Saturday 30 June 2012
War against Russia is a road to hell
On June 22, Russia remembers the summer day of 1941 - the day when the Great Patriotic War began. There was also the Patriotic War, the 200th anniversary of which will be marked this year too. It was almost the same time of the year, when Napoleon crossed Russia's borders and threatened to destroy the country. Napoleon and Hitler had to experience very hard times when they dared to attack Russia.
Many people will find these coincidences highly interesting.
Napoleon was born in 1760 - Hitler was born in 1889 (a difference of 129 years).
Napoleon came to power in 1804 - Hitler came to power in 1933 (a difference of 129 years).
Napoleon entered Vienna in 1812 - Hitler went to Vienna in 1941 (a difference of 129 years).
Napoleon lost the war in 1816 - Hitler lost the war in 1945 (a difference of 129 years).
This information seems to be very surprising indeed. It was available during the Soviet years. However, one had to search thick textbooks on history and encyclopedias to be able to make such comparisons. Nowadays, it is enough to search the Internet.
Just try to realize: Napoleon and Hitler came to power when they were 44 years old. They both attacked Russia when they were 52. The Emperor and the Fuhrer lost their wars when they were 56.
Many researchers point out similarities in the origin of Napoleon and Hitler, who did not belong to the title nation. Corsica became a French territory a few months before the birth of Napoleon. Austria became a part of Germany as a result of Anschluss, which was conducted under Hitler as a politician. The same cane be said about Stalin too.
However, it is clear that there are more differences than similarities between the two politicians. There was only one major similarity in their lives - they attacked Russia and they had to pay for that.
"The peace that we will conclude will put an end to the disastrous influence, which Russia has been showing on Europe for 50 years. I am going to Moscow, and I will finish it all off in one or two battles. Emperor Alexander will be begging for peace on his knees. I will burn Tula and disarm Russia," Napoleon said.
Adolf Hitler said: "We continue where things ended six hundred years ago. We stop the endless German procession to Southern and Western Europe and turn our eyes towards the land in the east. We finally complete colonial and economic politics of the prewar period and move on the territorial politics of the future. But when in today's Europe we speak of new land, we can think only of Russia and the states bordering on and subordinate to it." "German Armed Forced must be prepared to destroy the Soviet Russia in a short-term campaign before the war against England comes to an end," he wrote in the directive for Operation Barbadossa.
Adolf Hitler did not listen to his country-fellow and the creator of the Second Reich, Otto von Bismarck. Bismarck wrote: "Even the most favorable outcome of the war will never lead to the decomposition of the main forces of Russia, which is based on millions of faithful Russians ... The latter, even if they become separated as a result of international treaties, they will quickly re-connect with each other, as the particles of the cut piece of mercury. This indestructible State of the Russian nation is strong for its climate, territories and its simplicity, as well as for the need to defend its borders constantly. This State, even after complete destruction, will turn into a revengeful enemy."
The above was written more than 50 years before Operation Barbadossa. So it was Hitler, not Napoleon, who did not learn the lesson. Napoleon did not listen to his generals and ministers either. French general and diplomat Caulaincourt strongly strongly advised Napoleon to renounce his proposed expedition to Russia. "The war against Russia is a road to hell," he said.
There are many reasons to explain the death of the Great French Army and the German Wehrmacht on vast Russian territories. "Different nations gave different examples of human ideals. For Chinese - it is a wise man, for Hindu - it is an ascetic, for Romans, it is an emperor, for England and Spain - an aristocrat, for Prussians - a solider. Russia is seen for the ideal of its woman," German researcher Walter Schubart wrote in his work "Europe and the Soul of the East."
General Vasily Petrov, soldier of Victory
General Vasily S. Petrov became a legend during his lifetime. Sculptor Valentin Znoba, who took part in the creation of the Museum of the Great Patriotic War on Poklonniy Hill in Moscow, chose him as a prototype for Soldiers of Victory. The officer who lost both arms in a war, twice Hero of the Soviet Union, remained in the armed forces until his death.
When in a hospital, Vasily Petrov asked that a pencil be attached to the collar of his shirt, and learned to write by holding it in his mouth in two months. First, he carefully spelled his name, then - his rank. Pilot Alexei P. Maresyev had both legs amputated, Vasily S. Petrov lost both arms as a young man.
Captain of Guard Petrov, who took part in bloody battles for the liberation of Kiev in 1943, received his first title of a Hero of the USSR when commanding 1850 anti-tank destroyer regiment that held the famous defense of Bukrynsky place of arms for two days. The 21-year-old officer replaced the killed gunners, and a shell explosion blew off both of his arms up to the shoulders. He was almost buried because he was believed to be dead.
Petrov remembers waking up in a hospital bed and feeling such unbearable pain throughout his body that he screamed until he was fully exhausted. Thinking that his life was over, he smoked a hundred cigarettes a day. Upon recovery, Petrov was offered a position of the second secretary of a district party committee in Moscow, but all he wanted was to be in the battle field.
In the spring of 1944, with the permission of the Supreme Commander Stalin, Major Petrov was again incorporated into the army. However, he learned about it only in 1982, the year of his 60th birthday.
The war was ongoing in Germany. There Petrov saved from his subordinates a German who nearly shot him. When asked why he saved the life of the person who nearly killed him, the Soviet officer said: "The war is over, and it is unfair to take a person's life."
By a decree of the Presidium of the Soviet Union on June 27, 1945 Major Petrov was awarded his second "Gold Star" medal (№ 6091).
Later Petrov wrote his dissertation "Prince Bismarck and the emergence of the German Empire in 1860-1871." During his defense, Petrov was asked by the chairman of the committee: "Don't you think that you are singing praises of the capitalist way of life?" To which he replied: "I do not sing any praises, but merely stating the greatness of the human spirit and the superiority of a model order over chaos." After his words the audience burst into applause, Petrov admitted.
In 1963, Petrov served in a small town of Nesterov in the Lviv region as a deputy commander of the 35th Brigade of tactical missiles. Some of his colleagues tried to depict him as someone who does not pay party fees, arguing that there were no signatures on the fee stubs. Sometimes, Petrov's assistant would sign papers for him.
The vote on expulsion of Comrade Petrov from the Party was about to happen when an operations duty officer knocked at the door of the auditorium where the Party meeting took place. He said that he had an urgent message from the commander of the artillery of the Armed Forces of the USSR. After reading it, the brigade commander said: "Comrades, the Council of Ministers of the USSR awarded Colonel Vasiliy Petrov the rank of Major-General. "
Colonel-General Vasily S. Petrov lived the last years of his life in Kiev. Once he had to be hospitalized. While he was in a hospital, the house where he resided was sold, and his personal items and archives were thrown in the trash. The general's apartment was converted into a museum of the former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir who used to live in this house.
Petrov, who in March of 1994 by a decree of the President of Ukraine was assigned to stay in the military service of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for life, lost his home and lived outside the city in the area of government summer houses in the Concha Zaspa in a one-story wooden house.
Ukrainian prostitutes suffer debacle
In spite of the inflow of football fans in Ukraine for the time of the European Football Championship, the number of clients for Ukrainian prostitutes has not increased. Human rights activists and public figures were saying before the start of Euro 2012 that Ukraine would turn into a big brothel. However, it turns out that it is the fighters against prostitution, who create such a negative image for the country.
In Ukraine, brothels can be found under "Massage Parlor" signs, presumably in the basements of buildings. Some houses of ill fame do not have any signs at all. A client faces a steel door and a doorbell only. The prices for sexual services are equal for both foreigners and locals. The average price makes up nearly 700-800 hryvnas per hour (3,000 rubles or $100).
"There were French and Spanish guys. I can't say that there were many of them," a taxi cab driver said, who often helps foreign tourists find the places that they are looking for in moments of passion.
The local representatives of the most ancient profession in the world said that they did not notice an abrupt increase in the number of clients during the days of the football championship. Many predict an increase of the number of sex tourists prior to major sports tournaments. However, such prognoses do not materialize in most cases. That's what happened in Germany in 2006, when several brothels went bankrupt.
Ukraine was dreading the inflow of sex tourists. Local prostitutes were adding more fuel to the fire. They organized a number of public actions and urged people not to put obstacles for their business.
It is an open secret that Ukraine is one of Europe's leaders in terms of the development of the market of sex services. The advocates of children's rights were highly concerned about the possible rise of children's prostitution in the country. Ukrainian Ombudsman for Children's Rights, Yury Pavlenko, was certain that many "supporters" would come to the country for sexual pleasures, rather than the games of football, and that they would use children to satisfy their lust, the Komsomolskaya Pravda said. It was therefore recommended for Ukrainian parents to take their children out of the hosting cities - Kiev, Kharkov, Donetsk and Lvov.
German publication Bild has recently called Ukraine "a country of prostitutes." The country, penned by German reporter Matias Marburg started with the following lines: "Ukraine is a country of prostitutes. As many as 100,000 women sell their bodies."
The article became a bombshell in Ukraine. The Ukrainians went mad. Officials with the Ukrainian Embassy in Germany expressed their deep concerns in connection with the publication. The journalist had to apologize. He said, however, that he referred to a statement from Inna Shevchenko, an activist of Ukraine's notorious movement Femen. It was Shevchenko who called Ukraine a "brothel." The journalist said that the article in Bild was only a draft, which was published in the newspaper by mistake.
Many football fans said, though, that they came to Ukraine to see football, rather than visit prostitute.
"I came here with my friends to see the country and meet new people. I know that many prostitutes in Europe come from Ukraine and Russia, but I did not even think that the issue of sex tourism was so global in Ukraine. I do not need that I have my wife waiting for me at home," a supporter said.
Rain washes billions of Russian rubles away into dirt
The Rudnevsky bridge, whose repairs began this spring, was re-opened in Vladivostok urgently. The bridge was opened ahead of schedule because of the collapse of the road to the "Summit-2012" that the federal government allocated 21 billion rubles to. The investigation revealed that there was one detail missed out of attention during the construction of the road - the drainage. The first storm was devastating.
A week later, an accident on the road leading to the island Russian concerned the federal government. On Monday, June 18, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev made a request to punish all those responsible for the accident in Vladivostok, where the roadbed of the new site Sedanka-Patroclus literally "slipped" onto the beach and garages of the local residents as a result of torrential rains. The head of the government stressed that those involved in the incident should be punished both in the framework of criminal liability, and financially. In addition, the company that carried out the construction of the new roads, according to the Prime Minister, may expect the worst-case end - bankruptcy.
In this regard, the authorities in Vladivostok continue to investigate the causes of the collapse of the road where billions of federal money have been invested. The section of the road was built specifically for the APEC summit, and was opened in the test mode, but the ambitious project failed right away, which resulted in a number of questions: was it a construction mistake or the desire of certain builders to earn at the public expense. The initiated investigation has led to unexpected results: the builders forgot to build one important detail - the drainage, which became a devastating negligence in heavy rains.
Meanwhile, the Khabarovsk branch of "GiprodorNII" refutes the statement by the Governor of Primorsky Krai, Vladimir Miklushevsky, who arrived on the scene and concluded that the incident was the fault of the designers. Engineers from "GiprodorNII" shift the blame on the creators of the project, a company engaged in construction - JSC "Pacific Bridge Construction Company". At the moment, the responsibility of neither one of the companies has been proven, however, everyone who visited the site confirmed that there was no drainage.
Negligence of the firms- members of the grandiose project of the so-called "road to the summit" have caused a lot of troubles in the capital of Primorye. The first difficulty was experienced by motorists, who on June16, not knowing about the accident, were going to drive on the just opened road. However, the track "Sedanka-Patroclus" was already blocked, causing traffic jams. The authorities, wishing to solve this problem, hurried the maintenance crews working on the Rudnevsky Bridge. As a result, the overpass was started as early as Monday.
The first car on the Rudnevsky bridge built in the 1970's with violation of technology, was a police car, followed by the car of the mayor of Vladivostok Igor Pushkarev, and then the "mere mortals". The bridge is an important artery of the Primorye capital, but it is intended only for car traffic. In order to prevent heavy trucks, constraints will be installed on the viaduct in the form of three-meter rack, otherwise the trucks will destroy the bridge in a few days.
It will not be easy for the pedestrians either, because the pavement is replete with holes and cracks. In addition, there is no lighting on the bridge. But it does not matter, according to local authorities, as the important thing here is that the overpass does not collapse. As the saying goes, one should chose the lesser evil.
Meanwhile, local officials plan to build a new, four-lane Rudnevsky Bridge. This proposal was included in the program "Development of Promorsky Kray by 2017," but it is premature to think about the implementation of this idea. Obviously, until the new route leading to the island Russian starts to operate, Rudnevsky Bridge in its miserable condition would be indispensable for the dispersal of traffic flows in the capital of Primorye.
Another task of the local authorities is to pay compensation to the victims, whose boat garages were under the rubble of a promising road. As noted by the regional administration, all losses will be fully reimbursed. In addition, the government offered them to build new garages on a nearby site, away from the highway under construction. In turn, the victims thought it was a good option, and gave their consent. Vice-governor of Primorsky Krai suggested this week to give the construction of new garages to locals, and if it does not cause objections, the construction work will be conducted by CJSC "TMK."
Meanwhile, the summit will be held in September of 2012, and by that time Sedanka-Patroclus road should be fully restored. However, Dmitry Medvedev at a meeting on June 18 said that the rectification of errors he assigned to the local authorities had to be done as quickly as possible. The current situation in Vladivostok is tightly controlled by First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, and the opening of the new route is scheduled for July 1.
Russia to deliver tanks and helicopters to US-unfriendly states
Russia offered Zimbabwe to conclude an intergovernmental agreement about the mutual protection of investments. Russian companies may thus obtain an opportunity to develop one of the world's largest deposits of platinum. In return, Zimbabwe, which remains under the influence of sanctions from the USA and EU, will receive military hardware from Russia. Moreover, Russia intends to ship a large batch of arms to another US-unfriendly country.
Russia is currently in talks with Zimbabwe about the above-mentioned agreement, the Kommersant Daily wrote with reference to a source in the presidential administration. The document, the newspaper wrote, is being developed in accordance with Putin's decree from May 16th in connection with Russia's intention to enter the market of the African country.
It goes about Darwendale platinum project. Russian Technologies State Corporation has already won the support from Zimbabwean officials during the visit to the country in April, an official with the Kremlin administration said. The Zimbabwean authorities, he added, are interested in the deliveries of Russian arms, particularly helicopters. "It goes about the delivery of rights to Russian Technologies for the development of the deposit in return for helicopters," another official said.
The deposit in Darwendale Valley is the second largest deposit of platinum in the world. It is situated in the south-eastern part of Africa. It also contains palladium, gold, rhodium, nickel and copper. The proven reserves of platinum make up 19 tons with total resources of 755 tons. The potential of the deposit is 43-45 million ounces of platinum, or 1,3-1,4 thousand tons.
The license for the development of Darwendale belongs to Ruschrome Mining - a joint company of the government of Zimbabwe and the Russian center for business cooperation with foreign countries. Martin Rushwaia, a constant secretary of Zimbabwe's Defense Ministry serves as the chairman of Board of Directors of Ruschrome. Andrei Shutov, formerly a businessman in Renova group of companies, presides over the Russian consortium of investors.
Ruschrome received the license for the exploration and development of the deposit for 25 years. All preparations were completed in January of this year, and the company received an opportunity to start the development of the deposit. The total volume of investments in the project makes up $300 million. The estimated production volume - 2 million tons of ore a year, Business-TASS reports.
It is worthy of note that "arms in exchange for goods" schemes used to be practiced by the USSR. Peru, for example, paid fishing quotas to the Soviet Union, Algeria - hydrocarbons, Nigeria - cocoa. However, experts say that the above-mentioned variant - helicopters in exchange for the right to develop the platinum deposit - may not work for Russia due to the instability of the political regime in Zimbabwe.
Robert Mugabe has been ruling Zimbabwe since 1980. The West considers him a dictator. There is a strong opposition in the country that enjoys the support from the West. The opposition may come to power in the country in the foreseeable future. Rumor has it that Mugabe suffers from cancer.
Meanwhile, Russia may send military hardware to another US-unfriendly country - Venezuela. The governmental delegation of Venezuela is negotiating the terms of the delivery of a large batch of T-72 tanks to Caracas within the scope of the Russian loan, the Kommersant said.
This may mark a second large delivery of Russian tanks to Venezuela during the recent two years. The previous delivery of 92 T-72B1B tanks was successfully completed in March of this year.
The new deliveries will be conducted within the framework of the Russian loan of $4 billion. The previous batch was delivered to Venezuela on the base of the 2.2-billion-dollar loan. Russia gave the loan to Venezuela after the latter recognized the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Arms deliveries to Caracas are a part of the strategy of Russia's economic expansion in Venezuela. However, despite the enormous investments, Russia comes second after Belarus on the Venezuelan market. The commodity circulation between the two countries has increased more than 200 times during the recent five years and made up $1.3 billion last year. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has recently called Venezuela a "platform for the Belarusian expansion."
Ambassador Ford a disgrace to diplomacy
Ambassador Ford a disgrace to diplomacy Syria, Ambassador Ford and a Crusaders' Castle
"Diplomacy: The conduct of the relations of one state with another by peaceful means; skill in the management of international relations ... "
"Duplicity: deception; double dealing." (Collins Dictionary.)
Remember that "Crusade"? It is back, it seems - if it ever went away.
On the 16th of September 2001, George W. Bush announced, ". . . this Crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take a while."
Six months later, that designated "dove" of the Bush Administration, General Colin Powell, gave an ultimatum to Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf demanding he be on board to topple the Taliban and neutralize al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Powell, in testimony before a Commission investigating the September 11th attacks (24th of March 2004) stated that, "We gave them twenty-four (or) forty-eight hours, and then I called President Musharraf and said, 'We need your answer now. We need you as part of this campaign - this Crusade.' "
Now, Robert S. Ford, US Ambassador to Syria, has imaginatively resurrected the "Crusade" as diplomatic representative of a President who pledged, at Cairo University in June 2009: "I've come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world ... America is not - and never will be - at war with Islam."(i)
In his article, "The Salvador Option for Syria," (ii) Michel Chossudovsky gives a crash course on the multiply diverse Ambassador Ford, to whom, it must be said, diplomacy would seem to be yet another far away land..
However, even the insightful Professor Chossudovsky was unlikely to have forseen that after Ambassador Ford slunk out of Syria in October last year, having indulged in ten months of provocative, divisive, inflammatory and politically confrontational actions. He would set up a Facebook page (iii), its massive profile picture being the UNESCO World Heritage listed site of what T.E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia") described as, "Perhaps the best preserved and most wholly admirable castle in the world (which) forms a fitting commentary on any account of the Crusading buildings of Syria."
This dominant image on the Ambassador's social networking site is of the Krak de Chevaliers, a Crusaders' castle considered perhaps the finest example of such anywhere. The current fortress was completed in 1031, but captured in the First Crusade in 1099 by Raymond IVth of Toulouse.
Robert Ford's choice for visual statement of his vision for dominance of Syria could surely, hardly be more symbolic and enlightening.
Via Facebook, the Ambassador accuses, incites and rambles to the Syrian people and the world.
On the 20th of June, with an arrogance that should be breathtaking - but little but that comes from the US any more - he lectured Syria's armed forces:
"For this posting, I want to address the members of the Syrian military and their role in this crisis. The role of any nation's military is to defend the country and to protect the people, not to harm them. The United States believes the Syrian military should have an invaluable, integral role to play in the new democratic Syria, if it decides to fulfill its true purpose and stand with the Syrian people now."
Ford queries the army wanting " to help secure the role of the professional military in a democratic Syria by supporting the Syrian people and their transition ..."
He talked of them being used in "President Assad's campaign of torture and terror," of "destruction, massacre," thus: "abhorrent (running) counter to international law and the ethics of military professionalism ... Soldiers should know that under international law, they have a responsibility to uphold basic human rights and that they do not escape responsibility for violations simply because they are subject to orders."
Quite. Has the Ambassador glanced toward the behaviour of US forces in neighbouring Iraq or in Afghanistan? The massacres, rapes of young and old, the use of children as human shields, often luring them with sweets,toys - now well documented - plus torture, disappearances and Stalinesque "re-education centres"?
It has never been adequately established what the scary name "re-education" centre did or taught.
Prior to invading Iraq, prominent military leaders such as Lt. Gen. William Boykin also described the war in evangelical terms, casting the U.S. military as the "army of God."
Indeed Mikey Weinstein, President of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, has stated that a cadre of forty U.S. chaplains took part in a 2003 project to distribute 2.4 million Arabic-language Bibles in Iraq.
A 2003 newsletter for the group notes that, "The goal is to establish a wedge for the kingdom of God in the Middle East, directly affecting the Islamic world."
A Lt. Colonel Gary Hensley expounded on the need to spread the Gospel:
"The special forces guys - they hunt men basically," he said. "We do the same things as Christians, we hunt people for Jesus. We do, we hunt them down. Get the Hound of Heaven after them, so we get them into the Kingdom. That's what we do, that's our business."
Back to the Ambassador who hit the "road to Damascus" on his personal Crusade and who clearly subscribes to the "activists say"school of "fact" gathering, since his claims come from barely a single named source on the ground, and from "informants" in Paris, London and Washington who have risen without trace.
The Syrian military was also, opined Robert Ford: "acting as a leading destabilizing force." That should win the hearts and minds of a proud army, from a proud country, losing numerous friends and colleagues fighting a seemingly foreign fomented insurgency.
Ford should know a bit about destabilizing: "A few short weeks after his arrival" (surely coincidentally) "a wave of pro-democracy protests swept through the Middle East and public protests in Syria launched an uprising. Ford's robust diplomacy on the ground in Syria centered on a strong show of support for the Syrian opposition movement.
Ford's physical presence in Hama, without official sanction from the Syrian government, functioned as a visible statement of support (for the opposition). Ford continued to support the opposition by attending protestor funerals, speaking with Syrians on the ground and through social media, and educating Americans via satellite images and descriptions of the conflict on the Embassy's official website."(v)
Former CIA intelligence officer, Michael Scheuer, has alleged that prior to Ford's flight from Syria, he was traveling across the country inciting groups to overthrow the government.
On the 15th of June, the Facebook update displayed a map: "This map is an update of the one we originally posted on April 27 which shows the number of people displaced by the violence in Syria. The Assad regime is a destabilizing force both within Syria and throughout the region." Verifiable facts were noticeable by omission.
Of course, no US propaganda campaign would be complete without a mass grave, so an aerial view of a patch of land which contextually means absolutely nothing, is obligingly declared one. (Don't mention Falluja, Najav, Kerbala, Basra, Baghdad, Mosul, Tel Afar ...).
On the 22nd of June, the entry cited Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accusing Syria of: "... not doing enough to stop slavery ..." That one really does come from the "Must do better" collection.
The following day was the gleeful announcement that, "The head of the Syrian Olympic Committee, General Mowaffak Joumaa, has been refused a visa to travel to London for the Olympic Games." (Given London's missile-loaded war ships, ground to air missiles on the roofs, the attack helicopters, the drones, the experimental "sonic weapon" and thousands of twitchy, armed to the teeth FBI agents, for the Olympics, he may anyway feel safer in Syria).
The Ambassador without an Embassy is also worried about the Crusaders' castle. His entry on the subject reads:
"The Krak de Chevaliers/Qala'at al-Hosn was chosen as a UNESCO World Heritage Site because it is a gem of Crusader ... architecture. Are the Syrian authorities fulfilling their obligations to the Syrian people and to the international community when it comes to site preservation and protection?"
This is apart from the fact that the "Syrian authorities" may have other things on their minds and the Castle has stood for approaching a thousand years, perhaps Robert Ford's concern for the regional heritage of the "international community" should also address America's destruction of Babylon, damage to Ur (ongoing under his watch whilst serving at the US Embassy in Baghdad 2004-2005), the sacking of Iraq's treasures in the National Museum, the looting of libraries, which has been compared to the historic tragedy of the destruction of the great Library of Alexandria up to sixteen centuries ago. (vi)
The Ambassador's outreach, however, is not getting an entirely glitch free ride, there are persistent dissenters. One, Brian Souter, leaves uncomfortably insightful one-liners, they disappear, but he doggedly returns. Another Anas Salih, left this:
"Hey Yankees, I'm an Iraqi and know all your Hollywood stories in Iraq, so you better not fall in the same mistake again. Al Qaeda in Syria killing hundreds of people each day in the name of their belief - there is no way that the Syrian regime is doing all this to stay in power.
"It is crystal clear now that this is not a revolution, it is insurgency and terrorism. Every day, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar are providing funding of millions of dollars to arm the opposition ... no matter how hard those terrorists will try, eventually you will see that Bashar (al Assad) has nothing to do with any killing or bombing.
Hopefully not too late because each day another soul is being taken from its body. The lives we have lost in Iraq, kids ,women, men and animals all because of you, USA, so don't try to be a hero and show compassion (sic) now ... " (Removed in last twenty-four hours, but copied directly and only spelling corrected.)
Ambassador Ford has written that there are "parallels" with Syria and the Balkans. The cynic might say the "parallel" is the alleged "hired hands." Historian, David Halberstam, ("War in a Time of Peace" pb 2003, p347) quotes deputy to the Balkans "Tzar" Richard Holbrooke, Bob Frasure - regarding US training and arming of the Croats - who passed Holbrooke a scribbled note in a meeting, on the back of a place card, "Dick, we 'hired' these guys as our junkyard dogs because we were desperate ... this is no time to get squeamish ..."
On the 7th of May, "Robert S. Ford was presented with the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library by Caroline Kennedy. He was honored for his bold and courageous diplomacy which has provided crucial support to Syrians ..."
Crusade: "Medieval military expeditions undertaken by the Christian powers ... to recapture the Holy Land from the Muslims."
Ukraine Is Falling Behind Moldova, Georgia And Armenia In European Integration
KIEV, Ukraine -- In the European Union’s second Eastern Partnership Integration Index (EPII) report, trends evident already last year are continuing.
Ukraine is moving “away from its one-time status as the ENP [European Neighborhood Policy] poster child.”
This report confirms the EU’s assessment of the first year of the new ENP.
“The area of deep and sustainable democracy experienced a further deterioration in 2011,” and “several leading opposition figures, including former Prime Minister Tymoshenko, were subjected to selective justice, characterized by un-transparent judicial processes,” the EPII proclaims.
According to the EPII, Moldova is the “most willing reformer,” with Georgia ranked poor on democracy but good in other reforms.
Ukraine’s democratic and business climate rankings are falling even in comparison with Armenia.
Moldova, Georgia and Armenia are ranked better than Ukraine in market economic reforms, fighting corruption and the independence of the judiciary.
Ukraine is the only Eastern Partnership country where the business climate has declined.
Armenia’s dialogue with the EU is more advanced than Ukraine’s, and in Kiev there is a lack of political will “to bring the country’s norms and standards closer to those of the EU,” according to Brussels.
After being elected to power, Viktor Yanukovych closed the presidential and government bodies, which were responsible for European integration, and there is no longer a single institution tasked with coordinating this process.
This contrasts sharply with the situation in Chisinau and Tbilisi.
Moldova’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration (who is also Deputy Prime Minister) and Georgia’s State Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration are senior positions in their respective governments that reflect the Moldovan and Georgian leadership’s prioritization of European integration.
Based on trends in 2011-2012 and undemocratic elections forecast for this upcoming October, the EPII will likely rank Armenia ahead of Ukraine by 2013.
Sources in the EU’s European External Action Service have said, “We have huge doubts about whether the [October parliamentary] elections can be declared free and fair if Yulia Tymoshenko and other opposition leaders will not be able to take part in them. In this case, it will be very difficult to recognize the elections as having taken place in accordance with European standards”.
Deputy Prosecutor-General Renat Kuzmin has categorically stated that imprisoned opposition leaders Tymoshenko and former Minister of Internal Affairs Yuriy Lutsenko cannot participate in this year’s elections.
Kuzmin said, “They are condemned by the Ukrainian courts and their verdicts have entered into force. Under current legislation, individuals cannot participate in elections with outstanding and expunged convictions”.
Only three percent of Ukrainians believe this year’s elections will be democratic, according to a June Razumkov Center poll.
Ukraine began its negotiations for an Association Agreement (AA) with the EU in 2007 and for a Deep Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) a year later.
Negotiations were expected to be finalized in 2012.
Current Eastern Partnership favorites, Moldova (which has successfully closed 23 out of 25 chapters in its AA negotiations) and Georgia, launched negotiations in 2010, and they are expected to be completed by next year.
With Ukraine’s AA “suspended,” according to German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, Moldova and Georgia will be integrated closer into Europe before Ukraine.
Disillusionment with Ukraine is deepening in both Brussels and Washington. EU Ambassador to Ukraine Jose M. P. Teixeira was asked if Ukraine had lived up to the EU’s expectations.
He replied, “Of course not! Four years ago we expected completion not only of negotiations by 2012 but, more importantly, implementation of the Association Agreement, and we expected progress in reforms”.
Former NATO Secretary General and EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana said the same: “For myself, Ukraine is one of the biggest frustrations of my life” blaming the “lower than average level” and “underdeveloped and weak” Ukrainian political class.
Head of the Socialist political group in the European Parliament Hannes Swoboda revealed that his party had earlier frozen and was now annulling its 2010 cooperation agreement with the Party of Regions because of undemocratic policies by the Yanukovych administration.
Former European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek and former head of Ukraine’s presidential administration Viktor Medvedchuk both see Ukraine as already internationally isolated.
Medvedchuk pointed to the unique situation where Washington, Brussels and Moscow all have poor relations with Kiev.
EU leaders, such as Teixeira and Polish President Bronislaw M. Komorowski, are saying the AA can only be signed if Ukraine’s elections are democratic.
But this will be impossible without the participation of opposition leaders.
Ukraine’s isolation will therefore grow after the elections and, according to former US Ambassador to Ukraine Steven Pifer, “enter a state of “cold war”."
Ukrainian analyst Olga Shumylo-Tapiola explains that “the Ukrainian leadership does not believe the EU is serious about its values”.
Kuzmin condemned Western criticism of the selective use of justice in Ukraine as “double standards,” a traditional Soviet and current Russian response.
Kuzmin ridiculed “all of these ‘black lists’ and of all of this nonsense, which is discussed in the media,” and, in typically Soviet conspiratorial terms, wondered whether the goal was the removal of Yanukovych from power.
European MEP Pavlo Koval believes the EU will introduce sanctions after the elections and these could take the form of a visa ban, blocking of bank accounts, and freezing of official visits and meetings.
Ukrainian deputy Taras Chornovil, whose former wife and child live in Germany, has revealed that visas have already become more difficult to receive even for official people like himself.
Nevertheless, for Europe to introduce sanctions against Ukraine, the EU would have to close many current avenues for incoming Ukrainian capital.
The EU has never introduced tough regulations on capital flows and money laundering to the same extent as the United States.
Since 2010, when Yanukovych was elected, 400 billion hryvni ($53.4 billion) has been sent offshore by Ukrainian oligarchs and banks to EU countries and British Commonwealth countries, which act as tax havens.
This is more than the 2012 Ukrainian state budget of 367 billion hryvni ($45.4 billion).
In the first two months of this year, another $87 billion was transferred.
EU member Cyprus, which accounts for a third of FDI into Ukraine, received the bulk of these capital flows – $51.5 billion.
Is former Ambassador Pifer therefore correct when he states the US and EU have the same concern for democratic values in Ukraine?
Or are business and stability more important for the EU?
The EPII results point to how the Arab Spring embarrassed the EU because Brussels “favored stability over democracy”.
Yanukovych, meanwhile, does not see problems and continues to recant his devotion to European values.
Answering questions on his country’s troubled relationship with the EU, Yanukovych told Time magazine, “If Europe does not see us as part of Europe, we will build Europe here in Ukraine”
Russia Refuses To Let Ukraine Cut Gas Imports
MOSCOW, Russia -- Russia insists on sticking to its current gas supply agreement with Ukraine, the head of Russian gas giant Gazprom Alexei Miller said on Wednesday, despite repeated calls for its review by Kiev, which considers the deal unfair.
Gas disputes between Moscow and Kiev worry Gazprom's European consumers, because conflicts over pricing between the two have in the past disrupted Russian gas supplies to Europe, which are mostly sent via pipeline through Ukraine.
After failing to get a price discount from Moscow in prolonged negotiations throughout 2011, Ukraine has sought to cut the volume of its imports of gas, which were set at 52 billion cubic metres (bcm) a year under a 2009 agreement.
But Miller said on Wednesday that Gazprom was against cutting either the volume or the price of supplies.
"We are working strictly in line with the contract, strictly in line with this volume," Miller told reporters after a Russian government delegation led by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev held talks with the Ukrainian government in Kiev.
"We see no reasons to review the price," he added.
Ukraine aims to reduce costly gas imports to 27 billion cubic metres this year and cut them further in the future by saving energy, switching to coal, increasing domestic gas production and diversifying its imports.
In line with that plan, Ukrainian gas imports from Russia fell 49 percent year-on-year in January-May to 12.8 billion cubic metres (bcm).
Ukraine imports about two-thirds of the gas it consumes from Russia at a price that has been rising steadily for the last few years.
It has been paying $425 per 1,000 cubic metres in the second quarter, up from $416 in the previous quarter.
Moscow has said it will cut the price for Ukraine only if Gazprom is allowed to buy into Ukrainian gas pipelines.
Ukraine has so far refused to accept the trade-off.
STRETCHED FINANCES
Monthly gas bills, which sometimes reach $1 billion have stretched the finances of Ukraine state energy company Naftogaz and the state in general, prompting them to borrow, sometimes from Gazprom itself.
This month Gazprom agreed to make an advance payment of $2 billion to Naftogaz for gas transit so the company could afford to fill up its storage facilities, which help Russia meet peak European demand in winter.
"If Ukraine needs more money to fill up underground storage facilities in order to live through the next winter without any issues, we will consider providing these additional funds," Miller said on Wednesday.
Russia's refusal to cut the price and volume of gas supplies makes it harder for Ukraine to secure fresh funding from the International Monetary Fund, which wants the Kiev government to hike gas and heating prices for households.
Ukraine heavily subsidises such supplies at a great cost, but eliminating the subsidies would be a politically risky move for the government.
Outcast Belarus Leader To Attend Euro 2012 Finals
KIEV, Ukraine -- Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, a pariah in many European countries, will attend the final of the Euro 2012 soccer championship in Ukraine, a Belarussian diplomat said on Wednesday.
The move makes Lukashenko the only foreign state leader so far set to attend the Ukrainian leg of the championship - with the exception of Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski, whose country is co-hosting the event.
Lukashenko will meet Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich on July 1 before watching the game later in the day, Interfax news agency quoted Belarussian ambassador Valentin Velichko as saying.
The European Union has introduced sanctions such as travel bans and asset freezes against Lukashenko and some of his officials, accusing his government of human rights abuses and political repression.
A number of European politicians have boycotted the soccer tournament in protest against Ukraine's treatment of opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko.
Tymoshenko, a former prime minister and key opponent of Yanukovich, was sentenced to seven years in prison on abuse-of-office charges last October in a case the West said smacked of selective justice.
The European Union has since shelved landmark deals on free trade and political association with Kiev over the issue, and urged Tymoshenko's release.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has likened Yanukovich to Lukashenko, saying last month that "in Ukraine and Belarus people are still suffering under dictatorship and repression".
Although they face similar problems in their relations with the West, ties between Yanukovich and Lukashenko are far from friendly.
Berating him as a "lousy" leader, Lukashenko tore into Yanukovich last April after being left out of ceremonies commemorating the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, as Kiev sought to secure attendance by senior EU officials.
This time around, Yanukovich himself has been left isolated and has had to share his VIP boxes at local stadiums mostly with officials from the European soccer governing body UEFA and the Ukrainian government.
Ukrainian courts this week adjourned hearings in Tymoshenko's appeal against last year's conviction and in a new tax evasion case against her until after the Euros, putting off decisions that could further sour EU-Ukraine ties.
Merkel May Travel To Ukraine For Euro 2012 Final
BERLIN, Germany -- If Germany wins its Euro 2012 semifinal match against Italy on Thursday, Angela Merkel will be put in a tricky situation.
If the German chancellor, a huge soccer fan, attends the final game in co-host country Ukraine, she could risk looking soft following human rights abuses in the country against Yulia Tymoshenko.
Angela Merkel rarely lets football get in the way of politics.
For last Friday's quarterfinal match against Greece, the German chancellor flew straight from Rome, where she held four-way euro crisis talks with European leaders, to Gdansk in co-host country Poland to cheer on her country's team.
But with the final of the European Football Championships looming this weekend in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, Merkel may face a tough decision on Sunday between supporting her beloved national team and holding a firm line against Ukraine, where opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko is sitting in prison after her questionable conviction on charges relating to alleged abuse of her position as former prime minister.
In May, Merkel said that people in Ukraine suffer under "dictatorship and repression," during a speech to Germany's federal parliament, the Bundestag.
She had called for a political boycott of the games while Tymoshenko languished in prison and excused herself from the German team's first-round matches in the country.
So far she has only attended the games in Poland in an effort to pressure Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych to release Tymoshenko.
Tymoshenko is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence following her conviction in a dubious trial of abusing her power in office in negotiating a 2009 gas deal with Russia during her term as prime minister.
She claims that her fierce political rival Yanukovych, who beat her for the presidency in February 2010, is exacting revenge on her.
Tymoshenko also claims she was assaulted by prison guards after she refused treatment from Ukrainian doctors for a chronic back ailment.
Presently, the former prime minister is being treated by physicians from Berlin's Charité Hospital at a hospital in Kharkiv.
So far other German and European politicians have also boycotted the games in Ukraine, leaving Yanukovych's VIP box bereft of international leaders.
About-Face
Now Merkel may be reconsidering her stance.
German news agency DPA is reporting that Merkel told German team manager Oliver Bierhoff that she would attend the final in Kiev, despite her earlier statements that she would only go if Tymoshenko's situation improves.
"She congratulated us and naturally hopes that we have further success, because she would come to the final," said Bierhoff after Germany's quarterfinal win against Greece.
Though she will miss Thursday's semifinal game against Italy in Warsaw, Poland, because of euro crisis talks in Brussels, Merkel's football fandom is well known.
"It was great that she was there again," team captain Philipp Lahm said about Merkel's 10-minute visit to the team locker room after Friday's quarterfinal game.
"She congratulated us and wished us lots of luck for the semifinal," said top player Mesut Özul.
But even as the German team's prospects of making it to the final appear to be improving, Tymoshenko's circumstances are worsening.
A Ukrainian court decided Tuesday that it would delay her appeal hearing to July until after the Euro 2012 final.
Yanukovych has said he would not intervene in the case until the trials and appeals process has ended.
In the meantime, Ukrainian prosecutors continue to lodge fresh charges against Tymoshenko.
Officially the Chancellor's office hasn't released Merkel's football travel plans, saying she would make a decision on whether to go to Kiev for the final on short notice.
"For now the focus of journalists as well as the football players should be entirely on the semifinal match," her spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters.
"If it goes as we all hope it does, then we can talk about the next step."
At major football tournaments, the German national team has never prevailed over Italy, so the tensions will be high in the run-up to Thursday's match.
The Wrong Message?
Critics are saying that Merkel's attendance in Kiev at the Euro 2012 finals would fly in the face of efforts to improve the human rights situation in Ukraine.
At earlier matches European Unions politicians unfurled banners that read "Release all political prisoners" and "Fair play in football and politics."
Football fans have been wearing T-shirts with the slogan "Free Yulia."
Even if Merkel first visited Tymoshenko in prison, such a trip would send the "wrong message entirely," Viola von Cramon, spokesperson for sporting issues for the Green Party's group in the German parliament told the daily Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung.
If Merkel were to sit next to Yanukovych in his VIP box, it would send the message that she supports him and his re-election in October, von Cramon argued.
Finally, even if an official from Euro 2012's organizing body, like UEFA chief Michel Platini, were to sit between Merkel and the Ukrainian president, the meeting could still prove awkward for the chancellor.
"I don't want to see any pictures of the chancellor celebrating with Yanukovych," Green Party politician Tom Königs told DPA, also expressing his anger over Tymoshenko's treatment in prison.
"If (Merkel) wants to be a part of it, she would make a lot more fans happy if she came to the fan mile in Berlin."
Russia Refuses To Let Ukraine Cut Gas Imports
MOSCOW, Russia -- Russia insists on sticking to its current gas supply agreement with Ukraine, the head of Russian gas giant Gazprom Alexei Miller said on Wednesday, despite repeated calls for its review by Kiev, which considers the deal unfair.
Gas disputes between Moscow and Kiev worry Gazprom's European consumers, because conflicts over pricing between the two have in the past disrupted Russian gas supplies to Europe, which are mostly sent via pipeline through Ukraine.
After failing to get a price discount from Moscow in prolonged negotiations throughout 2011, Ukraine has sought to cut the volume of its imports of gas, which were set at 52 billion cubic metres (bcm) a year under a 2009 agreement.
But Miller said on Wednesday that Gazprom was against cutting either the volume or the price of supplies.
"We are working strictly in line with the contract, strictly in line with this volume," Miller told reporters after a Russian government delegation led by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev held talks with the Ukrainian government in Kiev.
"We see no reasons to review the price," he added.
Ukraine aims to reduce costly gas imports to 27 billion cubic metres this year and cut them further in the future by saving energy, switching to coal, increasing domestic gas production and diversifying its imports.
In line with that plan, Ukrainian gas imports from Russia fell 49 percent year-on-year in January-May to 12.8 billion cubic metres (bcm).
Ukraine imports about two-thirds of the gas it consumes from Russia at a price that has been rising steadily for the last few years.
It has been paying $425 per 1,000 cubic metres in the second quarter, up from $416 in the previous quarter.
Moscow has said it will cut the price for Ukraine only if Gazprom is allowed to buy into Ukrainian gas pipelines.
Ukraine has so far refused to accept the trade-off.
STRETCHED FINANCES
Monthly gas bills, which sometimes reach $1 billion have stretched the finances of Ukraine state energy company Naftogaz and the state in general, prompting them to borrow, sometimes from Gazprom itself.
This month Gazprom agreed to make an advance payment of $2 billion to Naftogaz for gas transit so the company could afford to fill up its storage facilities, which help Russia meet peak European demand in winter.
"If Ukraine needs more money to fill up underground storage facilities in order to live through the next winter without any issues, we will consider providing these additional funds," Miller said on Wednesday.
Russia's refusal to cut the price and volume of gas supplies makes it harder for Ukraine to secure fresh funding from the International Monetary Fund, which wants the Kiev government to hike gas and heating prices for households.
Ukraine heavily subsidises such supplies at a great cost, but eliminating the subsidies would be a politically risky move for the government.
Ukraine: Corruption Blamed For AIDS Non-Treatment
KIEV, Ukraine -- Two years ago, Hryhoriy, a retired police officer from a provincial Ukrainian town, nearly died of AIDS.
Yet the ghostly, emaciated father of two considers himself lucky because he eventually got treated at a Kiev clinic and is now slowly recovering.
Unlike the 53-year-old Hryhoriy, tens of thousands of fellow Ukrainians infected with HIV are not getting any treatment at all because the state says it doesn't have enough money.
A day before Elton John and Queen sing in the Ukrainian capital in a charity concert to raise AIDS awareness, advocacy groups are accusing the government of embezzling millions of dollars in corrupt drug tenders and thus depriving patients of vital treatment.
They also say that with AIDS deaths up 20 percent since last year as a result of non-treatment, Ukraine can hardly afford to spend billions of dollars on hosting the Euro 2012 football championships ending Sunday.
Ukraine has one of Europe's biggest AIDS epidemics with about 1 percent of the adult population infected with HIV, the virus the causes AIDS, according to the World Health Organization.
Ukraine is a leading recipient of aid from The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which covers about 10 percent of the country's needs, the rest coming from state coffers.
Of the estimated 450,000 Ukrainians who are HIV-positive, 70,000 require urgent treatment today.
But only 28,000 are receiving it, leaving over 40,000 of patients without anti-retroviral therapy, which could greatly prolong their lives, according to WHO.
In a country where the state has declared its commitment to procuring HIV medication and providing treatment, those patients are left to the mercy of the disease.
"It's alarming. These figures definitely show that the country, the government and international organizations should pay much more attention," said Dr. Igor Pokanevych, head of the WHO Country Office in Ukraine.
"More resources should be allocated to fight against AIDS in this country."
But advocacy groups charge that the government in fact has the necessary funds to treat all of its AIDS patients.
They accuse Health Ministry officials of embezzling money that should be used to treat patients by buying AIDS drugs at hugely inflated prices and then pocketing kickbacks.
Pokanevych said that a complicated system of tenders for drug procurement allows the government to purchase drugs up to 5 times the market price.
Had the drugs been purchased at a fair price, the government would have had the money to treat all those 40,000 patients who are left untreated today, Pokanevych said.
Dmytro Sherembey, an activist with the All-Ukrainian Network of People Living with HIV, a leading AIDS advocacy group in Ukraine, said his group recently purchased a package of an anti-retroviral drugs for 3.5 hryvna ($0.43) per tablet, while the government bought 14 million hryvna ($1.8 million or euro 1.4 million) worth of the same drug for 7.80 hryvna ($0.97) per tablet.
He accused the Health Ministry of purchasing AIDS drugs from friendly middlemen companies and then pocketing millions of dollars in kickbacks.
"If a patient is not receiving vital drugs, in the end he dies," Sherembey said.
"Corruption is a bulldozer that is destroying Ukrainians."
Health Ministry officials were not available for comment due to public holidays.
Previously, the Health Ministry has denied accusations of corruption and insisted that major drug buyers like the Global fund, which paid for Sherembey's drug purchase, had better deals because they bought more.
Sherembey, who is now leading a campaign to get the government to earmark 400 million hryvna ($50 million or euro 40 million) for AIDS treatment and prevention for next year, says Ukraine should not have spent $6.4 billion on hosting Euro 2012, when tens of thousands of AIDS patients are at risk of dying without treatment.
"I also love football, I love many things, but I love life more," Sherembey said.
The construction of the Olympic stadium in Kiev, which will proudly host Sunday's final, cost the government $550 million — enough to treat all of the country's patients currently in need of therapy for many years to come, according to Sherembey.
Hryhoriy, the AIDS patient, knows this first hand.
In 2009, after months of feeling exhausted, running a fever and losing weight, he was diagnosed with AIDS, which he believes he contracted while donating blood or at a dentist's office.
He declined to give his last name, out of fear of being stigmatized by society, saying none of his friends or family except for his wife knows his condition.
Hryhoriy spent a year being bounced from one hospital to another where doctors were poorly trained and lacked the necessary drugs; he finally ended up at the Hromashevsky Institute for Epidemiological and Infectious disease in Kiev, one of the country's top AIDS hospitals, where he was finally put on anti-retroviral therapy.
"I was almost gone, I was already ready to meet the angels so to speak," Hryhoriy, clad in a red T-shirt and blue sweat pants, said at the clinic.
Since his disease started, Hryhoriy has had to sell his car and the auto repair shop that he started after retiring from the police.
He is now surviving on what his wife earns by selling shoes at a local outdoor market.
He spends his entire monthly pension of 1050 hryvna ($130 or euro105) on medications unrelated to AIDS.
"The government should pay the most attention to people like us," Hryhoriy said bitterly.
"Nobody is immune to this, it could happen to them (government officials) as well."
Yaroslava Lopatina, one of the doctors at the Hromashevsky clinic treating Hryhoriy, said his health has now improved and he may live another 10-15 years, reaching the national life expectancy for men of 65.
But Lopatina's heart aches when she sees other frail patients who had not been put on anti-retroviral therapy soon enough, causing the disease to advance and leaving them so ill that they can no longer lead a normal life.
"I feel depressed, I am in despair — why does it have to be this way, why didn't they start treatment earlier? It's a tragedy," Lopatina said.
"I enter the hospital ward and I see four young men with beautiful hands, legs, bodies, who could be living in peace, working, getting married, but instead they lie here sick and miserable."
Gazprom May Sue Over 2012 Ukraine Contract Violations
MOSCOW, Russia -- Russian gas giant Gazprom may sue Ukraine if Kiev reduces imports below the minimum contracted volumes of 41 billion cubic meters for 2012, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said on Friday.
"If the minimum contract volume is not purchased, it may be grounds for sueing Ukraine," Miller told a news conference, adding the contract signed with Ukraine still stipulated Russian gas supplies in 2012 at 52 billion cu m.
Under the contract, Ukraine can accept not less than 80 percent of the contracted sum.
Ukrainian Energy Minister Yuriy Boyko announced in January that Ukraine was seeking to cut Russian gas imports to 27 billion cubic meters, from the 2012 contracted volume of 52 bcm.
This week Boyko said Kiev had agreed with Gazprom to import 27 bcm of natural gas from Russia next year, but Gazprom denied this.
Ukraine has long been seeking to alter the terms of the 2009 gas deal, tying the price of gas to oil prices, which have risen strongly since 2009 and boosted Ukraine's gas bill.
Miller also said gas discounts for EU countries were based on huge bilateral projects, while Russia and Ukraine did not have similar deals.
"We don’t have such qualitative cooperation and bilateral mega-projects in gas production and transportation with Ukraine [as we have with Europe]," Miller added.
Ukraine is contracted to pay $416 per cubic meter of Russian gas in 2012. Kiev insists the price and volume of its gas imports should be reduced.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov has said $200 per 1,000 cubic meters is a fair gas price for Ukraine, while Gazprom says the company sees no reason to revise the standing contract.
Russia has previously said Ukraine has missed its chance to alter gas purchase volumes for this year as the annual contracted volume has to be changed at least six months before the start of gas supplies.
"If the minimum contract volume is not purchased, it may be grounds for sueing Ukraine," Miller told a news conference, adding the contract signed with Ukraine still stipulated Russian gas supplies in 2012 at 52 billion cu m.
Under the contract, Ukraine can accept not less than 80 percent of the contracted sum.
Ukrainian Energy Minister Yuriy Boyko announced in January that Ukraine was seeking to cut Russian gas imports to 27 billion cubic meters, from the 2012 contracted volume of 52 bcm.
Gazprom reacted by stating the current gas supply contract did not envisage unilateral changes in gas purchases.
This week Boyko said Kiev had agreed with Gazprom to import 27 bcm of natural gas from Russia next year, but Gazprom denied this.
Ukraine has long been seeking to alter the terms of the 2009 gas deal, tying the price of gas to oil prices, which have risen strongly since 2009 and boosted Ukraine's gas bill.
Miller also said gas discounts for EU countries were based on huge bilateral projects, while Russia and Ukraine did not have similar deals.
"We don’t have such qualitative cooperation and bilateral mega-projects in gas production and transportation with Ukraine [as we have with Europe]," Miller added.
Ukraine is contracted to pay $416 per cubic meter of Russian gas in 2012. Kiev insists the price and volume of its gas imports should be reduced.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov has said $200 per 1,000 cubic meters is a fair gas price for Ukraine, while Gazprom says the company sees no reason to revise the standing contract.
Russia has previously said Ukraine has missed its chance to alter gas purchase volumes for this year as the annual contracted volume has to be changed at least six months before the start of gas supplies.
Monday 25 June 2012
Ukraine Presses Ex-Leader On Murder Charges
KIEV, Ukraine -- A senior prosecutor said Friday that the authorities would compel jailed ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to undergo a medical examination in order to prove she is fit to face charges for complicity in the 1996 killing of a businessman and lawmaker.
Renat Kuzmin, Ukraine's first deputy prosecutor general, said in an interview that investigators had enough evidence to charge her and an associate as "organizers and financers" in the killing.
He said prosecutors would by the end of this month order a forensic medical examination of Ms. Tymoshenko, who has a back complaint, to establish whether she is well enough to be questioned and charged.
He refused to specify what article of the Criminal Code she could be charged under.
Ms. Tymoshenko denies any involvement in the killing.
Mr. Kuzmin's comments Friday indicate that the Ukrainian authorities have no intention of backing down in the face of Western pressure to release the opposition leader.
The jailing of Ms. Tymoshenko, 51 years old, on abuse-of-office charges last fall has frozen the former Soviet republic's previously warm relations with the U.S. and the European Union.
Western officials accuse Mr. Yanukovych of using the courts to sideline his main rival.
The EU has shelved a political-association and free-trade agreement in protest, and several European ministers are boycotting the European soccer championship, which is currently taking place in Ukraine.
Mr. Kuzmin said he believed that Ms. Tymoshenko, a fiery leader of the prodemocracy Orange Revolution in 2004, was "not as ill as she wants to appear."
She is currently being treated in a state-run hospital for a spinal hernia.
Mr. Kuzmin said there were at least a half-dozen criminal cases open against her.
A new trial into alleged tax evasion starts on Monday.
An appeal against her seven-year sentence for abuse of office in brokering a 2009 gas deal with Russia will be heard on Tuesday.
The more sensational murder case could follow.
Mr. Kuzmin said that she, along with former Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko, organized and financed the 1996 killing of Yevhen Shcherban, a lawmaker and businessman who was gunned down at an airport in the east Ukrainian city of Donetsk.
Mr. Kuzmin said Ms. Tymoshenko, who in the mid-1990s headed a gas-trading company, and Mr. Lazarenko "were engaged in a criminal business in Ukraine and eliminated competitors by killing them."
He also linked them to the 1996 murders of businessmen Oleksandr Momot and Oleksandr Shvedchenko, who Mr. Kuzmin said were allies of Mr. Shcherban in resisting attempts by Ms. Tymoshenko to take control of the gas market.
"They were all killed by a gang … working in the service of Lazarenko and Tymoshenko," Mr. Kuzmin said, speaking softly and deliberately.
"Tymoshenko had direct contact with these killers. Money for the murder of Shcherban was transferred from the accounts of Lazarenko and Tymoshenko."
Ms. Tymoshenko and Mr. Lazarenko, who is nearing the end of a nine-year sentence for money laundering in a California jail, deny involvement in the murders.
"This is just propaganda," her lawyer, Serhiy Vlasenko, said.
"It's the same as if he accused her of killing President Kennedy.
They have all the power and could accuse her of killing everyone in this country for the last 20 years."
Diplomats and analysts said Mr. Yanukovych was playing hardball.
"It appears Yanukovych will continue doubling down until the West gives in, which it won't," said a senior Western diplomat in Kiev.
"They are trying to destroy her politically both internationally and domestically."
Mr. Yanukovych has denied interfering in the prosecutions, and Mr. Kuzmin brushed aside criticism from the West that the investigations into Ms. Tymoshenko were politically motivated.
"I am not aware of any information that the president of the country gave prosecutors any instructions," he said.
"We are studying all murders committed in those years. It will allow us to establish what was happening in Ukraine during those years."
Lobanovsky Legacy Lives On In Ukraine
KIEV, Ukraine -- While the drama of Euro 2012 has been played out just a short distance away at the Olympic stadium, thousands of foreign fans have made the pilgrimage to the spiritual home of Ukraine's footballing father Valeriy Lobanovsky.
A winger of breathtaking individual skill, Lobanovsky went on to enjoy great success as a manager and earned a reputation as a football philosopher.
He won the hearts of Ukrainians when Dynamo Kiev claimed the league title for the first time in 1961, a victory that signalled the beginning of the end of Russian dominance in the old Soviet league.
Lobanovsky cut a dour, unsmiling figure as a manager when he turned football into a science, creating a team who dominated in the old Soviet Union and won two European trophies.
A second spell in charge helped establish Dynamo Kiev in the Champions League era, and he led the national teams of both the Soviet Union and Ukraine, taking the old USSR to the 1988 European Championship final which they lost to the Netherlands.
As respected in the other former Soviet states as he is in Ukraine, a bronze statue of Lobanovsky, who died 10 years ago at the age of 63, watches over the entrance to the stadium in Kiev that now bears his name.
In the statue, he is poised, leaning forward and attentive, an appropriate stance given that it was his minuscule attention to detail that improved domestic football and made him one of the most-loved sporting figures in his country's history.
"The whole country loves Lobanovsky - in Kiev, in Odessa, in Donetsk. Lobanovsky is the pride of Ukraine," Kirill Boyko told Reuters during a tour of the stadium.
Boyko is head of the Dynamo Kiev fan club and he doubles as the club's public relations man and tour guide for the Lobanovsky stadium.
He says he has shown thousands of fans from all over the world around the facility since Euro 2012 began.
"Swedes, French, Russian, English, Italian, China, Vietnam, the U.S. - Lobanovksy is known all over the world," he said.
When he hung up his boots, Lobanovsky curtailed his more flamboyant instincts and adopted a scientific approach to the game, saying "everything that is based on emotions does not have anything to do with a proper analysis."
Together with statistician Anatoliy Zelentsov, he developed and refined his mathematical method and introduced a style based on pressing the opposition in different ways.
It was stunningly successful and Boyko rattles off Lobanovsky's achievements at Dynamo with the practiced air of the tour guide he is.
The coach's less-successful spells in charge of the national teams of the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait are glossed over, dwarfed by his achievements back home.
"He won his first championship in 1961, he won eight championships in the Soviet era, five in Ukraine, six national cups, two Cup Winners Cups," Boyko said, adding games and goal-scorers as he goes along.
Despite his emphasis on the collective over the individual, Lobanovsky also managed to produce outstanding players like current Ukraine coach Oleg Blokhin and strikers Andriy Shevchenko and Serhiy Rebrov.
With the museum at the Olympic stadium closed while the tournament is on, replicas of the Dynamo Kiev trophies won by Lobanovsky are lined up along the wall of an upstairs landing at the stadium.
Over at the fan club office in a separate building, a plaster bust of Lobanovsky with a winner's medal around its neck dominates the room.
Dynamo have moved their home games to the newly-built Olympic stadium, but the youth and reserve-team players still play at the old ground and Lobanovsky's influence prevails.
Throughout the complex, his presence is never far away and try as they might Blokhin and Shevchenko will have a hard time eclipsing it.
"Blokhin is a great player in Dynamo history, he scored three goals against Bayern Munich on the way to winning the Cup Winners Cup in 1975," said Boyko, wearing a national team shirt despite their early exit from Euro 2012.
His affection for Shevchenko, who won 111 caps for Ukraine and has just announced his international retirement, is also obvious, but it is nothing compared to the love the Ukrainian people have for the cantankerous Lobanovsky.
After his death the nation went into mourning and he was awarded the title "Hero of Ukraine", the nation's highest honour.
"He put Dynamo and Ukraine on the world map - for that he is loved by everybody." Boyko said.
World War II Soccer Match Echoes Through Time
KIEV, Ukraine -- There are few striking features about Start Stadium except its disrepair. Wooden planks in the grandstand, like neglected teeth, are mostly loose or missing.
Behind the tiny seating area, though, a sturdy column rises and supports a statue.
It depicts a muscular, naked man heroically kicking a soccer ball into the beak of a trampled eagle.
Seventy years ago, on Aug. 9, 1942, the stadium became the site of one of soccer’s most infamous and disputed games, the so-called Death Match.
With Kiev under Nazi occupation during World War II, a group of Ukrainian players defeated a military team of Germans thought to be from artillery and perhaps Luftwaffe units.
According to legend, the Germans warned the local team beforehand or at halftime that it had better lose the match, and when the Ukrainians ignored the threat and prevailed, key members of the team were killed in retribution.
The final score was 5-3. That much seems widely agreed upon.
And four or five Ukrainian players did die within six months of the game, according to various accounts.
Were they killed because they won a soccer match?
All the participants are believed to be dead. The truth remains elusive.
One player who popularized the legend seemed to tell as many versions of the story as there were goals in the match, both burnishing the myth and betraying it.
That long-ago game is gaining renewed attention as Ukraine serves as a co-host for Euro 2012.
The match has grown far beyond a sporting contest into myth and folklore, immortalized in landmarks around Kiev and in articles, books, documentaries and movies, even a version featuring Sylvester Stallone.
The latest film, called “Match” and made by Russians, was released before Euro 2012 and raised an outcry for portraying Ukrainians as Nazi sympathizers.
Some believe the 1942 game was, or could have been, a death match.
Many academics and journalists dismiss the legend as Soviet-era propaganda and have sought to refute it.
Still others seem unconcerned with the truth.
They embrace the myth as an enduring symbol of Ukrainian patriotism and defiance in a country where 8 million to 10 million citizens died during the war, a country where starvation diets included tree bark and cow dung, a country whose national World War II museum displays a machine used by the Nazis to grind human bones into fertilizer.
“The facts say the match took place, but there was no death match as such,” said Marina Shevchenko, a historian who works at Kiev’s National Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War, as World War II is known in the former Soviet Union.
“People want their legends, like Robin Hood.”
If the game and its legend did not exist, Alexander Dovzhenko, a pioneering Ukrainian film director of the first half of the 20th century, once said, “We would have had to invent it.”
On Sept. 19, 1941, the Nazis occupied Kiev.
Days later, more than 33,000 Jews were killed at Babi Yar, a ravine on the outskirts of the battered capital.
In a footnote to the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the Ukrainian soccer season was abandoned.
But by June 1942, a kind of soccer tournament was apparently organized, featuring two Ukrainian teams and garrisons representing Germany, Hungary and Romania.
The best team, F.C. Start, went undefeated.
It was composed of Ukrainian bakery workers, most of whom had played or were to play for the powerful Kiev club Dynamo, which would later win 13 Soviet league championships.
As the story goes, the owner of the bakery, also described as a bread factory, had been a big fan of Dynamo.
He came up with the idea of forming an amateur team, providing extra food rations to the players and time to train.
On Aug. 6, 1942, Start is said to have routed a German Flakelf team by 5-1.
Flakelf translates to Flak 11, suggesting the German team was composed mainly of those who manned antiaircraft guns around Kiev.
A rematch against a reinforced German team was held in late afternoon three days later.
A copy of a poster announcing the Aug. 9 game is displayed at the World War II museum.
An estimated 2,000 spectators, paying five rubles apiece, were said to have attended the rematch at Start Stadium, then known as Zenit Stadium.
By some accounts, the stadium was ringed with soldiers, SS officers and police dogs, though others discount this.
Makar Honcharenko, a star wing for Start, said in a 1985 oral history that some unnamed people warned it could be risky playing against and defeating the Germans in a rematch.
“Everyone told us: ‘What are you doing? It’s a real danger,’ ” Honcharenko said in the oral history, taped by the staff of the World War II museum, which also translated that interview from the Russian for this article.
The Start players listened, but ultimately decided to proceed with the match.
“Sport is sport,” Honcharenko said. “We didn’t want to lose.”
He also said that a Gestapo officer visited the team before the match, introduced himself as the referee and told the players they should raise their right arms and make the Nazi salute on the field in a pregame greeting.
The players agreed without intending to comply, Honcharenko said.
Ultimately, they refused the order, he said, and instead gave a popular sportsman’s yell, “Fitness, culture, hoorah.”
According to this 1985 account, the game began roughly and the Start goalkeeper, Nikolai Trusevich, was knocked out.
Water was poured on the goalkeeper to revive him, but while he was still dazed, the Germans scored three goals.
Trailing at halftime, the Start team decided to play for a tie, believing the referee would never allow the Ukrainians to win.
But competitive instincts prevailed.
And after the match was tied at 3-3, Honcharenko said he scored the final two goals to give Start a 5-3 victory.
In a 1992 interview with a Kiev radio station, Honcharenko gave another version of the match, which is the most romanticized account.
In this version, Start drew inspiration from its goalkeeper being kicked in the head and made woozy, taking a 3-1 lead by halftime.
This is when an SS officer entered the locker room and complimented the skill of the Start players.
But, in a tone both polite and resolute, the officer also said they should consider the consequences of victory, suggesting they throw the match to the Flakelf team.
Such a warning seems plausible, said Andy Dougan, a lecturer at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, an arts university in Glasgow, and the author of a book about the game, “Dynamo: Triumph and Tragedy in Nazi-Occupied Kiev.”
The Germans must have by then regretted the rematch, Dougan said.
“It did turn out to be a nightmare because they had given the local people something to rally around,” Dougan said.
“I’m pretty certain there would have been a warning, that they had had their fun.”
Yet Start apparently did not succumb.
One eyewitness account in Dougan’s book said that a Ukrainian player, Alexei Klimenko, dribbled through the Germans near the end, then kicked the ball upfield rather than scoring in a final act of humiliating the occupiers.
The most extreme myth says that the Start players were shot immediately after the match, lined up and killed on the field or put against a wall.
This is clearly not true.
Honcharenko said in 1985 that the Start players were “a little nervous,” but showered and went home.
According to a widely disseminated photograph, players from both teams stood together for a postgame snapshot, some of them smiling.
Although, as with much of this tale, even the photograph is in dispute; some believe it was taken just before the match or at another game a month earlier.
It is also not true that the Start players escaped en masse, as portrayed in the 1981 movie “Victory,” reset in Germany and France with Allied prisoners of war and starring Stallone, Michael Caine, Pelé and a collection of professional players.
“Hollywood,” Sergey Mikhaylenko, the president of the Dynamo Kiev fan club, said with a laugh. “Happy ending.”
What actually happened after the match remains as murky in many aspects as what happened during it.
By many accounts, F.C. Start played again on Aug. 16, trouncing another Ukrainian team, Rukh, 8-0.
But in his 1985 oral history, Honcharenko said the Start players were arrested by the Gestapo at the bakery where they worked on Aug. 10, the day after the rematch with the Flakelf team.
Gestapo agents carried a poster or flier with names of other players from Dynamo — the pre-occupation team for many Start players — and wanted to know where they were, Honcharenko said.
He did not elaborate, but Dynamo was sponsored by the police.
Perhaps the Gestapo suspected players of being members of the N.K.V.D., the police and state security precursor to the K.G.B.
The players were separated and tortured for more than three weeks, Honcharenko said, before being taken to the Syrets concentration camp on the edge of Kiev, near the Babi Yar ravine.
Other accounts have the Start players being arrested on Aug. 18, shortly after the match with Rukh.
There are a number of possible reasons given for their arrest:
They may have irritated a new occupation regime in Kiev and undermined the idea of German superiority by winning all their matches.
They may have been betrayed by Georgi Shvetsov, the player-manager of Rukh, who was said by some to be jealous of Start’s success.
They may have been suspected at the bakery of putting ground glass into bread to be eaten by Germans.
They may have been suspected of ties to the N.K.V.D.
One player, Mykola Korotkikh, is reported to have been killed several weeks after the match on suspicion of serving in Stalin’s internal security force.
Some accounts say that a photograph was found of him in an N.K.V.D. uniform and that he was turned in under duress by his sister.
Six and a half months after the match, on Feb. 24, 1943, three Start players were reportedly shot to death: Trusevich, Klimenko and Ivan Kuzmenko.
On Feb. 23, a Kiev plant where the Germans repaired motorized sleighs was said to have been sabotaged in an arson attack by partisans.
Around that time, a work brigade from the Syrets camp was also said to have been caught trying to smuggle in sausage; one of the workers may have tried to attack the camp commander or his German shepherd upon being caught.
In retaliation, the Germans are reported to have shot one of every three prisoners in the work brigade.
Dougan, the Scottish author, said he believed the Start players were killed deliberately.
“It may well have been sheer chance, but these were not just three players, but three very good players,” he said.
“I think the odds are just way too long.”
Prosecutors in Hamburg, Germany, investigated the episode.
But they closed the case in 2005, saying they found a lack of any evidence that the Start players were purposely killed for defeating the Flakelf team on that late afternoon in 1942.
That has hardly kept fact from becoming embroidered with legend.
By late 1943 and early 1944, once Kiev was liberated by the Soviets, newspaper articles began appearing, describing details that would fit into a jigsaw myth known as the Death Match.
Initially, Soviet authorities were hesitant to promote the legend, concerned that the players might have been Nazi collaborators for participating in that series of games in 1942, according to Tetiana Bykova, a historian at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences who has studied the so-called Death Match.
But articles had been published and “the genie was out of the bottle,” Bykova said.
“If you can’t silence the story, then you have to tell it so that it’s going to get maximum political advantage.”
The Soviet solution was to pretend the other matches had not taken place and to embellish the idea of a death match, Bykova said.
Beginning in the late 1950s, with publication of a Kiev newspaper article and book called “The Final Duel,” and subsequent movies released in the Soviet Union and Hungary, the match came to serve both as a source of Ukrainian pride and useful Soviet propaganda.
“It’s like in ‘The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,’ ” Dougan said.
“When the legend is better than the truth, print the legend.”
Initially, the Start players had been reluctant to discuss the match.
A key reason was fear, Dougan and others said.
Fear of being seen as Nazi collaborators.
Fear of being resented for living under less harsh circumstances than others and for shirking their war duty.
Fear of contradicting a tale of Soviet heroism amid Nazi atrocities.
This helps explain why Honcharenko gave conflicting versions through the years.
And why, in his 1985 account, Honcharenko said that before Trusevich, the goalkeeper, was shot to death six and a half months after the match, his final words were, “Long live Stalin, long live Soviet sport.”
According to Dougan, Honcharenko “had been very scared.”
As the Soviet Union collapsed, more prosaic accounts of the match were given.
Georgi Kuzmin, a Ukrainian journalist who has covered soccer for more than 40 years, said that Honcharenko told him in 1991 that no one asked the Start players to throw the match and that Honcharenko did not believe the players were deliberately killed for winning.
Honcharenko gave a similar account of an ordinary match to a Ukrainian newspaper in 1996.
He has since died.
When the former Start players were awarded medals some two decades after the match, one of them, Mikhail Putistin, declined his, saying later he could not participate in a lie, Kuzmin said.
Bykova, the historian, said evidence indicates the Germans played fairly and did not injure the Start goalkeeper, at least not on purpose.
It was the Ukrainian players who became the more aggressive team as the match progressed, she said.
She also believes a straightforward recounting of the game might have become even more powerful than the myth.
“It takes more perseverance and courage to survive on a daily basis, to come home and see the hungry eyes of your children, than to pull yourself together for two hours for a game,” Bykova said.
Today, Start Stadium hosts summer matches by amateur and semiprofessional teams, whose players do not always wait until the final whistle to fortify their fitness with beer and cigarettes.
Children ride bikes and roller-blade on an asphalt track around the well-kept field.
And the statue behind the crumbling grandstand helps perpetuate the legend of the Death Match.
“It was propaganda,” said Kuzmin, whose history of Ukrainian soccer, “What Did and Didn’t Happen,” was published in 2010.
“The Soviets could show that people would go to their death for the sake of Soviet ideology. And the people of Kiev like the story. It’s a good fairy tale. But everyone should know the truth.”
For some, truth is beside the point.
At the Dynamo stadium in Kiev, there is a monument honoring the four Start players who died in the weeks and months after that 1942 match.
The players are shirtless, holding hands, boldly resistant.
Tours of the stadium and the monument are not burdened by debate.
They are celebrations, not investigations.
“Not one document can prove any of these things,” said Kirill Boyko, the manager of the Dynamo fan club.
“We are patriots for our country and our team. We believe in the legend.”
Ukraine Goes Topless Again, In Protest
KIEV, Ukraine -- While fears of unpreparedness, violence, and other possible problems in Ukraine during the Euro 2012 games proved unwarranted, one was realized: topless girls from a scandalous Ukrainian activist group called Femen.
Showing up blouseless throughout the duration of the championship, with anti-Euro slogans, the organization even managed to get one of it’s operatives into the cage of a psychic pig, Funtik, and flash him in front of the fans.
As Femen explained in its blog, the group was outraged by the ghetto of soccer fans and alcohol in the center of Kiev, as well as by UEFA’s feeding fans beer and prostitutes, thus turning them into pigs.
The girls have been the most visible and controversial activist group in Ukraine since 2008 – protesting, mostly against sexism, attempting to empower women by showing their boobs in public.
The group has staged many loud protests throughout the years and their presence during the European Cup is its most recent.
While the male population seems to like some aspects of their protests, Femen hasn’t proved popular among Ukrainians.
Is there any point in Femen’s actions or are they just an annoying, topless sore that keeps popping up here and there, disturbing the public and angering officials?
The first protest organized by Femen took place in the summer of 2008 and was called “ Ukraine is Not a Brothel”, an attempt to bring global and local attention to the problem of sex-tourism and prostitution in Ukraine.
After that there were protests to uncover the unhealthy relationships between college teachers and students — trading sex for grades.
Femen protested a beauty contest for casting models as sex-toys.
It even flashed its breasts at the political processes in Ukraine, such as the presidential elections in 2010, among others.
Notorious protesters undress even in the cold Ukrainian winter, when the temperature sometimes drops below negative twenty five degrees, Celsius (-13F)
According to Femen’s Wikipedia page, some financial backing comes from individuals, including creative professionals and businessmen.
Jed Sunden, the publisher of the Kyiv Post, an English-language newspaper in Ukraine, is mentioned as one of the main supporters of the group.
The movement is often called tasteless or incoherent, and some even doubt the motivation behind it, but in a society where disappointment and passivity have been the general mood over the past years, having such a bold activist group seems to be a positive thing.
In Ukraine, human rights, and women’s rights in particular, need support and attention.
The Ukrainian Institute of Social Studies estimated that in 2011 about 50,000 women were involved in prostitution and, of those, one in six is a minor.
Ukrainian mail-order brides often end up in dangerous situations abroad, facing physical and emotional abuse.
For years there have existed various forms of human trafficking, leading to young girls being sex workers abroad, without documents and no way out.
Women’s role is still sidelined in politics and business while gender issues receive very limited attention.
Femen attempts to raise the awareness of these issues and whether they get their point across or not, the girls stir things up a little bit.
It’s too bad that during the organization’s Euro 2012 protests the government seemed to be getting harsh, attempting to get Femen under control – showing the girls their place, as it’s supposed to be in a male-dominated environment.
At a soccer game in Donetsk, Ukrainian police arrested a few members of the group, and according to Femen’s blog posts, mistreated them in jail, as a photo of a bruised back shows.
It seems that in order for Femen to get more positive reaction and gain the respect of the Ukrainian public, their actions should become less aggressive and more coherent.
Otherwise, if they, like the Russian girls from the punk band Pussy Riot, end up behind bars and are added to the prisoners of conscience list, it will be hard to raise funds for legal fees without public support, always useful when using public nudity to change the world.
Ukraine Punts On Tymoshenko Trial
KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine has postponed the latest trial of jailed ex-premier Yulia Tymoshenko until after the Euro 2012 final.
The decision to move the trial to July came yesterday as pressure mounted on the tournament co-hosts to drop the controversial case.
The presiding judge set the next hearing for July 10 - more than a week after some of the attention fades off Ukraine with the completion this weekend of European soccer's premier international event.
Several thousand of Ms Tymoshenko's supporters and foes held rival rallies outside the courtroom in the eastern city of Kharkiv, where the fiery opposition leader is serving a seven-year sentence on abuse-of-power charges.
"Freedom for Yulia," Ms Tymoshenko's supporters chanted while those on the other side of a line of riot police held up signs saying "The country suffered and she just kept talking" in reference to her 2007-2010 term as premier.
Ms Tymoshenko herself was absent from the hearing - this one focused on her tax dealings dating back to the 1990s - after being granted permission to continue recuperating in a Kharkiv hospital from her persistent back problems.
The court yesterday agreed with a prosecution request to order Ms Tymoshenko to undergo a health examination by authorised doctors who could determine her fitness to stand trial.
"We have to get this issued resolved," prosecutor Marina Kapinos told reporters.
That ruling threatens to create another confrontation following an earlier claim by Ms Tymoshenko - distrustful of local doctors and now treated by a German medical team - of being beaten by guards who tried taking her to a state-mandated clinic.
But rules also allow a judgment on Ms Tymoshenko's health to be issued based on a review of her medical records rather than an actual examination.
Ms Tymoshenko's lawyer called the medical examination ruling a "crude violation" of the defence team's rights.
EU states have been watching the case closely for months and were formally represented in court by former Polish president Alexander Kwasniewski and Ireland's one-time European Parliament leader Pat Cox.
They had both visited Ms Tymoshenko in hospital on Sunday, the latest in a host of European dignitaries to go through the gates of a small clinic run by the Ukrainian railways.
The case of the 51-year-old 2004 Orange Revolution leader has set Ukraine on a collision course with the European Union that has delayed the signature of an agreement that could pave the way for Kiev's future membership in the bloc.
EU leaders support Ms Tymoshenko's claims that her prosecution is a part of the current authorities' vendetta and some have boycotted soccer matches that Ukraine is hosting in four cities - including Kharkiv - alongside co-hosts Poland.
The two Euro 2012 semi-finals will be played Thursday and Friday AEST while the final will be held in Kiev on Monday AEST.
The latest Tymoshenko hearings began in April and have already been adjourned twice on account of her health.
A two-metre glass wall was set up inside the courtroom that enclosed a special space for Ms Tymoshenko with a chair and table and even some potted plants in case of her future attendance.
Officials had initially ordered her presence before agreeing on Sunday to excuse her in the face of likely protests from both her Ukrainian supporters and the West.
But Ms Tymoshenko will also be in the news later today when a judge hears her appeal against last year's abuse-of-power conviction.
The decision to move the trial to July came yesterday as pressure mounted on the tournament co-hosts to drop the controversial case.
The presiding judge set the next hearing for July 10 - more than a week after some of the attention fades off Ukraine with the completion this weekend of European soccer's premier international event.
Several thousand of Ms Tymoshenko's supporters and foes held rival rallies outside the courtroom in the eastern city of Kharkiv, where the fiery opposition leader is serving a seven-year sentence on abuse-of-power charges.
"Freedom for Yulia," Ms Tymoshenko's supporters chanted while those on the other side of a line of riot police held up signs saying "The country suffered and she just kept talking" in reference to her 2007-2010 term as premier.
Ms Tymoshenko herself was absent from the hearing - this one focused on her tax dealings dating back to the 1990s - after being granted permission to continue recuperating in a Kharkiv hospital from her persistent back problems.
The court yesterday agreed with a prosecution request to order Ms Tymoshenko to undergo a health examination by authorised doctors who could determine her fitness to stand trial.
"We have to get this issued resolved," prosecutor Marina Kapinos told reporters.
That ruling threatens to create another confrontation following an earlier claim by Ms Tymoshenko - distrustful of local doctors and now treated by a German medical team - of being beaten by guards who tried taking her to a state-mandated clinic.
But rules also allow a judgment on Ms Tymoshenko's health to be issued based on a review of her medical records rather than an actual examination.
Ms Tymoshenko's lawyer called the medical examination ruling a "crude violation" of the defence team's rights.
EU states have been watching the case closely for months and were formally represented in court by former Polish president Alexander Kwasniewski and Ireland's one-time European Parliament leader Pat Cox.
They had both visited Ms Tymoshenko in hospital on Sunday, the latest in a host of European dignitaries to go through the gates of a small clinic run by the Ukrainian railways.
The case of the 51-year-old 2004 Orange Revolution leader has set Ukraine on a collision course with the European Union that has delayed the signature of an agreement that could pave the way for Kiev's future membership in the bloc.
EU leaders support Ms Tymoshenko's claims that her prosecution is a part of the current authorities' vendetta and some have boycotted soccer matches that Ukraine is hosting in four cities - including Kharkiv - alongside co-hosts Poland.
The two Euro 2012 semi-finals will be played Thursday and Friday AEST while the final will be held in Kiev on Monday AEST.
The latest Tymoshenko hearings began in April and have already been adjourned twice on account of her health.
A two-metre glass wall was set up inside the courtroom that enclosed a special space for Ms Tymoshenko with a chair and table and even some potted plants in case of her future attendance.
Officials had initially ordered her presence before agreeing on Sunday to excuse her in the face of likely protests from both her Ukrainian supporters and the West.
But Ms Tymoshenko will also be in the news later today when a judge hears her appeal against last year's abuse-of-power conviction.
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