Russia 'Blackmailed Ukraine To Ditch EU Pact' - Yulia Tymoshenko Calls For Ukrainians To Take To The Streets

KIEV, Ukraine -- The European Union and Russia traded charges of blackmail on Friday over the future of Ukraine. The Kremlin threatened the country with trade losses worth billions and costing hundreds of thousands of jobs if it signed up to a strategic pact with the European Union, senior Lithuanian officials said. President Vladimir Putin of Russia said the EU was putting pressure on Kiev and organising mass protests against President Viktor Yanukovych. A week before a critical EU summit in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, that was to be capped by the Brussels-Kiev pact, Yanukovych abruptly pulled out of the deal on Thursday, leaving EU policy in shreds and Putin relishing victory in the contest for Ukraine's future. The volte face was a result of Russian blackmail, the Lithuanian president's office said as senior officials in Brussels said Yanukovych was sacrificing the hopes and wishes of most of his countrymen on the altar of Russian money and contracts. Yulia Tymoshenko, the imprisoned former prime minister and arch-rival of Yanukovych, whose release and transfer to Germany has been the central condition for the EU pact, pleaded with the president to reverse his decision. In a letter to Yanukovych from prison, she renounced the release condition and pledged she would stay in jail in Ukraine if Yanukovych relented. Fear of facing Tymoshenko in a 2015 presidential battle is believed to be one of the main reasons for the president's rebuff of the EU. "I give you my word that, if you make a decision to sign the [EU] agreement, on the same day I will appeal to European leaders asking them to sign the agreement without fulfilling all criteria including the part regarding my release. I don't know if they will listen to my appeal but I will do everything possible for the signing of the agreement even as I continue to sit in prison," said Tymoshenko. "This is the only chance for you to survive as a politician," she told Yanukovych. "Because now, when you are killing the agreement you are making the biggest mistake of your life." The thunderbolt from Yanukovych brought pro-European protesters on to the streets of central Kiev before what promises to be a weekend of campaigning climaxing in a large rally on Sunday. Around 2,500 took to the streets waving EU flags on Thursday evening. Organisers expect tens of thousands to join protests on Sunday. Jovita Neliupšiene, foreign policy aide to President Dalia Grybauskaite of Lithuania, said Yanukovych had called her before announcing he was ditching the EU pact, arguing that the pressure from Moscow was irresistible. Yanukovych and Putin had a secret meeting last week. The Ukrainian and Russian prime ministers then met in Saint Petersburg on Wednesday. "Ukraine could not withstand the economic pressure and blackmail. It was threatened with restricted imports of its goods to Russia, particularly from companies in eastern Ukraine, which accommodates the greater share of its industry and employs hundreds of thousands of people." "Calculations suggest this would lead to billions in losses. These causes behind the decision were specified by President Yanukovych in the telephone conversation with the president earlier this week," Neliupšiene told a Baltic news agency. Eastern Ukraine, traditionally pro-Russian, is also Yanukovych's power base. With Moscow and European capitals locked in rancour and recrimination over Ukraine, Putin let fly at the EU: "We have heard threats from our European partners towards Ukraine, up to and including promoting the holding of mass protests. This is pressure and this is blackmail." With the Ukrainian economy in critical condition, the rebuff to Europe could cost it dearly in terms of EU financial support and the prospects of loans from the IMF. The Vilnius summit was seen as a critical juncture, deciding whether Ukraine would opt for further integration with the EU or see its future in closer ties with Russia. Kiev has been pursuing the trade deal and political association agreement with the EU for the past five years, only to drop it at the last minute. Armenia did the same in September, yielding to Russian pressure and instead joined a Russia-centred Eurasian customs union. "They are not going West. I don't think they are going East. I feel they are going down," said Carl Bildt, the Swedish foreign minister, who has campaigned strongly for Ukraine's European option. "That's roughly where we are because of the economic problems." Official reaction in Brussels was one of disappointment, pleading with Yanukoviych to reconsider, and emphasising that no doors were being closed. Privately, however, senior officials were stunned and conceded that the EU's policy towards the post-Soviet states to the east had been set back years. The two EU envoys on the issue – Ireland's Pat Cox, a former European parliament president, and Aleksander Kwaśniewski, a former Polish president – voiced "deep disappointment at the unilateral decision of the Ukrainian government … we appeal to the president in this difficult situation". "The people of Ukraine should be reassured by the leaders of the EU that the door will not be shut on the European hopes and aspirations of Ukraine." The US State Department accused Yanukovych of passing up a "historic opportunity". It hinted at economic and financial consequences for Ukraine, as did Catherine Ashton, the EU's top foreign policy official. "This is a disappointment not just for the EU, but, we believe, for the people of Ukraine," she said. "The signing of the most ambitious agreement the EU has ever offered to a partner country would have sent a clear signal to investors worldwide as well as to international financial institutions that Ukraine is serious about its modernisation pledge and becoming a predictable and reliable interlocutor for international markets". "It would have provided a unique opportunity to reverse the recent discouraging trend of decreasing foreign direct investment in Ukraine and would have given momentum to negotiations on a new standby arrangement with the IMF." Michael Leigh, a former senior EU official and co-architect of the policy, said: "People in Ukraine want their country to become more democratic and more prosperous. This opportunity … may not come again." Michal Baranowski, the Warsaw director of the German Marshall Fund thinktank, said: "Geopolitical competition in the region is back. The EU should be ready for a long game."

Ukraine Risks Financial Meltdown After Break With EU

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine is risking a financial crisis of monumental scale by ditching the EU as it faces a cash crunch before imminent debt repayments, analysts said Friday. Ukraine received warnings from senior EU officials and the United States after it dropped its EU membership bid, European Observer said. U.S. officials cited difficulties Ukraine could face obtaining credit from the International Monetary Fund after it snubbed the EU, EUObserver.com said. Ukraine's ties with the IMF are already fraught over recent mishaps, including a $15 billion line of credit that fell through. Renewed Ukrainian attempts to obtain IMF cash are aimed at securing a line of credit for $10 billion or more to enable Kiev to head off default on loan repayments. Ukraine needs to make regular repayments on more than $60 billion of external debt. Thousands of protesters in Kiev and other Ukrainian streets Friday pushed the argument Ukraine belongs in the EU, not in a Russian sphere. But the question of how Ukraine will make its debt repayments is more pressing than emotional pronouncements about the country's future outside the EU, analysts said. If Ukraine fails to make loan repayments due it will face the risk of default and will be solely at the mercy of Russia for a financial bailout, analysts said. The suspension of EU-Ukraine talks on an association deal -- a step toward full membership -- also means that a European loan, worth about $830 million, is likely to be put on hold, European Observer said. Continuing street protests across Ukraine renewed risks of confrontation between demonstrators and police. EU foreign relations chief Catherine Ashton said Ukraine's EU membership would have given the country international credibility and prepared it for international capital markets. It would also have helped Ukraine's negotiations with the IMF on a new standby credit arrangement, Ashton said. U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki echoed the view that EU association would have reassured international financial institutions about the country's commitment to democratic reform. An EU-Ukraine pact in preparation for EU membership for the country was due to be signed in Vilnius, Lithuania, next week. Analysts said support still exists in Brussels for continuing to give Ukraine a lifeline to discourage it from signing a deal with Russia it could ill afford to reverse. Political and trade links between Russia and Ukraine remain uneasy, mainly over delays in Ukrainian payments for gas. In 2009 Russia cut gas supplies to Ukraine in a dispute over prices. The stoppage also affected supplies to EU member countries, causing fuel shortages across Europe in the middle of winter. Protesters opposed to the suspension of links with Europe shouted "President Viktor Yanukovych -- enemy of the country." Opposition critics have accused Yanukovych of treason for going back on an EU deal. Ukraine Prime Minister Nikolai Azarov said the decision was the result of economic pressures. "The decision the government has made is based on economic reasons," he said. "It is of a tactical character and does not change our strategic objectives." Under the EU association deal, Ukraine would have been required to release imprisoned former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, an arch rival of Yanukovych and consistent critic of Moscow. In a letter released from captivity, Tymoshenko warned Yanukovych "you are making the mistake of your life... You will remain one-on-one with Russia and you will have to live according to her road map. Later Russia will give you a choice: either it will save you from the social and economic collapse at the expense of the loss of independence or will not react at all." EU diplomats interviewed by European media said Ukraine's move did not secure its position within the Russian sphere and made its future more uncertain. Ukrainian opposition says the country is ripe for another revolution, this time driven by social media, especially Twitter.

Tens Of Thousands Rally In Kiev For Closer EU Ties

KIEV, Ukraine -- Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched through central Kiev on Sunday to demand that the Ukrainian government reverse course and sign a landmark agreement with the European Union in defiance of Russia. The protest was the biggest Ukraine has seen since the peaceful 2004 Orange Revolution, which overturned a fraudulent presidential election result and brought a Western-leaning government to power. Led by Ukraine's leading opposition figures carrying giant Ukrainian and EU flags, the demonstrators chanted "Ukraine is Europe" and sang the national anthem as they marched toward European Square. An estimated 100,000 people turned out for the rally. "We want to be together with Europe," Volodymyr Mnikh, a 62-year-old retired chemist, said with tears in his eyes. "We want our children to have a future and not to be pressured by Russia." Ukraine's leaders announced suddenly last week that they were pulling out of a free trade and political association deal with the EU to be signed in the coming week, saying the country could not afford to break trade ties with Russia. The Russian government has worked aggressively to derail the EU deal and bring Ukraine into the Moscow-dominated Customs Union. "The EU means Ukraine's development," said demonstrator Andriy Mazeta, a 19-year-old management student. "The Customs Union means Ukraine's destruction. We need to push Russia as far away as possible." Sunday's protest was seen as a test of the strength of the opposition and its ability to nudge President Viktor Yanukovych back in the EU's direction. One key EU demand for signing the deal is the release of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, whose imprisonment the West sees as politically driven. Yanukovych only narrowly defeated Tymoshenko in the 2010 presidential election and sees her as a political threat. He comes up for reelection in 2015.

Huge Ukraine Rally Over EU Agreement Delay

KIEV, Ukraine -- More than 100,000 people have gathered in the Ukrainian capital Kiev in defiance of the government's move to delay an association deal with the EU. Opposition leaders joined the protest, said to be the largest since the Orange Revolution in 2004. There are reports of police firing tear gas as protesters tried to break through a cordon around government buildings. A pro-government rally a few miles away attracted about 10,000 people. Ukraine made the decision on the EU deal last week, saying it could not afford to break ties with Moscow. Russia is trying to bring Kiev into its own customs union. Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the EU of blackmailing Ukraine to sign the deal during a summit in Vilnius next week. People arrived at the rally, on European Square, with families and children, many holding banners with slogans like "I want to live in Europe" or "Ukraine is part of Europe". "We want to be together with Europe," Volodymyr Mnikh, a 62-year-old retired chemist, told the Associated Press news agency. "We want our children to have a future and not to be pressured by Russia." Several rallies in Kiev and other cities have been held over the last few days, but Sunday's has been the largest so far. World heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, who leads the Udar movement and attended Friday's rally, was not present. Ukrainian news agency Unian said he had been flying back from the US after celebrating his daughter's birthday but his plane was not allowed to land in Kiev because of weather conditions. On Friday, Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said the decision not to sign the deal was motivated solely by economics and was "tactical". He said it did not alter Ukraine's overall development strategy. The Ukrainian government says it is now looking into setting up a joint commission to promote ties between Ukraine, Russia and the EU. Ukraine depends on imports of Russian gas, but recently the supplier, Gazprom, complained that Ukraine had fallen behind in payments. Pipelines transiting Ukraine pump Russian gas to many EU member states. In 2009 Russia cut off gas supplies to Ukraine in a dispute about prices, causing fuel shortages across Europe in the middle of winter. Russia has a customs union with two other former Soviet republics - Belarus and Kazakhstan - and has been urging Ukraine to join it. A free trade agreement with the EU would mean Ukraine adopting different trade rules. Kiev's decision on Thursday prompted EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele to cancel a trip to Ukraine. It had been planned for the run-up to the key "Eastern Partnership" summit between the EU and several ex-Soviet states, which will be held in Vilnius, Lithuania, on 28 and 29 November.

Ukraine Police Clash With Pro-EU Protesters - Fire Tear Gas On Protesters

KIEV, Ukraine -- Thousands of pro-European Union protesters have clashed with police during a rally in Ukrainian capital of Kiev. Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched through Kiev on Sunday to demand the government reverse course and sign a landmark agreement with the EU. However, some protesters tried to storm government buildings and police responded by using tear gas and batons against the demonstrators. The protest was the biggest the country has seen since the peaceful 2004 Orange Revolution, which overturned a fraudulent presidential election result and brought a Western-leaning government to power. Ukrainian and EU flag-carrying demonstrators shouted "Ukraine is Europe" and sang the national anthem as they marched towards Independence Square. The protest was led by Ukraine's top opposition figures, who called for the rallies to continue until President Viktor Yanukovych agreed to sign the free trade and political association deal with the EU at a summit on Friday. Pro-Europe supporter Anton Vashkevich said the protesters wanted to say that the government and President did not represent the opinion of the whole country. What they think does not express the thoughts of the majority of the population," Vashkevich said. "There is no alternative to the European Union." Ukraine's leaders announced suddenly last week that they were pulling out of the EU agreement because they said the country could not afford to break trade ties with Russia. The Russian government has worked aggressively to derail the EU deal and bring Ukraine into the Moscow-dominated Customs Union. One key EU demand for signing the deal was the release of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, whose imprisonment the West sees as politically driven. Tymoshenko's daughter Eugenia was one of those attending Sunday's protest march. Elsewhere in Kiev, thousands of Yanukovych supporters held their own rally on Sunday. Those attending the march came to voice their support for the government's decision to halt the signing of the EU agreement. One government supporter, Nina Gorkava, said that the EU was not offering Ukrainians anything and was just putting a heavy burden on them. "Why should we follow their rules? If we voted for independence of our country we should be really independent," she said. The EU has said that Yanukovych is still welcome to attend the summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, on Thursday and Friday, during which the two sides had intended to sign the trade agreement.

Ukraine Pivots To Russia With Last-Minute Freeze Of EU Plan

KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine opted to seek stronger ties with Russia, cutting off preparations for a European Union trade agreement a week before its scheduled signing would have capped almost six years of negotiations. President Viktor Yanukovych’s government will focus on reviving trade with Russia and other former Soviet republics, it said yesterday. The decision is probably final, said Linas Linkevicius, the foreign minister of Lithuania, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency. Postponing the signature of the agreement “is not realistic,” he said by phone. The EU and Russia, buyers of about a quarter of Ukrainian exports each, are jostling over relations with the country of 45 million people that’s an essential transit route for east-west energy shipments. The second-most populous ex-Soviet country is also crucial to the ambition of Russian President Vladimir Putin to set up a trading area to emulate the Brussels-centered bloc. “There’s always a possibility to go back to negotiations but it will be more difficult to do so in the future,” Joerg Forbrig, senior program officer for Central and Eastern Europe at the Berlin bureau of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, said by phone yesterday. “The momentum was there and this has been lost now. The political momentum has been lost and it will be hard to recreate this.” The cost to insure Ukrainian debt against non-payment for five years with credit-default swaps rose 78 basis points, or 0.78 percentage point, to 1,003, the third-highest in the world after Argentina and Venezuela, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The yield on the Ukrainian dollar bond due 2023 rose 8 basis points to 9.905 percent at 12:24 p.m. in Kiev. The decision exposed a growing divide in the country over economic and political priorities. In a reflection of mounting tensions, thousands of protesters took to the streets in near-freezing temperatures in Kiev last night over the government’s move, with opposition parties calling on Ukrainians to march in the capital on Nov. 24 to show their support for the EU agreement. Backing for membership of the 28-nation bloc is at 58 percent, according to a poll of 1,000 people this month by researcher IFAK Institut GmbH & Co. It gave no margin of error. Opposition leaders including world heavyweight boxing champion Vitaly Klitschko spoke and bands performed songs at the rally in Kiev last night, which was attended by about 2,000 people, private television broadcaster Channel 5 reported. People plan to gather for another rally tonight. Today marks the ninth anniversary of the start of the Orange Revolution, which was led by jailed ex-Premier Yulia Tymoshenko and helped overturn Yanukovych’s presidential victory in 2004. “The European bloc has been facing a rival in Russia all along this process,” Lilit Gevorgyan, an analyst at IHS Global Insight in London, said by e-mail. “From a geopolitical perspective, any delay of the agreement with Ukraine will be a serious setback for the EU’s diplomacy.” European governments had urged Ukraine to sign association and free-trade agreements at a Nov. 28-29 summit in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius. Russia, which supplies 60 percent of Ukraine’s natural gas, threatened trade measures if the deal went ahead, offering membership of its customs union as an alternative. The U.S. is “disappointed” in the decision, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters yesterday. “We believe there was ample time to resolve all remaining obstacles to signing the association agreement in Vilnius with sufficient effort and commitment,” Psaki said. While Yanukovych reiterated yesterday that his country’s goal is European integration, lawmakers repeatedly failed to pass a bill to allow Tymoshenko to travel abroad for medical treatment, a key EU condition for the trade accord to proceed as the bloc deems her imprisonment a case of selective justice. The Ukrainian leader “can take leadership and take a decision at any time -- but really, it’s maybe more theoretical,” Linkevicius said in a telephone interview yesterday. “Time is not on our side due to many reasons. To postpone a decision, I’m afraid, could mean no decision at all, no signature at all.” If EU officials sounded subdued, the Russian reaction was more exuberant. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters in Moscow that the decision was the demonstration of a “desire to improve and develop economic cooperation.” Putin earlier denied opposing Ukraine’s trade deal, though he said trilateral talks must come before a decision is made, the Interfax news service reported. Ukraine’s motivation for suspending preparations for the EU treaty was “purely economic,” with the government making the “only possible” choice in the situation, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov told lawmakers in Kiev today. A decline in trade with Russia has led to falling industrial production, “pushing Ukraine to the edge of huge social and economic troubles,” he said. Speaking over chants of “Shame!” by opposition lawmakers, who attempted to keep him from speaking, Azarov said a Nov. 20 letter from the International Monetary Fund tipped the balance for Ukraine. “The last straw that broke the camel’s back was the IMF’s position,” Azarov said. “They offered to provide us with a loan equal to what we have to repay them. At the same time they demanded to double utility prices, freeze salaries, and cut budget spending.” Ukraine entered its third recession since 2008 in the second quarter as demand for its steel exports shriveled, while reserves have plummeted. Joining Russia’s customs union would shrink its current-account gap by cutting energy costs. The reasons may have been more complex, according to former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, one of the EU’s main negotiators with Ukraine. While economic difficulties contributed to yesterday’s decision, “unprecedented pressure” from Russia also played a part, he said. “Russians tapped the whole arsenal of possibilities they have in Ukraine,” he told Poland’s TVN24. “All Ukrainian presidents will want to balance between their big eastern neighbor and the West.” Yanukovych told his Lithuanian counterpart Dalia Grybauskaite that Russia threatened to suspend imports from industries in eastern Ukraine, potentially causing massive losses and affecting hundreds of thousands people, the Baltic News Service reported, citing Grybauskaite’s adviser, Jovita Neliupsiene. Similar accusations were leveled at the EU in Moscow, where Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said this week it was the trading bloc that put Ukraine under “brazen pressure” to choose between Russia and the 28-member bloc. Kwasniewski and his co-negotiator Pat Cox, a former head of the European Parliament, urged EU leaders to reassure Ukrainians that “the door will not be shut,” according to an e-mailed statement yesterday. They also recommended to “maintain active vigilance” over Tymoshenko’s conditions. Yanukovych, whose 2004 victory in a presidential ballot was overturned amid the Orange Revolution that Tymoshenko helped lead, has accused her of involvement in crimes including a murder, claims she denies. He defeated Tymoshenko to become president in 2010 after serving two stints as premier. “Yanukovych clearly fears releasing Tymoshenko” before presidential elections in 2015, Luis Costa, an emerging-markets strategist at Citigroup Inc. in London, said by e-mail. “It’s time to partially take profits in Ukrainian bonds for those who bought at the lows a couple of months ago.” That means the EU’s ambitions to cement Ukraine’s place in its orbit fell victim to the trading bloc’s maneuvering, said Alexei Pushkov, head of the foreign-affairs committee in Russia’s lower house of parliament. Ukraine halting preparations to sign the pact is “logical,” with the Tymoshenko demand representing “a mine the EU laid itself,” he said. “Setting Tymoshenko free would have given the EU a chance to work against Yanukovych in 2015 elections, and ‘‘for a political leader, this is suicide,’’ he said by phone. Yanukovych trails Klitschko in polls for the presidency. Opposition parties are organizing a demonstration for Nov. 24 to back stronger EU ties. Regardless of the political backdrop, Ukraine’s actions may be a negotiating ploy to help garner financial aid, according to Liza Ermolenko, an emerging-markets analyst at London-based Capital Economics Ltd. ‘‘There have been some suggestions in the media that policy makers are just trying to raise the stakes,’’ she said by e-mail. ‘‘The key in all this is that until the summit next week there’s not much point trying to guess what Ukraine is going to do.’’ Still, time may be running out. EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule canceled a planned trip to Kiev yesterday, the DPA news service reported, citing his office. Yesterday’s decision ‘‘puts a large question mark over the general direction of Ukraine’s foreign policy,” Tatiana Orlov an economist in London, said

Holodomor: Memories Of Ukraine's Silent Massacre

KIEV, Ukraine -- Eighty years ago, millions of Ukrainians died in a famine that many label a genocide by the Soviet regime of Joseph Stalin. As Ukraine prepares to embark on its annual memorial events, the memories of the massacre are undimmed for many. Nina Karpenko, an energetic 87-year-old, demonstrates what it took to survive Ukraine's Stalin-era famine, known as the Holodomor, or "death by hunger". Some cheap cornmeal, wheat chaff, dried nettle leaves and other weeds - this was the essence of life during the horrific winter and early spring of 1932-33 in Ukraine. As Ms Karpenko tells her story, she kneads the ingredients into a dull green mass, adding water and a little salt, which she then fashions into a patty. She calls it bread, though it barely fits this description. Then she spreads wax shavings on a pan to keep the patty from sticking and burning, and places it in an oven. Ms Karpenko's father died early on. His legs swelled up and he expired when trying to consume a small amount of food - a common occurrence among those close to starvation. Her mother walked 15km (9 miles) to a nearby town to see if she could obtain something to eat for Ms Karpenko and her brother and sister. She exchanged her earrings and a gold cross she wore around her neck for about 2kg (4.4 lbs) of flour. Ms Karpenko takes the bread from the oven when it is ready. It is tough and tastes like grass. But thanks to this weed loaf, and a horsehide that her mother cut into pieces and boiled for soup, the Karpenko family managed to survive until the spring, when they could forage in the nearby forest. Others in their village, Matskivtsi, in central Ukraine, were not as fortunate. "There was a deathly silence," she says. "Because people weren't even conscious. They didn't want to speak or to look at anything." "They thought today that person died, and tomorrow it will be me. Everyone just thought of death." Ukrainians mark a Holodomor Remembrance Day every year on the fourth Saturday of November. Some historians, like Yale University's Timothy Snyder, who has done extensive research in Ukraine, place the number of dead at roughly 3.3 million. Others say the number was much higher. Whatever the actual figure, it is a trauma that has left a deep and lasting wound among this nation of 45 million. Entire villages were wiped out, and in some regions the death rate reached one-third. The Ukrainian countryside, home of the "black earth", some of the most fertile land in the world, was reduced to a silent wasteland. Cities and roads were littered with the corpses of those who left their villages in search of food, but perished along the way. There were widespread reports of cannibalism. Ms Karpenko says that when school resumed the following autumn, two thirds of the seats were empty. But the pain of the Holodomor comes not only from the unfathomable number of dead. Many people believe the causes were man-made and intentional. They say that Joseph Stalin wanted to starve into submission the rebellious Ukrainian peasantry and force them into collective farms. The Kremlin requisitioned more grain than farmers could provide. When they resisted, brigades of Communist Party activists swept through the villages and took everything that was edible. "The brigades took all the wheat, barley - everything - so we had nothing left," says Ms Karpenko. Even beans that people had set aside just in case. "The brigades crawled everywhere and took everything. People had nothing left to do but die." As the hunger mounted, Soviet authorities took extra measures, such as closing off Ukraine's borders, so that peasants could not travel abroad and obtain food. This amounted to a death sentence, experts say. "The government did everything it could to prevent peasants from entering other regions and looking for bread," says Oleksandra Monetova, from Kiev's Holodomor Memorial Museum. "The officials' intentions were clear. To me it's a genocide. I have no doubt." But for others, the question is still open. Russia in particular objects to the genocide label, calling it a "nationalistic interpretation" of the famine. Kremlin officials insist that, while the Holodomor was a tragedy, it was not intentional, and other regions in the Soviet Union suffered at that time. Kiev and Moscow have clashed over the issue in the past. But Ukraine's present leader Viktor Yanukovych echoes the Kremlin line, saying it was "incorrect and unjust" to consider the Holodomor "the genocide of a certain people". Mr Yanukovych's government still takes care to commemorate fully the destruction that the famine wrought. This year's Remembrance Day will feature a number of different ceremonies and prayer services, as well as the world premier of a Holodomor opera, Red Earth Hunger, by Virko Baley. Mr Baley, an American composer who was born in Ukraine, supports efforts to have the Holodomor recognised internationally as genocide. "You have to admit that it was done, if you want to have any kind of human progress," he says. "You can't wrap it up and say that it wasn't."

Russia Waits As Ukraine Baulks At Terms Of EU Deal

KIEV, Ukraine -- With Ukraine’s continuing failure to release former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko from jail comes a growing impression that president Viktor Yanukovich and his allies have decided it is better to deal with the devil you know – preferring to rebuild strained ties with old ally Russia rather than enter into historic agreements with the European Union. Parliament in Kiev was deadlocked again yesterday over what to do about Ms Tymoshenko, whom the EU sees as the victim of political persecution by courts loyal to Mr Yanukovich. If she is not freed before a major EU summit in Lithuania on November 28th, Ukraine will not be offered landmark political and trade deals that would weaken Moscow’s centuries-old grip on the country and align its future with the West. Feared rival Yanukovych, her most popular rival, who has vowed to topple him and investigate the allegedly ill-gotten gains of his supporters and his own family. He may see it as too risky to release her ahead of a presidential election in 2015. But if he is to abandon – or pause on – Ukraine’s European path, Yanukovich must quickly repair relations with Moscow, which have been damaged by his flirtation with Brussels. From President Vladimir Putin down, Russian officials have made it clear that if Ukraine signs the deals with the EU this month, nothing will ever be the same between them again. “That’s why we warn in advance, we say: listen, we understand everything. This is your choice, do it. But keep in mind that we would have to somehow protect our market, to introduce protective mechanisms,” Mr Putin said recently. Sergei Glazyev, Putin’s economic adviser, was more blunt: “We have no idea why Ukraine is signing this agreement . . . It will cut the roots of our economic co-operation.” On another occasion, he predicted that Ukraine’s loss of business with its main trading partner would be disastrous for the country. “Who’ll pay for Ukraine’s default, which will be inevitable?” he asked. In the last few months, Russia temporarily imposed new checks on its border with Ukraine, causing huge delays for road traffic, and banned the import of chocolate from the Roshen factory, owned by a key proponent of Kiev’s greater integration with the EU. Moscow has also demanded payment of an overdue €640 million ($861 million) gas bill, amid a long-standing dispute with Kiev over the price it charges for fuel, raising the spectre of the kind of “gas war” that affected the transit of Russian gas supplies through Ukraine to the EU in 2006 and 2009. “We understand there would be possible negative effects of signing the agreement with the EU,” Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister, Andriy Olefirov, told The Irish Times. “But we are equals (with Russia) and having support from the EU will help us on many issues, like getting a fair price for gas.” “The Roshen issue, gas prices and possible shortages are all negative. But after the Lithuania summit we will see positive things – the EU agreement will also help us get a fair deal from the International Monetary Fund, and the EU has €610 million ($821 million) in the bank waiting for us.” Analysts say Ukraine may need more than €10 billion ($14 billion) in emergency funding from the IMF, and agreement between Kiev and the EU may help overcome an impasse over the conditions attached to the deal. From Russia with love Russia has offered its own inducements to Kiev to reject the EU, suggesting that it could get a discount on its gas price and funding – with few strings attached – from Moscow. As the days slip by, Ms Tymoshenko remains in jail, the likelihood of an EU agreement at the summit in Lithuania diminishes, and Ukraine looks more likely to remain firmly in Russia’s orbit. Mr Yanukovich has met Mr Putin twice in the last fortnight. Details of what they discussed were not revealed, but prime minister Mykola Azarov assured Ukraine that “the president and government are doing everything they can to restore normal trade and economic relations” with Russia.

Russia Waits As Ukraine Baulks At Terms Of EU Deal

KIEV, Ukraine -- With Ukraine’s continuing failure to release former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko from jail comes a growing impression that president Viktor Yanukovich and his allies have decided it is better to deal with the devil you know – preferring to rebuild strained ties with old ally Russia rather than enter into historic agreements with the European Union. Parliament in Kiev was deadlocked again yesterday over what to do about Ms Tymoshenko, whom the EU sees as the victim of political persecution by courts loyal to Mr Yanukovich. If she is not freed before a major EU summit in Lithuania on November 28th, Ukraine will not be offered landmark political and trade deals that would weaken Moscow’s centuries-old grip on the country and align its future with the West. Feared rival Yanukovych, her most popular rival, who has vowed to topple him and investigate the allegedly ill-gotten gains of his supporters and his own family. He may see it as too risky to release her ahead of a presidential election in 2015. But if he is to abandon – or pause on – Ukraine’s European path, Yanukovich must quickly repair relations with Moscow, which have been damaged by his flirtation with Brussels. From President Vladimir Putin down, Russian officials have made it clear that if Ukraine signs the deals with the EU this month, nothing will ever be the same between them again. “That’s why we warn in advance, we say: listen, we understand everything. This is your choice, do it. But keep in mind that we would have to somehow protect our market, to introduce protective mechanisms,” Mr Putin said recently. Sergei Glazyev, Putin’s economic adviser, was more blunt: “We have no idea why Ukraine is signing this agreement . . . It will cut the roots of our economic co-operation.” On another occasion, he predicted that Ukraine’s loss of business with its main trading partner would be disastrous for the country. “Who’ll pay for Ukraine’s default, which will be inevitable?” he asked. In the last few months, Russia temporarily imposed new checks on its border with Ukraine, causing huge delays for road traffic, and banned the import of chocolate from the Roshen factory, owned by a key proponent of Kiev’s greater integration with the EU. Moscow has also demanded payment of an overdue €640 million ($861 million) gas bill, amid a long-standing dispute with Kiev over the price it charges for fuel, raising the spectre of the kind of “gas war” that affected the transit of Russian gas supplies through Ukraine to the EU in 2006 and 2009. “We understand there would be possible negative effects of signing the agreement with the EU,” Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister, Andriy Olefirov, told The Irish Times. “But we are equals (with Russia) and having support from the EU will help us on many issues, like getting a fair price for gas.” “The Roshen issue, gas prices and possible shortages are all negative. But after the Lithuania summit we will see positive things – the EU agreement will also help us get a fair deal from the International Monetary Fund, and the EU has €610 million ($821 million) in the bank waiting for us.” Analysts say Ukraine may need more than €10 billion ($14 billion) in emergency funding from the IMF, and agreement between Kiev and the EU may help overcome an impasse over the conditions attached to the deal. From Russia with love Russia has offered its own inducements to Kiev to reject the EU, suggesting that it could get a discount on its gas price and funding – with few strings attached – from Moscow. As the days slip by, Ms Tymoshenko remains in jail, the likelihood of an EU agreement at the summit in Lithuania diminishes, and Ukraine looks more likely to remain firmly in Russia’s orbit. Mr Yanukovich has met Mr Putin twice in the last fortnight. Details of what they discussed were not revealed, but prime minister Mykola Azarov assured Ukraine that “the president and government are doing everything they can to restore normal trade and economic relations” with Russia.

Kiev Testing ‘Pause’ In EU Integration

KIEV, Ukraine -- The political situation in Ukraine has been heating up as the European Union’s November 28–29 Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius approaches. Kiev is preparing to sign an Association Agreement (AA) with the EU at Vilnius, but it is not yet certain whether the signing will go forward. Reaching this agreement could be a blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “Eurasianist” integration policy and eventually challenge the current Russian political model. Consequently, Moscow has been applying substantial economic pressure on Kiev to turn the tide in Russia’s favor. President Viktor Yanukovych made a hasty working visit to Moscow on November 9, which his press office pre-announced as motivated by the need to discuss “trade and economic relations with Russia on the eve of the Vilnius Summit.” Earlier on October 27, Yanukovych met with Putin in Sochi. Both visits received virtually no media coverage, which led one of Ukraine’s opposition leaders, Arseniy Yatseniuk, to sharply react on November 11: “If this is about secret negotiations with the president of another state, then this is a direct cause for impeachment […] because it is about state treason”. Apparently, during the Sochi meeting, President Putin presented his Ukrainian counterpart with some “carrots.” The director of the Institute of Ukrainian Policy, Kost Bondarenko, told Jamestown on November 11 that Putin’s proposals included a $15 billion financing program for Ukraine, reduced natural gas prices, and promises to continue cooperation on joint projects in nuclear energy and technology as well as the manufacturing sectors. Subsequently, the Russian proposal to launch “multi-billion dollar joint projects with Ukraine aimed at diversifying the country’s economy if Kiev fails to sign an EU association agreement” were repeated by presidential advisor Sergei Glazyev. According to Bondarenko, the November 9 presidential summit in Moscow was, therefore, designed to discuss Russian-Ukrainian cooperation as well as Russian guarantees and various scenarios for the evolution of bilateral relations based on whether Kiev does or does not sign the AA with the EU, or whether the agreement is postponed until 2014. Furthermore, Bondarenko wrote on November 12 that, apparently, in an effort to appear more accommodating, Russia has lifted its insistence on Kiev joining the Customs Union. Sentiments for resolving the trade issues with Russia have been on the rise in Ukraine recently. For instance, on November 11, Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov told the Ukrainian TV channel Inter, “It is not simply that we ‘do not want’ confrontation [with Russia], but that we will ‘never allow’ it… There will be no enmity between Russia and Ukraine, at least while our Government and our President are at the helm”. Furthermore, on that same day, the heads of Ukraine’s pro-government trade union federation (FPU) and industrialists association (USPP) requested that President Yanukovych meet with them as soon as possible to discuss the worsening of trade with Russia. The USPP specifically mentioned the economic hardships of railroad car building companies caused by Russia’s refusal to certify Ukraine’s production. Official statistics show that Ukraine’s railroad equipment exports fell 35 percent year-on-year in August 2013, where Russia was a key export market. At a meeting with the USPP on November 12, parliamentary deputy Valentyn Landyk asked the president to “postpone the [EU Association Agreement] signature by one year”. Meanwhile, President Yanukovych characterized Kiev’s European integration efforts as “pragmatic”. Yet, despite such mixed signals toward signing the AA, Yanukovych’s government appears to be more steadfast in developing broader cooperation with the West, including in the security and defense spheres with the EU and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) — much to Russia’s irritation. Ukrainian marines based in Crimea recently successfully participated in the NATO Steadfast Jazz 2013 exercise, while the military is also preparing to participate in a multi-national Lithuanian-Polish-Ukrainian brigade as well as the proposed Visegrad Four + Ukraine EU Battlegroup. Kiev has also been proactive in easing energy dependence from Russia and tries to seek US and Chinese financial support to address Ukraine’s fiscal deficit. There seems to be little such pragmatism from the Russian side, however. In fact, Kremlin advisor Glazyev challenged European liberal values as running counter to the Russian elite’s “[Christian] Orthodoxy” and characterized the Ukrainian leaders’ European choice as “in essence, anti-Christian”. Moscow clearly would like Ukraine to abandon its role as a “political transit state” and finally choose between East and West. The Russian ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizov, told the Russian International Affairs Council on November 12: “Both Moscow and Brussels are sending a certain signal not only to Kiev, but also to some other so-called focus states of the Eastern Partnership, so that, in practical terms, the time of comfortably sitting between the two chairs is coming to an end”. Nevertheless, the main formal obstacle preventing the European Union from agreeing to sign the Association Agreement with Ukraine remains President Yanukovych’s unwillingness to release from prison the former prime minister and opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko. The government needs to release Tymoshenko to demonstrate to Brussels that Ukraine is effectively addressing the issue of “selective justice”. On Wednesday (November 13), the Ukrainian parliament failed to pass a bill to allow Tymoshenko to leave prison for medical treatment in Germany. The Ukrainian authorities likely reason that while the benefits stemming from signing the AA will appear only in the long term, a shrewd politician like Yulia Tymoshenko might use Ukraine’s current economic downturn and Russian pressure on Kiev as campaign issues with which to attack Yanukovych in the upcoming spring 2015 presidential elections. This line of argument, however, rests on the assumptions that Vladimir Putin’s promises and threats are credible, and that the West’s policy on Ukraine is immutable. In fact, the EU might still consider lifting its “red line” on Tymoshenko and instead pledge to support Ukraine and sign the Association Agreement at the Vilnius Summit—while at the same time applying conditionality to Ukraine’s further development and democratization efforts. But the continuing lack of consensus among EU member states, coupled with the Ukrainian authorities’ record of insufficient cooperation in Tymoshenko’s case, somewhat tamper the likelihood of such an outcome. Nonetheless, for now, the prospects that the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement will be signed at the end of the month still remain relatively high.

Will Ukraine Go West, Or Stay East? Russia Fights Hard To Keep It In Its Orbit

MOSCOW, Russia -- President Putin’s advisor on economic integration warns Ukraine a move to the European Union would be “economic suicide.” A close friend of Russia’s president floods Ukraine’s capital with billboards warning EU association is a ticket to gay marriage. From steel to chocolates, Ukrainian products are held up at the border with Russia, Ukraine’s largest trading partner. The Kremlin has woken up to the fact that Ukraine, seen for centuries as a cradle of Russian culture and religion, may be on the verge of taking a decisive step out of Moscow’s orbit. At stake in this increasingly tense East-West tug-of-war, is a nation the size of France with 46 million people, nearly one third the population of Russia. Maxim Trudolyubov, editorial page editor of Moscow’s Vedemosti newspaper, warns the Kremlin will take reprisals if Ukraine signs an agreement of association with the European Union at a November 28-29 summit meeting in Vilnius, Lithuania. “On the face of it, it looks like the Kremlin will be very tough on Ukraine, and they can do a lot of things, they can do terrible things,” said Trudolyubov, whose newspaper is politically independent. “But, on the other hand, from the long perspective, of course, it is not in the Kremlin’s interest to harm Ukraine in any serious way.” At the Vilnius meeting, four former Soviet republics were expected to sign or initial agreements with the European Union. One, Armenia, folded in face of heavy Russian pressure. It agreed to join the Eurasian Economic Union, the rival trade group administered by Moscow. The other three - Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia - are on track, for now. The big prize The big prize is Ukraine, the second most populous former Soviet republic, after Russia. Pro-Kremlin analysts charge that “Polish imperialism” is pushing the European Union to admit Ukraine. They charge Washington is using the European Union to drive a wedge between Russia and its historic Slavic brother, Ukraine. Sergei Mikhailov, an analyst at the Russian Institute of Strategic Studies, warns the European Union is too broke to give Ukraine and Moldova the kind of infrastructure support doled out in earlier expansions. “Bulgaria and Romania are two countries that show the risks,” he said here. Russia’s pressure is taking its toll. Ukraine’s parliament has missed three deadlines to pass laws required by the European Union. The fight is expected to go right down to the wire, the day the meeting opens in Lithuania. Strong popular support But public opinion and Ukraine’s political calendar may be on the side of Ukraine choosing Europe. In a poll last month, 45 percent of Ukrainians favored the association agreement with the European Union. This is three times greater than the 14 percent who wanted to join the Moscow-led economic bloc. Dmitri Trenin, director of the Moscow Carnegie Center, sees Ukraine and Moldova’s move to integrate with Europe as a natural, positive evolution. “This will be an important stimulus to the modernization, not just of their economies, or political and legal systems, but also of societies,” he said in Moscow. “So I see it as hugely important and, on balance, very positive.” In 16 months, Ukrainians vote for president. With polls indicating growing popular support for joining Europe, analysts say President Viktor Yanukovych will win reelection only if he signs the European accession agreement. Indeed, Yanukovych seems to be preparing alternatives to weather economic blasts from Russia. This year, China is to become Ukraine’s second largest trading partner. Last week, Ukraine suspended imports of Russian gas until the end of this year. This is possible because of warm weather, an expanded gas storage system, and pipeline changes that allow Ukraine to import gas from Europe. In Moscow, Sergei Mikhailov compares the tension between Russia and Ukraine to the tension between two candidates in days before a close election. He says much of the tension is psychological. If a deal is signed in Lithuania, Russia and Ukraine will adjust to the new reality. Vygaudas Usackas is a Lithuanian living in Moscow. He is the E.U. ambassador here and says the deal could benefit Russia: “It will also have, I hope, a strong impact towards Russia, which is the most immediate and closest neighbor of Ukraine, benefiting from that pathway towards European values, governance, accountability and economic diversity of the systems we all embrace.” The coming days will tell: whether Ukraine stays East, or goes West.

Press Says Ukraine Torn Between EU And Russia

KIEV, Ukraine -- Newspapers believe Ukraine is playing for high stakes with Russia and the EU, after MPs failed to agree on a bill that would allow jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko to leave the country. Some liken the country to a lover torn between two suitors - the EU, which has made Ms Tymoshenko's release a condition for a key association agreement, and Russia, which wants Ukraine to join its own customs union. EU monitors now say Ukraine must pass laws meeting EU conditions by next Tuesday, or the deal will not be signed at a summit in two weeks' time. 'Risky game' Papers in Ukraine have mixed views on the chances of an agreement with the EU, as well as on its desirability. The tabloid Vesti says that in Ukraine "sceptical sentiments were growing yesterday regarding the prospects for signing the association agreement with the EU". Columnist Oles Buzyna goes further in the daily Segodnya. "Today it became finally clear to me that Ukraine's infamous association with the EU has kicked the bucket," he says. The columnist welcomes this, accusing the EU of being "maliciously willing to do away with Ukraine and what remains of its industry". However, the daily Den believes Ukraine "will lose out" if the agreement is not signed. "In the event of failure, everybody - the Ukrainian authorities, opposition and the European side - will be to blame," it says. The tabloid Segodnya quotes an aide to President Viktor Yanukovych, Dmytro Vydrin, as saying the agreement "will be signed anyway because there is a political will on the part of Euro-MPs and bureaucrats". Meanwhile the pro-opposition daily Ukrayina Moloda believes Mr Yanukovych "has not fully abandoned the EU association as yet", but is playing "a risky game" in a bid to extract as many concessions as possible from both Brussels and Moscow. 'Trust' at stake Russian newspapers see little chance of the EU-Ukraine agreement still going ahead. Under the headline "Ukraine in no hurry", the Vedomosti business daily says the probability of signing the association agreement has plummeted from 90% just a week ago to under 50% after the Ukrainian president visited Moscow over the weekend. Novyye Izvestiya agrees that "Ukraine is well on the way to scuppering the signing of the association agreement with the European Union". It notes that "the authorities have started saying that the country does not need the association with the EU at all". Moskovskiy Komsomolets suggests that the Ukrainian authorities have deliberately "disrupted" the passing of European integration bills. However, it quotes Global Strategies Institute director Vadim Karasev as saying that the president has "not yet made a final decision". The business daily Kommersant quotes pundits as warning that, as Mr Yanukovych continues to "manoeuvre" between the EU and Russia, he "may lose the trust of both". 'Giddy fiancee' The Polish daily Rzeczpospolita offers an explanation for Ukraine's perceived reluctance to resolve the issue of Ms Tymoshenko's fate. "Experts say that the ruling Party of Regions and President Viktor Yanukovych are scared by the former prime minister's ability to influence the presidential election campaign in 2015," the paper says. Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung believes that, "like a bride between two cavaliers", the Ukrainian president "is trying to play off Moscow and Brussels against each other". In this situation, the paper urges the EU to stay firm. "Europe must not allow an association with Ukraine for as long as Tymoshenko is in prison," the paper says. Under the headline "Ukraine moves away from deal with EU", France's Le Figaro Magazine feels that "there is a strong wind in Kiev blowing eastwards". "Like a giddy fiancee who has been pretending for months she was about to announce her prompt marriage with Europe, Ukraine is now going back on her promise, deciding instead to flirt with Russia, a protective neighbour who does everything it can to sabotage this union," the magazine says.

14 Ukraine Reporters Quit Over Censorship Concerns

KIEV, Ukraine -- More than one-half of the editorial staff at the Ukrainian edition of Forbes has quit to protest what they say is censorship imposed by the new management. Senior editor Boris Davidenko said Wednesday that he and 13 other journalists resigned after the new chief editor rejected a previously approved project to investigate a top government official, First Deputy Prime Minister Serhiy Arbuzov. Arbuzov, an ally of Ukraine's president, is believed to have ties to the magazine's new owner, the young millionaire Serhiy Kurchenko. Davidenko said the journalists were told the magazine was changing its coverage of a certain "important group of people." The chief editor, Mikhail Kotov, denied the accusations of censorship, saying the journalists were simply biased against the new owner.

Ukraine's 'Stalling' On EU Trade Pact Seen As Victory For Vladimir Putin

KIEV, Ukraine -- Kiev's failure to legislate for release of Yulia Tymoshenko, a key condition of Brussels deal, enhances Moscow's hold on Ukraine. Europe's hopes of besting Vladimir Putin and luring Ukraine out of Moscow's orbit through free trade and the prospect of EU membership suffered a setback on Wednesday when the parliament in Kiev balked at a key decision intended to push the country westwards. The parliament shelved legislation that would have released the former prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, from prison to go to Germany for medical treatment. The failure to act in Kiev was seen as a stalling tactic by the president, Viktor Yanukovych, and suggested a points victory for the Kremlin in its campaign to retain influence in the former Soviet territories between Russia and the EU. An EU summit at the end of the month in Lithuania is to decide whether to put Ukraine on the path to the EU through the signing of a free-trade pact and what is known as an "association agreement", a first step towards opening EU membership negotiations. In the ferocious tussle between Moscow and Brussels, Putin scored a significant victory in September when Armenia performed an abrupt volte-face, ditched years of negotiations with the EU, and announced it was joining a Russia-led customs union instead. Moscow is deploying the weapons of trade wars and gas supplies to coerce the former Soviet republics to shun Europe in favour of closer ties with Russia in what it appears to view as a zero-sum game. Ukraine, with a population of 46 million and the key transit territory for Russian gas supplies to Europe, is the big prize in this contest. The gloves appear to be coming off only two weeks before the crucial summit in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital. The Yanukovych administration appeared to be engaged in brinkmanship, Moscow seemed satisfied, and Brussels despondent about developments this week. Pat Cox of Ireland and Aleksander Kwasniewski of Poland, both Europe's mediators in Ukraine, were due to report on their mission to the European parliament on Wednesday evening. All the signs were they would deliver a verdict of mission not yet accomplished. Germany has made Tymoshenko's release a condition for signing the EU pact with Ukraine. Lithuania, currently chairing the EU and a former Soviet territory, has argued strongly against tying such a strategic decision to the fate of one person. Poland and Sweden have also been strong advocates of getting the deal done with Ukraine. The main criterion Yanukovych has to meet for the European pact is an end to "selective justice", or the manipulation of the judiciary for political ends. This would apply to the Tymoshenko case; she was jailed for seven years in 2011 for what are widely seen as political reasons. But the clouds darkened on Monday when the Ukrainian authorities also detained Tymoshenko's chief lawyer for questioning about alleged domestic violence. Yanukovych also went to Moscow at the weekend for secret talks with Putin. Cox and Kwasniewski are to deliver a report on their 18-month mission, which will be discussed by EU foreign ministers next Monday before the summit in Lithuania. Diplomats in Brussels said the chances were receding of striking a deal in Vilnius, but that the brinkmanship could continue until the last minute.

Ukraine's Choice: East Or West?

KIEV, Ukraine -- "Ukraine at the Rubicon." "Kiev at a geopolitical crossroads." "The battle for Ukraine." The headlines have been dire and the expectations high as the clock ticks down to the European Union's Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius at the end of this month. With less than two weeks to go, the main potential achievement of that summit -- the signing of an Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU that has been more than five years in the works -- remains very much up in the air. For months, the government of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych seemed to be building momentum in its European-integration drive. It passed key reform legislation and indicated openness to releasing from prison former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, whom the EU views as a victim of selective justice. But pressure from Moscow -- which wants Kiev instead to join its customs union -- has grown as the proposed signing become increasingly imminent. Yanukovych has held at least three secretive meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the last two weeks, and in their wake the Ukrainian leader's enthusiasm for Euro-integration seems to be waning. "The EU has been right to say that there is at the moment no Plan B because momentum is all-important -- and if there isn't a signature in Vilnius, that momentum will clearly be lost," notes Andrew Wilson, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. "And 2014 will be a year of preparation for the [Ukrainian] presidential election in early 2015." Former Polish President and EU envoy to Ukraine Aleksander Kwasniewski told journalists on November 14 that failure to sign on the dotted line in Vilnius could mean "the postponing of the agreement for an indefinite number of years." Battle Royale For Ukraine Analysts say Kiev's decision is crucial for both Brussels and Moscow. The EU, worn down by enlargement fatigue and the effects of the global financial crisis, needs to show that it has the attraction and will to pursue its broad, post-Berlin Wall mission of "a Europe whole and free," Wilson says. He adds that Ukraine is also essential to Putin's flagship project -- the Eurasian Union. "It is key to Putin and the key project of his term -- growing the customs union into the Eurasian Union," Wilson says. "It is also key to Putin and to Putin's friends -- the kind of private business interests that Russia wants to promote in Ukraine. Without Ukraine, Putin's Eurasian Union would become a decidedly Asian project, and Ukraine's economy -- although much smaller than Russia's -- is the only one in the former Soviet Union capable of imbuing the Eurasian Union with a semblance of balance. So Moscow will not relent in its efforts to prevent Ukraine from integrating with the European Union, even if Kiev proceeds with the Association Agreement, says former Russian Deputy Prime Minister and opposition politician Boris Nemtsov. "Signing a partnership agreement with Europe is a difficult decision that will be very painful for the Ukrainian economy during the first years. But sooner or later they will have to pass through these difficulties, and I think it is better to do it sooner rather than later," Nemtsov says. "It is obvious that Putin will impose sanctions against Ukrainian goods. There will be trade wars, that is obvious. It is impossible to tell what will happen with natural gas," he adds. "No one says it will be easy. But overcoming these difficulties is unavoidable." Putin Puts On The Pressure Political scientist Andreas Umland of the Kiev-Mohyla Academy wrote recently that, "Should Moscow use its considerable leverage to the full, the Ukrainian economy would be unable to withstand, and could go into a free-fall." And Yanukovych is skeptical that European institutions have the will to prop things up. The stealthy Putin-Yanukovych meetings recall a closed-door session the Kremlin leader had with Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian on September 3, after which Sarkisian surprisingly announced that his country would join the Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia, despite being on the verge of initialing a long-negotiated Association Agreement in Vilnius. Tellingly, Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said on November 13 that "the normalization of relations with Russia is question No. 1 of our national policy." He noted that a decrease in exports to Russia by more than one-quarter as a result of a Moscow-imposed customs slowdown had hit the country's economy hard. Moreover, Ukraine's parliament has failed repeatedly -- most recently on November 13 -- to pass the legislation needed to release Tymoshenko, and Yanukovych has been unwilling to free his longtime political rival by executive fiat. Pro-Russian forces in Ukraine are also mobilizing to sway public opinion. Former lawmaker Viktor Medvedchuk -- who has close personal ties to Putin -- has formed an organization called Ukrainian Choice that is posting billboards in Ukraine claiming that association with the EU will mean the legalization of same-sex marriage. This is a salient issue in Ukraine. The same October poll found that 48 percent of Ukrainians oppose increased tolerance toward homosexuals and other sexual minorities. European Push But Moscow isn't the only formidable force turning up the pressure on Yanukovych. Many of Ukraine's powerful oligarchs fear being devoured by Kremlin-friendly business interests and are therefore pushing hard for Kiev to move toward Europe. "The Ukrainians -- if you take the situation to its logical conclusion -- could end up as hired managers of those enterprises that are competitive with Russian ones. This future, of course, does not satisfy the absolute majority of the Ukrainian elite that currently owns these enterprises. There aren't that many of them, but they are the drivers of the Ukrainian economy," explains Kirill Koktysh, a professor at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO). "So, for this reason, naturally, they are seeking protection from the European Union from such a swallowing-up. It isn't a drive to make things better but essentially just to protect themselves from Russia." The wrangling is being played out against the background of Ukraine's 2015 presidential election, which promises to be highly divisive. Vitali Klitschko, leader of the opposition Udar party, told RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service that he was already gearing up for the vote. "There is a Plan B. Our next fight is the fight for the office of the president," he said. "And the president should implement the European rules of life." Klitschko is urging Ukrainians to attend a November 24 rally in Kiev that will be a multiparty show of support for Ukraine's pro-European course. "The flags could be Ukrainian; these flags could be European, because Ukraine is Europe," he said. "This is not a party meeting, not an action of a party or a certain political force. It is the wish of all Ukrainians, regardless of their political views, to live in a European country." Public support for a pro-EU course is currently strong. According to a poll conducted in October, 45 percent of Ukrainians support the Association Agreement, while only 14 percent want to join the Russia-led customs union. Nearly half of the supporters of Yanukovych's ruling Party of Regions support the EU agreement, while opposition voters support it in even greater numbers. And in addition to the celebrity that being the reigning world heavyweight boxing champion brings, a presidential bid by Klitschko -- or another pro-European candidate -- could also count on some influential financial backers. Ukraine's leading oligarchs -- those who are spooked by the prospect of being muscled aside by Russian rivals -- seem poised to line up behind a pro-European candidate, if Yanukovych balks at signing the agreement. "The entire oligarchy understands they have to play by rules. The time is coming when rules are needed because without rules, without institutional stability, without institutional transparency, the company loses its value," says Vadym Karasev, the director of the Global Strategies Institute in Kiev. "The value of the country will fall. As much as the oligarchy has invested in Ukraine, in its development -- buying soccer teams, creating media groups -- all that could collapse into dust."

Epic Drama In Ukraine: Do Villains Turn Into Heroes?

KIEV, Ukraine -- Over the past months Ukraine has been popping up in the news more frequently than ever. The Eastern European country, torn for years between Russia and Europe, has finally come close to signing the EU Association Agreement — a trade and political cooperation treaty with the European Union. However, Ukraine’s struggle to meet the EU requirements and resist pressure from a Russia that wants to retain the country in its orbit, has turned into a Hollywood movie ripe with villains, heroes, conflict and desire. It’s an interesting saga, even to those bored by international politics. The signing of the historic pact is scheduled for November 28th during the Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. The agreement represents the hard work of European and Ukrainian officials; and intrigue, false promises and Ukrainian political maneuvering have all played a part up to this point. It may all have been for nothing, as nobody can say with any certainty whether the parties involved will sign the dotted line when the moment of truth comes. But let’s start from the beginning. Events of the past few years have played out like a Hollywood screenplay penned in a furious collaboration between Tom Clancy and Aaron Sorkin. The set up: Ukraine, a post-Soviet country of 46 million, has always been a subject of interest for both Europe and Russia. It is fortunately positioned in Europe, has high economic potential, a well-educated population, rich agricultural lands and access to the Black Sea. The main character: the country’s reportedly corrupt and authoritative president, Victor Yanukovych (who, in his younger years served two sentences in prison for robbery and assault), is motivated by greed and power and the desire for more. Not once during his presidency has he demonstrated a ‘country-first’ attitude. Act I. Since becoming president in 2010, Yanukovych centralized power and money around his family and a few close allies, privatized a large federal mansion by the river outside of Ukraine’s capital Kiev, and grabbed a piece of a national park near the Black Sea to use as his summer residence. His son, a former dentist, is now head of an opaque corporation with a fortune that exceeds half billion dollars. Two years ago, a Ukrainian court, with the president’s blessing, imprisoned his main political opponent, ex-prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, the blond-braided heroine of the Orange Revolution in 2004. She is also, allegedly, corrupt and greedy, but quickly adopts democratic slogans when it suits her. Tymoshenko was accused of signing “bad” gas contracts with Russia. Her arrest drew outrage from the West, who perceived her imprisonment to be political persecution. Refocusing on the international stage, Yanukovych declares that Ukraine will move towards European Integration, and sign the EU Association Agreement, which makes Russian president Vladimir Putin furious. Putin had seen Ukraine as part of a Russia-led economic bloc with Belarus and Kazakhstan called the Customs Union. The European Union made it clear that Ukraine can’t join both teams, and Putin’s vision of creating a neo-Russian Empire started to falter. Act II. European politicians pressure Yanukovych to release Yulia Tymoshenko as a sign he’s ending political persecution in Ukraine and committing to democratic values. Yanukovych promises to handle the situation. Meanwhile, Russia begins a brief but aggressive economic war with Ukraine, attacking the smaller country’s businesses, saying that Ukraine’s economy would collapse without Russia’s trade support and that EU benefits wouldn’t be enough to stabilize the nation. Putin’s ambassadors bombard Ukraine with the suggestion that Ukraine is nothing without Russia. Nothing. What will Yanukovych do? Will he give in to Putin? Will he release Tymoshenko and continue toward the open arms of Europe? Now the story reaches perhaps its most important crossroad: one man has the chance to recast his legacy, to change from an unpopular, semi-criminal president to a savior that makes the historic decision to light the path to a long-term, positive future for his country. Can a villain become a hero? It happened in the Star Wars Saga. Act III. The deadline for Tymoshenko’s release, set by the EU, rapidly approaches. Yanukovych carefully calculates his strategy, maneuvering without setting Tymoshenko free. After all, he’s up for re-election in 2015, and Tymoshenko, once out of prison, might steal his job. Yanukovych may have his own plans and motifs (greed, power, reelection), but the majority of his “electorate” wants him to sign the treaty with the EU. According to a recent GFK poll, 45% of Ukrainians support the EU pact, while only 14% favor joining Putin’s CU. Ruining the relationship with Russia is not anyone’s goal, but people in Ukraine are craving life in a society that values human rights, democratic freedom and fair business opportunities. Russia can’t offer any of that. Europe has said there is no way the treaty could be signed without resolving “the Tymoshenko issue.” The imprisoned ex-prime minister has long been complaining of back problems and Germany offered her treatment in one of its clinics. European officials came to a possible solution that could solve the issue and avoid hurting Yanukovych’s pride — bring her to Germany to get her out of her Ukrainian cell. Tymoshenko – flailing in prison, disconnected from the outside world – is ready to agree to anything. But our main character – our potential hero – seems to be choosing the villain’s path. Tymoshenko’s treatment abroad is impossible without Yanukovych’s signature. And while Yanukovyh says that he intends to let her go, his parliament repeatedly fails to agree on the text of the bill, putting the EU deal in jeopardy. It’s understood that in today’s Ukraine the parliament doesn’t make truly independent decisions. Procrastination and quibbling over the bill smells like Yanukovych playing games. The most popular view, it seems, is that he’s been using the EU pact as leverage in his negotiations with Putin. On November 9th, Ukraine’s president met up with Vladimir Putin in Moscow. That scene is cut out of the movie and we don’t know what agreement they made. Is Russia giving Ukraine more loans? Is it forgiving Ukraine’s enormous debt? Is Putin promising to finance Yanukovych’s re-election campaign? All we know is the signing date with the EU is two weeks away and no one can tell the president’s intentions for sure. The final push and the climax will take place in Parliament next week. The EU extended the deadline for the final decision to November 19th, with the summit scheduled in Vilnius on November 28th – 29th. Taking into an account the events of the past months, and the lack of transparency in Yanukovych’s plan, the gathering in Vilnius may already be doomed. A scene that took place behind closed doors is where our main character made his decision and chose what’s best for himself, determining the geopolitical future of the region and the futures of those he is sworn to represent. Villains almost never turn into heroes in real life. After all, Ukraine’s president’s main goal is to get reelected in 2015, and he’ll do whatever it takes. But the movie is not over yet and an unexpected twist is still possible.

The magic of Russian Olympic torches

Only 100 days are left before the Olympics in Sochi. Yet, many Russians keep on betting on how many more times Olympic torches, made by Krasmash, will go out during the relay. The fading symbol of the Winter Games has become the main character of numerous Russian blogs from the first entry on October 6. Pravda.Ru decided to find out whom to blame for the stories that the Olympic torch had to go through during its relay across Russia and whether the manufacturer will incur any punishment. The torches for the Olympic torch relay, 12,800 rubles each ($400), were manufactured at the Krasnoyarsk Machine-Building Plant (Krasmash). The Olympic flame, which has been in space and on the North Pole, has extinguished itself in the hands of torchbearers more than just once or twice. For the first time, it happened on October 6 in Moscow in the hands of the 17-time world champion in diving Shavarsh Karapetyan. When it happened for the first time, the incident was explained with a mistake, made by an officer of the organizing committee, who allegedly opened the valve torch not fully. Subsequent similar incidents that occurred to the Olympic flame during the Moscow stage of the relay indicated that the cause for all that was to be found in the design of the torch. However, Krasmash representatives refused to answer Pravda.Ru questions about those, who can be called guilty of multiple states of emergency that occurred to the symbol of the Sochi Olympics. "According to the agreement signed before the start of the production of torches, all comments regarding the production, further use, and the use in the relay can be given only from the Organizing Committee of the Sochi 2014," representative of the PR department, Oksana Boldyreva said. There are many questions to Krasmash indeed. The first one of them is why and on what criteria the company was selected by the Organizing Committee of Sochi for the manufacture of goods of national importance. We would also like to know if it is true that there were students invited to manufacture the torches for the promised fee of 1,000 rubles. "Unfortunately, there are no answers to a half of your questions, because we do not have the conclusions of whom is to blame and what to do. We only make records of each case, and we want to understand why this is happening. The causes have not been established yet," Roman Osin, a representative of the service for communications of the Olympic relay said. Noteworthy, there was enough time for making the torches ahead of the Sochi Olympics. Krasmash received the order 18 months ago. The unique design of the Olympic symbol was created by Vladimir Pirozhkov, who said that prior to the start of the torch relay, the torch that he designed was functioning perfectly and corresponded to all media slogans about stable combustion in all weathers and climate conditions. Krasmash produced 16,000 torches in total. It remains unknown if all of them were tested. At the same time, representatives of the Olympic organizing committee assured Pravda.Ru that Krasmash justified hopes of the state. Krasmash is a legendary Russian company. The company makes space equipment - boosters to launch communication satellites into orbit. The Supervisory Board of the Organizing Committee formulated requirements on 23 March 2012 for a potential manufacturer of the torch. Among others, it was decided that it should be a Russian company possessing necessary production facilities and experience in the production of high-tech combustion systems. The Organizing Committee reviewed several proposals, and the choice was made ​​in favor of Krasnoyarsk Machine-Building Plant. The contract value was not disclosed," the press service of the Olympic torch relay of Sochi-2014. As for the incident with extinguished torches, which many Russians call shameful, officials with the Organizing Committee reminded everyone that such Olympic failures have occurred in the past too. "According to statistics, during Olympic torch relays of the past, torches would go out many times in other countries. It happened in Nagano, in Paris, in Montreal, in Athens, and even on the eve of the Olympic torch relay in London. Organizers of the previous torch relays calculated that the percentage of failed torches was equal to five. At the Sochi 2014 relay, this figure is currently less than three percent. Smaller incidents with torches only mean that anything can happen to anyone," officials with the Organizing Committee of Sochi Games said. Special headquarters have been established to investigate the causes behind each case of flame extinction. The results of the investigation will be exposed to the general public as soon as they are ready. Many compare the upcoming Games in Sochi with the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, of course, in favor of the latter. However, Soviet and Russian basketball player, Olympic champion Sergei Tarakanov, believes that the problem today is not in the way it is organized. It is about how much attention is paid to the current mishaps. "Even if there were technical failures in 1980, nothing was reported about them. Today, journalists often exaggerate the situation, even where it does not really need to be inflated and where it is desirable not to say anything at all," the athlete told Pravda.Ru. "Of course, if the torch goes out, one should ask those who made it, those responsible for such things of national importance. Today, it seems to me that the problem of responsibility is one of the most important ones in the whole country, because nobody is responsible for anything."

Many Russians still share warm memories of Communist organizations

On October 29, 1918 the Russian Communist Youth League was established. Eight years later, it was transformed into the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, also called Komsomol. The organization became history with the collapse of the Soviet Union, but people still remember it two decades later. Many successful people in Russia, by and large, came out of the Komsomol organization, including oligarchs, politicians and people of creative professions. What remains of the Komsomol today? More than just memories that for the most part are good, despite the ideological component. Organizational experience is the Komsomol legacy. Earlier, even at the final stages of perestroika that destroyed the past, it was said that unions were the school of management, while the Komsomol was the school of patriotic education. There is no clear cut way to describe the Komsomol. On the one hand, it was the school of officials and oligarchs, but on other hand it was a hearth and home for people who love their homeland. When came the perestroika followed by "market reforms," the Komsomol gathered, grouped, and acknowledged its historic role as completed. In one instance the achievements of previous generations of the Komsomol members who worked for the good of the entire country, for the benefit of future generations and believed that they would live under communism, were privatized. The Komsomol went through the destruction with dignity. Yet, it has not survived the perestroika diluted by dull stagnation. Yesterday's fiery leaders were the first ones to rush to organize "Komsomol" cafes, banks, cooperatives, and video salons funded by Komsomol capital. It was not the Komsomol that has left; it was we who have leaped away from it when the changes came. Over these leaps we forgot all the good aspects of the Komsomol. And when, by the laws of physics, after each leap we landed painfully on the bumps of the "new Russia," and began to understand the laws of morality. The spiritual "safety cushion" that the Komsomol once provided has disappeared. The majority of government representatives and authorities are former members of the Komsomol. You are not likely to find anyone among oligarchs who at the time was not in the possession of a Komsomol membership card. The longer the current "big names" worked in the Komsomol, the more successful career they built. However, this generation is already followed by the next one that only heard about the All-Union Lenin Communist Youth League (and some of its representatives do not even know about it). The organization started in 1917 with the establishment of the union of socialist workers, peasants and students. But they were divided, and on October 29, 1918, the Russian Communist Youth League (Komsomol) was established. In 1924, the Komsomol was named after Lenin, and in March of 1926 it was renamed the All-Union Leninist Young Communist organization. According to statistics, in 1977 the League included over 36 million citizens of the Soviet Union at the age of 14-28. It was the largest mass youth organization in the world, and this record still holds. This is only dry historical information, chronological and factual characteristics of the once mighty organization. To give an emotional, business, and personal assessment of the Komsomol for its birthday, Pravda.Ru asked some famous Russians to speak about it. The opinions varied greatly. A People's Artist of Russia Rimma Markova: "After the collapse of the Soviet Union young people, the future of the country, were not really engaged. There were very few drug addicts in the Soviet Union. This is because everyone was busy starting from kindergarten. Kids were little Octobrists, then Komsomol, and so on. It's horrible, but all of this was destroyed. Now we have so many drug addicts, so many abandoned children. People do not live well. As soon as Mom and Dad start working, kids run away from their families and have nowhere to go." Vice -President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Sergei Aldoshin: "It is difficult to provide an unambiguous answer to this question. There were good moments and there were purely formal ones, as it often happens in our lives. Yet, positive aspects have prevailed. This organization facilitated the development of patriotism, gave impetus to a normal, healthy career growth, that is, it helped young people to find a foothold in life. Although many of the activities were just a formality, sometimes in our lives we cannot say whether something is good or bad. The truth is always somewhere in the middle. My memories of the Komsomol organization are those of romantic youth, my school and university years. I actually did not remember that October 29 is the birthday of the Komsomol organization. Thank you for reminding me!" A People's Artist of the USSR Elina Bystritskaya: "It is my nature that I cannot agree with anything or anyone. I have my own opinion. I joined the Komsomol in the army, during the war. I do not understand how one could think something bad of it, at the time no one thought of it. There were good songs about the Komsomol. My mom was a member at some point. I think that organizations are a must in certain age, in order for people to know why they work and what they want. I think the Komsomol provided good knowledge in that sense, and helped to start life. Otherwise, we would not have built so many things." A candidate of historical sciences, professor of the history of modern times Russian State Humanitarian University IAI Lyubov Mozhayeva: "This is a global issue. The Komsomol was originally created as an amateur organization. It was created from the bottom, but with the support from the top, first of all, to make this organization a combat reserve and the assistant of the Bolshevik Party. It seems to me that the mobilizing role of the Komsomol has been associated not only with the party; it was associated with all the values of our life, the Soviet life. There were a lot of good things in it. Now we have a problem with value orientations. What are the goals now, on what basis should we be building youth organizations? We had perestroika; we had the early post- perestroika times when there was an attempt to somehow build a youth policy. Now we cannot build such a strong bottom-up youth organization. We can argue whether it was good or bad, but as we can see, neither youth nor the society can live without ideology. Otherwise, there are fluctuations, up to radical use of energy, different ideologies or other ideas. But at the same time, I want to say that the Komsomol as an organization had travelled the entire tragic path through the entire Soviet period with the country. It is a system, as any organization works as a system. I have a positive view of the Komsomol. You can often hear the word "formalism" used in relation to the Komsomol. I do not have such an experience. When I was to join the Komsomol, I was after a surgery, on crutches. My entire class went to the Komsomol committee, and the committee sent Commissioners of the District Committee to my house. This was in 1965, and I was accepted without any formalities. But the minuses of the Komsomol were the minuses of the entire system of that time." President of JSC "New Commonwealth" Konstantin Babkin: "I was a member of the Komsomol in the late 1980s, on the decline of the Soviet regime. Indeed, there was a certain feeling of bureaucratization and alienation from the needs of young people. There was some kind of ideological litter. But today, looking from a distance on the historic role of the Komsomol, I believe that the organization was important, necessary, and we could use something like this now. There is a lack of systematic work with youth sports organizations, a uniting youth structure. I think it is necessary. I generally have positive feelings about the Komsomol and its role in my life. Of course, young people now are not striving to be astronauts and explorers. Now young people usually dream of becoming officials and measure success with money. Although, this was also imposed on them. This primitive materialism that is dominant now is the pursuit of the usual material things and nothing else. People are already bored of it and are longing for changes. Therefore the concept of the Komsomol will now be in demand, or may soon be. Chairman of the Board of Directors of "Dymov" company Vadim Dymov: "I think that the Komsomol played a very important role at the time, and was completely adequate for that time. It was playing the role of a junior division of the CPSU, so to speak. It prepared young people, somewhere it was even brainwashing so people would have fewer doubts in the future and spend more time working for the benefit of the Soviet state and the Soviet people. In this organization there were no individuals. People were only a part of the organization. And this was a weakness in my opinion. Has it achieved its goal? Yes, it has. At the right time people could be mobilized and really inspired. In moments the country needed it (war, construction, and so on), the Komsomol fulfilled its task. Now, in my opinion, it is no longer relevant because now the country is facing other problems. I see the future without the Komsomol despite the fact that I was a member. Generally I have nothing bad to say about it. But the Young Communist League as part of this entire socialist ideology, Soviet ideology, the system, has failed. Why do we think about the past and trying to catch hold of something if we understand that it will never happen again? We must find new meaning for the future, we must look for new models, we have to inspire people for tasks the country is facing. If Russia has declared itself as a world leader in the economy, we still need young economists, young entrepreneurs, that's what we need. We need people with an open mind, people who can take personal responsibility instead of acting within organizations such as the Communist Party or the Komsomol. The world has changed."

Nuclear shield: A change of priorities

Russia's strategic rocket forces (RSF) by 2021 will be re-armed with universal defense systems of the fifth generation by 98 percent. This is obviously not a sensation, because this date was stated before. But this time it is not just about replacing the missiles, but also the modernization of the existing and construction of new bases of the Strategic Rocket Forces. It is also about equipping the SRF infrastructure with the latest communication, security systems and other modern weapons and equipment to support the operation of the missile attack group. The media quoted the Defense Ministry noting that by 2016 the ratio of new missile systems in the Strategic Missile Forces will be approximately 60 percent. This will be parallel to the development of the relevant infrastructure. Only intercontinental ballistic missile RS-20V "Voevoda" (under the Western classification - SS -18 "Satan") will remain in the arsenal of strategic missile regiments until 2022, and then only in very limited quantities. Now the industry and military conduct work to prolong its service life to 30 years. Will Russia be able to re-arm the Strategic Missile Forces over a fairly short period of time? According to the majority of military experts, it is quite likely. In any case, there are no apparent reasons for the delay of such plans. So far there are only a few of SRF regiments fully equipped with intercontinental ballistic missile systems of the fifth generation, "Topol-M" and "Yars" in Russia. The first regiment, Teykovskoe missile regiment, emerged a couple of years ago in the Ivanovo region. Two of its missile regiments are equipped with "Topol -M," and another two the "Yars." The Ministry of Defense representatives noted then that in the course of re-armament of the regiments with the new types of missile complexes, the infrastructure in the positioning areas of missile regiments was improved. It involved construction of new barracks, headquarters, training facilities and kitchens, and expansion of modern training methods In 2013, the re-armament work in Novosibirsk and Kozelskii regiments will be completed. 100 units of military and special equipment for the new missile systems were delivered to these areas. The re-armament of the first missile regiment Tagilsky was started. In addition, before the end of this year preparatory work for the full re-armament in Irkutsk and Jasnensky rocket regiments will be conducted. Virtually all recent official reports on the latest missile systems use one word that has become nearly sacred - the infrastructure. It appears that the Defense Ministry is actively changing the concept of the Strategic Rocket Forces set up in the Soviet Union. During Soviet times, the concept of a strategic missile group was based on the primacy of the weapons and secondary nature of the supporting infrastructure. There have been cases, especially in the mid-1980s, during perestroika, when the infrastructure of newly opened rocket regiments was an afterthought. That is, silos were equipped, rockets were put into operation, and readiness tests were conducted literally in the open field or in the taiga or tundra. Only then they would think about food for rocket servicing staff on duty, their lodging, resources to conduct maintenance works, and so on. In the second half of the 1980s the American media published the latest pictures of a Soviet missile silo. There was a great deal of fuss about it, the Soviet special agents were trying to find out where the photos came from, and the Americans were openly laughing. It does not matter where the American journalists have procured the rare photos. The fact is that right at the perimeter of an ultra-modern missile silo there was a regular field kitchen circa 1939, working on wood and smoking away. It could be seen from space satellites. It seems that the current leadership of the Defense Ministry is aware of the importance of the latest missiles, and chose the most logical path: first take care of the rear and only then fighting positions. As for the distant future, Russia is developing a new solid fuel intercontinental missile that sometime in the future may replace the existing missile systems of the fifth generation like "Yars" and "Topol -M." In 2012 SRF conducted a few launches of a prototype of the missile from a mobile launcher at the state Central interspecific range "Kapustin Yar" in Astrakhan region. The launches were rather successful. The designers of military equipment with understandable caution do not call this development the sixth generation of intercontinental missiles. It is clear that in ten years (a full production cycle of commissioning of serial missile units) rocket technology will also be upgraded.

The world acknowledges international role of Putin's Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin was ranked first in the ranking of the world's most influential people by the U.S. Forbes magazine. The Russian leader is ahead of U.S. President Barack Obama, who was in second place. Obama is followed by President Xi Jinping, Pope Francis, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. In addition to Vladimir Putin, Russia was represented in the ranking by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev (53rd place), the head of "Rosneft" Igor Sechin (60th place) and businessman Alisher Usmanov (63rd place). Forbes ranking includes 72 political, economic, and social activists. In 2007 the American magazine Time announced the President of Russia "Person of the Year" for enhancing the stability in the country and increasing Russia's role in the world. Traditionally such ratings attract much attention, even excessive at times. For example, the rating of Foreign Policy magazine earlier this year called Vladimir Putin the most influential politician in the world and later refuted it, saying that this was a personal opinion of an analyst published in the magazine blog. Political analyst Alexander Tsipko believes that Forbes' choice is quite understandable. "These are real events and real actions of Putin who influenced the world politics. These actions may have an impact on a global scale," he told Pravda.Ru. According to the analyst, Putin's initiative has averted an invasion in Syria. "Of course, there are no guarantees that the United States has completely abandoned its plans against Syria, but at least for now it will be extremely difficult to fulfill such plans morally, internationally, and so on. I think the ranking is very objective," Alexander Tsipko said. The ratings are an interesting thing," said head of the Department of Applied Political Science of the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation Konstantin Simonov. "Many have questioned the methodology for such ratings, but human nature is such that these rankings by authoritative publications cause interest. Of course, any of them is a subject for debate. One can argue whether it is justified or not. " "I personally think that Putin's first place is not only his merit, but an absolute understanding of the role of Russia in the world politics," said the analyst. He thinks that Russia reminded the word about itself in a number of major stories in politics. "This is, of course, Syria," said Konstantin Simonov. "The second story is Snowden. This is also a very complex political conflict that we had to resolve, and we've done it," said the expert. "And, of course, the G20 summit in St. Petersburg," he added. "It is understandable where the rating came from. This is Putin's personal success and understanding of the role that Russia plays in the modern global politics," said Konstantin Simonov.

Doing Business 2014 Report: Ukraine Is Most Improved Economy This Year

KIEV Ukraine -- The World Bank and the IFC experts have acknowledged Ukraine's tremendous progress in simplifying conditions for doing business. Having leaped 25 positions since last year, the country is ranked 112 among 189 economies in the Doing Business 2014 report. Ukraine has implemented regulatory reforms for local entrepreneurs in eight areas out of 10 between June 2012 and June 2013. Ukraine has improved the most over the past year in making it easier to run a business, as indicated in the Doing Business 2014 report released by the World Bank and the IFC in October 2013. Other countries on the most improved list include Rwanda, the Russian Federation, the Philippines, Kosovo, Djibouti, Côte d'Ivoire, Burundi, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Guatemala. Ukraine's growth in the ease of doing business ranking started last year when the country jumped 15 positions to 137 from 152. In 2012-2013 Ukraine has advanced by another 25 positions to become the top improver. Interestingly, in the first quarter of 2013 foreign investors have invested almost USD 1.6 billion - 76 percent increase compared to the first quarter of 2012, as reported by the State Statistics Service of Ukraine. Ukraine received the highest ranking (13th place) for the ease of getting a loan, surpassing Brazil, and following Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Russia. The biggest progress in the starting a business category Ukraine obtained by eliminating the requirement for registration with the State Statistics Service and by eliminating the cost for value added tax registration. The Eastern European country also simplified construction permit issuance and registration of real estate ownership rights. Despite considerable advancement, Ukraine lacks progress on such indicators as getting electricity, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders and resolving insolvency, reads the report. "We, at the World Bank Group, are encouraged by Ukraine's regulatory improvements in the past year. The country's ranking in this year's Doing Business report shows that a lot can be achieved in a short time when there is a political will for reform," said Qimiao Fan, World Bank Country Director for Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine. He expressed hope that the government would continue to further implement reforms.