When Nastya Dobrinina joined Cirque du Soleil at the age of 16, she already held a number of gold medals.
But even as she got off the plane in Montreal to go to the Cirque's headquarters, the young highboard diving champion still was not sure what her talent had to do with the circus.
After all, back home in Moscow, the circus was mostly about dancing elephants, acrobats and trained horses - definitely not about swimming pools.
"I didn't know where I was going to be diving from, but I was so young that it didn't matter much. What mattered was that I was going to have a stable job to feed my entire family back in Russia," remembers Ms Dobrinina, now 29.
"My coach saw a different future for me. He wanted me to go to the 1996 Olympics, but I had surgery and wasn't able to recover quickly enough to get in shape. And then I found out about Cirque du Soleil."
So, for the past 11 years, Ms Dobrinina has been a part of the multinational crew of the Las Vegas water show, "O".
Wearing a white costume, she dives from a swing into a swimming pool that magically appears from under the stage at the Bellagio hotel.
Recipe for success
Nastya is not the only Russian to have been hired by this famous Canadian circus, which has just celebrated its 25th anniversary.
Altogether, more than 300 of Cirque du Soleil's artists - about a third of the whole troupe - are from Russia and the former Soviet republics.
The circus owes a debt to those countries' tradition of excellence in gymnastics, athletics and the pool. Many of its artists are former Olympic, World or European medal winners.
The circus's head coach Boris Verkhovsky, a former member of Russia's national acrobatics team, says: "When Cirque du Soleil decided to produce new circus acts using what we call 'elite sportsmen', we knew right away where these sportsmen were going to come from," he explains.
"Gymnasts, acrobats, highboard divers, trampoline jumpers... the biggest number of these sportsmen was in the Soviet Union."
The company has looked after its Russian artists, placing those who, like Nastya, joined Cirque du Soleil as children, into Russian host families.
And those performers have helped Cirque de Soleil become one of the most successful travelling shows in the world, playing to more than 40 million people in more than 130 cities in four continents over the past 25 years.
There are currently eight touring and nine permanent shows, including "O" in Las Vegas.
Fightback
The loss of so many of its best performers has caused alarm in Russia, and Vadim Gurovich of the Moscow State Circus says is is determined to reverse the drain of talent.
"When so many of the best artists left in the 1990s, it had an effect on the overall quality of the acts that stayed in Russia," he says.
"They were leaving because of a poor financial situation at that time and because Cirque du Soleil was able to offer them more money.
"But now Russian circuses are able to offer even better salaries than abroad, and that's why now people prefer to stay at home."
It is a claim disputed at Cirque du Soleil, where the casting department is still confident it can easily hire the best of the best from any country, including Russia.
And most of the Russian artists I spoke to are happy to be part of Cirque's troupe, made up of 4,400 employees from 66 countries.
"Sometimes I think: 'Hey, maybe I should go back?'" says Ms Dobrinina. "But usually only for a second."
"Cirque du Soleil has helped me see the world, and I don't regret a bit being a part of it."
Thursday 30 July 2009
Russia to drill for oil off Cuba
Russia is to begin oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico, after signing a deal with Cuba, says Cuban state media.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin signed four contracts securing exploration rights in Cuba's economic zone in the Gulf.
Havana says there may be some 20bn barrels of oil of its coast but the US puts that estimate at five billion.
Russia and Cuba have been working to revitalise relations, which cooled after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Russia's Zarubezhneft oil concern will work alongside the Cubapetroleo monopoly in the deep waters of the Gulf.
"Every time I travel through the region, I come to Cuba to advance our joint economic-commercial projects, and I take every opportunity to communicate with my colleagues," Mr Sechin told local media.
Under the new agreement, Russia has also granted a loan of $150m to buy construction and agricultural equipment.
Havana imports more than half of its oil, mostly at a subsidised price from Venezuela.
Cuba's share of the Gulf of Mexico was established in 1977, when it signed treaties with the United States and Mexico.
The US Geological Survey (USGS) recently estimated that as much as 9bn barrels of oil and 21 trillion cubic feet of natural gas could lie within that zone, in the North Cuba Basin.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin signed four contracts securing exploration rights in Cuba's economic zone in the Gulf.
Havana says there may be some 20bn barrels of oil of its coast but the US puts that estimate at five billion.
Russia and Cuba have been working to revitalise relations, which cooled after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Russia's Zarubezhneft oil concern will work alongside the Cubapetroleo monopoly in the deep waters of the Gulf.
"Every time I travel through the region, I come to Cuba to advance our joint economic-commercial projects, and I take every opportunity to communicate with my colleagues," Mr Sechin told local media.
Under the new agreement, Russia has also granted a loan of $150m to buy construction and agricultural equipment.
Havana imports more than half of its oil, mostly at a subsidised price from Venezuela.
Cuba's share of the Gulf of Mexico was established in 1977, when it signed treaties with the United States and Mexico.
The US Geological Survey (USGS) recently estimated that as much as 9bn barrels of oil and 21 trillion cubic feet of natural gas could lie within that zone, in the North Cuba Basin.
Wednesday 29 July 2009
Requiem for a republic
The killing of Natalya Estemirova comes as a hammer blow to hopes of peace and stability in Chechnya - where she documented human rights abuses, house burnings and disappearances - and the wider North Caucasus.
A prominent activist for the human rights group Memorial, a 50-year-old single mother and the widow of a Chechen policeman, Estemirova was abducted and killed on Wednesday July 15. Her body was dumped, execution-style, near a major highway in neighbouring Ingushetia.
A prominent activist for the human rights group Memorial, a 50-year-old single mother and the widow of a Chechen policeman, Estemirova was abducted and killed on Wednesday July 15. Her body was dumped, execution-style, near a major highway in neighbouring Ingushetia.
The killing prompted outrage in Chechnya and around the world.
Estemirova is the latest critic of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov to wind up dead, and this has prompted speculation of involvement by some in his regime - or of people seeking to discredit him. In death, Estemirova followed fellow human rights activists - journalists Anna Politkovskaya, Anastasia Baburova and lawyer Stanislav Markelov - who colleagues say died because of their work connected to Chechnya.
The result is likely to be a new destabilisation of Chechnya and surrounding republics, as an atmosphere grows of fear and extrajudicial punishments. Kadyrov's rule may well come under increased pressure as authorities see his regime as either out of control, or unable to control the situation.
The Kremlin's dilemma
The Kremlin's problem is both simple and seemingly intractable: it installed Kadyrov and turned a blind eye to his methods. Kadyrov knows he's the only horse in the race, and Moscow feels it must back him no matter what. To replace Kadyrov with another official - such as in neighbouring Ingushetia, where Medvedev's new choice for governor was nearly killed in an ambush two weeks ago - would be practically unthinkable for the Kremlin, given the alternative of chaos and a renewed civil war.
Oleg Orlov, the head of Memorial, lashed out after the killing, saying Kadyrov bore the responsibility for Estemirova death.
"I know, I am certain who is behind the murder of Natasha Estemirova. We all know this person. His name is Ramzan Kadyrov," Orlov said in a statement posted on Memorial's web site. "Ramzan has already threatened Natalya.... We do not know if he personally gave the order or if his close colleagues did this to please their boss. Meanwhile, President Dmitry Medvedev is apparently fine with having a killer as the head of a Russian region."
Medvedev expresses outrage
Medvedev expressed outrage at the killing, but, pressed about his reaction during a press conference after his meeting with German chancellor Angela Merkel, said that blaming Kadyrov was "primitive."
"Those who carried out this evil deed, this crime, were counting on [provoking] the most primitive and the most unrealistic scenarios for the government," Medvedev said. "This is a provocation. I am certain that this crime will be solved and those who committed it will be punished in accordance with Russian criminal law."
Kadyrov reacted strongly to the accusations against him.
"The search for the criminal will be carried out not only as part of the official investigation, but unofficially, in line with the traditions of Chechens," RIA Novosti quoted Kadyrov as saying Wednesday evening. This is not the first time that Kadyrov - directly or indirectly - referred to a blood feud. In April he suggested this was a possibility in investigating the killing of Sulim Yamadayev, a former warlord shot down in Dubai in March.
At a news conference on Thursday, Orlov accused Kadyrov of the killing, saying that he had threatened his colleague. Orlov cited an incident when Estemirova, who had spoken out against forcing girls to wear headscarves in Chechnya, was summoned by Kadyrov and insulted and threatened by him.
On another occasion, he said, Nurdi Nukhazhiyev, a Chechen human rights official, said that what Estemirova had uncovered had caused "indignation at the very top of the government of the Chechen republic." The official then reportedly warned him that her activities were endangering her life.
Islamic burial
Estemirova was buried in line with Islamic tradition before sunset on Thursday, in a cemetery in her ancestral village, Koshkeldy, in Chechnya's Gudermes district. A funeral procession of 200 people was broken up by paramilitary police, who said it might turn into a demonstration.
According to Orlov, Kadyrov had indicated that he preferred any human rights abuses uncovered by Estemirova to be reported to Kadyrov privately, without publicity.
Kadyrov's press service said that the Chechen president phoned Orlov and told him that the allegations he was making were "unethical."
"You are not a prosecutor, or a judge, or an investigator," Kadyrov reportedly said to Orlov on his cellphone and insisted that he had nothing to do with her death, according to RIA Novosti. "I think that you should think about my rights as well, before you tell all the world that I am to blame for Estemirova's death."
On Friday, Kadyrov said he would file a lawsuit against Orlov for defamation. Kadyrov's lawyer, Andrei Krasnenkov, would file the lawsuit in Moscow once he had prepared it.
Kadyrov was not the only official accused. Lyudmila Alexeyeva, of the Moscow Helsinki Group, said that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was to blame because, while he was president, he brought Kadyrov to power and was his chief benefactor.
Accusation denied
Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said these accusations were unfounded. "The pain of losing your colleague is understandable, but nothing can serve to justify such nonsense," he said of the allegations against Putin, who had not made any official statements about the murder because, as Peskov said, prosecutors and investigators answer to the president, not the prime minister.
No one should doubt that such a murder can elicit nothing but outrage" Peskov continued, adding that Putin was doing all he could in his current capacity as prime minister "to get these crimes solved." The prime minister felt "deep respect" for organisations such as Memorial, Peskov noted, and that the government should strive to create better working conditions for them.
Kidnappings rise
Estemirova had worked on uncovering abuses such as cases where the homes of families were burned down because their relatives, accused of taking part in military groups, would refuse to surrender. She had also said that kidnappings had increased in the last year. According to Memorial, 187 people were kidnapped in 2006, 35 in 2007, 42 in 2009, and already over 75 in the first half of 2009.
On Saturday, Alexander Cherkasov, a member of Memorial, told Ekho Moskvy radio that the group would suspend its work in Chechnya, RIA Novosti reported.
"As long as what we are doing is life threatening for people, we cannot risk it," Cherkasov said.
Kadyrov was in Moscow over the weekend, attending an informal summit with Medvedev and CIS leaders at the city's Hippodrome and watching horse racing there. Kadyrov brought 11 racehorses to the event, and one finished fourth.
Estemirova is the latest critic of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov to wind up dead, and this has prompted speculation of involvement by some in his regime - or of people seeking to discredit him. In death, Estemirova followed fellow human rights activists - journalists Anna Politkovskaya, Anastasia Baburova and lawyer Stanislav Markelov - who colleagues say died because of their work connected to Chechnya.
The result is likely to be a new destabilisation of Chechnya and surrounding republics, as an atmosphere grows of fear and extrajudicial punishments. Kadyrov's rule may well come under increased pressure as authorities see his regime as either out of control, or unable to control the situation.
The Kremlin's dilemma
The Kremlin's problem is both simple and seemingly intractable: it installed Kadyrov and turned a blind eye to his methods. Kadyrov knows he's the only horse in the race, and Moscow feels it must back him no matter what. To replace Kadyrov with another official - such as in neighbouring Ingushetia, where Medvedev's new choice for governor was nearly killed in an ambush two weeks ago - would be practically unthinkable for the Kremlin, given the alternative of chaos and a renewed civil war.
Oleg Orlov, the head of Memorial, lashed out after the killing, saying Kadyrov bore the responsibility for Estemirova death.
"I know, I am certain who is behind the murder of Natasha Estemirova. We all know this person. His name is Ramzan Kadyrov," Orlov said in a statement posted on Memorial's web site. "Ramzan has already threatened Natalya.... We do not know if he personally gave the order or if his close colleagues did this to please their boss. Meanwhile, President Dmitry Medvedev is apparently fine with having a killer as the head of a Russian region."
Medvedev expresses outrage
Medvedev expressed outrage at the killing, but, pressed about his reaction during a press conference after his meeting with German chancellor Angela Merkel, said that blaming Kadyrov was "primitive."
"Those who carried out this evil deed, this crime, were counting on [provoking] the most primitive and the most unrealistic scenarios for the government," Medvedev said. "This is a provocation. I am certain that this crime will be solved and those who committed it will be punished in accordance with Russian criminal law."
Kadyrov reacted strongly to the accusations against him.
"The search for the criminal will be carried out not only as part of the official investigation, but unofficially, in line with the traditions of Chechens," RIA Novosti quoted Kadyrov as saying Wednesday evening. This is not the first time that Kadyrov - directly or indirectly - referred to a blood feud. In April he suggested this was a possibility in investigating the killing of Sulim Yamadayev, a former warlord shot down in Dubai in March.
At a news conference on Thursday, Orlov accused Kadyrov of the killing, saying that he had threatened his colleague. Orlov cited an incident when Estemirova, who had spoken out against forcing girls to wear headscarves in Chechnya, was summoned by Kadyrov and insulted and threatened by him.
On another occasion, he said, Nurdi Nukhazhiyev, a Chechen human rights official, said that what Estemirova had uncovered had caused "indignation at the very top of the government of the Chechen republic." The official then reportedly warned him that her activities were endangering her life.
Islamic burial
Estemirova was buried in line with Islamic tradition before sunset on Thursday, in a cemetery in her ancestral village, Koshkeldy, in Chechnya's Gudermes district. A funeral procession of 200 people was broken up by paramilitary police, who said it might turn into a demonstration.
According to Orlov, Kadyrov had indicated that he preferred any human rights abuses uncovered by Estemirova to be reported to Kadyrov privately, without publicity.
Kadyrov's press service said that the Chechen president phoned Orlov and told him that the allegations he was making were "unethical."
"You are not a prosecutor, or a judge, or an investigator," Kadyrov reportedly said to Orlov on his cellphone and insisted that he had nothing to do with her death, according to RIA Novosti. "I think that you should think about my rights as well, before you tell all the world that I am to blame for Estemirova's death."
On Friday, Kadyrov said he would file a lawsuit against Orlov for defamation. Kadyrov's lawyer, Andrei Krasnenkov, would file the lawsuit in Moscow once he had prepared it.
Kadyrov was not the only official accused. Lyudmila Alexeyeva, of the Moscow Helsinki Group, said that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was to blame because, while he was president, he brought Kadyrov to power and was his chief benefactor.
Accusation denied
Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said these accusations were unfounded. "The pain of losing your colleague is understandable, but nothing can serve to justify such nonsense," he said of the allegations against Putin, who had not made any official statements about the murder because, as Peskov said, prosecutors and investigators answer to the president, not the prime minister.
No one should doubt that such a murder can elicit nothing but outrage" Peskov continued, adding that Putin was doing all he could in his current capacity as prime minister "to get these crimes solved." The prime minister felt "deep respect" for organisations such as Memorial, Peskov noted, and that the government should strive to create better working conditions for them.
Kidnappings rise
Estemirova had worked on uncovering abuses such as cases where the homes of families were burned down because their relatives, accused of taking part in military groups, would refuse to surrender. She had also said that kidnappings had increased in the last year. According to Memorial, 187 people were kidnapped in 2006, 35 in 2007, 42 in 2009, and already over 75 in the first half of 2009.
On Saturday, Alexander Cherkasov, a member of Memorial, told Ekho Moskvy radio that the group would suspend its work in Chechnya, RIA Novosti reported.
"As long as what we are doing is life threatening for people, we cannot risk it," Cherkasov said.
Kadyrov was in Moscow over the weekend, attending an informal summit with Medvedev and CIS leaders at the city's Hippodrome and watching horse racing there. Kadyrov brought 11 racehorses to the event, and one finished fourth.
House folds, lawmakers stand
Another loophole for Russian gamblers closed last week with the banning of poker, after the game was removed from the list of official sports. The move followed a ban on gambling which became effective 1st July.
The ban, which outlawed gambling in Russia outside of four far-flung exemption zones, had left a small loophole for poker. In March 2007, three variations of the game - 7-card stud poker, Omaha and Texas Hold'Em - were added to the list of official sports. That status was withdrawn on July 20.
Vitaly Mutko, minister for sport, tourism and youth, told Vedomosti that poker's original inclusion on the list of sports had not been processed correctly.
"The decision to include poker on the sports register should have been made by a special ministerial commission, not by the administration of the Russian Sports Agency. In addition, the decision was supposed to be registered in the Justice Ministry, which did not happen," he said.
About a third of all gambling operators had plans to turn their casinos into venues for poker tournaments, Vedomosti reported, but the government was apparently concerned about illegal gambling dens springing up under the cover of poker clubs.
Shortly before the decision concerning poker, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin proposed a clampdown on illegal gambling, RIA Novosti reported.
"We are now seeing attempts to camouflage gambling enterprises as other businesses, which outwardly do not look like gambling. We need to think about how to close these loopholes," said Putin, adding that poker was one of the activities being used as a cover.
Dmitry Lesnoi, president of the Sports Poker Federation, complained that operators had almost no time to close their venues. Businesses had two and a half years after the ban on gambling was passed, before the ban took effect earlier this month. Raids on poker clubs began almost immediately, he said.
"I didn't imagine things would turn out this way. We are in a state of mourning," Lesnoi said in a statement posted on the Federation's web site. "Forgive us! We have lost. But we fought fairly, as long as there was a card on the table."
Three days after the poker ban came into effect, five businesses in Moscow were found still operating poker tables, the Moscow City Prosecutor's Office said in a statement on its web site.
Lesnoi said his federation would not resist the ban.
"We're considering an appeal, but I must say first that I will not be doing this," Lesnoi told RIA Novosti, adding that he felt "humiliated".
The government's crusade against gambling has led to the cancellation of the European Poker Tour event in Moscow, scheduled to run from August 17-23. It would have featured about 500 players from Russia and abroad.
Some of Russia's top poker professionals, including Ivan Demidov, are already considering relocating to other countries. Demidov was the first player in history to make it to the World Series of Poker in both Europe and the US. His winnings currently exceed $ 6.5 million.
Professional players aren't the only ones wondering where their livelihood has gone. Club operators are also considering relocating. Poker Club Management, a company which offers consulting to entrepreneurs in the poker business, said that their clients are looking to reopen their clubs abroad.
Hot Dogs Poker Club, one of the clubs found by authorities still in operation after the ban came into force, is also considering opening poker clubs abroad. Several days after the raid, its web site was not working.
Pokernews, one of the several poker publications in the countrywill continue publishing, said its commercial director, Olga Borisenko. "At the moment, the publication of poker magazines is still an open question," she said. Pokernews currently has a circulation of 50,000.
The legal status of private poker playing in the home was not immediately clear from the ministry's statements.
The ban, which outlawed gambling in Russia outside of four far-flung exemption zones, had left a small loophole for poker. In March 2007, three variations of the game - 7-card stud poker, Omaha and Texas Hold'Em - were added to the list of official sports. That status was withdrawn on July 20.
Vitaly Mutko, minister for sport, tourism and youth, told Vedomosti that poker's original inclusion on the list of sports had not been processed correctly.
"The decision to include poker on the sports register should have been made by a special ministerial commission, not by the administration of the Russian Sports Agency. In addition, the decision was supposed to be registered in the Justice Ministry, which did not happen," he said.
About a third of all gambling operators had plans to turn their casinos into venues for poker tournaments, Vedomosti reported, but the government was apparently concerned about illegal gambling dens springing up under the cover of poker clubs.
Shortly before the decision concerning poker, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin proposed a clampdown on illegal gambling, RIA Novosti reported.
"We are now seeing attempts to camouflage gambling enterprises as other businesses, which outwardly do not look like gambling. We need to think about how to close these loopholes," said Putin, adding that poker was one of the activities being used as a cover.
Dmitry Lesnoi, president of the Sports Poker Federation, complained that operators had almost no time to close their venues. Businesses had two and a half years after the ban on gambling was passed, before the ban took effect earlier this month. Raids on poker clubs began almost immediately, he said.
"I didn't imagine things would turn out this way. We are in a state of mourning," Lesnoi said in a statement posted on the Federation's web site. "Forgive us! We have lost. But we fought fairly, as long as there was a card on the table."
Three days after the poker ban came into effect, five businesses in Moscow were found still operating poker tables, the Moscow City Prosecutor's Office said in a statement on its web site.
Lesnoi said his federation would not resist the ban.
"We're considering an appeal, but I must say first that I will not be doing this," Lesnoi told RIA Novosti, adding that he felt "humiliated".
The government's crusade against gambling has led to the cancellation of the European Poker Tour event in Moscow, scheduled to run from August 17-23. It would have featured about 500 players from Russia and abroad.
Some of Russia's top poker professionals, including Ivan Demidov, are already considering relocating to other countries. Demidov was the first player in history to make it to the World Series of Poker in both Europe and the US. His winnings currently exceed $ 6.5 million.
Professional players aren't the only ones wondering where their livelihood has gone. Club operators are also considering relocating. Poker Club Management, a company which offers consulting to entrepreneurs in the poker business, said that their clients are looking to reopen their clubs abroad.
Hot Dogs Poker Club, one of the clubs found by authorities still in operation after the ban came into force, is also considering opening poker clubs abroad. Several days after the raid, its web site was not working.
Pokernews, one of the several poker publications in the countrywill continue publishing, said its commercial director, Olga Borisenko. "At the moment, the publication of poker magazines is still an open question," she said. Pokernews currently has a circulation of 50,000.
The legal status of private poker playing in the home was not immediately clear from the ministry's statements.
Tuesday 28 July 2009
Russia Admits Violation In Ukraine Base Incident
MOSCOW, Russia -- Russia made a rare admission on Sunday that it had violated Ukrainian law by trying to transport cruise missiles outside its Black Sea naval base of Sevastopol.
Earlier this month, Ukrainian police blocked a convoy of Russian trucks from leaving the base to transport missiles through the Ukrainian city, adding to tensions between the two ex-Soviet states."We acknowledged there were violations of basic agreements on basing the Russian Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol," RIA quoted Russian navy commander Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky as saying."We believe those were serious violations," he said. "Those responsible will be punished, quite heavily at that."Vysotsky, who was in Sevastopol to mark Russia's annual Navy Day, said the paperwork dealing with the convoy had not been not done properly.Moscow leases a base for its Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, a port in the Crimea peninsula populated mainly by ethnic Russians. The status of the base has been a thorn in relations between Moscow and Kiev since Ukraine's independence in 1991.Ukraine, which has committed itself to closer ties with the West and whose President Viktor Yushchenko is pressing for NATO membership, wants Russia to close the base in 2017 as stipulated by existing agreements.Russia sees NATO expansion up to its borders as a threat to its security and was troubled by joint Ukrainian-NATO naval exercises last July in the Black Sea.Tensions hit a peak the following month, when Russia sent warships from the base to Georgia during its five-day war with the Caucasus state. Yushchenko backed Georgia in the conflict.The two sides have traded accusations over a series of incidents concerning the base and in the past have been reluctant to acknowledge any guilt.Relations are also marred by disputes over Russia's gas supply to Ukraine and its transit to Europe.
Earlier this month, Ukrainian police blocked a convoy of Russian trucks from leaving the base to transport missiles through the Ukrainian city, adding to tensions between the two ex-Soviet states."We acknowledged there were violations of basic agreements on basing the Russian Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol," RIA quoted Russian navy commander Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky as saying."We believe those were serious violations," he said. "Those responsible will be punished, quite heavily at that."Vysotsky, who was in Sevastopol to mark Russia's annual Navy Day, said the paperwork dealing with the convoy had not been not done properly.Moscow leases a base for its Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, a port in the Crimea peninsula populated mainly by ethnic Russians. The status of the base has been a thorn in relations between Moscow and Kiev since Ukraine's independence in 1991.Ukraine, which has committed itself to closer ties with the West and whose President Viktor Yushchenko is pressing for NATO membership, wants Russia to close the base in 2017 as stipulated by existing agreements.Russia sees NATO expansion up to its borders as a threat to its security and was troubled by joint Ukrainian-NATO naval exercises last July in the Black Sea.Tensions hit a peak the following month, when Russia sent warships from the base to Georgia during its five-day war with the Caucasus state. Yushchenko backed Georgia in the conflict.The two sides have traded accusations over a series of incidents concerning the base and in the past have been reluctant to acknowledge any guilt.Relations are also marred by disputes over Russia's gas supply to Ukraine and its transit to Europe.
Russian Patriarch Visits Ukraine
KIEV, Ukraine -- Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, has begun a visit to neighbouring Ukraine.
He will meet the country's President, Viktor Yushchenko, in Kiev, before travelling to the east of the country.Like Russia, Ukraine is a predominantly Orthodox country, but the Orthodox Church itself in Ukraine is split.Some Ukrainian Orthodox believers think Patriarch Kirill's visit is aimed primarily at boosting political Russian influence in their country.After arriving in Kiev on Monday, Patriarch Kirill set off in a motorcade to visit the holiest sites in the capital. He will later travel to the industrial heartlands of eastern Ukraine.What makes this trip so controversial is Patriarch Kirill's vision.He is a relative newcomer to the post, having been elected in February.He has articulated a vision of Orthodoxy's future, in which the Russian Orthodox Church holds the dominant, first position among the scattered branches of Orthodoxy.This makes the visit highly sensitive.DivisionsIt raises questions of spheres of religious and political influence, which often cross what are the region's relatively new state borders.After 1991, when Ukraine gained its independence, the Orthodox church there split, with the Moscow patriarchate controlling the larger branch of Ukrainian Orthodoxy.Meanwhile, believers from the smaller Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate think the Russian-backed church does not support Ukrainian independence, culture or language.Furthermore, there are political divisions inside Ukraine.In Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine, Patriarch Kirill will be seen as the head of one big family.But in western Ukraine, nationalist groups have protested against what they say is his treatment of Ukraine as his own country.President Yushchenko says he wants unity of the Orthodox churches.Moscow arguably wants church unity on its terms.The Russian Orthodox Church, after all, has a powerful role at the heart of Russia, aimed both at strengthening the state, and restoring its influence abroad.
Russia Frees Crime Boss Wanted By U.S.:
MOSCOW, Russia -- Russia has released a suspected organized crime boss who is wanted by the United States for alleged fraud and racketeering, the Financial Times reported on Monday, citing his lawyer.
Semion Mogilevich, who the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation says created a powerful crime group in Eastern Europe in the 1990s, was arrested in Russia in 2008 and accused of tax evasion at a major cosmetics retailer."I spoke with him on Friday after he was released. He is happy to be home," Mogilevich's lawyer in Israel, Zeev Gordon, was quoted as saying by the FT.Mogilevich's lawyers repeatedly said their client was innocent and denied any links to the cosmetics chain Arbat Prestige, where prosecutors said the tax evasion took place.Gordon said a Russian court had freed Mogilevich and an alleged associate, Vladimir Nekrasov, on bail because the terms under which he could be held had expired.Gordon said the court had sent the prosecutors' tax fraud case back to investigators claiming it needed more work."There is no evidence against him," Gordon was quoted as saying by the FT. A spokeswoman for the Russian Prosecutor-General could not be reached for immediate comment.The FBI says on its Web site that Mogilevich is wanted for racketeering, fraud and money laundering. Ukrainian-born Mogilevich has denied U.S. allegations that he is a crime boss.When Mogilevich was arrested, analysts said the real motive could be linked to accusations that he was involved in the multi-billion-dollar gas trade between Russia and Ukraine.Ukraine's Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has accused Mogilevich of being behind RosUkrEnergo, an intermediary firm which sells gas to Ukraine. Mogilevich has previously denied through a lawyer any links to the firm.
Semion Mogilevich, who the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation says created a powerful crime group in Eastern Europe in the 1990s, was arrested in Russia in 2008 and accused of tax evasion at a major cosmetics retailer."I spoke with him on Friday after he was released. He is happy to be home," Mogilevich's lawyer in Israel, Zeev Gordon, was quoted as saying by the FT.Mogilevich's lawyers repeatedly said their client was innocent and denied any links to the cosmetics chain Arbat Prestige, where prosecutors said the tax evasion took place.Gordon said a Russian court had freed Mogilevich and an alleged associate, Vladimir Nekrasov, on bail because the terms under which he could be held had expired.Gordon said the court had sent the prosecutors' tax fraud case back to investigators claiming it needed more work."There is no evidence against him," Gordon was quoted as saying by the FT. A spokeswoman for the Russian Prosecutor-General could not be reached for immediate comment.The FBI says on its Web site that Mogilevich is wanted for racketeering, fraud and money laundering. Ukrainian-born Mogilevich has denied U.S. allegations that he is a crime boss.When Mogilevich was arrested, analysts said the real motive could be linked to accusations that he was involved in the multi-billion-dollar gas trade between Russia and Ukraine.Ukraine's Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has accused Mogilevich of being behind RosUkrEnergo, an intermediary firm which sells gas to Ukraine. Mogilevich has previously denied through a lawyer any links to the firm.
Soros: In Revolutionary Times The Impossible Becomes Possible
From the mid-1980s, Hungarian-born investor and philanthropist George Soros pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into foundations in Eastern Europe dedicated to promoting the idea of the "open society" and challenging the region's Soviet-backed regimes. Here, writing exclusively for CNN.com, he describes how the work of his foundations ultimately contributed to the collapse of communism.
I set up my first foundation in Hungary in 1984. The idea behind it was simple. The state dogma, promoted by the ruling communists, was false and by providing an alternative we could expose its falsehood. Accordingly we supported every cultural initiative that was not an expression of the established dogma.I was guided by the concept of the "open society," which I adopted from the philosopher Karl Popper. I saw the open society as a more sophisticated form of social organization than the totalitarian closed societies of the Soviet bloc.The latter were trying to implement central plans; in an open society every individual or organization was supposed to implement their own plan. To make the transition from a closed to an open society would require outside help and that was what my foundations sought to provide.In Hungary the authorities insisted on having a controlling presence on the foundation's board. We eventually agreed to appoint two chief executives, one nominated by them and one by me.The project succeeded beyond my expectations. With very small amounts of money people could engage in a wide variety of civic initiatives ranging from self-governing student colleges to zither clubs.One of our first projects was to offer photocopying machines to cultural and scientific institutions in exchange for local currency. We used the money to give out local grants and support all kinds of unofficial initiatives, but the photocopying machines also did a lot of good.Up until then, the few existing copy machines were literally held under lock and key -- as more and more became available, the Party apparatus lost control of the machines and the dissemination of information.We did not have to exercise direct control. Civil society watched over the foundation. For instance, we were warned that a blind association, to whom we gave a grant for talking books, was stealing some of the money. With a budget of $3 million, the foundation had more influence on the cultural life of Hungary than the Ministry of Culture.Carried away my success in Hungary, by 1988 I had set up foundations in Poland, China and the Soviet Union. I think that I could have influenced General Jaruzelski in Poland to change his attitude toward the opposition and to see that dissidents such as Adam Michnik and Jacek Kuron were also patriots despite their criticism of the ruling party.As the Soviet empire collapsed, and eventually the Soviet Union and also Yugoslavia disintegrated, we continued to expand. By 1992 there were foundations in 22 countries and expenditure had reached $53 million. A year later we were spending nearly $184 million.Right at the beginning, I had a disagreement with the Polish board about the way the foundation should be run. But that taught me a lesson. They were right and I was wrong. I realized that the people living there understood their country better than I did and I deferred to their judgment.It did not always work. In Bulgaria, a board member who made his name as a human rights activist turned out to be a racist. A Latvian businessman sought to hijack the foundation for nationalist purposes. It was the Russian foundation that gave us the most trouble; we had to reorganize it twice.But the foundations were the first out of the gate everywhere. I remembered the lesson my father who had lived through the Russian Revolution in Siberia taught me: In revolutionary times things that are normally impossible become possible.In Ukraine, we set up the Ukrainian Renaissance Foundation before Ukraine became independent. In Tajikistan, we persevered with the foundation during the five-year civil war although we had no way of controlling its activities. Our impact was the greatest during that turbulent period.When I set up the foundations in Eastern Europe I hoped the open societies of the West would follow in my footsteps, but in that regard I was disappointed. Unwilling to burden their own budgets, they gave the job to the International Monetary Fund, which was ill suited to the task.The IMF was accustomed to signing letters of intent with governments, making the continuation of their programs conditional on the governments fulfilling their obligations. The countries of Eastern Europe fared better, but in the former Soviet states one after another, the programs largely failed.East Germany was the exception: West Germany was willing to make the sacrifices that were necessary to integrate it. Eventually, the countries of Eastern Europe, including the Baltic states, also made the grade when the European Union gave them accession. But the rest of the former Soviet Union in the Caucasus and Central Asia never succeeded in making the transition.This has left a bitter legacy. Rightly or wrongly, both the rulers and the people of Russia harbor a deep resentment against the West, which the West has not come to grips with.The new order in Moscow that has emerged out of the chaos of the 1990s is very far from an open society. It is an authoritarian regime that preserves the outward appearances of democracy but derives its power from its control of Russia's national resources.It uses those resources to maintain itself in power, to personally enrich the rulers, and to exercise influence over its neighborhood, both in Europe and in the former Soviet sphere.But the ideal of an open society is difficult to suppress and I have not given up hope.
I set up my first foundation in Hungary in 1984. The idea behind it was simple. The state dogma, promoted by the ruling communists, was false and by providing an alternative we could expose its falsehood. Accordingly we supported every cultural initiative that was not an expression of the established dogma.I was guided by the concept of the "open society," which I adopted from the philosopher Karl Popper. I saw the open society as a more sophisticated form of social organization than the totalitarian closed societies of the Soviet bloc.The latter were trying to implement central plans; in an open society every individual or organization was supposed to implement their own plan. To make the transition from a closed to an open society would require outside help and that was what my foundations sought to provide.In Hungary the authorities insisted on having a controlling presence on the foundation's board. We eventually agreed to appoint two chief executives, one nominated by them and one by me.The project succeeded beyond my expectations. With very small amounts of money people could engage in a wide variety of civic initiatives ranging from self-governing student colleges to zither clubs.One of our first projects was to offer photocopying machines to cultural and scientific institutions in exchange for local currency. We used the money to give out local grants and support all kinds of unofficial initiatives, but the photocopying machines also did a lot of good.Up until then, the few existing copy machines were literally held under lock and key -- as more and more became available, the Party apparatus lost control of the machines and the dissemination of information.We did not have to exercise direct control. Civil society watched over the foundation. For instance, we were warned that a blind association, to whom we gave a grant for talking books, was stealing some of the money. With a budget of $3 million, the foundation had more influence on the cultural life of Hungary than the Ministry of Culture.Carried away my success in Hungary, by 1988 I had set up foundations in Poland, China and the Soviet Union. I think that I could have influenced General Jaruzelski in Poland to change his attitude toward the opposition and to see that dissidents such as Adam Michnik and Jacek Kuron were also patriots despite their criticism of the ruling party.As the Soviet empire collapsed, and eventually the Soviet Union and also Yugoslavia disintegrated, we continued to expand. By 1992 there were foundations in 22 countries and expenditure had reached $53 million. A year later we were spending nearly $184 million.Right at the beginning, I had a disagreement with the Polish board about the way the foundation should be run. But that taught me a lesson. They were right and I was wrong. I realized that the people living there understood their country better than I did and I deferred to their judgment.It did not always work. In Bulgaria, a board member who made his name as a human rights activist turned out to be a racist. A Latvian businessman sought to hijack the foundation for nationalist purposes. It was the Russian foundation that gave us the most trouble; we had to reorganize it twice.But the foundations were the first out of the gate everywhere. I remembered the lesson my father who had lived through the Russian Revolution in Siberia taught me: In revolutionary times things that are normally impossible become possible.In Ukraine, we set up the Ukrainian Renaissance Foundation before Ukraine became independent. In Tajikistan, we persevered with the foundation during the five-year civil war although we had no way of controlling its activities. Our impact was the greatest during that turbulent period.When I set up the foundations in Eastern Europe I hoped the open societies of the West would follow in my footsteps, but in that regard I was disappointed. Unwilling to burden their own budgets, they gave the job to the International Monetary Fund, which was ill suited to the task.The IMF was accustomed to signing letters of intent with governments, making the continuation of their programs conditional on the governments fulfilling their obligations. The countries of Eastern Europe fared better, but in the former Soviet states one after another, the programs largely failed.East Germany was the exception: West Germany was willing to make the sacrifices that were necessary to integrate it. Eventually, the countries of Eastern Europe, including the Baltic states, also made the grade when the European Union gave them accession. But the rest of the former Soviet Union in the Caucasus and Central Asia never succeeded in making the transition.This has left a bitter legacy. Rightly or wrongly, both the rulers and the people of Russia harbor a deep resentment against the West, which the West has not come to grips with.The new order in Moscow that has emerged out of the chaos of the 1990s is very far from an open society. It is an authoritarian regime that preserves the outward appearances of democracy but derives its power from its control of Russia's national resources.It uses those resources to maintain itself in power, to personally enrich the rulers, and to exercise influence over its neighborhood, both in Europe and in the former Soviet sphere.But the ideal of an open society is difficult to suppress and I have not given up hope.
Ukraine finds 'reporter's skull'
Ukrainian investigators say they have found skull fragments believed to be those of the journalist, Georgiy Gongadze, who was decapitated in 2000.
The find came just days after the arrest of a former Ukrainian general suspected of carrying out the murder.
Mr Gongadze was an investigative journalist who had exposed high-level corruption. He was an outspoken critic of former President Leonid Kuchma.
Three policemen were convicted of his murder last year.
Ukrainian investigators said Gen Oleksiy Pukach, a former police officer himself, had confessed to the killing last week when he was arrested, after spending years on the run.
Mr Gongadze's decapitated body was found in a forest near the capital, Kiev, in September 2000, months after his abduction. He had been beaten and strangled, his body doused in petrol and burned.
Prosecutors allege that Gen Pukach - who was detained near Kiev - organised the abduction and personally strangled Mr Gongadze.
National scandal
Gen Pukach headed the interior ministry's surveillance department at the time of the killing.
But Mr Gongadze's family has always claimed someone more senior was behind the killing.
Secret tape recordings released soon after the killing appeared to implicate the then-President, Leonid Kuchma.
In the recordings - made secretly by a member of his personal guard and then released by an opposition politician - Mr Kuchma allegedly discussed ways of removing the journalist with a former interior minister, Yuri Kravchenko.
The latter was later found dead and was said to have committed suicide.
Mr Kuchma did not deny the voice in the recordings was his, but insisted it was doctored to make him appear to say things he did not actually say.
The scandal prompted massive street protests against Mr Kuchma's government. He was later ousted in Ukraine's Orange Revolution.
The find came just days after the arrest of a former Ukrainian general suspected of carrying out the murder.
Mr Gongadze was an investigative journalist who had exposed high-level corruption. He was an outspoken critic of former President Leonid Kuchma.
Three policemen were convicted of his murder last year.
Ukrainian investigators said Gen Oleksiy Pukach, a former police officer himself, had confessed to the killing last week when he was arrested, after spending years on the run.
Mr Gongadze's decapitated body was found in a forest near the capital, Kiev, in September 2000, months after his abduction. He had been beaten and strangled, his body doused in petrol and burned.
Prosecutors allege that Gen Pukach - who was detained near Kiev - organised the abduction and personally strangled Mr Gongadze.
National scandal
Gen Pukach headed the interior ministry's surveillance department at the time of the killing.
But Mr Gongadze's family has always claimed someone more senior was behind the killing.
Secret tape recordings released soon after the killing appeared to implicate the then-President, Leonid Kuchma.
In the recordings - made secretly by a member of his personal guard and then released by an opposition politician - Mr Kuchma allegedly discussed ways of removing the journalist with a former interior minister, Yuri Kravchenko.
The latter was later found dead and was said to have committed suicide.
Mr Kuchma did not deny the voice in the recordings was his, but insisted it was doctored to make him appear to say things he did not actually say.
The scandal prompted massive street protests against Mr Kuchma's government. He was later ousted in Ukraine's Orange Revolution.
Sunday 26 July 2009
Pukach's Arrest Looks Like Pre-Election Yushchenko Ploy
KIEV, Ukraine -- The July 21 arrest of ex-Interior Ministry general Oleksiy Pukach, a suspect in the 2000 murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze, came on the same weekend that President Victor Yushchenko declared his re-election bid for the Jan. 17 presidential election. Were these two events merely coincidences or a bizarre attempt to rekindle Yushchenko’s popularity above its paltry 2-3 percent?
We can all be excused for being skeptical. After all, it is only two months before the election campaign officially kicks off.We can also be skeptical because the same Yushchenko awarded a state medal on Feb. 17, 2007 to Prosecutor-General Mykola Potebenko, who covered up Gongadze’s murder. The award was for “his great personal contribution to the building of a law abiding state, the strengthening of legality and law abiding, and his long years of conscientious toil on the occasion of his 70th birthday.”There are three aspects to the arrest of Pukach that do not add up.Firstly, why did Pukach decide to hide in a village in Zhitomir Oblast and not, as we were repeatedly told, abroad? Why did he not flee when the State Security Service (SBU) officers began to pretend they were fishing in the village five days before he was arrested? In small villages strangers are easily spotted. Pukach apparently knew he might be apprehended but did nothing to defend himself.A retired SBU officer had come to live in the village at the same time as Pukach and had made friends with him. Is that another coincidence? Or was he sent to watch over him so Pukach could be used in a future political battle? As they say, there is no such thing as a “former” spook.Secondly, why did Pukach not hide his identity card? Children playing near his car found his Interior Ministry identification card inside it. Pukach’s lawyer, Serhiy Osyka, claimed that nobody had ever tried to find Pukach. “I can give you exclusive information that Pukach decided to give himself up. In reality nobody was looking for him ad he never hid,” Osyka said.The first deputy head of parliament’s committee on organized crime and corruption, Hennadiy Moskal, also said that police officers had told him that Pukach was in contact with them and that he never went into hiding.Thirdly, the YouTube video of Pukach’s arrest was a public relations gimmick. It is rather strange that only the fragment of the video made by the SBU where he is asked if he had been involved in the Gongadze case and says “yes” was posted on YouTube. Such questions are unusual during an actual arrest and it was obviously made for the camera and YouTube.Former Justice Minister Serhiy Holovatiy, a Regions Party deputy since the 2007 elections, was head of parliament’s 2006 commission to investigate the Gongadze murder. He told Glavred magazine that he believes that the security forces released Pukach from custody in 2003 and have “controlled” him ever since (which could explain why the “retired” SBU officer was living in the village). Holovatiy believes Pukach’s release and subsequent life was controlled until a certain point in time when he would be used for political games.Holovatiy doubted that Pukach’s release would solve the Gongadze case as he did not see any political will in Ukraine to do this. Holovatiy is right. A full investigation would throw a dragnet over the roles of ex-President Leonid Kuchma, Potebenko, ex-SBU chairman Leonid Derkach and ex-presidential chief of staff Volodymyr Lytvyn.Yushchenko would not escape scrutiny himself in a full investigation. He condemned protesters in February 2001 who had been mobilized by Gongadze’s murder. Another signature on the condemnation of the protesters was Ivan Plyushch, whom Yushchenko had appointed National Security and Defense Council secretary in 2006. Plyushch was elected to the parliament on the pro-presidential Our Ukraine-Peoples Self Defense party in 2007.As prime minister, Yushchenko and his allies to this day, such as Roman Besmertnyi who was then Kuchma’s representative in parliament, refused to ever condemn Kuchma. Besmertny threatened to disband parliament if it had voted to support Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s call for Kuchma’s impeachment.The Pukach arrest could blow a hole in the conviction of three policemen (Mykola Protasov, Oleksandr Popovich and Valeri Kostenko) sentenced on March 19, 2008, to 12 and 13 years each. The three officers had admitted that they had been present when Pukach, who had commanded the surveillance unit, strangled Gongadze. Pukach’s lawyer says that his was fabricated by the three officers.Following the conviction of the three officers, Tymoshenko called for the Gongadze investigation to move to finding the organizers, “who are political and public figures.” This view was echoed by Gongadze’s family and other politicians from the Orange Revolution’s two political groups in the parliamentary coalition.The Council of Europe’s representative on the Gongadze case, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, said: “While I welcome the conviction of the three police officers, I must admit that the Gongadze file is not closed until the instigators and organizers of this crime have also been held to account.”There is little likelihood that senior officials will be ever charged, despite Pukach’s arrest. Three officials were de facto given immunity in 2004-2007 (Kuchma, Judge Maria Prindiuk, Potebenko) and three are no longer alive (General Yuriy Kravchenko, Ihor Honcharov, General Edward Fere).The “guarantor” of the immunity deal was Sviatoslav Piskun who was – again not coincidentally - reinstated as Prosecutor General on Dec. 9, 2004. This happened a day after parliament approved a compromise package approved by Yushchenko at European Union-sponsored roundtables.Kravchenko allegedly committed suicide with two bullets to the head on March 4, 2005, the same day he was set to give testimony at the prosecutor’s office. Former Health Minister Mykola Polishchuk, an expert in firearms, ruled out suicide, the official verdict, because an individual would lose consciousness after the first shot and would not have been able to inflict the second wound himself.Ukraine’s judicial system came out of the Gongadze murder very badly. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), which has issued three reports into the Gongadze case in January and September 2005 and September 2007, believes that Potebenko and the prosecutor’s office deliberately obstructed the investigation of the murder.Judge Maria Prindiuk closed the case against Pukach in April 2004 for destroying documents related to the Gongadze investigation. Prindiuk continued to work as a judge and was awarded a state medal by Yushchenko on Dec. 14, 2007.Police detective Honcharov died in police custody on Aug. 1, 2003, and his body was cremated two days later, before an autopsy was performed. Leaked documents showed that an injection of the sodium thiopental drug caused Honcharov's death.Honcharov claimed to have knowledge of those behind Gongadze’s murder. Light sentences of five years (with three years suspended) were given to three prison guards at pretrial detention facility No.13 in Kyiv for their involvement in Honcharov’s murder. General Fere, another witness, died on June 4.The timing of Pukach’s arrest is highly suspicious because it took place at the same time as Yushchenko announced he would be a candidate in the upcoming presidential election. Just after being elected in 2004, Yushchenko promised the Council of Europe and Ukrainians that it was a matter of his honor to resolve the Gongadze murder.Until now, in seeking to prosecute only the three lower-ranking police officers, while ignoring the organizers, the Yushchenko administration has continued a longstanding policy of keeping ruling elites above the law. If Yushchenko is seeking to use Pukach to score political points in the election campaign, it will backfire and become the final nail in his discredited presidency.Pukach’s arrest is unlikely to bring to justice those who ordered Gongadze’s murder. And this is the real tragedy for his family and for Ukraine’s rule of law.
We can all be excused for being skeptical. After all, it is only two months before the election campaign officially kicks off.We can also be skeptical because the same Yushchenko awarded a state medal on Feb. 17, 2007 to Prosecutor-General Mykola Potebenko, who covered up Gongadze’s murder. The award was for “his great personal contribution to the building of a law abiding state, the strengthening of legality and law abiding, and his long years of conscientious toil on the occasion of his 70th birthday.”There are three aspects to the arrest of Pukach that do not add up.Firstly, why did Pukach decide to hide in a village in Zhitomir Oblast and not, as we were repeatedly told, abroad? Why did he not flee when the State Security Service (SBU) officers began to pretend they were fishing in the village five days before he was arrested? In small villages strangers are easily spotted. Pukach apparently knew he might be apprehended but did nothing to defend himself.A retired SBU officer had come to live in the village at the same time as Pukach and had made friends with him. Is that another coincidence? Or was he sent to watch over him so Pukach could be used in a future political battle? As they say, there is no such thing as a “former” spook.Secondly, why did Pukach not hide his identity card? Children playing near his car found his Interior Ministry identification card inside it. Pukach’s lawyer, Serhiy Osyka, claimed that nobody had ever tried to find Pukach. “I can give you exclusive information that Pukach decided to give himself up. In reality nobody was looking for him ad he never hid,” Osyka said.The first deputy head of parliament’s committee on organized crime and corruption, Hennadiy Moskal, also said that police officers had told him that Pukach was in contact with them and that he never went into hiding.Thirdly, the YouTube video of Pukach’s arrest was a public relations gimmick. It is rather strange that only the fragment of the video made by the SBU where he is asked if he had been involved in the Gongadze case and says “yes” was posted on YouTube. Such questions are unusual during an actual arrest and it was obviously made for the camera and YouTube.Former Justice Minister Serhiy Holovatiy, a Regions Party deputy since the 2007 elections, was head of parliament’s 2006 commission to investigate the Gongadze murder. He told Glavred magazine that he believes that the security forces released Pukach from custody in 2003 and have “controlled” him ever since (which could explain why the “retired” SBU officer was living in the village). Holovatiy believes Pukach’s release and subsequent life was controlled until a certain point in time when he would be used for political games.Holovatiy doubted that Pukach’s release would solve the Gongadze case as he did not see any political will in Ukraine to do this. Holovatiy is right. A full investigation would throw a dragnet over the roles of ex-President Leonid Kuchma, Potebenko, ex-SBU chairman Leonid Derkach and ex-presidential chief of staff Volodymyr Lytvyn.Yushchenko would not escape scrutiny himself in a full investigation. He condemned protesters in February 2001 who had been mobilized by Gongadze’s murder. Another signature on the condemnation of the protesters was Ivan Plyushch, whom Yushchenko had appointed National Security and Defense Council secretary in 2006. Plyushch was elected to the parliament on the pro-presidential Our Ukraine-Peoples Self Defense party in 2007.As prime minister, Yushchenko and his allies to this day, such as Roman Besmertnyi who was then Kuchma’s representative in parliament, refused to ever condemn Kuchma. Besmertny threatened to disband parliament if it had voted to support Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s call for Kuchma’s impeachment.The Pukach arrest could blow a hole in the conviction of three policemen (Mykola Protasov, Oleksandr Popovich and Valeri Kostenko) sentenced on March 19, 2008, to 12 and 13 years each. The three officers had admitted that they had been present when Pukach, who had commanded the surveillance unit, strangled Gongadze. Pukach’s lawyer says that his was fabricated by the three officers.Following the conviction of the three officers, Tymoshenko called for the Gongadze investigation to move to finding the organizers, “who are political and public figures.” This view was echoed by Gongadze’s family and other politicians from the Orange Revolution’s two political groups in the parliamentary coalition.The Council of Europe’s representative on the Gongadze case, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, said: “While I welcome the conviction of the three police officers, I must admit that the Gongadze file is not closed until the instigators and organizers of this crime have also been held to account.”There is little likelihood that senior officials will be ever charged, despite Pukach’s arrest. Three officials were de facto given immunity in 2004-2007 (Kuchma, Judge Maria Prindiuk, Potebenko) and three are no longer alive (General Yuriy Kravchenko, Ihor Honcharov, General Edward Fere).The “guarantor” of the immunity deal was Sviatoslav Piskun who was – again not coincidentally - reinstated as Prosecutor General on Dec. 9, 2004. This happened a day after parliament approved a compromise package approved by Yushchenko at European Union-sponsored roundtables.Kravchenko allegedly committed suicide with two bullets to the head on March 4, 2005, the same day he was set to give testimony at the prosecutor’s office. Former Health Minister Mykola Polishchuk, an expert in firearms, ruled out suicide, the official verdict, because an individual would lose consciousness after the first shot and would not have been able to inflict the second wound himself.Ukraine’s judicial system came out of the Gongadze murder very badly. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), which has issued three reports into the Gongadze case in January and September 2005 and September 2007, believes that Potebenko and the prosecutor’s office deliberately obstructed the investigation of the murder.Judge Maria Prindiuk closed the case against Pukach in April 2004 for destroying documents related to the Gongadze investigation. Prindiuk continued to work as a judge and was awarded a state medal by Yushchenko on Dec. 14, 2007.Police detective Honcharov died in police custody on Aug. 1, 2003, and his body was cremated two days later, before an autopsy was performed. Leaked documents showed that an injection of the sodium thiopental drug caused Honcharov's death.Honcharov claimed to have knowledge of those behind Gongadze’s murder. Light sentences of five years (with three years suspended) were given to three prison guards at pretrial detention facility No.13 in Kyiv for their involvement in Honcharov’s murder. General Fere, another witness, died on June 4.The timing of Pukach’s arrest is highly suspicious because it took place at the same time as Yushchenko announced he would be a candidate in the upcoming presidential election. Just after being elected in 2004, Yushchenko promised the Council of Europe and Ukrainians that it was a matter of his honor to resolve the Gongadze murder.Until now, in seeking to prosecute only the three lower-ranking police officers, while ignoring the organizers, the Yushchenko administration has continued a longstanding policy of keeping ruling elites above the law. If Yushchenko is seeking to use Pukach to score political points in the election campaign, it will backfire and become the final nail in his discredited presidency.Pukach’s arrest is unlikely to bring to justice those who ordered Gongadze’s murder. And this is the real tragedy for his family and for Ukraine’s rule of law.
Courts Get $29Bln in Corruption Cases
Twelve corruption cases causing damages of more than 896 billion rubles ($29 billion) were sent to court in the first half of 2009, Investigative Committee head Alexander Bastrykin said Thursday.
President Dmitry Medvedev has made the fight against official corruption a priority, and the announcement appeared to be an attempt to show that the campaign was bearing fruit.
Bastrykin said suspects in the cases included Interior Ministry officials, customs agents, Audit Chamber members, prosecutors and local officials.
He said 106 investigations were currently being conducted by the Investigative Committee, and 66 of them are related to corruption among bureaucrats and law enforcement officers.
He also complained that foreign authorities often do not respond quickly to the Investigative Committee’s inquiries.
Bastrykin provided scarce details about the cases that have been sent to court in the first six months of this year. The dozen cases consist of 23 defendants, he said. Five of the cases involve accepting bribes, two are for fraud and the rest are offenses ranging from misappropriation to obstruction of justice.
Last month, Bastrykin told prosecutors that he ordered former investigator Dmitry Dovgy in 2007 to investigate Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak for attempting to embezzle $43 million, despite Dovgy’s objections.
Bastrykin was speaking at Dovgy’s trial on charges of accepting a 750,000 euro bribe to halt a separate embezzlement investigation. On July 31, Moscow City Court sentenced Dovgy to nine years in prison.
President Dmitry Medvedev has made the fight against official corruption a priority, and the announcement appeared to be an attempt to show that the campaign was bearing fruit.
Bastrykin said suspects in the cases included Interior Ministry officials, customs agents, Audit Chamber members, prosecutors and local officials.
He said 106 investigations were currently being conducted by the Investigative Committee, and 66 of them are related to corruption among bureaucrats and law enforcement officers.
He also complained that foreign authorities often do not respond quickly to the Investigative Committee’s inquiries.
Bastrykin provided scarce details about the cases that have been sent to court in the first six months of this year. The dozen cases consist of 23 defendants, he said. Five of the cases involve accepting bribes, two are for fraud and the rest are offenses ranging from misappropriation to obstruction of justice.
Last month, Bastrykin told prosecutors that he ordered former investigator Dmitry Dovgy in 2007 to investigate Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak for attempting to embezzle $43 million, despite Dovgy’s objections.
Bastrykin was speaking at Dovgy’s trial on charges of accepting a 750,000 euro bribe to halt a separate embezzlement investigation. On July 31, Moscow City Court sentenced Dovgy to nine years in prison.
Crime in Russia
Another grisly tale of crime and dismemberment, this time at a Siberian branch of the U.S. sandwich chain Subway. The 21-year-old waitress was working an evening shift on July 17 at the Subway sandwich shop smack in the center of the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk but went missing shortly after,Komsomlskaya Pravda cited local investigators as saying. Two days later some local homeless men were rummaging around a dump near a local cemetery when they discovered plastic bags containing severed human remains. The young woman's passport was among the remains, and the 25-year-old cook was subsequently detained and confessed to the murder, they said. "According to his account, due to bad blood between the two (she did not want to enter into a relationship with him), first he strangled her right there in the restaurant and then dismembered her, placed the body parts in plastic bags and took them out to the trash cans,” regional Investigative Committee spokeswoman Alina Shcherbakova told RIA-Novosti. “All of this happened right in the city center.” The suspect faces up to life in prison if convicted of aggravated murder. The local radio station Avtoradio Krasnoyarsk reported on its web site that the Subway shop remained open the day after the murder but that it has since closed its doors.
Southern Migration Spikes Power Usage
A spike in electricity consumption in the North Caucasus and other southern regions may be because of the flight of jobless migrants from metropolises back to their home republics, the Market Council, the electricity market watchdog, said Thursday.
“All the Caucasian republics have a positive dynamic,” said Vladimir Shkatov, the deputy chairman of the council. “We explain it with the fact that those who came to work in Moscow are now moving back, which somehow revives the local economies.”
Consumption in Moscow, however, remained almost flat for the first half of the year, down from a growth of 12 percent in 2008, the Market Council estimated.
Vacationing Russians, saving money by staying in the country, are also causing the increase, he said.
Electricity consumption throughout the country will fall 6 percent to 7 percent this year, compared with a 2 percent growth in 2008, Shkatov said. The Economic Development Ministry forecasts a fall of 1.7 percent.
Consumption has been falling since October as industrial enterprises cut their output and scale down their expansion plans. Some regions, though, have not felt the slowdown.
The Krasnodar region has seen a growth of 18 percent in the first two weeks of July, the Market Council said. “We explain it with Russians choosing Anapa and Gelendzhik as their holiday destination instead of Turkey and Egypt this summer,” Shkatov said.
Russian Railways said Tuesday that the number of passengers going to the Black Sea coast and resorts in the North Caucasus had increased 4 percent year on year in the period since June 1. The number of passengers going to the Black Sea from Moscow and St. Petersburg had increased by 10 percent year on year, the company said.
Tourism Industry Union spokeswoman Irina Tyurina said the number of trips to southern regions that travel agencies had sold for June and July dropped by 10 percent to 20 percent.
“As the incomes have dwindled, people could decide to go on their own,” Tyurina said.
Another factor affecting the growth of consumption in the region may be all the construction for the 2012 Olympics in Sochi, in the Krasnodar region, said Igor Mironov, head of the Council of Electricity Producers and Strategic Investors.
Power consumption fell 16 percent in the Sverdlovsk and Volgograd regions and by 14 percent in the Chelyabinsk region in the first two weeks of July. Consumption in Chechnya grew 10 percent in the same period.
The System Operator said on July 7 that consumption during the first half of the year had increased by 8.6 percent in Ingushetia, by 4.3 percent in Chechnya and by 2.2 percent in Dagestan.
The average consumption throughout the country fell 6.7 percent in the same period.
“All the Caucasian republics have a positive dynamic,” said Vladimir Shkatov, the deputy chairman of the council. “We explain it with the fact that those who came to work in Moscow are now moving back, which somehow revives the local economies.”
Consumption in Moscow, however, remained almost flat for the first half of the year, down from a growth of 12 percent in 2008, the Market Council estimated.
Vacationing Russians, saving money by staying in the country, are also causing the increase, he said.
Electricity consumption throughout the country will fall 6 percent to 7 percent this year, compared with a 2 percent growth in 2008, Shkatov said. The Economic Development Ministry forecasts a fall of 1.7 percent.
Consumption has been falling since October as industrial enterprises cut their output and scale down their expansion plans. Some regions, though, have not felt the slowdown.
The Krasnodar region has seen a growth of 18 percent in the first two weeks of July, the Market Council said. “We explain it with Russians choosing Anapa and Gelendzhik as their holiday destination instead of Turkey and Egypt this summer,” Shkatov said.
Russian Railways said Tuesday that the number of passengers going to the Black Sea coast and resorts in the North Caucasus had increased 4 percent year on year in the period since June 1. The number of passengers going to the Black Sea from Moscow and St. Petersburg had increased by 10 percent year on year, the company said.
Tourism Industry Union spokeswoman Irina Tyurina said the number of trips to southern regions that travel agencies had sold for June and July dropped by 10 percent to 20 percent.
“As the incomes have dwindled, people could decide to go on their own,” Tyurina said.
Another factor affecting the growth of consumption in the region may be all the construction for the 2012 Olympics in Sochi, in the Krasnodar region, said Igor Mironov, head of the Council of Electricity Producers and Strategic Investors.
Power consumption fell 16 percent in the Sverdlovsk and Volgograd regions and by 14 percent in the Chelyabinsk region in the first two weeks of July. Consumption in Chechnya grew 10 percent in the same period.
The System Operator said on July 7 that consumption during the first half of the year had increased by 8.6 percent in Ingushetia, by 4.3 percent in Chechnya and by 2.2 percent in Dagestan.
The average consumption throughout the country fell 6.7 percent in the same period.
Tajikistan Moves to Ban Russian Language
Tajikistan is preparing to ban the use of Russian by state agencies and in official documents to boost the role of the local language, in what analysts see as either a move to win new financial support from Moscow or to demonstrate political independence.
But the move, criticized by a senior Russian lawmaker Thursday, could bring more damage than help to the impoverished country, where remittances sent back from Russia accounted for almost 50 percent of the economy last year, according to World Bank estimates.
Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon called on the government to speed up consideration of a bill that would require state agencies and companies to communicate with one another and issue official documents exclusively in Tajik, RIA-Novosti reported late Wednesday.
The bill would also make knowledge of the local language compulsory for every Tajik citizen, the report said.
“A speedy adoption of a new law about the [national] language is needed,” Rakhmon said in a televised address to the nation, according to a transcript on his official web site in the Russian and Tajik languages. “A state language … is an attribute of political independence,” he said.
Rakhmon’s televised address was dedicated to the anniversary of the law on the national language adopted on July 22, 1989. That law made Tajik the national language but gave every citizen the right to choose between Tajik and Russian when addressing state agencies, RIA-Novosti said.
The text of the bill was not available Thursday on the web sites of the president or the government. Repeated calls to the prime minister’s office went unanswered Thursday afternoon.
Official Tajik web sites are published in Tajik, Russian and English. About 15 percent of the population is ethnic Uzbek, while Russians and Kyrgyz each comprise about 1 percent.
Meanwhile, Tajik First Deputy Foreign Minister Abdullo Yuldashev said Thursday at a news conference in Dushanbe that his country had “excellent relations” with Russia, Central Asian News reported.
Alexei Ostrovsky, chairman of the State Duma’s CIS Affairs Committee, called the bill a “great mistake,” Interfax reported. He predicted that Russia would be “forced” in the future to ban the employment of Tajik migrants who do not know Russian, which would “aggravate the difficult economic situation of the majority” of Tajiks and could lead to street protests there.
Tajikistan borders Afghanistan and fought a civil war with Islamist rebels in the 1990s. Dushanbe and Moscow have been wrangling over financing for a half-completed hydropower station intended to help solve Tajikistan’s chronic power shortages.
Analysts said the language bill was a new chip in the political bargaining between Russia and Tajikistan.
Tajik authorities knew that the bill would be “painful” for the Russian leadership, which has been trying to maintain its influence in the CIS, said Andrei Grozin, an analyst with the Commonwealth of Independent States Institute, established and headed by United Russia Duma Deputy Konstantin Zatulin.
“The aim is to make Russia provide clearer support for Tajik leadership,” Grozin said, referring to Russian investment sought by the Tajik authorities.
Alexander Rahr, a Russia expert with the German Council on Foreign Relations, said Tajikistan was trying to “show that it can do without Russia” and cooperate with countries such as China. But sidelining the Russian language would also impede “globalization processes” in Tajikistan, he said.
It would also harm millions of future Tajik migrant workers to Russia, who would “face big problems because they don’t speak Russian,” Grozin said.
Moscow, which wants Dushanbe to abandon its multilateral foreign policy and make relations with Russia its priority, would likely refuse further investment because of the bill, Grozin said.
Passage of the bill could result in another delay of a visit by President Dmitry Medvedev to Tajikistan, now scheduled for July 30, he said. The visit was initially planned for May. The Kremlin has provided no reason for the delay.
The proposed changes are not the first time Tajikistan’s president has sought to strengthen the status of the national language. In March 2007, Rakhmon dropped the Slavic “ov” from his surname and ordered that all babies born to Tajik parents do the same.
Saparmurat Niyazov, the eccentric former leader of Turkmenistan, banned teaching Russian in schools and ordered that diplomas issued in Russian universities not be recognized in the republic. In December 2007, Ukraine’s Constitutional Court banned the showing of movies in Russian and other foreign languages in Ukraine’s movie theaters despite objections from the country’s Russian-speaking eastern regions.
But the move, criticized by a senior Russian lawmaker Thursday, could bring more damage than help to the impoverished country, where remittances sent back from Russia accounted for almost 50 percent of the economy last year, according to World Bank estimates.
Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon called on the government to speed up consideration of a bill that would require state agencies and companies to communicate with one another and issue official documents exclusively in Tajik, RIA-Novosti reported late Wednesday.
The bill would also make knowledge of the local language compulsory for every Tajik citizen, the report said.
“A speedy adoption of a new law about the [national] language is needed,” Rakhmon said in a televised address to the nation, according to a transcript on his official web site in the Russian and Tajik languages. “A state language … is an attribute of political independence,” he said.
Rakhmon’s televised address was dedicated to the anniversary of the law on the national language adopted on July 22, 1989. That law made Tajik the national language but gave every citizen the right to choose between Tajik and Russian when addressing state agencies, RIA-Novosti said.
The text of the bill was not available Thursday on the web sites of the president or the government. Repeated calls to the prime minister’s office went unanswered Thursday afternoon.
Official Tajik web sites are published in Tajik, Russian and English. About 15 percent of the population is ethnic Uzbek, while Russians and Kyrgyz each comprise about 1 percent.
Meanwhile, Tajik First Deputy Foreign Minister Abdullo Yuldashev said Thursday at a news conference in Dushanbe that his country had “excellent relations” with Russia, Central Asian News reported.
Alexei Ostrovsky, chairman of the State Duma’s CIS Affairs Committee, called the bill a “great mistake,” Interfax reported. He predicted that Russia would be “forced” in the future to ban the employment of Tajik migrants who do not know Russian, which would “aggravate the difficult economic situation of the majority” of Tajiks and could lead to street protests there.
Tajikistan borders Afghanistan and fought a civil war with Islamist rebels in the 1990s. Dushanbe and Moscow have been wrangling over financing for a half-completed hydropower station intended to help solve Tajikistan’s chronic power shortages.
Analysts said the language bill was a new chip in the political bargaining between Russia and Tajikistan.
Tajik authorities knew that the bill would be “painful” for the Russian leadership, which has been trying to maintain its influence in the CIS, said Andrei Grozin, an analyst with the Commonwealth of Independent States Institute, established and headed by United Russia Duma Deputy Konstantin Zatulin.
“The aim is to make Russia provide clearer support for Tajik leadership,” Grozin said, referring to Russian investment sought by the Tajik authorities.
Alexander Rahr, a Russia expert with the German Council on Foreign Relations, said Tajikistan was trying to “show that it can do without Russia” and cooperate with countries such as China. But sidelining the Russian language would also impede “globalization processes” in Tajikistan, he said.
It would also harm millions of future Tajik migrant workers to Russia, who would “face big problems because they don’t speak Russian,” Grozin said.
Moscow, which wants Dushanbe to abandon its multilateral foreign policy and make relations with Russia its priority, would likely refuse further investment because of the bill, Grozin said.
Passage of the bill could result in another delay of a visit by President Dmitry Medvedev to Tajikistan, now scheduled for July 30, he said. The visit was initially planned for May. The Kremlin has provided no reason for the delay.
The proposed changes are not the first time Tajikistan’s president has sought to strengthen the status of the national language. In March 2007, Rakhmon dropped the Slavic “ov” from his surname and ordered that all babies born to Tajik parents do the same.
Saparmurat Niyazov, the eccentric former leader of Turkmenistan, banned teaching Russian in schools and ordered that diplomas issued in Russian universities not be recognized in the republic. In December 2007, Ukraine’s Constitutional Court banned the showing of movies in Russian and other foreign languages in Ukraine’s movie theaters despite objections from the country’s Russian-speaking eastern regions.
Moscow Warns on Arming Georgia
Vice President Joe Biden walking with President Mikheil Saakashvili in Tbilisi Presidential
Palace Thursday.
A senior Russian diplomat warned foreign countries on Thursday against supplying Russian- or Soviet-made arms to Georgia at the risk of endangering military trade with Moscow.
The warning shot was fired as U.S. Vice President Joe Biden held closed-doors talks with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili that were expected to include a Georgian request for assistance with military hardware.
“We are deeply concerned by the activity of the Georgian leadership to remilitarize the country, which some states are responding to in a surprisingly calm and even positive way,” Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said, Itar-Tass reported.
Karasin said Moscow would consider limiting or severing military technical cooperation with any third country that delivered Russian- or Soviet-made arms and other defense equipment to Georgia.
Military technical cooperation is a bureaucratic euphemism for the export of arms, defense equipment and spare parts and for providing maintenance and repairs for previously supplied arms.
Countries that have supplied such arms to Georgia include the Czech Republic, Poland, Bulgaria, Uzbekistan and Ukraine, which Biden visited before arriving in Georgia as part of a weeklong tour aimed at assuring both countries that they had nothing to fear from Washington’s efforts to improve ties with Moscow.
Karasin on Thursday mentioned a January decree signed by President Dmitry Medvedev that bans the delivery of arms and military equipment to Georgia until the end of 2011. The decree, however, applies only to Russian companies and individuals.
Karasin also accused certain countries, which he would not name, of disguising the arming of Georgia as humanitarian aid — in an apparent rebuke to the United States, which has provided $1 billion in aid to Georgia after Russia crushed the Georgian military in a five-day war last August.
The warning shot was fired as U.S. Vice President Joe Biden held closed-doors talks with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili that were expected to include a Georgian request for assistance with military hardware.
“We are deeply concerned by the activity of the Georgian leadership to remilitarize the country, which some states are responding to in a surprisingly calm and even positive way,” Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said, Itar-Tass reported.
Karasin said Moscow would consider limiting or severing military technical cooperation with any third country that delivered Russian- or Soviet-made arms and other defense equipment to Georgia.
Military technical cooperation is a bureaucratic euphemism for the export of arms, defense equipment and spare parts and for providing maintenance and repairs for previously supplied arms.
Countries that have supplied such arms to Georgia include the Czech Republic, Poland, Bulgaria, Uzbekistan and Ukraine, which Biden visited before arriving in Georgia as part of a weeklong tour aimed at assuring both countries that they had nothing to fear from Washington’s efforts to improve ties with Moscow.
Karasin on Thursday mentioned a January decree signed by President Dmitry Medvedev that bans the delivery of arms and military equipment to Georgia until the end of 2011. The decree, however, applies only to Russian companies and individuals.
Karasin also accused certain countries, which he would not name, of disguising the arming of Georgia as humanitarian aid — in an apparent rebuke to the United States, which has provided $1 billion in aid to Georgia after Russia crushed the Georgian military in a five-day war last August.
Karasin added that Russia expected Georgian provocations to commemorate the anniversary of the conflict, after which Moscow recognized the independence of the separatist Georgian provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and posted thousands of troops on their territories. Karasin said, however, that Moscow did not expect military provocations but political ones.
As a possible example of a political provocation, Georgian media on Wednesday reported a months-old mutual expulsion of diplomats that both countries had agreed to keep secret. The Foreign Ministry has accused Tbilisi of leaking the incident in an attempt to impress Biden.
Biden said Thursday that the reset of U.S.-Russia relations would not come at the expense of Georgia and that the United States would never recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
The Russian threat of cutting military technical cooperation is of no concern to the United States, which does not provide Russian-made arms to Georgia or help maintain the country’s existing equipment, said Dmitry Vasiliyev, a researcher who tracks arms sales with the Moscow-based Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies.
Georgia received tens of thousands of Kalashnikov rifles, thousands of Soviet-designed missile systems and dozens of battle tanks from Ukraine in 2006 and 2007 alone, according to a special United Nations registry. Smaller deliveries of Soviet-made arms or dual-use equipment have come from the Czech Republic, Poland, Bulgaria and Uzbekistan. “Russia cannot punish these four countries by cutting military trade with them because there is no meaningful trade,” Vasiliyev said of the Czech Republic, Poland, Bulgaria and Uzbekistan.
As for Ukraine, sanctions would harm Russia’s own interests because Ukraine provides about half of all engines for helicopters that are among Russia’s most sought-after arms exports, he said.
Other countries that have supplied military equipment to Georgia are the United States, Israel, Turkey, Greece and Bosnia Herzegovina, according to a United Nations’ registry.
There have been no official disclosures about Georgia’s arms imports and no media reports about foreign countries delivering arms to Georgia following the war with Russia.
Saakashvili expressed an interest in U.S. arms ahead of his talks with Biden. The Georgian Defense Ministry said it was seeking defensive weapons but would not say how much military aid was being sought, citing secrecy, The Associated Press reported.
But a U.S. official said after the talks that Saakashvili had not asked for advanced U.S. weaponry, AP reported.
Saakashvili told reporters that his discussions with Biden, to whom he referred as “Joe,” had been “very productive.” Biden responded by calling Saakashvili, a U.S.-educated lawyer, “Mr. President.”
Biden also met with Georgian opposition leaders and refugees from South Ossetia and Abkhazia and addressed the Georgian parliament Thursday.
As a possible example of a political provocation, Georgian media on Wednesday reported a months-old mutual expulsion of diplomats that both countries had agreed to keep secret. The Foreign Ministry has accused Tbilisi of leaking the incident in an attempt to impress Biden.
Biden said Thursday that the reset of U.S.-Russia relations would not come at the expense of Georgia and that the United States would never recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
The Russian threat of cutting military technical cooperation is of no concern to the United States, which does not provide Russian-made arms to Georgia or help maintain the country’s existing equipment, said Dmitry Vasiliyev, a researcher who tracks arms sales with the Moscow-based Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies.
Georgia received tens of thousands of Kalashnikov rifles, thousands of Soviet-designed missile systems and dozens of battle tanks from Ukraine in 2006 and 2007 alone, according to a special United Nations registry. Smaller deliveries of Soviet-made arms or dual-use equipment have come from the Czech Republic, Poland, Bulgaria and Uzbekistan. “Russia cannot punish these four countries by cutting military trade with them because there is no meaningful trade,” Vasiliyev said of the Czech Republic, Poland, Bulgaria and Uzbekistan.
As for Ukraine, sanctions would harm Russia’s own interests because Ukraine provides about half of all engines for helicopters that are among Russia’s most sought-after arms exports, he said.
Other countries that have supplied military equipment to Georgia are the United States, Israel, Turkey, Greece and Bosnia Herzegovina, according to a United Nations’ registry.
There have been no official disclosures about Georgia’s arms imports and no media reports about foreign countries delivering arms to Georgia following the war with Russia.
Saakashvili expressed an interest in U.S. arms ahead of his talks with Biden. The Georgian Defense Ministry said it was seeking defensive weapons but would not say how much military aid was being sought, citing secrecy, The Associated Press reported.
But a U.S. official said after the talks that Saakashvili had not asked for advanced U.S. weaponry, AP reported.
Saakashvili told reporters that his discussions with Biden, to whom he referred as “Joe,” had been “very productive.” Biden responded by calling Saakashvili, a U.S.-educated lawyer, “Mr. President.”
Biden also met with Georgian opposition leaders and refugees from South Ossetia and Abkhazia and addressed the Georgian parliament Thursday.
Saturday 25 July 2009
Delivering Tough Love To Ukraine, Georgia
WASHINGTON, DC -- Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and expert on former Soviet republics, says Vice President Joseph Biden's recent trip to Ukraine and Georgia was meant to balance President Barack Obama's Moscow summit earlier in the month.
But in both countries, Pifer says, Biden had to convey tough messages. In Ukraine, his message to Ukraine's feuding leadership was to repair relations and resolve their energy crisis, caused in large part by heavily subsidized domestic prices. In Georgia, Biden wanted to press Georgia's leaders on domestic political reforms, but he also made it clear that there was no way for Georgia to use military force to regain South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the two provinces that have now been recognized by Russia as independent.Vice President Joseph Biden has just completed a trip to Ukraine and Georgia to reassure both of those former Soviet republics that the American desire to "reset" relations--Biden's words in Munich last February--with Russia were not meant at their expense. But he also had what one Biden aide called "tough love" for both of them. Could you elaborate on this trip?That was the first point of the trip: to reassure Kiev and Tbilisi that the United States remains interested in robust relations with Ukraine and Georgia, and that we will work to keep open their pathways to Europe and the North Atlantic community. When I was in Ukraine about five or six weeks ago, what I heard from the Ukrainians was a concern--and I suspect there is a parallel concern in Georgia--that the effort to reset relations with Russia would somehow come at Ukraine's expense.So part of the trip by the vice president was to assure both Ukraine and Georgia that the United States is not going to undercut relations with those two countries as it tries to develop relations with Russia. You've seen points made by this administration, indeed going back to the Munich speech itself, saying the reset of relations would not mean recognition of a Russian "sphere of influence" over the former Soviet states, and then repeated assurances that the United States supports the rights of countries such as Ukraine and Georgia as sovereign states to choose their own foreign policy course.What was also interesting to me was that in his speech in Ukraine, Biden was virtually demanding that the Ukrainian leadership get their act together. In Georgia, I don't think he was publicly as tough. Can you elaborate on the "tough love" part of the visits?Let me start with Ukraine. Certainly the primary goal of the visit was to reassure Ukraine, but there was also a tough message there. In Ukraine, it's not only due to the presidential election, but you've had a situation in the past year and a half where the government really hasn't functioned because of infighting between President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.It's meant that Ukraine has passed up opportunities to accomplish some important things. A big part of the vice president's message in Kiev was to say, "You need to put aside political differences, come together as mature political leaders, find compromises, and get things done."He also singled out the importance of Ukraine getting serious about reforming its energy sector. This is a huge national security vulnerability for Ukraine because they have a distorted price structure where people buy natural gas at prices that don't begin to cover the cost of the gas that Ukraine buys from Russia. As a result, Naftogaz, the national gas company, is perpetually in debt to Russia and on the verge of bankruptcy. That creates vulnerabilities for Ukraine.Part of the vice president's message was, "You need to get serious about this." Part of the problem in Ukraine is if you are a household, you are probably paying a price that amounts to less than 30 percent of the actual cost of the gas bought from Russia. It's no wonder why Naftogaz is always in financial straits. But it's not just an economic problem because of the way it factors into the Ukraine-Russia relationship. It creates a national security issue for Ukraine. So there are two aspects to the tough message: One, the need for political leaders to get together, compromise, and produce good policy; and second, the special importance of tackling this energy security issue.At the time of the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, Yushchenko and Tymoshenko were united. What's caused this major rift?This has been one of the surprises and one of the disappointments since the Orange Revolution. Yushchenko and Tymoshenko were allies during the revolution. Tymoshenko was prime minister for eight months in 2005. She's been prime minister again since December 2007, but the relationship between the president and the cabinet just has not worked. There's been continual infighting where the president blocks cabinet actions and vice versa.Over the last fifteen or sixteen months, it's been hard to get the $16 billion loan from the IMF [International Monetary Fund]. And it's hard to find too much else that the government has been able to accomplish, in large part because the president, the presidential secretariat, the cabinet, and the prime minister seem to be undercutting each other so badly.Is it a personal thing?I suspect part of it is personal. If you go back to December 2007, the initial shots seemed to have been fired by the chief of staff to the president, Viktor Baloga, who has since left that position. In that fight, it seemed to reflect a concern on the part of the presidential administration that in the presidential election, which will be held in January 2010, Tymoshenko would be a strong rival to the president. There seems to have been an effort to undercut her.Unfortunately, this means the government has not performed as expected. Interestingly in politics what we've seen is that President Yushchenko's rating has fallen to the low single digits. Tymoshenko's rating remains at about 15 percent, falling second in most polls for the president.It's interesting how the leader of the Orange Revolution has fallen so low in the polls. There's a similar situation in Georgia with President Mikheil Saakashvili, right?There's a different situation in Georgia. There are two factors motivating opposition to Saakashvili. One is a concern that goes back to the fall of 2007, when Saakashvili was walking back on some of the democratic achievements that Georgia had obtained since the Rose Revolution. And significant opposition has been generated to Saakashvili in the aftermath of the conflict between Russia and Georgia last August.There's a feeling held by many in the opposition that while the Russians may have provoked the conflict, Saakashvili made a huge mistake. He took the bait and sent the army into South Ossetia, bringing about a strong Russian response that crushed the Georgian military in a matter of days.Biden met with the opposition both in Ukraine and in Georgia on this rather brief trip, which I guess presidents and vice presidents usually do.In the case of Ukraine, in addition to meeting with President Yushchenko and Prime Minister Tymoshenko, he also had meetings with Regions Party head Yanukovych, the former parliamentary speaker Yatsenyuk, and the current parliamentary speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn. That's natural. That's appropriate in a country that's five months out from a presidential election.No matter who wins the election in January, the vice president has met with that person on this trip. That's the appropriate way to show that the United States doesn't have a favorite in that election, and as the vice president made clear, the important thing is that Ukraine continue to demonstrate that it knows how to do free and fair elections, and that it is a leader in the region in terms of democratic progress.In the case of Georgia, there was an effort to meet with the opposition to show some balance. This may reflect some quiet concern on the part of this administration that the Bush administration's policy toward Georgia may have become too personalized with Saakashvili. There's an effort to say the United States wants a strong, robust relationship with Georgia, but perhaps without the personal attachment to Saakashvili.Certainly there are figures in the opposition--the former head of the Georgian parliament, Nino Burjanadze, and the former Georgian ambassador to the United Nations, Irakli Alasania--who are in favor in Washington. So the approach to Georgia will be more balanced and not so personalized as what we saw in the Bush administration. There's a fine line to walk here, and the vice president is doing it fairly well, where you don't want to signal to the Russians that we're chopping off Saakashvili completely.Russian President Dmitry Medvedev showed up in South Ossetia just a week before Biden arrived in Georgia, to demonstrate Russia's presence inside what used to be Georgia. There was also a strong message from Moscow during Biden's trip warning against any military aid to Georgia. Are the Russians really worried that the United States may do something that might provoke them?The Russians, since last August, had a very sharp rhetorical stance against Georgia and against Saakashvili in particular. But it seems to me that if they look at how the United States has engaged with Georgia since the conflict, there was passage of a major assistance program, but that assistance has been primarily on economic recovery and such.Certainly I suspect that the administration is going to have a military-to-military relationship with Georgia, but I don't think providing weapons to Georgia is high on anybody's priority list in the United States. And the simple fact is that there's no conceivable defense assistance program the United States could do with Georgia that would give the Georgians the ability to defend themselves against Russia, to say nothing of trying to take back South Ossetia or Abkhazia.In fact, in his speech to the Georgian parliament , Biden said specifically: "It is a sad certainty, but it is true there is no military option to reintegration, only peaceful and prosperous Georgia--a peaceful and prosperous Georgia that has the prospect of restoring your territorial integrity by showing those in Abkhazia and South Ossetia a Georgia where they can be free and their communities can flourish."You did a report for the Council on Foreign Relations, Averting Crisis in Ukraine, in which you pointed out some of the danger possibilities. What is the situation now?My read now is that the one crisis possibility out there that is real is another gas conflict. It's a possibility because, due to the weakness in the energy sector in Ukraine, the country is perpetually in danger of missing payments. In fact, Ukraine is technically in default on the gas contract it signed in January because it hasn't bought the minimum amount of natural gas that it contracted to buy.Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said they won't push that point, but the Russians haven't amended the contract. So Ukraine is still in technical default. And there are suspicions that the Russians may look for an opportunity in the fall or early winter to again apply some pressure on the gas side with a view of having an impact on Ukraine's internal politics. So there's that concern.The other concern that I wrote about in January between Ukraine and Russia is that somehow they might get into a conflict over Crimea. My sense is that the probablility of that is declining now.
But in both countries, Pifer says, Biden had to convey tough messages. In Ukraine, his message to Ukraine's feuding leadership was to repair relations and resolve their energy crisis, caused in large part by heavily subsidized domestic prices. In Georgia, Biden wanted to press Georgia's leaders on domestic political reforms, but he also made it clear that there was no way for Georgia to use military force to regain South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the two provinces that have now been recognized by Russia as independent.Vice President Joseph Biden has just completed a trip to Ukraine and Georgia to reassure both of those former Soviet republics that the American desire to "reset" relations--Biden's words in Munich last February--with Russia were not meant at their expense. But he also had what one Biden aide called "tough love" for both of them. Could you elaborate on this trip?That was the first point of the trip: to reassure Kiev and Tbilisi that the United States remains interested in robust relations with Ukraine and Georgia, and that we will work to keep open their pathways to Europe and the North Atlantic community. When I was in Ukraine about five or six weeks ago, what I heard from the Ukrainians was a concern--and I suspect there is a parallel concern in Georgia--that the effort to reset relations with Russia would somehow come at Ukraine's expense.So part of the trip by the vice president was to assure both Ukraine and Georgia that the United States is not going to undercut relations with those two countries as it tries to develop relations with Russia. You've seen points made by this administration, indeed going back to the Munich speech itself, saying the reset of relations would not mean recognition of a Russian "sphere of influence" over the former Soviet states, and then repeated assurances that the United States supports the rights of countries such as Ukraine and Georgia as sovereign states to choose their own foreign policy course.What was also interesting to me was that in his speech in Ukraine, Biden was virtually demanding that the Ukrainian leadership get their act together. In Georgia, I don't think he was publicly as tough. Can you elaborate on the "tough love" part of the visits?Let me start with Ukraine. Certainly the primary goal of the visit was to reassure Ukraine, but there was also a tough message there. In Ukraine, it's not only due to the presidential election, but you've had a situation in the past year and a half where the government really hasn't functioned because of infighting between President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.It's meant that Ukraine has passed up opportunities to accomplish some important things. A big part of the vice president's message in Kiev was to say, "You need to put aside political differences, come together as mature political leaders, find compromises, and get things done."He also singled out the importance of Ukraine getting serious about reforming its energy sector. This is a huge national security vulnerability for Ukraine because they have a distorted price structure where people buy natural gas at prices that don't begin to cover the cost of the gas that Ukraine buys from Russia. As a result, Naftogaz, the national gas company, is perpetually in debt to Russia and on the verge of bankruptcy. That creates vulnerabilities for Ukraine.Part of the vice president's message was, "You need to get serious about this." Part of the problem in Ukraine is if you are a household, you are probably paying a price that amounts to less than 30 percent of the actual cost of the gas bought from Russia. It's no wonder why Naftogaz is always in financial straits. But it's not just an economic problem because of the way it factors into the Ukraine-Russia relationship. It creates a national security issue for Ukraine. So there are two aspects to the tough message: One, the need for political leaders to get together, compromise, and produce good policy; and second, the special importance of tackling this energy security issue.At the time of the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, Yushchenko and Tymoshenko were united. What's caused this major rift?This has been one of the surprises and one of the disappointments since the Orange Revolution. Yushchenko and Tymoshenko were allies during the revolution. Tymoshenko was prime minister for eight months in 2005. She's been prime minister again since December 2007, but the relationship between the president and the cabinet just has not worked. There's been continual infighting where the president blocks cabinet actions and vice versa.Over the last fifteen or sixteen months, it's been hard to get the $16 billion loan from the IMF [International Monetary Fund]. And it's hard to find too much else that the government has been able to accomplish, in large part because the president, the presidential secretariat, the cabinet, and the prime minister seem to be undercutting each other so badly.Is it a personal thing?I suspect part of it is personal. If you go back to December 2007, the initial shots seemed to have been fired by the chief of staff to the president, Viktor Baloga, who has since left that position. In that fight, it seemed to reflect a concern on the part of the presidential administration that in the presidential election, which will be held in January 2010, Tymoshenko would be a strong rival to the president. There seems to have been an effort to undercut her.Unfortunately, this means the government has not performed as expected. Interestingly in politics what we've seen is that President Yushchenko's rating has fallen to the low single digits. Tymoshenko's rating remains at about 15 percent, falling second in most polls for the president.It's interesting how the leader of the Orange Revolution has fallen so low in the polls. There's a similar situation in Georgia with President Mikheil Saakashvili, right?There's a different situation in Georgia. There are two factors motivating opposition to Saakashvili. One is a concern that goes back to the fall of 2007, when Saakashvili was walking back on some of the democratic achievements that Georgia had obtained since the Rose Revolution. And significant opposition has been generated to Saakashvili in the aftermath of the conflict between Russia and Georgia last August.There's a feeling held by many in the opposition that while the Russians may have provoked the conflict, Saakashvili made a huge mistake. He took the bait and sent the army into South Ossetia, bringing about a strong Russian response that crushed the Georgian military in a matter of days.Biden met with the opposition both in Ukraine and in Georgia on this rather brief trip, which I guess presidents and vice presidents usually do.In the case of Ukraine, in addition to meeting with President Yushchenko and Prime Minister Tymoshenko, he also had meetings with Regions Party head Yanukovych, the former parliamentary speaker Yatsenyuk, and the current parliamentary speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn. That's natural. That's appropriate in a country that's five months out from a presidential election.No matter who wins the election in January, the vice president has met with that person on this trip. That's the appropriate way to show that the United States doesn't have a favorite in that election, and as the vice president made clear, the important thing is that Ukraine continue to demonstrate that it knows how to do free and fair elections, and that it is a leader in the region in terms of democratic progress.In the case of Georgia, there was an effort to meet with the opposition to show some balance. This may reflect some quiet concern on the part of this administration that the Bush administration's policy toward Georgia may have become too personalized with Saakashvili. There's an effort to say the United States wants a strong, robust relationship with Georgia, but perhaps without the personal attachment to Saakashvili.Certainly there are figures in the opposition--the former head of the Georgian parliament, Nino Burjanadze, and the former Georgian ambassador to the United Nations, Irakli Alasania--who are in favor in Washington. So the approach to Georgia will be more balanced and not so personalized as what we saw in the Bush administration. There's a fine line to walk here, and the vice president is doing it fairly well, where you don't want to signal to the Russians that we're chopping off Saakashvili completely.Russian President Dmitry Medvedev showed up in South Ossetia just a week before Biden arrived in Georgia, to demonstrate Russia's presence inside what used to be Georgia. There was also a strong message from Moscow during Biden's trip warning against any military aid to Georgia. Are the Russians really worried that the United States may do something that might provoke them?The Russians, since last August, had a very sharp rhetorical stance against Georgia and against Saakashvili in particular. But it seems to me that if they look at how the United States has engaged with Georgia since the conflict, there was passage of a major assistance program, but that assistance has been primarily on economic recovery and such.Certainly I suspect that the administration is going to have a military-to-military relationship with Georgia, but I don't think providing weapons to Georgia is high on anybody's priority list in the United States. And the simple fact is that there's no conceivable defense assistance program the United States could do with Georgia that would give the Georgians the ability to defend themselves against Russia, to say nothing of trying to take back South Ossetia or Abkhazia.In fact, in his speech to the Georgian parliament , Biden said specifically: "It is a sad certainty, but it is true there is no military option to reintegration, only peaceful and prosperous Georgia--a peaceful and prosperous Georgia that has the prospect of restoring your territorial integrity by showing those in Abkhazia and South Ossetia a Georgia where they can be free and their communities can flourish."You did a report for the Council on Foreign Relations, Averting Crisis in Ukraine, in which you pointed out some of the danger possibilities. What is the situation now?My read now is that the one crisis possibility out there that is real is another gas conflict. It's a possibility because, due to the weakness in the energy sector in Ukraine, the country is perpetually in danger of missing payments. In fact, Ukraine is technically in default on the gas contract it signed in January because it hasn't bought the minimum amount of natural gas that it contracted to buy.Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said they won't push that point, but the Russians haven't amended the contract. So Ukraine is still in technical default. And there are suspicions that the Russians may look for an opportunity in the fall or early winter to again apply some pressure on the gas side with a view of having an impact on Ukraine's internal politics. So there's that concern.The other concern that I wrote about in January between Ukraine and Russia is that somehow they might get into a conflict over Crimea. My sense is that the probablility of that is declining now.
Ukraine Tightens The Screw In Sevastopol
KIEV, Ukraine -- President Viktor Yushchenko announced his bid for a second term on July 18 defying pundits who believed his low popularity of 2-3 percent would deter him. Yushchenko used the highest peak in Ukraine - Hoverla in the Carpathians - to declare his bid for re-election, following a tradition set on Hoverla in 2002 (when he launched the Our Ukraine political party) and 2004 (when he announced his presidential candidacy).
Yushchenko's election speech included little concerning everyday realities facing Ukrainians such as the global financial crisis, but it was instead full of references to Ukrainian national identity, the re-writing of history, historical memory, language and the nation.The speech - as reflected in actual presidential policies in the Crimea - points to Yushchenko following Leonid Kravchuk in 1994 in campaigning for re-election on a nationalistic platform.Yushchenko had targeted the Black Sea Fleet during the August 2008 Russian-Georgian war, passing two decrees that sought to restrict its ability to move in and out of Sevastopol without Ukrainian authorization.The Black Sea Fleet, which sent vessels and marines to the August 2008 war, refused to abide by these decrees, while the Ukrainian president did not seek to enforce them in the face of Russian objections.Typically, the decrees therefore remained on paper reinforcing the Yulia Tymoshenko government's view that it was pointless issuing them, since it would not have risked a direct confrontation over the Black Sea Fleet.Most Ukrainian politicians have always sought to grudgingly accept its presence, through a temporary twenty year provision in the Ukrainian constitution that bans foreign bases, and hope that Russia will abide by the treaty and withdraw in 2017.This approach to Sevastopol and the fleet only served to embolden Russia to act with impunity and ignore the 1997 basing agreement and Ukrainian legislation, whether through illegally occupying buildings, such as lighthouses, or transporting missiles through Crimean towns without Ukrainian authorization.In addition, Russia - particularly Moscow Mayor Yuriy Luzhkov - invested large financial sums into Sevastopol while Kyiv ignored the challenge of raising Ukraine's profile in the port by financing socio-economic and educational institutions. Sevastopol has a large shopping mall named "Moscow" and branches of the Moscow State University provided by the mayor of Moscow.Yushchenko has ordered law enforcement agencies to investigate Russian activities in Sevastopol. Yushchenko believes that they are "directed not only against the state, but against us all, against our families, and our children. These are those projects that bring instability and squabbles".Yushchenko has also lobbied for the idea of removing Sevastopol's Soviet era special status which combined with Kyiv, gives it an all-republican status. His aim is to integrate Sevastopol with the Crimea. In Yushchenko's criticism of Russian projects he in effect called for the Ukrainianization of Sevastopol by tying it closer to Ukraine geographically and through promoting Ukrainian national identity and military traditions.Luzhkov denied Yushchenko's charges that its Sevastopol education and economic projects were "unfriendly" and a "provocation against Ukraine," counter claiming that the Ukrainian authorities have invested little themselves.Moreover, Yushchenko has also tightened the screws on Sevastopol in other ways. On July 8 a Russian military convoy of three trucks transporting SS-N-2 short and SS-N-9 medium range missiles without permits through Sevastopol was intercepted by Ukrainian Interior Ministry (MVS) Special Forces. The missiles were en route to a technical repair base 30 kilometers outside the port that is used by the fleet.SS-N-9 missiles, capable of carrying nuclear warheads, were used as conventional weapons during the fleet's intervention in the 2008 Russian-Georgian war. The Russian foreign ministry protested at the Ukrainian intervention claiming that transporting missiles was permitted by the 1997 agreement. "Our sailors were not conducting any new type of action," the statement said.On July 21 another Russian convoy was halted by MVS traffic police that was transporting "Malakhit" missiles without a permit or the required fire engine escort, while three more trucks carrying missiles were stopped on July 23.Earlier this year Ukraine protested over plans to add a submarine to the Black Sea Fleet, claiming it cannot be enlarged without Ukraine's consent. A separate addendum would have to be agreed to the 1997 basing agreement in order to permit the fleet's expansion.Russia continues to distribute passports to Crimean's thereby infringing Ukrainian legislation, which does not permit dual citizenship. The practice, used extensively in South Ossetia, permitted Russia to claim that it was intervening to protect "Russian citizens" from "Georgian aggression" and could thereby provide a similar pretext for a future Russian intervention in Sevastopol, in the event of a Ukrainian crackdown on separatists.Another widely used infringement is the violation of Ukrainian immigration laws by the fleet's personnel. Last month it protested against Ukraine's new policy of checking the documentation of Russian naval personnel, claiming it was an "unfriendly move directed against Russian-Ukrainian relations".The Ukrainian interior ministry, which oversees the issuing of passports and immigration controls, estimated that 10 percent of illegal immigrants in Sevastopol were Russian sailors.The Black Sea Fleet has positively responded to one Ukrainian demand and requested permission (for the first time in 18 years) to hold its annual parade. A spokesman from the Ukrainian embassy in Moscow said that, "this step will strengthen the practice of providing full respect by the Russian side towards Ukrainian sovereignty, its legislation and the bilateral agreement that regulates the basing of the Russian Black Sea Fleet on Ukrainian territory".Equally, Russia is likely to negatively respond to the majority of Ukrainian demands. Although Russia is conducting an ideological campaign against Ukraine (EDM, June 12) and is openly provocative, Yushchenko's nationalist election platform is likely to maintain tense relations with Russia, while deepening Western European suspicions of him as a Russophobe.Consequently, this might reduce Ukraine's prospects to pursue closer European integration. Yushchenko's nationalistic campaign for a second term repeats that of Kravchuk's desperate attempt for re-election in the 1994 pre-term presidential elections.However, Yushchenko's nationalist platform, reminiscent of Kravchuk's, is likely to fail while also undermining the young pretender Arseniy Yatseniuk's campaign -by splitting the Our Ukraine vote between two candidates.
Yushchenko's election speech included little concerning everyday realities facing Ukrainians such as the global financial crisis, but it was instead full of references to Ukrainian national identity, the re-writing of history, historical memory, language and the nation.The speech - as reflected in actual presidential policies in the Crimea - points to Yushchenko following Leonid Kravchuk in 1994 in campaigning for re-election on a nationalistic platform.Yushchenko had targeted the Black Sea Fleet during the August 2008 Russian-Georgian war, passing two decrees that sought to restrict its ability to move in and out of Sevastopol without Ukrainian authorization.The Black Sea Fleet, which sent vessels and marines to the August 2008 war, refused to abide by these decrees, while the Ukrainian president did not seek to enforce them in the face of Russian objections.Typically, the decrees therefore remained on paper reinforcing the Yulia Tymoshenko government's view that it was pointless issuing them, since it would not have risked a direct confrontation over the Black Sea Fleet.Most Ukrainian politicians have always sought to grudgingly accept its presence, through a temporary twenty year provision in the Ukrainian constitution that bans foreign bases, and hope that Russia will abide by the treaty and withdraw in 2017.This approach to Sevastopol and the fleet only served to embolden Russia to act with impunity and ignore the 1997 basing agreement and Ukrainian legislation, whether through illegally occupying buildings, such as lighthouses, or transporting missiles through Crimean towns without Ukrainian authorization.In addition, Russia - particularly Moscow Mayor Yuriy Luzhkov - invested large financial sums into Sevastopol while Kyiv ignored the challenge of raising Ukraine's profile in the port by financing socio-economic and educational institutions. Sevastopol has a large shopping mall named "Moscow" and branches of the Moscow State University provided by the mayor of Moscow.Yushchenko has ordered law enforcement agencies to investigate Russian activities in Sevastopol. Yushchenko believes that they are "directed not only against the state, but against us all, against our families, and our children. These are those projects that bring instability and squabbles".Yushchenko has also lobbied for the idea of removing Sevastopol's Soviet era special status which combined with Kyiv, gives it an all-republican status. His aim is to integrate Sevastopol with the Crimea. In Yushchenko's criticism of Russian projects he in effect called for the Ukrainianization of Sevastopol by tying it closer to Ukraine geographically and through promoting Ukrainian national identity and military traditions.Luzhkov denied Yushchenko's charges that its Sevastopol education and economic projects were "unfriendly" and a "provocation against Ukraine," counter claiming that the Ukrainian authorities have invested little themselves.Moreover, Yushchenko has also tightened the screws on Sevastopol in other ways. On July 8 a Russian military convoy of three trucks transporting SS-N-2 short and SS-N-9 medium range missiles without permits through Sevastopol was intercepted by Ukrainian Interior Ministry (MVS) Special Forces. The missiles were en route to a technical repair base 30 kilometers outside the port that is used by the fleet.SS-N-9 missiles, capable of carrying nuclear warheads, were used as conventional weapons during the fleet's intervention in the 2008 Russian-Georgian war. The Russian foreign ministry protested at the Ukrainian intervention claiming that transporting missiles was permitted by the 1997 agreement. "Our sailors were not conducting any new type of action," the statement said.On July 21 another Russian convoy was halted by MVS traffic police that was transporting "Malakhit" missiles without a permit or the required fire engine escort, while three more trucks carrying missiles were stopped on July 23.Earlier this year Ukraine protested over plans to add a submarine to the Black Sea Fleet, claiming it cannot be enlarged without Ukraine's consent. A separate addendum would have to be agreed to the 1997 basing agreement in order to permit the fleet's expansion.Russia continues to distribute passports to Crimean's thereby infringing Ukrainian legislation, which does not permit dual citizenship. The practice, used extensively in South Ossetia, permitted Russia to claim that it was intervening to protect "Russian citizens" from "Georgian aggression" and could thereby provide a similar pretext for a future Russian intervention in Sevastopol, in the event of a Ukrainian crackdown on separatists.Another widely used infringement is the violation of Ukrainian immigration laws by the fleet's personnel. Last month it protested against Ukraine's new policy of checking the documentation of Russian naval personnel, claiming it was an "unfriendly move directed against Russian-Ukrainian relations".The Ukrainian interior ministry, which oversees the issuing of passports and immigration controls, estimated that 10 percent of illegal immigrants in Sevastopol were Russian sailors.The Black Sea Fleet has positively responded to one Ukrainian demand and requested permission (for the first time in 18 years) to hold its annual parade. A spokesman from the Ukrainian embassy in Moscow said that, "this step will strengthen the practice of providing full respect by the Russian side towards Ukrainian sovereignty, its legislation and the bilateral agreement that regulates the basing of the Russian Black Sea Fleet on Ukrainian territory".Equally, Russia is likely to negatively respond to the majority of Ukrainian demands. Although Russia is conducting an ideological campaign against Ukraine (EDM, June 12) and is openly provocative, Yushchenko's nationalist election platform is likely to maintain tense relations with Russia, while deepening Western European suspicions of him as a Russophobe.Consequently, this might reduce Ukraine's prospects to pursue closer European integration. Yushchenko's nationalistic campaign for a second term repeats that of Kravchuk's desperate attempt for re-election in the 1994 pre-term presidential elections.However, Yushchenko's nationalist platform, reminiscent of Kravchuk's, is likely to fail while also undermining the young pretender Arseniy Yatseniuk's campaign -by splitting the Our Ukraine vote between two candidates.
Yushchenko Loses Support
KIEV, Ukraine -- Helen Dashkovckrr was among the thousands who thronged Independence Square in the capital of Ukraine in support of what became the country’s Orange Revolution.
Like many of her countrymen, she believed the presidential victory declared for the pro-Russian prime minister, Viktor Yanukovych, in November 2004 was a sham and she was prepared to brave freezing winter temperatures to show how she felt.Eventually, the protesters prevailed and the country’s supreme court annulled the result, with the rerun election won by the western-orientated Viktor Yushchenko.Nearly five years after those heady days, which came one year after the Rose Revolution in Georgia propelled Mikheil Saakashvili to power, Ms Dashkovckrr has, like many of her countrymen, grown disenchanted. The Orange Revolution, she now says, “was a mistake”.“Because we didn’t live better,” she said. “I don’t think people have become more happy. We believed in this revolution. We believed in the person. But in the end we have nothing.”In his time in office, Mr Yushchenko has partially regained the good looks he lost so suddenly during the last election campaign after an apparent poisoning, but his political fortunes look harder to salvage.His support in opinion polls has been as low as two per cent, so although recently he officially launched his campaign for re-election in the January presidential polls, his chance of winning is slim.According to Olga Demyanets, 23, a lawyer who took part in the Orange Revolution demonstrations while a student, Mr Yushchenko has represented less of a break with the style of his Moscow-orientated predecessor, Leonid Kuchma, than expected.In particular, many feel he has failed to stem the influence of the oligarchs, the wealthy industrialists who made fortunes when state companies were privatised after Ukraine became independent following the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991.Many oligarchs hold parliamentary seats, and the political system under Mr Yushchenko has failed to become the transparent one many expected after the cronyism complained of during Mr Kuchma’s 10-year spell in power.“There were a lot of hopes connected with the revolution and promises made by the politicians, and they’ve not kept their promises,” Ms Demyanets said.“The same people are running the country. It was promised they would change at the highest level, but for them it was better to make some arrangement with these than to change it.”It is a view echoed by Kristina Bidny, 32, a logistics manager, who said: “The main problem is the oligarchs. They have their people in each party so it doesn’t matter who wins. Corruption is the biggest problem of this country.”A major issue reducing Mr Yushchenko’s effectiveness in pushing through reforms has been a lack of unity within the Orange Revolution camp and in particular his falling out with a former ally during the campaign, Yulia Tymoshenko, who became his first prime minister.Poor parliamentary election results for the former Orange Revolution allies even allowed Mr Yanukovych to secure the prime ministership between 2006 and 2007.Although Mrs Tymoshenko regained the post, relations between her party, All Ukrainian Union Fatherland, and Mr Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine remain at a low ebb.Mr Yanukovych, who at the last presidential election was Mr Kuchma’s favoured candidate, and who heads the Party of the Regions, now stands a better chance than either of his rivals of winning next year’s election.Aside from the political infighting that has plagued the former Orange Revolution allies, Mr Yushchenko has also suffered as a result of Ukraine’s economic difficulties. The country has been heavily affected by the global financial crisis.There have also been tensions with the country’s neighbour, Russia, which has cut gas supplies more than once in a dispute over fees. Many think the regional superpower raised prices to punish Ukraine for Mr Yushchenko’s enthusiasm for EU and Nato membership.Some believe Mr Yanukovych is a more credible candidate than Mr Yushchenko to bring Ukraine out of its economic malaise.“People thought that five years ago some big change was coming, but there was no such change,” said Igor Shcherbyna, 22, a manager in a private company, summing up the disenchantment of many.People expected “stability and a growing of the country and their lives. Yanukovych proclaims he will make it more stable than Yushchenko, and I think that’s why he’s much more popular now”.
Like many of her countrymen, she believed the presidential victory declared for the pro-Russian prime minister, Viktor Yanukovych, in November 2004 was a sham and she was prepared to brave freezing winter temperatures to show how she felt.Eventually, the protesters prevailed and the country’s supreme court annulled the result, with the rerun election won by the western-orientated Viktor Yushchenko.Nearly five years after those heady days, which came one year after the Rose Revolution in Georgia propelled Mikheil Saakashvili to power, Ms Dashkovckrr has, like many of her countrymen, grown disenchanted. The Orange Revolution, she now says, “was a mistake”.“Because we didn’t live better,” she said. “I don’t think people have become more happy. We believed in this revolution. We believed in the person. But in the end we have nothing.”In his time in office, Mr Yushchenko has partially regained the good looks he lost so suddenly during the last election campaign after an apparent poisoning, but his political fortunes look harder to salvage.His support in opinion polls has been as low as two per cent, so although recently he officially launched his campaign for re-election in the January presidential polls, his chance of winning is slim.According to Olga Demyanets, 23, a lawyer who took part in the Orange Revolution demonstrations while a student, Mr Yushchenko has represented less of a break with the style of his Moscow-orientated predecessor, Leonid Kuchma, than expected.In particular, many feel he has failed to stem the influence of the oligarchs, the wealthy industrialists who made fortunes when state companies were privatised after Ukraine became independent following the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991.Many oligarchs hold parliamentary seats, and the political system under Mr Yushchenko has failed to become the transparent one many expected after the cronyism complained of during Mr Kuchma’s 10-year spell in power.“There were a lot of hopes connected with the revolution and promises made by the politicians, and they’ve not kept their promises,” Ms Demyanets said.“The same people are running the country. It was promised they would change at the highest level, but for them it was better to make some arrangement with these than to change it.”It is a view echoed by Kristina Bidny, 32, a logistics manager, who said: “The main problem is the oligarchs. They have their people in each party so it doesn’t matter who wins. Corruption is the biggest problem of this country.”A major issue reducing Mr Yushchenko’s effectiveness in pushing through reforms has been a lack of unity within the Orange Revolution camp and in particular his falling out with a former ally during the campaign, Yulia Tymoshenko, who became his first prime minister.Poor parliamentary election results for the former Orange Revolution allies even allowed Mr Yanukovych to secure the prime ministership between 2006 and 2007.Although Mrs Tymoshenko regained the post, relations between her party, All Ukrainian Union Fatherland, and Mr Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine remain at a low ebb.Mr Yanukovych, who at the last presidential election was Mr Kuchma’s favoured candidate, and who heads the Party of the Regions, now stands a better chance than either of his rivals of winning next year’s election.Aside from the political infighting that has plagued the former Orange Revolution allies, Mr Yushchenko has also suffered as a result of Ukraine’s economic difficulties. The country has been heavily affected by the global financial crisis.There have also been tensions with the country’s neighbour, Russia, which has cut gas supplies more than once in a dispute over fees. Many think the regional superpower raised prices to punish Ukraine for Mr Yushchenko’s enthusiasm for EU and Nato membership.Some believe Mr Yanukovych is a more credible candidate than Mr Yushchenko to bring Ukraine out of its economic malaise.“People thought that five years ago some big change was coming, but there was no such change,” said Igor Shcherbyna, 22, a manager in a private company, summing up the disenchantment of many.People expected “stability and a growing of the country and their lives. Yanukovych proclaims he will make it more stable than Yushchenko, and I think that’s why he’s much more popular now”.
Stop Infighting, Biden Tells Ukraine's Leaders
KIEV, Ukraine -- U.S. Vice President Joe Biden chided Ukraine's political leaders on Wednesday, telling them they had to stop "posturing" if the country was to seal its post-Soviet independence and economic development.
In a speech marked by a sharper tone that contrasted with previous expressions of unflinching support from Washington, Biden said Ukraine stood at a historic moment in building on the gains of the 2004 pro-Western "Orange Revolution.""Literally, you are standing in a moment in history that you have never stood at before, literally," Biden said. "Frankly, your success will bear on the successes or failures of many people in this part of the world."Infighting has pitched Ukraine into non-stop political turmoil since a heady week of street protests in 2004 against electoral fraud swept President Viktor Yushchenko to office.The protests -- and a re-run of a rigged election -- caught the world by surprise and opened the way for Yushchenko to move Ukraine away from its former Soviet master, Russia.Initial euphoria and pledges to secure membership of the European Union and NATO, staunchly supported by the administration of former U.S. president George W. Bush, gave way to bickering and stalled reforms as Ukraine plunged into recession."Ukraine, in my humble opinion, must heed the lesson of history. Effective, accountable government is the only way to provide a stable, predictable and transparent environment that attracts investments ... the economic engine of development," he said.Biden suggested 19th century poet Taras Shevchenko, a national hero who opposed centuries of Russian dominance, would be critical of rows pitting Yushchenko against Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, his estranged ally from the revolution."I think he would also be wondering why the government is not exhibiting the same political maturity as the people," he told the gathering of prominent Ukrainians."Why communications among leaders have broken down to such an extent that political posturing appears to prevent progress, especially now, especially in difficult economic times.COMPROMISE TO REFORM Biden's sharper tone is part of a changed U.S. policy since President Barack Obama took over from Bush, who aggravated ties with Russia by his push for NATO expansion to Russian borders.Biden said Washington would support any decision Ukraine might make on membership of NATO, which is vehemently opposed by Moscow. Most Ukrainians remain opposed to joining NATO, despite Yushchenko's drive to seek membership.Biden encouraged Yushchenko, Tymoshenko and other leaders to resolve differences ahead of a January 17 presidential election. "In a democracy, compromise is not a sign of weakness, it is evidence of strength," he said.Disputes have exasperated the IMF, which has delayed the release of some of the $16.4 billion it has agreed to loan Ukraine to withstand the economic crisis."The path to renewed prosperity runs through the International Monetary Fund which is offering a way out of the current crisis," Biden said. A senior U.S. official said late on Tuesday that Washington would not offer Ukraine any extra loans.The IMF wants authorities to raise domestic gas prices to right the finances of state energy firm Naftogaz, often at the center of rows with Russia, including a three-week New Year cutoff of flows. But that would be unpopular before an election.Many analysts say Russia has used its vast gas resources to keep control over its Western-leaning ex-Soviet neighbors.But Biden suggested Ukraine could cut Russia out of national security concerns by moving to reduce energy consumption, now three times less efficient than in European countries."If you lift Ukraine to the European standards, your need for energy imports will dramatically decline, dramatically," he said. "That would be a boom to the economy and an immeasurable benefit, I respectfully suggest, to your national security."
In a speech marked by a sharper tone that contrasted with previous expressions of unflinching support from Washington, Biden said Ukraine stood at a historic moment in building on the gains of the 2004 pro-Western "Orange Revolution.""Literally, you are standing in a moment in history that you have never stood at before, literally," Biden said. "Frankly, your success will bear on the successes or failures of many people in this part of the world."Infighting has pitched Ukraine into non-stop political turmoil since a heady week of street protests in 2004 against electoral fraud swept President Viktor Yushchenko to office.The protests -- and a re-run of a rigged election -- caught the world by surprise and opened the way for Yushchenko to move Ukraine away from its former Soviet master, Russia.Initial euphoria and pledges to secure membership of the European Union and NATO, staunchly supported by the administration of former U.S. president George W. Bush, gave way to bickering and stalled reforms as Ukraine plunged into recession."Ukraine, in my humble opinion, must heed the lesson of history. Effective, accountable government is the only way to provide a stable, predictable and transparent environment that attracts investments ... the economic engine of development," he said.Biden suggested 19th century poet Taras Shevchenko, a national hero who opposed centuries of Russian dominance, would be critical of rows pitting Yushchenko against Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, his estranged ally from the revolution."I think he would also be wondering why the government is not exhibiting the same political maturity as the people," he told the gathering of prominent Ukrainians."Why communications among leaders have broken down to such an extent that political posturing appears to prevent progress, especially now, especially in difficult economic times.COMPROMISE TO REFORM Biden's sharper tone is part of a changed U.S. policy since President Barack Obama took over from Bush, who aggravated ties with Russia by his push for NATO expansion to Russian borders.Biden said Washington would support any decision Ukraine might make on membership of NATO, which is vehemently opposed by Moscow. Most Ukrainians remain opposed to joining NATO, despite Yushchenko's drive to seek membership.Biden encouraged Yushchenko, Tymoshenko and other leaders to resolve differences ahead of a January 17 presidential election. "In a democracy, compromise is not a sign of weakness, it is evidence of strength," he said.Disputes have exasperated the IMF, which has delayed the release of some of the $16.4 billion it has agreed to loan Ukraine to withstand the economic crisis."The path to renewed prosperity runs through the International Monetary Fund which is offering a way out of the current crisis," Biden said. A senior U.S. official said late on Tuesday that Washington would not offer Ukraine any extra loans.The IMF wants authorities to raise domestic gas prices to right the finances of state energy firm Naftogaz, often at the center of rows with Russia, including a three-week New Year cutoff of flows. But that would be unpopular before an election.Many analysts say Russia has used its vast gas resources to keep control over its Western-leaning ex-Soviet neighbors.But Biden suggested Ukraine could cut Russia out of national security concerns by moving to reduce energy consumption, now three times less efficient than in European countries."If you lift Ukraine to the European standards, your need for energy imports will dramatically decline, dramatically," he said. "That would be a boom to the economy and an immeasurable benefit, I respectfully suggest, to your national security."
Suspect In Ukraine Journalist's Murder Confesses: Officials
KIEV, Ukraine -- A former senior figure in Ukraine's interior ministry has confessed to the murder in 2000 of journalist Georgy Gongadze and implicated high-ranking state officials, authorities said Wednesday.
Asked by reporters if the suspect, arrested on Tuesday, had confessed and if he implicated senior Ukrainian officials in the killing, Vassyl Grytsak, deputy head of the SBU domestic security agency, answered "yes" to both questions."He confirmed his involvement in this crime," Grytsak said at a news conference to announce the arrest.The suspect, Olexy Pukach, was a top Ukrainian interior ministry official at the time of Gongadze's murder.Footage presented as a videotape of Pukach's arrest was shown at the news conference.In it, a corpulent, suntanned man with gray hair purported to be Pukach was apprehended by SBU agents and asked what his relationship was to the Gongadze case.He responded with one word: "Direct."Gongadze, an outspoken critic of the government of then-president Leonid Kuchma, was kidnapped on September 16, 2000. His decapitated body was found near Kiev two weeks later.The murder, branded instantly by Kuchma critics as a political assassination, rocked Ukraine and also triggered an international uproar.Asked if Pukach had participated himself in the murder, Grytsak replied: "Yes."The suspect however did not immediately explain the motive of the killing and told the SBU agents that some of those behind the murder "are already dead" themselves.President Viktor Yushchenko, who came to power in 2004 on the back of a popular uprising against the claim of victory in presidential elections by Kuchma's preferred successor, has long vowed to solve the case.But the affair remains murky despite Wednesday's announcement, which did not resolve whether Kuchma had any role in, or knowledge of, Gongadze's murder.Investigators said Pukach is believed personally to have strangled Gongadze, who was 31 when he was killed. Grytsak said he had agreed to show them the location of Gongadze's severed head, which was never found.Grytsak also said Pukach put up no resistance when the SBU agents arrested him, saying instead: "I have been waiting for you since the beginning."Yushchenko -- who suffered near-fatal poisoning himself on the eve of 2004 elections, with that enquiry at a dead end -- has charged that the former regime had shown no desire to solve the murder and "protected the killer."Those who accuse Kuchma of involvement in the killing point to about 700 hours of recordings said to have been made in secret in his office by a former presidential bodyguard, Mykola Melnichenko.In the recordings, a voice resembling Kuchma's -- though never independently confirmed to be his voice -- says that the journalist should be kidnapped by Chechens or taken somewhere and "stripped naked".The bodyguard, who fled to the United States shortly after releasing the tapes six years ago, later returned to Kiev to answer prosecutors' questions on the killing.A parliamentary commission subsequently ruled the recordings' authenticity could not be proved.While the evidence was ruled inadmissible, the commission nevertheless implicated Kuchma, although the former president has always denied any involvement in, or knowledge of, the circumstances surrounding the death.
Asked by reporters if the suspect, arrested on Tuesday, had confessed and if he implicated senior Ukrainian officials in the killing, Vassyl Grytsak, deputy head of the SBU domestic security agency, answered "yes" to both questions."He confirmed his involvement in this crime," Grytsak said at a news conference to announce the arrest.The suspect, Olexy Pukach, was a top Ukrainian interior ministry official at the time of Gongadze's murder.Footage presented as a videotape of Pukach's arrest was shown at the news conference.In it, a corpulent, suntanned man with gray hair purported to be Pukach was apprehended by SBU agents and asked what his relationship was to the Gongadze case.He responded with one word: "Direct."Gongadze, an outspoken critic of the government of then-president Leonid Kuchma, was kidnapped on September 16, 2000. His decapitated body was found near Kiev two weeks later.The murder, branded instantly by Kuchma critics as a political assassination, rocked Ukraine and also triggered an international uproar.Asked if Pukach had participated himself in the murder, Grytsak replied: "Yes."The suspect however did not immediately explain the motive of the killing and told the SBU agents that some of those behind the murder "are already dead" themselves.President Viktor Yushchenko, who came to power in 2004 on the back of a popular uprising against the claim of victory in presidential elections by Kuchma's preferred successor, has long vowed to solve the case.But the affair remains murky despite Wednesday's announcement, which did not resolve whether Kuchma had any role in, or knowledge of, Gongadze's murder.Investigators said Pukach is believed personally to have strangled Gongadze, who was 31 when he was killed. Grytsak said he had agreed to show them the location of Gongadze's severed head, which was never found.Grytsak also said Pukach put up no resistance when the SBU agents arrested him, saying instead: "I have been waiting for you since the beginning."Yushchenko -- who suffered near-fatal poisoning himself on the eve of 2004 elections, with that enquiry at a dead end -- has charged that the former regime had shown no desire to solve the murder and "protected the killer."Those who accuse Kuchma of involvement in the killing point to about 700 hours of recordings said to have been made in secret in his office by a former presidential bodyguard, Mykola Melnichenko.In the recordings, a voice resembling Kuchma's -- though never independently confirmed to be his voice -- says that the journalist should be kidnapped by Chechens or taken somewhere and "stripped naked".The bodyguard, who fled to the United States shortly after releasing the tapes six years ago, later returned to Kiev to answer prosecutors' questions on the killing.A parliamentary commission subsequently ruled the recordings' authenticity could not be proved.While the evidence was ruled inadmissible, the commission nevertheless implicated Kuchma, although the former president has always denied any involvement in, or knowledge of, the circumstances surrounding the death.
Wednesday 22 July 2009
Biden: US Supports Ukraine's NATO Bid
KIEV, Ukraine -- Washington supports Ukraine's bid to join NATO, and the former Soviet republic is free to choose its allies regardless of what other nations want, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden told Ukraine's president on Tuesday.
Both statements were aimed at Russia, which vehemently opposes NATO membership for its neighbors and is uncomfortable with their desire for greater economic and political integration with the West.Russia warned the U.S. against playing "under-the-carpet games" or building its ties with Ukraine at Moscow's expense.Biden met with President Viktor Yushchenko in Kiev, then said in a speech later that if Ukraine chose to join NATO, "which I believe you have, we strongly support that."Polls, however, have shown a majority of Ukrainians oppose NATO membership.Ukrainian officials were looking for signals that Washington's effort to improve ties with Moscow would not hurt Ukraine's push for integration with the West. Ukrainians also are looking for support as Russia acts to reassert some control over its former Soviet satellite states — most blatantly with its invasion of Georgia last year."We don't recognize, and I want to reiterate this, any spheres of influence. We do not recognize anyone else's right to dictate to any other country what alliance it should seek to belong to, or what relationships, bilateral relationships, you have," Biden said.President Barack Obama stressed at a July 6-8 summit in Moscow that "NATO seeks collaboration with Russia, not confrontation." Obama's speech was part of a White House effort to form a more productive relationship with Russia. Those ties reached post Cold-War lows after last year's Russian-Georgian war.Better ties with Moscow "will not come at Ukraine's expense," Biden said. "To the contrary, I believe it can actually benefit Ukraine. The more substantive relationship we have with Moscow, the more we can defuse the zero-sum thinking about our relations with Russia's neighbors."Welcoming Biden, Yushchenko called Ukraine a "European country where democracy rules.""We are going forward, we have chosen a European path," Yushchenko said.Biden was to meet Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko later Tuesday, as well as key opposition leaders who are also likely to challenge Yushchenko in January's presidential election.Yushchenko and Tymoshenko were allies in the 2004 Orange Revolution, which brought Yushchenko to power. They are now bitter foes, and the rivalry has hampered the government's response to the global economic crisis, which has hit Ukraine hard.That has allowed Viktor Yanukovych, the Moscow-backed presidential candidate who lost the 2004 election but is very popular in Ukraine's largely Russian-speaking east, to come back into the running for the January vote.Biden is also set to meet with Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the reformist former parliament speaker, who plans to run for president.Russia was watching Biden's visit to its former Soviet backyard with keen interest, suspicious that Washington is out to block any moves to bring Ukraine and Georgia back into Moscow's orbit.Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko told a weekly news conference that Moscow is "not usurping or monopolizing anyone's rights," and that all nations are free to choose their partners.But in a warning to Washington, he added, "It's important that this be done transparently, without under-the-carpet games and not at the expense of others' interests."He also suggested the U.S. should keep Ukraine's traditional ties with Russia in mind, saying the regional context and "historical specifics" should be taken into account.The U.S. has repeatedly denied that it seeks to dictate who should rule in any democratic country.Biden on Wednesday visits Georgia, where the opposition is demanding President Mikhail Saakashvili resign over his handling of the war with Russia and what they say is his retreat from democracy.Saakashvili has vowed not to resign before the end of his term in 2013.The Russian army quickly crushed the Georgian army last August after Georgia attacked its own breakaway province of South Ossetia to try to bring it back under control.Thousands of Russian troops remain in South Ossetia and another separatist-held Georgian enclave, Abkhazia, and Russia has recognized both regions as independent nations.Washington said it did not support Georgia's attempt to retake South Ossetia by force.Saakashvili, who had committed thousands of troops for U.S.-led missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, pleaded for military support from Washington during the fighting, but the U.S. did not intervene.
Both statements were aimed at Russia, which vehemently opposes NATO membership for its neighbors and is uncomfortable with their desire for greater economic and political integration with the West.Russia warned the U.S. against playing "under-the-carpet games" or building its ties with Ukraine at Moscow's expense.Biden met with President Viktor Yushchenko in Kiev, then said in a speech later that if Ukraine chose to join NATO, "which I believe you have, we strongly support that."Polls, however, have shown a majority of Ukrainians oppose NATO membership.Ukrainian officials were looking for signals that Washington's effort to improve ties with Moscow would not hurt Ukraine's push for integration with the West. Ukrainians also are looking for support as Russia acts to reassert some control over its former Soviet satellite states — most blatantly with its invasion of Georgia last year."We don't recognize, and I want to reiterate this, any spheres of influence. We do not recognize anyone else's right to dictate to any other country what alliance it should seek to belong to, or what relationships, bilateral relationships, you have," Biden said.President Barack Obama stressed at a July 6-8 summit in Moscow that "NATO seeks collaboration with Russia, not confrontation." Obama's speech was part of a White House effort to form a more productive relationship with Russia. Those ties reached post Cold-War lows after last year's Russian-Georgian war.Better ties with Moscow "will not come at Ukraine's expense," Biden said. "To the contrary, I believe it can actually benefit Ukraine. The more substantive relationship we have with Moscow, the more we can defuse the zero-sum thinking about our relations with Russia's neighbors."Welcoming Biden, Yushchenko called Ukraine a "European country where democracy rules.""We are going forward, we have chosen a European path," Yushchenko said.Biden was to meet Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko later Tuesday, as well as key opposition leaders who are also likely to challenge Yushchenko in January's presidential election.Yushchenko and Tymoshenko were allies in the 2004 Orange Revolution, which brought Yushchenko to power. They are now bitter foes, and the rivalry has hampered the government's response to the global economic crisis, which has hit Ukraine hard.That has allowed Viktor Yanukovych, the Moscow-backed presidential candidate who lost the 2004 election but is very popular in Ukraine's largely Russian-speaking east, to come back into the running for the January vote.Biden is also set to meet with Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the reformist former parliament speaker, who plans to run for president.Russia was watching Biden's visit to its former Soviet backyard with keen interest, suspicious that Washington is out to block any moves to bring Ukraine and Georgia back into Moscow's orbit.Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko told a weekly news conference that Moscow is "not usurping or monopolizing anyone's rights," and that all nations are free to choose their partners.But in a warning to Washington, he added, "It's important that this be done transparently, without under-the-carpet games and not at the expense of others' interests."He also suggested the U.S. should keep Ukraine's traditional ties with Russia in mind, saying the regional context and "historical specifics" should be taken into account.The U.S. has repeatedly denied that it seeks to dictate who should rule in any democratic country.Biden on Wednesday visits Georgia, where the opposition is demanding President Mikhail Saakashvili resign over his handling of the war with Russia and what they say is his retreat from democracy.Saakashvili has vowed not to resign before the end of his term in 2013.The Russian army quickly crushed the Georgian army last August after Georgia attacked its own breakaway province of South Ossetia to try to bring it back under control.Thousands of Russian troops remain in South Ossetia and another separatist-held Georgian enclave, Abkhazia, and Russia has recognized both regions as independent nations.Washington said it did not support Georgia's attempt to retake South Ossetia by force.Saakashvili, who had committed thousands of troops for U.S.-led missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, pleaded for military support from Washington during the fighting, but the U.S. did not intervene.
Biden, Georgia, Ukraine And War
KIEV, Ukraine -- Officially, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is visiting Ukraine and Georgia this week to balance President Barack Obama’s warming relations with Russia and reassure Kiev and Tbilisi that Washington still supports their aspirations to join NATO (but in slow motion, please). Unofficially, his mission is to try to prevent another war in an unstable region that Russia regards as its backyard.
If that sounds over-dramatic, it’s not because hostilities look imminent in either country. Georgia is licking its wounds from last year’s August war over South Ossetia. Ukraine is mired in domestic power struggles ahead of a presidential election next January.And Moscow, while determined to reassert its influence in the former Soviet republics, has enough on its hands with the severe economic fallout from the financial crisis. A major Russian military exercise in the region was well flagged in advance and passed off without leaving raised troop levels or unusual military activity.The European Union monitoring mission deployed in Georgia after the conflict to build confidence reports that the situation on the boundaries of the Russian-backed breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia is broadly calm, with regular talks and a hotline between the Russian command and the EU team used to defuse occasional incidents.The Georgian government has agreed with the EU to limit the activities of its army and police force in the area, while the Russians have replaced troops in South Ossetia with professional border guards. That reduces the risk of an incident over smuggling or stray cattle escalating into armed conflict. Georgia wants to involve the United States in the monitoring mission.The EU has also diplomatically delayed the publication of a report it is compiling on the origins of the war until after next month’s first anniversary.However, both Moscow and Tbilisi consider there is unfinished business. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin does not hide his desire to get rid of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and reverse the “Rose Revolution” in Georgia and the “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine that overthrew post-Soviet rulers more pliant towards the Kremlin.Saakashvili is not resigned to the loss of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, nor to an indefinite wait for NATO membership. In Ukraine, there is the slow-burning fuse of a 2017 deadline for the closure of Russia’s main Black Sea naval base in the Crimea, and the status of the Russian-speaking majority in that region, some of whom have been given Russian passports. And there are frequent disputes over Russian gas supplies.Biden, a forthright but seasoned foreign policy specialist, has a delicate task to calibrate his public and private messages in Kiev and Tbilisi. The Obama administration has put the explosive issue of Ukrainian and Georgian NATO membership on the back-burner, recognising that it is a red rag to Russia and deeply divisive in the alliance (as well as in Ukraine). Washington neo-conservatives view this as appeasement, but it is common sense.Biden needs to reaffirm the West’s commitment to the territorial integrity and political support for democracy in both countries, while privately urging Saakashvili to focus on democratic governance reforms at home (which the president anticipated in a broadcast on Monday) and avoid provocations with the Russians.The Vice President needs to privately tell Ukraine’s divided leaders that their feuding and failure to tackle corruption are doing more to destroy their country’s prospects than any Kremlin-backed destabilisation.That leaves some hard strategic questions unanswered. What would Washington do if an incident in Abkhazia or South Ossetia rekindled armed conflict between Russia and Georgia? How would the United States and the EU respond if unrest erupted in another potential flashpoint, such as Moldova, after a fiercely contested parliament election on July 29? What could the West do if Russia stepped up issuing passports to Russian-speakers in Crimea?The Obama administration may have chosen to emphasise common ground and mutual interests such as nuclear arms control in improving relations with Russia, but the contest over what Moscow calls its “near abroad” is far from over.
If that sounds over-dramatic, it’s not because hostilities look imminent in either country. Georgia is licking its wounds from last year’s August war over South Ossetia. Ukraine is mired in domestic power struggles ahead of a presidential election next January.And Moscow, while determined to reassert its influence in the former Soviet republics, has enough on its hands with the severe economic fallout from the financial crisis. A major Russian military exercise in the region was well flagged in advance and passed off without leaving raised troop levels or unusual military activity.The European Union monitoring mission deployed in Georgia after the conflict to build confidence reports that the situation on the boundaries of the Russian-backed breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia is broadly calm, with regular talks and a hotline between the Russian command and the EU team used to defuse occasional incidents.The Georgian government has agreed with the EU to limit the activities of its army and police force in the area, while the Russians have replaced troops in South Ossetia with professional border guards. That reduces the risk of an incident over smuggling or stray cattle escalating into armed conflict. Georgia wants to involve the United States in the monitoring mission.The EU has also diplomatically delayed the publication of a report it is compiling on the origins of the war until after next month’s first anniversary.However, both Moscow and Tbilisi consider there is unfinished business. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin does not hide his desire to get rid of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and reverse the “Rose Revolution” in Georgia and the “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine that overthrew post-Soviet rulers more pliant towards the Kremlin.Saakashvili is not resigned to the loss of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, nor to an indefinite wait for NATO membership. In Ukraine, there is the slow-burning fuse of a 2017 deadline for the closure of Russia’s main Black Sea naval base in the Crimea, and the status of the Russian-speaking majority in that region, some of whom have been given Russian passports. And there are frequent disputes over Russian gas supplies.Biden, a forthright but seasoned foreign policy specialist, has a delicate task to calibrate his public and private messages in Kiev and Tbilisi. The Obama administration has put the explosive issue of Ukrainian and Georgian NATO membership on the back-burner, recognising that it is a red rag to Russia and deeply divisive in the alliance (as well as in Ukraine). Washington neo-conservatives view this as appeasement, but it is common sense.Biden needs to reaffirm the West’s commitment to the territorial integrity and political support for democracy in both countries, while privately urging Saakashvili to focus on democratic governance reforms at home (which the president anticipated in a broadcast on Monday) and avoid provocations with the Russians.The Vice President needs to privately tell Ukraine’s divided leaders that their feuding and failure to tackle corruption are doing more to destroy their country’s prospects than any Kremlin-backed destabilisation.That leaves some hard strategic questions unanswered. What would Washington do if an incident in Abkhazia or South Ossetia rekindled armed conflict between Russia and Georgia? How would the United States and the EU respond if unrest erupted in another potential flashpoint, such as Moldova, after a fiercely contested parliament election on July 29? What could the West do if Russia stepped up issuing passports to Russian-speakers in Crimea?The Obama administration may have chosen to emphasise common ground and mutual interests such as nuclear arms control in improving relations with Russia, but the contest over what Moscow calls its “near abroad” is far from over.
Fugitive Officer Held In Ukraine Reporter's Murder
KIEV, Ukraine -- A fugitive top policeman charged in the murder of an investigative reporter in Ukraine that triggered a protracted political crisis has been arrested, Ukrainian security forces said Wednesday.
Senior officials said they hoped the arrest Tuesday evening of Oleksiy Pukach would shed light on who ordered the 2000 murder of Georgy Gongadze, head of an internet news agency highly critical of then-president Leonid Kuchma.Pukach, a former general and top interior ministry official, had been on the run since 2003. He was charged in absentia with the murder of Gongadze, whose headless corpse was found outside Kiev two months after he disappeared in September 2000.President Viktor Yushchenko established as a top priority the solving of Gongadze's murder after being swept to power by pro-Western "Orange Revolution" rallies in 2004.Three policemen were arrested soon after and last year were sentenced to long prison terms. But it has not been established who ordered the murder."I believe this time it will not be underlings brought to justice, but those who ordered the murder," Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko told reporters after a cabinet meeting.Yushchenko's spokeswoman said prosecutors believed Pukach had been in charge of a unit of police that tracked the reporter's movements before he was killed.Tapes produced by the speaker of Ukraine's parliament, Oleksander Moroz, purported to show that Kuchma as president had ordered the reporter's murder in discussions in his office.But Kuchma, accused by the opposition and rights groups of hobbling the independent media, denied the allegations and his involvement was never proven.Yuri Kravchenko, the interior minister of the time also implicated by the tapes. He was found shot dead at his country home, in what investigators said was a suicide, within days of Yushchenko vowing to punish those behind the murder.
Tuesday 21 July 2009
Cosmonauts’ Mayor Fights Smuggling Claim
Elections for Star City’s first-ever mayor are mired in scandal after a vast majority of voters, among them famous cosmonauts, backed a candidate who was arrested for smuggling four days before polling day.
The scandal in the tiny, closed town outside Moscow is linked to the far larger smuggling dispute involving flamboyant businessman Telman Ismailov and his Cherkizovsky Market.
The election is also an embarrassing failure for United Russia, because two candidates who ran as independents but have close ties to the party trailed miserably, drawing less than 15 percent between them.
Star City houses the training center for the country’s space program and is also home to many retired cosmonauts. Visitors need a special pass to access even residential areas.
The winning candidate, Nikolai Rybkin, a former deputy director of the cosmonaut training center, was arrested four days before the June 28 elections. Nevertheless, he won 82.6 percent of the vote, according to a tally on the Central Elections Commission’s web site.
Rybkin, a retired FSB colonel, ran as an independent candidate. Runner-up Nikolai Yumanov, an adviser to the United Russia mayor of Shchyolkovo, gained 11.4 percent of the votes. Oleg Sokovikov, who finished third with 2.6 percent, is an assistant of United Russia State Duma Deputy Vladimir Pekarev.
The arrest even boosted Rybkin’s voting tally, Vladimir Reznikov, a member of his campaign team, said by telephone from Star City. “The preliminary rating was a little bit lower,” he said.
Rybkin’s lawyer, Roman Smadich, said Monday that the elections were legal.
“Everything was legal. Elections can only be pronounced invalid by a court decision. So far, there is no legal basis to annul the elections,” Smadich said.
The head of the Moscow region elections committee, Valentina Smirnova, said in a faxed statement that the elections were “valid” and that “Rybkin was elected the head of the given municipal entity.”
Rybkin is being investigated on smuggling charges involving a company called Rosmoravia that allegedly smuggled Chinese goods into Russia via its northwestern borders. Investigators said he was among Rosmoravia’s founders.
He is charged under Article 188 of the Criminal Code, smuggling as part of an organized group, which carries a maximum sentence of 12 years in jail.
The Investigative Committee said in a statement on its web site that two other founders, identified by their surnames Pototsky and Tarakanov, were arrested earlier, without giving a date.
The case is part of the high-profile criminal investigation into Ismailov and his AST Group. The statement on the Investigative Committee’s web site says the goods were sold at markets “including the markets of AST companies.”
Rosmoravia is a brokerage and logistics company, Kommersant wrote in September 2008, saying police had investigated the firm after raiding containers of smuggled goods at Moscow’s giant Cherkizovsky Market.
Rybkin, 62, was listed as a “pensioner” in his campaign materials.
His web site, Starcity.su, writes that he created a Star City Development Foundation last year. The foundation has no connection with Rosmoravia, said Reznikov, the campaign worker.
Rybkin graduated from the KGB Higher School in 1973 and worked as an anti-espionage expert at Star City, his site says. He also took part in special operations abroad. In the 1990s, he was knifed while detaining a serial killer, Vadim Yershov, in Krasnoyarsk, and was awarded a medal for heroism. Yershov was sentenced to death in 1999 for killing 19 people.
In 2000, he started a foundation “to fight corruption and terrorism” called Gvardia, which owns companies involved in IT, metallurgy, aviation and logistics, the web site says. The foundation runs military training courses for young people.
His web site lists charitable activities such as building a rotunda and a Park of Cosmos Traditions, as well as replacing the town’s 12 swans. The original swans were eaten in the perestroika years by vandals who dumped the bones outside the town hall, Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported.
In a statement on his web site dated July 2, Rybkin writes that it’s “too early to comment” but calls the accusations “all mistaken, unfair, hurtful and humiliating.”
“My analysis convinces me that it’s dangerous doing business in Russia and attempts to fight corruption are even more dangerous. I can’t remain silent and am being punished for this.”
Rybkin was questioned by an investigator for the first time on Monday, 27 days after he was detained, his lawyer Smadich said.
Asked whether he felt the investigators were carrying out a serious investigation, Smadich said no. “They just went and arrested him and that’s all, just so he could be in prison.”
Rybkin has influential supporters. Six cosmonauts — Valery Bykovsky, Alexei Leonov, Vladimir Titov, Alexander Volkov, Anatoly Solovyov and Valery Korzun — took out a paid ad in Kommersant on June 14 asking President Dmitry Medvedev “to ensure legality and an objective investigation” of Rybkin’s case.
They described Rybkin as “a respected, decent person” and suggested that his arrest was a deliberate attempt to prevent his election.
“We get the impression that behind the detention of the lawfully elected mayor stand forces that are trying in every way to prevent N.N. Rybkin from entering office,” they wrote in the petition.
Reznikov said the cosmonauts all know Rybkin personally, since he worked at the training center for around 25 years and worked his way up to deputy director.
“Naturally they all knew him and bumped into him,” he said. “It’s not that someone asked them to do it. It’s their honest and open position.”
Residents of Star City also went out on the streets to protest and were filmed by an NTV television crew, Reznikov said. “People are mainly asking about his fate, they want to know what is happening. Everyone believes that this will end in a positive way.”
Smadich said he visited Rybkin on Monday. “His health has strongly deteriorated,” he said. “He’s not young and he has various chronic ailments.”
Under a law signed by Medvedev in May, mayors can be dismissed by local deputies if they fail to carry out their duties for three months. Asked whether deputies might use the law, Smadich said, “I don’t know and so I shouldn’t comment.”
A deputy mayor is carrying out Rybkin’s duties, Reznikov said.
Star City was founded in 1960 as a training center for future cosmonauts. It has never had mayoral elections before because it was previously controlled by the Defense Ministry and classed as a military garrison. Since June 1, it has been reclassified as a “closed administrative territorial entity.”
According to election results published on the Central Election Commission’s web site, around 5,800 residents voted. The turnout was around 53 percent, Reznikov said.
The scandal in the tiny, closed town outside Moscow is linked to the far larger smuggling dispute involving flamboyant businessman Telman Ismailov and his Cherkizovsky Market.
The election is also an embarrassing failure for United Russia, because two candidates who ran as independents but have close ties to the party trailed miserably, drawing less than 15 percent between them.
Star City houses the training center for the country’s space program and is also home to many retired cosmonauts. Visitors need a special pass to access even residential areas.
The winning candidate, Nikolai Rybkin, a former deputy director of the cosmonaut training center, was arrested four days before the June 28 elections. Nevertheless, he won 82.6 percent of the vote, according to a tally on the Central Elections Commission’s web site.
Rybkin, a retired FSB colonel, ran as an independent candidate. Runner-up Nikolai Yumanov, an adviser to the United Russia mayor of Shchyolkovo, gained 11.4 percent of the votes. Oleg Sokovikov, who finished third with 2.6 percent, is an assistant of United Russia State Duma Deputy Vladimir Pekarev.
The arrest even boosted Rybkin’s voting tally, Vladimir Reznikov, a member of his campaign team, said by telephone from Star City. “The preliminary rating was a little bit lower,” he said.
Rybkin’s lawyer, Roman Smadich, said Monday that the elections were legal.
“Everything was legal. Elections can only be pronounced invalid by a court decision. So far, there is no legal basis to annul the elections,” Smadich said.
The head of the Moscow region elections committee, Valentina Smirnova, said in a faxed statement that the elections were “valid” and that “Rybkin was elected the head of the given municipal entity.”
Rybkin is being investigated on smuggling charges involving a company called Rosmoravia that allegedly smuggled Chinese goods into Russia via its northwestern borders. Investigators said he was among Rosmoravia’s founders.
He is charged under Article 188 of the Criminal Code, smuggling as part of an organized group, which carries a maximum sentence of 12 years in jail.
The Investigative Committee said in a statement on its web site that two other founders, identified by their surnames Pototsky and Tarakanov, were arrested earlier, without giving a date.
The case is part of the high-profile criminal investigation into Ismailov and his AST Group. The statement on the Investigative Committee’s web site says the goods were sold at markets “including the markets of AST companies.”
Rosmoravia is a brokerage and logistics company, Kommersant wrote in September 2008, saying police had investigated the firm after raiding containers of smuggled goods at Moscow’s giant Cherkizovsky Market.
Rybkin, 62, was listed as a “pensioner” in his campaign materials.
His web site, Starcity.su, writes that he created a Star City Development Foundation last year. The foundation has no connection with Rosmoravia, said Reznikov, the campaign worker.
Rybkin graduated from the KGB Higher School in 1973 and worked as an anti-espionage expert at Star City, his site says. He also took part in special operations abroad. In the 1990s, he was knifed while detaining a serial killer, Vadim Yershov, in Krasnoyarsk, and was awarded a medal for heroism. Yershov was sentenced to death in 1999 for killing 19 people.
In 2000, he started a foundation “to fight corruption and terrorism” called Gvardia, which owns companies involved in IT, metallurgy, aviation and logistics, the web site says. The foundation runs military training courses for young people.
His web site lists charitable activities such as building a rotunda and a Park of Cosmos Traditions, as well as replacing the town’s 12 swans. The original swans were eaten in the perestroika years by vandals who dumped the bones outside the town hall, Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported.
In a statement on his web site dated July 2, Rybkin writes that it’s “too early to comment” but calls the accusations “all mistaken, unfair, hurtful and humiliating.”
“My analysis convinces me that it’s dangerous doing business in Russia and attempts to fight corruption are even more dangerous. I can’t remain silent and am being punished for this.”
Rybkin was questioned by an investigator for the first time on Monday, 27 days after he was detained, his lawyer Smadich said.
Asked whether he felt the investigators were carrying out a serious investigation, Smadich said no. “They just went and arrested him and that’s all, just so he could be in prison.”
Rybkin has influential supporters. Six cosmonauts — Valery Bykovsky, Alexei Leonov, Vladimir Titov, Alexander Volkov, Anatoly Solovyov and Valery Korzun — took out a paid ad in Kommersant on June 14 asking President Dmitry Medvedev “to ensure legality and an objective investigation” of Rybkin’s case.
They described Rybkin as “a respected, decent person” and suggested that his arrest was a deliberate attempt to prevent his election.
“We get the impression that behind the detention of the lawfully elected mayor stand forces that are trying in every way to prevent N.N. Rybkin from entering office,” they wrote in the petition.
Reznikov said the cosmonauts all know Rybkin personally, since he worked at the training center for around 25 years and worked his way up to deputy director.
“Naturally they all knew him and bumped into him,” he said. “It’s not that someone asked them to do it. It’s their honest and open position.”
Residents of Star City also went out on the streets to protest and were filmed by an NTV television crew, Reznikov said. “People are mainly asking about his fate, they want to know what is happening. Everyone believes that this will end in a positive way.”
Smadich said he visited Rybkin on Monday. “His health has strongly deteriorated,” he said. “He’s not young and he has various chronic ailments.”
Under a law signed by Medvedev in May, mayors can be dismissed by local deputies if they fail to carry out their duties for three months. Asked whether deputies might use the law, Smadich said, “I don’t know and so I shouldn’t comment.”
A deputy mayor is carrying out Rybkin’s duties, Reznikov said.
Star City was founded in 1960 as a training center for future cosmonauts. It has never had mayoral elections before because it was previously controlled by the Defense Ministry and classed as a military garrison. Since June 1, it has been reclassified as a “closed administrative territorial entity.”
According to election results published on the Central Election Commission’s web site, around 5,800 residents voted. The turnout was around 53 percent, Reznikov said.
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