the president. Quite on the contrary, I believe that the poll showed positive results.

"There is another factor, though, and it's about the way how journalists should work with information and how they deal with objective, honest approaches and biasness and wishful thinking.

47 percent of the polled Russians could not name any achievements of the sitting president. First off, 47 percent could not say anything at all. If people are asked an open question, the share of the undecided will be approximately the same. This is a peculiarity of this method. The people who know that - they simply take this factor into consideration during analysis, and they don't make a drama out of it. If we count the number of those people who spoke about victories and success, they will outnumber those who spoke about their absence.

"We are dealing with the classic usage of sociological information by mass media. They may withhold important facts, shift accents, and reformulate the facts to match the editorial policy of a certain publication rather than of a separate journalist."

Kickboxer kills passer by at one blow for no reason

It seems that Rasul Mizaev now has a follower. A kickboxer from Russia's Saratov killed a passer by at one blow.

Alexander Khromov, 20, a kickboxer, was going home from a nightclub with his girlfriend and several friends. The young man was trying to demonstrate his macho qualities in front of the young lady, so he was picking on casual passers by.

Khromov's friends stared to make jokes about his sports achievements: the athlete had lost several fights. Khromov got angry and decided to prove to his company that he was still in a good shape.

The athlete approached a casual passer by and simply knocked him out, Utro.ru reports.

"It was not even a brawl. Khromov simply called over the man - Viktor Seleznyov - and asked him something like "What are you looking at?" and hit him on the head at hard as he could," Vladimir Alabyev, an official spokesman for the law-enforcement agencies of Saratov said.

The victim was 50 years of age. The man collapsed on the ground and never stood up. The eyewitnesses of the incident - the victim's neighbors - called the police and the ambulance. The man was hospitalized with cranial injuries. He died in four days.

The athlete was arrested on the scene. A criminal case has been filed against the kickboxer on article 111 of the Penal Code of the Russian Federation - "Intended infliction of bodily harm that caused death." The man can now be sentenced to 15 years in jail. Khromov said during investigation that the 50-year-old victim had given a dirty look to his girlfriend. Eyewitnesses said, though, that the athlete attacked the man for no reason.

On August 13, 2011, a three-time martial arts world champion Rasul Mirzaev delivered a lethal blow to student Ivan Agafonov near a nightclub in Moscow. The student died at hospital several days after the incident, without regaining consciousness. The athlete acknowledged his guilt at first, but subsequently claimed that he had hit the victim for self-defense purposes.

Putin: 'Don't be afraid of Russia. We are civilized'

The economies of the United States and Western Europe are on the edge of recession again. It is not clear when and how the current problems are going to be solved, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said at the economic forum in Sochi. He also said that did not see any clarity about the recovery of world's largest economies.

Western publications agree with Putin. They believe that the US economy is very close to the moment when it begins to decline. Many experts doubt that the Federal Reserve System will be able to do anything to change the state of affairs for the better.

According to Putin, the crisis of sovereign debts of developed countries means that politicians, economists and investors have to rethink traditional approaches. "The summer shake-up in global economy has proved it again - the models of development based on growing debts don't work," Putin said.

According to him, it is obvious that the recent leaders of the economic development lose their positions and can no longer serve as examples of the macroeconomic policy for the rest of the world.

Putin believes that the centers of the global development have been shifting recently. During the upcoming ten years, he added, the stable growth will be demonstrated by developing countries. The speed of that growth will be 2.5 times faster than that of developed economies, Putin said.

As for Russia, the speed of the economic development in the country will make up approximately 4%. By 2012, Russia is expected to cope with the consequences of the financial crisis, Putin said.

"The level of our economy will increase to the pre-crisis level," he promised.

The inflation rate in 2011 is not likely to increase seven percent," Putin said at the investment forum in Sochi. According to him, it will be the new minimum in Russia's recent history.

Russia must develop innovative productions and high technologies. The country must not become a "quiet harbor" for speculative capital, the prime minister said.

"We must create all conditions for "smart" investments in the production and development of high technologies in Russia. That is why we must try to expand the liberties for honest entrepreneurship and to assist those who offer distinct initiatives, the point of which is to change the quality of life in Russia," Putin said.

This year, there will be no budget deficit in Russia, Putin promised.

Risks and uncertainty of the business climate in Russia are still high, but one should treat objectively international ratings about business conditions in the country, Putin believes.

The prime minister urged foreign investors not to be afraid of Russia, which now serves a civilized partner for the West.

"Don't be afraid of Russia. We are a civilized partner. We are not going to steal any technologies, we simply want full-fledged cooperation," he said.

Putin also urged foreign investors not to limit their activities to Russia's natural resources only. The Russian government is ready to support investors. Russia's leading banks are looking for interesting projects, but we want to be treated accordingly," he said.

Russia's state-run companies are launching investment programs totaling 700 billion rubles this year, Putin said.

"We will assist our scientists, engineers, innovative business via the orders from our largest state-run corporations. This year, 46 state companies will launch innovative programs totaling 700 billion rubles. Their funding will be doubled in two years," he said.

During his speech, Putin supported his Italian counterpart Silvio Berlusconi. Putin said that he admired Berlusconi for his courage to take unpopular, but necessary decisions for the Italian economy.

"No matter how they may criticize Berlusconi for his special attitude to the fair sex - and, by the way, he is mostly criticized out of envy - he proved to be a responsible statesman in the sense of the word," Putin said.

Putin reminded that Italy is facing a very serious problem because the debt of the country makes up nearly 124% to the GDP. "He took heavy, but necessary decisions. I was happy for him. Many don't like it, of course, but there's no other way out. Everyone knows what should be done in this situation, but not everyone has courage to do it," Putin said.

Turkey wants to revive Ottoman Empire against Russia

A hundred years after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey is re-emerging on the international arena. Furthermore, it intends to regain the ground lost in the 19th-20th centuries, which is a direct threat to the interests of all the neighboring countries, including Russia.
 Consider the actions of the Turkish leadership during the past weeks that have caused serious concerns in Israel, Syria, Iraq, Iran and the EU.


Particularly noteworthy are the frictions of Ankara and Tel Aviv, which raise questions about preservation of the Alliance between the two. The Turkish leadership provides a strong support to the Palestinians, and threatened to appeal to the international authorities with a demand to monitor the Israeli nuclear program and promised to prevent the development of Israeli-rich gas fields in the Mediterranean.

Finally, a serious concern in Israel was caused by the fact that on September 7, Turkey announced its intention to sign an important military agreement with Egypt during a corresponding visit of the Turkish government. Of course, this is a historic day in the history of the entire Middle East. Given the sharp rise in anti-Israel sentiment in Turkey and in Egypt, as well as the ongoing processes of evolution of power in several North African countries, the concerns of Israelis about the activity of Ankara on the Egyptian direction are quite understandable.


Worst case scenarios should be considered as one of the options for the future development in the Middle East. One possibility is the return to the days of the 1960s and 1970s, when Israel was virtually in the siege of hostile neighbors.
However, at this time the situation in Tel Aviv will be much worse, because Ankara can turn from an ally into an enemy more dangerous than all the Arab countries put together.

Some experts call manifestations of military activity in Turkey an additional concern. Turkey threatens Israel to send a new "freedom flotilla" to Gaza under the protection of the Turkish Navy warships, as well as equip the squadron that will be on duty in the Red Sea. If we take into account the fact that Erdogan sent another squadron to the Israeli Mediterranean coast, it seems that the Turks are threatening Israel with a full naval blockade.


It should be remembered that the Israeli-Turkish complications did not occur in 2010. Gradual cooling has been observed since 2008 in parallel with strengthening of foreign policy activity of Turkish Islamists in power. In the last six months the efforts of Erdogan in this area have been more obvious.
However, anti-Israel rhetoric of the Turkish leadership cannot hide his true intentions, which extend far beyond the desire to defy Israel.

First, the emergence of the Turkish Navy in the Red Sea is largely a reaction to the appearance of the Iranian fleet in the area. In addition, Turkey intends to demonstrate a desire to show its power in the region strategically important for the West, where the oil routes from the Persian Gulf run.
Second, attention should be paid to Turkey's policy in respect of all Arab countries. Turkey openly threatened Syria to send troops to northern Iraq, and participated in the NATO operation against Libya.

As for Egypt, under Murambak Cairo considered Ankara a dangerous competitor in terms of influence on the Middle East and Arab countries.

Of course, they remain competitors today. But then Egypt used to rely on the full support of the West. Now the situation has changed: the revolutionary changes in the country are just beginning, and Islamist sentiment out there is much worse. Turkey would not mind to use the opportunity to try to expand its influence in this country through the development of the economic ties and military-technical cooperation.

Last but not least factor has to do with the events of "Arab spring" that led to the collapse of the former authoritarian regimes. In this regard, Turkey would not mind using the opportunity to, first, divert public attention from the purely Turkish reality and increase its influence in the region.


It is significant how Islamists Erdogan and Gul support Syrian and Egyptian "Muslim Brothers". This is mostly not an ideological affinity, but the intention to place a bet in the global game. The West supports the Liberals who have no influence on the masses of protesters who sympathize with the radicals like those "brothers." 
As for Israel itself, its attitude towards Turkey's behavior is rather unemotional. The Israeli leadership is well aware that strong statements by the Turkish leadership are in fact more focused on winning sympathy among Arabs.

In the discussion about the Israeli-Turkish verbal dispute, it should be emphasized that the actions of Ankara are aimed not so much against the interests of Tel Aviv, but at restoring its influence in the eastern Mediterranean and southern Europe.
The Turkish leadership is doing all it can to show that its activity is directed against Israel, to whose shores a few frigates and corvettes as well as dozens of missile boats and support vessels will soon rush.


However, it is sufficient to consider "a new naval strategy" with a great name "Operation Barbarossa - Aegean shield" adopted a few days earlier, which implies that Israeli ships would be placed between Cyprus and Israel. This will allow the latter to make an equal influence not only on the Tel-Aviv, but also Nicosia and Athens. Anti-Israel rhetoric in this case is more like a camouflage to conceal the true intentions of the South-European direction.

In the past six months, Ankara has been aggressively pursuing its policy towards Cyprus and has been trying to prevent the of oil and gas deposits at its shores going to Greek companies. Moreover, the Turkish Minister for EU Affairs Egemen Bagysh openly declared the possibility of using military force to prevent such a scenario.


But there is more to it. Turkey has also announced its plans to increase its Navy presence in the Adriatic Sea. It is known that in the near future a new "assignment" will be given to at least some of the 14 Turkish submarines. This way Ankara intends to strengthen its influence among the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), openly declaring this to the European Union that had its own plans for the future of BiH.

In the middle of the 18th century the Ottoman Empire has steadily weakened and lost its influence in the world on all fronts, starting with the Maghreb and ending with the Balkan and Caucasus. It was evidenced by lost wars with its neighbors, including Russia.
Finally, in the middle of the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire had the contemptuous name of a "sick man of Europe". Such a characterization was fully justified considering losses in a war with Russia (1877-1878), clashes with the Balkan states, and loss of its Italian possessions in Libya1912-1913.
The defeat in World War I meant not only the destruction of the Ottoman Empire, which had lost virtually all the Arab lands. The existence of Turkey in general as an independent state was at stake.

While in 1922 Kemal managed to beat Greece supported by the Entente, it seemed that the Turks have never recovered from the defeat of 1918. Yet, after 100 years of "gathering strength" Turkey seems to be going back to claim the lost. Inevitably, the Turkish activity will be more manifested in the Caucasian and Crimean directions, which cannot but worry Russia.