KIEV, Ukraine -- Seven years ago, Ukraine's Orange Revolution inspired hope that the country was moving toward genuine democracy.
Since then, democratic freedoms have been curtailed, the former prime minister and co-leader of the revolution, Yulia Tymoshenko, has been imprisoned, and President Viktor Yanukovych's regime has become internationally isolated. Ukraine is unraveling.
Today, a small group of oligarchs clustered around Yanukovych has captured power.
They manipulate elections, control the media and are shaping the country's institutions to further their own business interests.
Condemnation by the West has had no impact.
Whatever one thinks of Tymoshenko, she was not imprisoned for any ostensible crimes she committed while in power.
She is in prison because she lost that power. This sets a dangerous precedent, for it creates a powerful incentive — winner takes all, loser goes to prison — for ruthlessness.
It is difficult to predict how Tymoshenko's case will play out — whether Yanukovych will succumb to pressure from the European Union and the United States to release her, or to the forces that want to exclude her from politics forever.
Until recently, Ukrainian leaders were accustomed to more efficient means than prison for dealing with inconvenient opponents.
In 2000, for example, journalist Heorhiy Gongadze was kidnapped and beheaded after publishing online reports about high-level government corruption.
Perhaps Tymoshenko did not understand how sharply her country had turned away from democratic norms when she mocked Yanukovych and her opponents during her trial.
Indeed, her first brief imprisonment in 2001 furnished her with political capital and pushed her into the democratic opposition's front ranks.
Perhaps Yanukovych himself did not foresee the consequences of Tymoshenko's arrest, trial and imprisonment.
Some Ukrainian conspiracy theorists maintain that Yanukovych was tricked by skillfully prepared misinformation provided by the officials around him.
With every month that Tymoshenko spends in jail, her martyrdom grows, making it harder for Yanukovych to free her.
Yanukovych has become hostage to a situation that he created — and thus has done nothing to extricate himself from it.
In 2003, then-Russian President Vladimir Putin put himself in an analogous bind with the arrest of former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
At the time, Khodorkovsky was the wealthiest man in Russia and an open critic of the government, so his arrest triggered a storm of international protest.
Like Yanukovych, Putin is under pressure from the West to release his opponent, but the political risk is too great.
Yanukovych's goals are unclear.
He does not respond to European pressure, even though Ukraine would gain political leverage from closer EU ties.
Perhaps he simply dislikes the EU because it applauded his defeat in the Orange Revolution, and because he makes embarrassing gaffes whenever he goes there.
Then again, perhaps he has learned from Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko that the EU has little influence over non-EU countries' internal politics.
At the first positive sign from Belarus, the EU forgives and forgets.
Indeed, even without a positive signal from Ukraine, the European Parliament has recommended that negotiations on an association agreement begin.
Generally, Yanukovych's foreign policy appears reactive.
In 2010, for example, he bowed to Putin's pressure to extend the Russian lease on naval facilities in Crimea to 2042, whereas Tymoshenko and others pointed to the treaty's unconstitutionality.
Yanukovych also undermined Ukraine's geopolitical strength vis-a-vis Russia by rejecting NATO's invitation to join in 2010.
Even if the Kremlin is not happy with the planned EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, it has little reason to worry as long as Yanukovych remains a weak president in a divided country.
Ukraine is thus becoming a dangerous mix of authoritarianism and corrupt capitalism.
In Belarus, an impoverished Lukashenko increasingly resorts to brute force to maintain his rule — breaking up peaceful demonstrations, imprisoning political opponents and terrorizing the intelligentsia.
Compared with him, former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is a shining example of good government.
But as Yanukovych and his backers are well aware, Berlusconi is gone, and Lukashenko is not.
Sunday, 1 January 2012
Ukraine Gas Transit System Price To Fall Severely In 2012 - Miller
MOSCOW, Russia -- Ukraine's gas transit system that Kiev presently estimates to cost $20 billion may become significantly cheaper, the head of Russia's gas giant, Gazprom, Alexei Miller, said on Saturday.
During a meeting on Friday with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Miller said that Ukraine had placed the price of its gas transit system at $20 billion and requested an annual $9-billion cut in the price of gas if Moscow and Kiev created a gas transport consortium.
"I don't exclude that Ukraine's so-called last strategic resource, its gas transit system, will severly fall in price next year," Miller told journalists on Saturday in regard to perspective talks with Ukraine in 2012 on the price of gas.
Miller called Ukraine's going price for the gas transit system "significant" taking into account that much money would be needed to invest in the transit system's modernization.
He said modernization of the system would be 2-8 billion euros ($2.6-$10.4 billion).
Ukraine earlier had set its price for the gas transit system much higher at $150-270 billion.
In June 2011, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who is presently serving a seven-year prison sentence for abuse of power in signing a gas deal with Russia, set the price of the system at $150 billion, and then in September this year said it was worth $270 billion.
Previous to Tymoshenko's statements in court on the price, Ukraine had place the system at $80-120 billion.
During a meeting on Friday with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Miller said that Ukraine had placed the price of its gas transit system at $20 billion and requested an annual $9-billion cut in the price of gas if Moscow and Kiev created a gas transport consortium.
"I don't exclude that Ukraine's so-called last strategic resource, its gas transit system, will severly fall in price next year," Miller told journalists on Saturday in regard to perspective talks with Ukraine in 2012 on the price of gas.
Miller called Ukraine's going price for the gas transit system "significant" taking into account that much money would be needed to invest in the transit system's modernization.
He said modernization of the system would be 2-8 billion euros ($2.6-$10.4 billion).
Ukraine earlier had set its price for the gas transit system much higher at $150-270 billion.
In June 2011, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who is presently serving a seven-year prison sentence for abuse of power in signing a gas deal with Russia, set the price of the system at $150 billion, and then in September this year said it was worth $270 billion.
Previous to Tymoshenko's statements in court on the price, Ukraine had place the system at $80-120 billion.
Ukrainian Intellectuals Outraged By "Sadistic Decision" To Send Tymoshenko To Penal Colony
KIEV, Ukraine -- Representatives of Ukraine's intellectual circles have expressed an outrage at a decision of Kiev Court of Appeals to uphold the prison sentence in gas case for former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and a decision to send her to a penal colony.
In particular, prominent Ukrainian writer Lina Kostenko and her daughter, literary critic Oksana Pakhlevska signed a joint statement by intellectuals about the non-recognition of a decision by the Court of Appeals in Kiev.
"The authorities took a sadistic decision to transfer Yulia Tymoshenko from Lukyanivka detention center to a penal colony, which is even more defiant taking into account the fact that it was done on New Year's eve."
"It looks like they are cynically counting on the fact that people in their pre-holiday worries will forget about a person who knows how to be principled and consistent in saying "no" to the mockery of the state and who has to pay for it today through being sent by Tsarist-Stalinist rule to a penal colony," reads the intellectuals' statement published Friday on the Web site of the Tymoshenko-led Batkivschyna party.
Ukraine's intellectuals said they did not recognize "the unjust decision of Kiev Court of Appeals which is controlled by the current president in the case of Yulia Tymoshenko and hoped that it will soon be overturned by the European Court of Human Rights."
The statement was signed by 23 representatives of the intellectual circles.
Those included social activist, Soviet dissident, Hero of Ukraine Ivan Dziuba, President of the Kiev-Mohyla Academy National University Vyacheslav Briukhovetsky, writers Yuriy Andrukhovych, Roman Ivanichuk, Maria Matios, Yuriy Mushketyk, Dmytro Pavlychko, Vasiyl Shkliar and others.
In particular, prominent Ukrainian writer Lina Kostenko and her daughter, literary critic Oksana Pakhlevska signed a joint statement by intellectuals about the non-recognition of a decision by the Court of Appeals in Kiev.
"The authorities took a sadistic decision to transfer Yulia Tymoshenko from Lukyanivka detention center to a penal colony, which is even more defiant taking into account the fact that it was done on New Year's eve."
"It looks like they are cynically counting on the fact that people in their pre-holiday worries will forget about a person who knows how to be principled and consistent in saying "no" to the mockery of the state and who has to pay for it today through being sent by Tsarist-Stalinist rule to a penal colony," reads the intellectuals' statement published Friday on the Web site of the Tymoshenko-led Batkivschyna party.
Ukraine's intellectuals said they did not recognize "the unjust decision of Kiev Court of Appeals which is controlled by the current president in the case of Yulia Tymoshenko and hoped that it will soon be overturned by the European Court of Human Rights."
The statement was signed by 23 representatives of the intellectual circles.
Those included social activist, Soviet dissident, Hero of Ukraine Ivan Dziuba, President of the Kiev-Mohyla Academy National University Vyacheslav Briukhovetsky, writers Yuriy Andrukhovych, Roman Ivanichuk, Maria Matios, Yuriy Mushketyk, Dmytro Pavlychko, Vasiyl Shkliar and others.
Azerbaijan Buys 95 Missiles From Ukraine
AKU, Azerbaijan -- Ukraine, which is one of the biggest arms producers in the post-soviet area, exported 2097 various missiles in 2005-2010.
According to the report of UN Register of Conventional Arms, Ukraine took the 2nd place after Russia in exporting various missiles and portable anti-aircraft missiles.
Ukraine exported the above-mentioned weapons to 11 countries.
China takes the 1st place in the list with 953 missiles, US is the 2nd (692 missiles).
Russia is the 3rd (100 missiles), Azerbaijan is the 4th (95 missiles), and Algeria is the 5th (76 missiles).
Besides, during the reporting period Ukraine sold 60 various and portable anti-aircraft missiles to Israel, 54 missiles to the United Kingdom, 50 missiles to Kazakhstan, 18 missiles to Belarus, 14 missiles to Italy, 9 to Slovakia.
During the reporting period Ukraine sold 64 R-27 “air-air” missiles, 3 9R129-1M and “Tochka-U” tactical missile complex, 18 9M36-1 “Strela-3” and 10 9P58M “Strela-3” portable anti-aircraft missile system to Azerbaijan.
According to the report of UN Register of Conventional Arms, Ukraine took the 2nd place after Russia in exporting various missiles and portable anti-aircraft missiles.
Ukraine exported the above-mentioned weapons to 11 countries.
China takes the 1st place in the list with 953 missiles, US is the 2nd (692 missiles).
Russia is the 3rd (100 missiles), Azerbaijan is the 4th (95 missiles), and Algeria is the 5th (76 missiles).
Besides, during the reporting period Ukraine sold 60 various and portable anti-aircraft missiles to Israel, 54 missiles to the United Kingdom, 50 missiles to Kazakhstan, 18 missiles to Belarus, 14 missiles to Italy, 9 to Slovakia.
During the reporting period Ukraine sold 64 R-27 “air-air” missiles, 3 9R129-1M and “Tochka-U” tactical missile complex, 18 9M36-1 “Strela-3” and 10 9P58M “Strela-3” portable anti-aircraft missile system to Azerbaijan.
Ukraine Asks For $9 Billion Gas Discount From Russia To Form Joint Transit Consortium
NOVO-OGARYOVO, Russia -- Kiev is seeking a $9 billion annual gas discount to reach agreement with Moscow on operating the Ukrainian gas transportation system, Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said on Friday.
At their ongoing gas price talks, Moscow and Kiev have been recently discussing the possibility of creating a joint venture to operate the Ukrainian gas transportation system, a core transit route for Russian natural gas supplies to Europe.
"Our Ukrainian counterparts raised the question of a discount for gas prices during the talks. If we calculate a volume of 40 billion cubic meters, the volume which Ukraine has to buy as part of the terms of the current contract, the discount may be about $9 billion annually," Miller told Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Ukraine has long been seeking to alter the terms of the 2009 gas deal it signed with Russia.
The deal ties the price of gas to oil prices, which have risen strongly since 2009, boosting Ukraine's gas bill. Kiev insists on reducing both the price and the volume of gas imports.
Miller also said Ukraine estimated the value of its gas transportation system at $20 billion.
"Our Ukrainian friends mentioned the that they value their gas transportation system at $20 billion. It is a big sum taking into account that we will have to spend large amounts on its modernization," Gazprom CEO said, adding that the upgrade might cost from two to eight billion euros.
Putin told Miller the talks to form the consortium should be continued as gas supplies through the Ukrainian gas transportation system will be in demand amid rising gas consumption in Europe.
Moscow initiated the South Stream gas pipeline project to diversify Russian gas routes away from transit countries such as Ukraine.
Russia plans to launch South Stream, intended to carry Russian natural gas to Europe along the Black Sea bed, in 2015.
The pipeline will transport up to 63 billion cubic meters of gas to central and southern Europe.
Putin also ordered faster construction of the pipeline and the start of its underwater section by the end of 2012, not in 2013 as previously planned.
At their ongoing gas price talks, Moscow and Kiev have been recently discussing the possibility of creating a joint venture to operate the Ukrainian gas transportation system, a core transit route for Russian natural gas supplies to Europe.
"Our Ukrainian counterparts raised the question of a discount for gas prices during the talks. If we calculate a volume of 40 billion cubic meters, the volume which Ukraine has to buy as part of the terms of the current contract, the discount may be about $9 billion annually," Miller told Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Ukraine has long been seeking to alter the terms of the 2009 gas deal it signed with Russia.
The deal ties the price of gas to oil prices, which have risen strongly since 2009, boosting Ukraine's gas bill. Kiev insists on reducing both the price and the volume of gas imports.
Miller also said Ukraine estimated the value of its gas transportation system at $20 billion.
"Our Ukrainian friends mentioned the that they value their gas transportation system at $20 billion. It is a big sum taking into account that we will have to spend large amounts on its modernization," Gazprom CEO said, adding that the upgrade might cost from two to eight billion euros.
Putin told Miller the talks to form the consortium should be continued as gas supplies through the Ukrainian gas transportation system will be in demand amid rising gas consumption in Europe.
Moscow initiated the South Stream gas pipeline project to diversify Russian gas routes away from transit countries such as Ukraine.
Russia plans to launch South Stream, intended to carry Russian natural gas to Europe along the Black Sea bed, in 2015.
The pipeline will transport up to 63 billion cubic meters of gas to central and southern Europe.
Putin also ordered faster construction of the pipeline and the start of its underwater section by the end of 2012, not in 2013 as previously planned.
Ukraine Ex-PM Tymoshenko Moved To Jail-Prison Service
KIEV, Ukraine -- Former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, sentenced to seven years in prison for abuse of office, has been moved to prison from a detention center where she has been held since early August, the state penitentiary service said on Friday.
he move indicated she was unlikely to go free any time soon despite pressure from the European Union, which considered her trial politically motivated and put off the signing of key agreements with Ukraine because of her sentence.
Tymoshenko is the fiercest opponent of President Viktor Yanukovich, who narrowly beat her in the presidential run-off in February 2010 after losing his earlier bid for the presidency because of the 2004 "Orange Revolution" protests which she led.
A local court sentenced Tymoshenko to seven years in prison in October, saying she had exceeded her powers when forcing through a 2009 gas deal with Russia.
Tymoshenko, who denies any wrongdoing, lost an appeal against the verdict one week ago.
"Tymoshenko has been moved to a prison in the Kharkiv region," the state penitentiary service said in a statement.
The European Union, which had planned to initial agreements on political association and free trade with Ukraine at a summit this month, put off the signing and cited Tymoshenko's case as an example of selective justice in the former Soviet republic.
Yanukovich has refused to intervene and the parliament, dominated by his supporters, has turned down several proposals to remove her alleged offence from the criminal code.
Tymoshenko's lawyers say she hopes that the European Court for Human Rights, where she has filed a case against Ukraine, will exonerate her.
The court said this month it would fast-track the case.
Tymoshenko, 51, has been suffering from back pains in the last few weeks and cannot walk, according to her lawyers who have said she should not be moved from the detention center because of this.
But the penitentiary service said she was fit to move.
"Before departure, Tymoshenko was examined by doctors who stated that her health allowed her to be moved," it said, adding that Tymoshenko travelled in a "comfortable" van.
he move indicated she was unlikely to go free any time soon despite pressure from the European Union, which considered her trial politically motivated and put off the signing of key agreements with Ukraine because of her sentence.
Tymoshenko is the fiercest opponent of President Viktor Yanukovich, who narrowly beat her in the presidential run-off in February 2010 after losing his earlier bid for the presidency because of the 2004 "Orange Revolution" protests which she led.
A local court sentenced Tymoshenko to seven years in prison in October, saying she had exceeded her powers when forcing through a 2009 gas deal with Russia.
Tymoshenko, who denies any wrongdoing, lost an appeal against the verdict one week ago.
"Tymoshenko has been moved to a prison in the Kharkiv region," the state penitentiary service said in a statement.
The European Union, which had planned to initial agreements on political association and free trade with Ukraine at a summit this month, put off the signing and cited Tymoshenko's case as an example of selective justice in the former Soviet republic.
Yanukovich has refused to intervene and the parliament, dominated by his supporters, has turned down several proposals to remove her alleged offence from the criminal code.
Tymoshenko's lawyers say she hopes that the European Court for Human Rights, where she has filed a case against Ukraine, will exonerate her.
The court said this month it would fast-track the case.
Tymoshenko, 51, has been suffering from back pains in the last few weeks and cannot walk, according to her lawyers who have said she should not be moved from the detention center because of this.
But the penitentiary service said she was fit to move.
"Before departure, Tymoshenko was examined by doctors who stated that her health allowed her to be moved," it said, adding that Tymoshenko travelled in a "comfortable" van.
Five Killed In Donetsk Armed Bank Robbery
DONETSK, Ukraine -- Five employees of Ukraine’s largest bank, PrivatBank, were killed on Thursday in downtown Donetsk during an armed robbery, with the attackers escaping and fleeing the scene.
The attack, which appears to be the worst strike against a commercial bank in Ukraine’s modern history, is the third armed robbery in Donetsk in just four weeks.
“We are in deep shock over such a cruel crime,” Oleksandr Dubilet, the head PrivatBank, said in a statement issued by the bank.
“It is for the first time in our history that we face such a cruelty.”
Police declined to comment on the attack, but PrivatBank, in a statement issued earlier in the day, said the employees were killed by the attackers in “cold blood.”
“The bank's office in the center of Donetsk was robbed by a group of armed criminals in the afternoon on December 29,” PrivatBank said in a statement.
“The attackers, in cold blood, killed five bank employees who died of gunshot wounds at the scene."
The developments underscore a spectacular failure by police and law enforcement authorities for weeks to contain violence and crime in the city that is known to be the stronghold of President Viktor Yanukovych.
Donetsk, which is tightly controlled by Yanukovych allies, is also the home for Ukraine’s wealthiest person, Rinat Akhmetov, whose businesses, ranging from steel and mining, to telecommunications, and finance, are also based in the city.
Vasyl Farynnyk, the chief of the main investigation department at the Interior Ministry, told Ukrayinski Novyny news agency that a team of investigators from Kiev had been dispatched to Donetsk to help local police with the investigation.
PrivatBank offered a reward of 1 million hryvnias ($123,000) for assistance in uncovering the crime.
"PrivatBank declared December 30 a day of mourning for its employees killed at the hands of bandits,” the bank said.
“PrivatBank will provide overall assistance to Interior Ministry agencies to investigate all of the circumstances of the tragedy."
The latest attack is the third violent attack on a bank in Donetsk over the past four weeks.
The previous attack, on a branch of Credit Agricole, a French banking group’s subsidiary in Ukraine, left three people wounded, with one later dying of the wounds.
The attackers are believed to have stolen 1.5 million hryvnias ($185,000) - in different currencies - from Credit Agricole.
About 11,000 hryvnias ($1,353) were stolen by a group of armed robbers from a commercial bank in Donetsk in early December with no injuries reported.
The attack, which appears to be the worst strike against a commercial bank in Ukraine’s modern history, is the third armed robbery in Donetsk in just four weeks.
“We are in deep shock over such a cruel crime,” Oleksandr Dubilet, the head PrivatBank, said in a statement issued by the bank.
“It is for the first time in our history that we face such a cruelty.”
Police declined to comment on the attack, but PrivatBank, in a statement issued earlier in the day, said the employees were killed by the attackers in “cold blood.”
“The bank's office in the center of Donetsk was robbed by a group of armed criminals in the afternoon on December 29,” PrivatBank said in a statement.
“The attackers, in cold blood, killed five bank employees who died of gunshot wounds at the scene."
The developments underscore a spectacular failure by police and law enforcement authorities for weeks to contain violence and crime in the city that is known to be the stronghold of President Viktor Yanukovych.
Donetsk, which is tightly controlled by Yanukovych allies, is also the home for Ukraine’s wealthiest person, Rinat Akhmetov, whose businesses, ranging from steel and mining, to telecommunications, and finance, are also based in the city.
Vasyl Farynnyk, the chief of the main investigation department at the Interior Ministry, told Ukrayinski Novyny news agency that a team of investigators from Kiev had been dispatched to Donetsk to help local police with the investigation.
PrivatBank offered a reward of 1 million hryvnias ($123,000) for assistance in uncovering the crime.
"PrivatBank declared December 30 a day of mourning for its employees killed at the hands of bandits,” the bank said.
“PrivatBank will provide overall assistance to Interior Ministry agencies to investigate all of the circumstances of the tragedy."
The latest attack is the third violent attack on a bank in Donetsk over the past four weeks.
The previous attack, on a branch of Credit Agricole, a French banking group’s subsidiary in Ukraine, left three people wounded, with one later dying of the wounds.
The attackers are believed to have stolen 1.5 million hryvnias ($185,000) - in different currencies - from Credit Agricole.
About 11,000 hryvnias ($1,353) were stolen by a group of armed robbers from a commercial bank in Donetsk in early December with no injuries reported.
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