THE RUSSIAN NATIONALISM BULLETIN
A Biweekly Newsletter of Current Affairs
Vol. 3, No. 21(63), 19 August 2009 – Special Issue: The 2009 Ukrainian-Russian Conflict
Compilers: Yakov Feygin & Andreas Umland
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/russian_nationalism/message/550

C O N T E N T S
I SELECTED NEWS ITEMS
II COMMENTS, ANALYSES, SURVEYS
III SOME STATEMENTS BY POLITICAL ACTORS
IV ANNOTATIONS OF RECENT RUSSIAN BOOKS ON UKRAINE
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I SELECTED NEWS ITEMS

Putin scorns EU-Ukraine gas deal
BBC, March 24, 2009

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has dismissed an EU-Ukraine gas deal as "unprofessional", saying Russia - the main supplier - had not been consulted.
"If Russia's interests are ignored, then we shall also be forced to start reconsidering the principles of our relations with partners," he warned.
On Monday, Ukraine signed a deal paving the way for $3.4bn (£2.4bn) of Western investment in its gas infrastructure.
Ukraine's president pledged to stamp out corruption in the gas industry.
The agreement comes after a price dispute between Ukraine and Russia in January led to a shutdown of gas supplies to much of Europe for weeks, causing severe shortages for millions.
Russia says it is postponing talks with Ukraine because of Monday's gas deal in Brussels. President Dmitry Medvedev said the talks, due next week, would take place only once Russia had clarified a number of issues.
Speaking in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi on Monday, Mr Putin said the deal was "at the very least ill-considered and unprofessional because discussing such issues without the main supplier is simply not serious".
Despite their bitter rivalry, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko were both in Brussels for an international conference with the European Commission, the World Bank and other key lenders.
The EU gets 80% of its gas supplies from Russia via a network of more than 13,000km (8,060 miles) of Ukrainian pipelines, some of which are 40 years old.
Russia has already engaged Germany, Italy and several other EU states in alternative gas pipeline projects - Nord Stream and South Stream - that will bypass Ukraine.
Key among Ukraine's promised reforms was the independence of the authority in charge of the pipelines from the state-owned energy company Naftogaz, which one Western banker described as a big black box where money just disappears

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7961073.stm
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EU reaches gas deal with Ukraine
BBC, August 1, 2009

The EU and international lending institutions have agreed a deal with Ukraine to help it provide stable supplies of Russian gas to Europe.
Loans worth $1.7bn (£1bn) were agreed in return for reforms to Ukraine's gas sector, the European Commission said.
The deal is meant to include money to help Ukrainian national gas company Naftogaz pay off large debts to Russia.
In January, many countries were left without gas because of a payment dispute between Moscow and Kiev.
The new deal will allow Ukraine to replenish its reserves of Russian gas before the winter.
Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Ukraine had made commitments which would ensure increased transparency and the long-term viability of the industry, though he did not give details.
"The agreement should provide the stability needed to significantly reduce the risk of a further gas crisis between Ukraine and Russia and therefore provide the security of supply that member states and our consumers expect," he said.
The institutions that will provide funding include the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
Lenders have called for Naftogaz to end subsidies of gas supplies within Ukraine as a condition for making loans, correspondents say.
Russia provides about a quarter of the gas consumed in the EU and 80% of that is piped through Ukraine. 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8179461.stm
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Russia's Medvedev Attacks Ukraine's President In Videoblog
The Huffington Post, August 11, 2009

Ukraine's president has been heavily criticized for 'anti-Russian behavior' by Russian President Medvedev, BBC reports.
Medvedev launched his verbal attack on Viktor Yushchenko via a videoblog message posted on the Kremlin website, and accused Yushchenko of supplying weapons to Georgian forces in their conflict with Russia over the breakaway region, South Ossetia, last year.
Ukraine anticipates presidential elections in January, and Yushchenko is expected to run again for office.
Reuters reports that Medvedev has now accused Ukraine of seeking to disrupt gas supplies between Russia, Ukraine and the EU.
The two countries have repeatedly criticized each other in recent years over the movement of gas supplies between Russia and Ukraine.
Russia recalled an ambassador from Kiev in June, while last month Ukraine expelled a Russian diplomat.
President Medvedev said that he would delay sending a replacement ambassador to Kiev because of the anti-Russian focus of Ukraine's leadership, Xinhua reports.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/11/russias-medvedev-attacks_n_256445.html
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Medvedev: No Normal Ties with Ukraine Under Current Leaders  
Voice of America News, August 14, 2009

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev says his country cannot have normal relations with Ukraine unless there is a leadership change in Kyiv.
Although the Russian president said he sees no prospect of restoring normal ties with Ukraine, he added that he hopes new leadership in Ukraine will significantly improve chances for improving relations between Moscow and Kyiv. Mr. Medvedev spoke to reporters Friday in Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi, following his talks with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The target of Mr. Medvedev's critical comments apparently was Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko, who has been at the center of a series of Russian-Ukrainian disputes in recent years. Mr. Yushchenko is seeking re-election in January, but is expected to face an uphill battle.
In Kyiv Friday, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said Ukraine is ready to develop mutually advantageous ties with its neighbors in the east and in the west. But she added that any foreign interference in Ukrainian affairs would be unacceptable.
Tymoshenko also is seeking the presidency next year, along with former prime minister Viktor Yanukovych, who had strong backing from Moscow and was Mr.. Yushchenko's main opponent in the 2004 presidential race.
Earlier this week Mr. Medvedev harshly criticized Mr. Yushchenko in an open letter accusing Ukraine's leaders of what he called "anti-Russian" policies, citing Ukrainian arms sales to Georgia and its efforts for NATO membership.
Mr. Yushchenko rejected the Russian leader's accusations, saying his country's ties with Georgia are in line with international law and urged the Kremlin to respect Ukraine's sovereign right to join NATO.
In his criticism, Mr. Medvedev accused Ukrainian authorities of efforts to exclude the Russian language from Ukraine's news media and schools. He also again criticized Ukraine's efforts to have the world recognize as genocide the Ukrainian famine of the the 1930s, engeineered by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-08-14-voa44.cfm
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Ukrainian People's Party: Ukrainians to picket Russian diplomatic offices abroad
Kyiv Post, August 14, 2009 

The Ukrainian People's Party has called on Ukrainians living abroad to hold rallies in front of Russian diplomatic offices and demand an apology from Russia to the Ukrainian nation.
Ukrainian News learned this from a statement by the press service of the Ukrainian People's Party.
"[The party urges Ukrainians] to start protest rallies near the diplomatic offices of Russia in the countries of your residence with demands that the leadership of the Russian state apology to Ukraine and the Ukrainian nation," the statement of the party reads.
The party also called for educational events to be held outside offices of international organizations - the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Council of Europe, the European Union - to get them pay attention to systematic violations by Russia of the norms of the international law and threats to peace in the region.
"The Russian course for the revival of the Soviet empire can be disrupted due to your help to a great extend," the statement reads.
In the opinion of the Ukrainian People's Party, the open letter of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to President Viktor Yuschenko of Ukraine demonstrates the anti-Ukrainian policy of the Russian leadership and attempts to influence the Ukrainian policy.
As Ukrainian News earlier reported, the Ukrainian People's Party views Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's open letter to President Viktor Yuschenko of Ukraine as warning about declaration of war.
On August 13, nearly 100 activities of the Ukrainian People's Party held a rally outside the Embassy of Russia in Ukraine and demanded an apology from Russia for Medvedev's letter.
On August 11, Medvedev in his letter said the Ukrainian-Russian relations worsened during the time of Viktor Yuschenko's being the president.

http://www.kyivpost.com/nation/46994
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Medvedev Keeps Up Pressure on Kiev
The Moscow Times, August 17, 2009

President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday ruled out any improvement in thorny relations with Ukraine for as long as Viktor Yushchenko remains president, saying he had “radically worsened” their bilateral ties.
The comments came as Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who will challenge Yushchenko for the presidency in January, said she wanted to deepen ties with Moscow but that Kiev’s foreign policy would not be influenced by anyone.
“I do not now see prospects for restoring normal relations with the current leaders,” Medvedev told a news conference in Sochi. “Maybe something will happen and the situation will change. I will be glad, but so far I see no prospect of this.”
In an open letter issued Tuesday, Medvedev accused Yushchenko of pursuing a deliberately anti-Russian course and said he would delay sending a new ambassador to Kiev.
“I have already said all I wanted to say,” Medvedev told reporters after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in his Black Sea residence. “If I expand on why I did this, I am afraid it may turn out even tougher.”
Yushchenko, who backs integration into NATO and the European Union, has always been viewed by the Kremlin as a hostile figure, and his support to Georgia during last year’s war with Russia particularly infuriated Moscow.
On Thursday, Yushchenko rejected Medvedev’s charges, saying he was “deeply disappointed” by the “unfriendly” letter, and his supporters accused Medvedev of trying to impose his will on Ukraine.
Yushchenko will run in a presidential election Jan. 17, and Medvedev’s verbal attack could boost his popularity with nationalist voters. But with an approval rating of about 4 percent, Yushchenko is considered a long-shot for re-election. Analysts have said Medvedev’s comments were designed to send a message to other candidates, including Tymoshenko and opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych.
“I hope the new Ukrainian leadership will have many chances of considerably improving relations between Ukraine and Russia,” Medvedev said. “Russia is really striving to achieve this, this is a top foreign policy priority for us.”
Yanukovych, backed by Moscow in the 2004 presidential poll, said restoring good ties with Russia would be his priority if elected. He is now the front-runner, scoring 24 percent in the latest polls, compared with 14 percent for Tymoshenko, who helped broker a solution to a gas dispute in January that led to supply cuts throughout Europe. She said Friday that she “could not stay silent” after Medvedev’s remarks. “As prime minister, I have done and will do everything possible to deepen mutually advantageous cooperation between Russia and Ukraine, especially in the economic sphere,” Tymoshenko said in a statement.
But she also stressed that she would not allow Moscow to interfere in Ukrainian politics. “Ukraine will independently, with no external influence, define its foreign and domestic policy,” she said.
“We are always ready to listen and take into account the opinion of our partners in the East and the West, to take into account their interests, but interference in our domestic affairs is unacceptable,” she said. 

http://www.moscowtimes.ru/article/1010/42/380846.htm
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Ukraine says Russian navy pollutes Black Sea: report
AFP, August 17, 2009

IEV — Ukraine has complained to Russia that its ships stationed in the naval base at Sevastopol have polluted the Black Sea, news agency Interfax reported Monday.
Kiev "has sent a protest note to the Russian Federation because of the pollution of the bay of Sevastopol" on the Crimean peninsula in southern Ukraine, deputy foreign affairs minister Yury Kostenko was quoted as saying.
Russia has had a fleet in the Ukrainian port since Soviet times, but the base has become a source of tension as relations fray between Moscow and its ex-Soviet neighbour.
The pollution occurred at the end of July when a large number of Russian vessels contaminated the bay with oil, the foreign affairs ministry said, cited by Interfax.
According to the agreement governing the fleet, Russia should let Ukraine's environmental authorities enter the area in such a situation but this has not been allowed, Kostenko said.
Ukraine called on Moscow to take action and resolve the problem.
Since the start of the year, Kiev has sent 14 protest notes to Moscow over the fleet stationed on its territory.
Moscow has a lease on the base until 2017 and Ukrainian officials have repeatedly called for the fleet to leave when the lease expires.
The Russian Black Sea fleet is just one of several disputes which have caused relations to worsen between Moscow and Kiev in recent years.
Russia is uneasy over Ukraine's desire to join military alliance NATO and there have also been disagreements over the price of gas sold to Kiev by Moscow.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev accused Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko last week of pursuing "anti-Russian" policies. Yushchenko rejected the accusations.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gIt2z5EOHT-p8pXRtPjOInGDlvdQ
====================


II COMMENTS, ANALYSES, SURVEYS

The Ukrainian-Russian Cultural Conflict
By: Taras Kuzio
Eurasia Daily Monitor, Volume: 6, Issue: 87, May 6, 2009 

Discussions over the many conflicts between Ukraine and Russia have focused on the more well known: the status of the Russian language, unpaid energy bills and gas pipelines, withdrawal of the Black Sea Fleet, Russia's invasion of Georgia, support for Crimean separatism, and future NATO membership. What is less widely known is the undeclared Ukrainian-Russian cultural war that is as bitter as any other aspect of the poor state of the bilateral relationship between Ukraine and Russia.
The Ukrainian-Russian cultural war has significant ramifications in Ukraine and Russia's domestic politics, national identities and geopolitical orientations. It has long been established that the language spoken by Ukrainians (Ukrainian or Russian) and their attitudes towards Russia shaped by their stance on culture and history, in turn influences the voting patterns of Ukrainians -into pro-Western and pro-Russian orientations. These orientations then influence attitudes towards their support for Ukraine's integration into the CIS, NATO and the EU.
Unlike in the 1990's, Russia under Vladimir Putin has gone on the offensive in seeking to counter what it sees as the "Ukrainian nationalist" view of Ukrainian history and culture which has been propagated by President Viktor Yushchenko since his election in January 2005. Yushchenko's active and personal involvement in reviving the Ukrainian national memory has added to the deep-seated antagonism that Russia's leaders hold towards him.
The Ukrainian-Russian cultural war has become acute as a consequence of the release in April of a new Russian film about Nikolai Gogol's fictitious Cossack leader Taras Bulba. The film was sponsored by the Russian Ministry of Culture at a cost of $20 million and took three years to produce.
The new Taras Bulba film has obvious ideological and geopolitical ramifications. Bulba is portrayed as fighting "Western enemies" and dies for "the Orthodox Russian land." The film's director Vladimir Bortko openly admitted that his aim was to increase "pro-Russian" sympathies within Ukraine and to propagate the myth that Ukrainians and Russians belong to one narod. The film unashamedly propagates a pan-Slavic line that has won praise from Russian nationalist politicians such as Vladimir Zhirinovsky.
Taras Bulba opened on April 3 in Moscow's Kinoteatr Oktyabr to thunderous applause at Bulba's "Russian soul" speech and scenes where Cossacks expel Poles from Ukraine. The film has aroused widespread public interest and criticism and has already grossed $14 million in Russia and Ukraine (Kyiv Post, April 22). The film has attracted both older viewers, nostalgic for the USSR, and younger people because of its abundance of gratuitous violence (www.life.pravda.com.ua, April 3).
It was released for the 200th anniversary of Gogol's birth who, although born in Ukraine, wrote in the Russian language and has traditionally been viewed as a "Russian" writer. The Ukrainian-Russian cultural war has therefore descended into an historical dispute over Gogol.
On April 1 President Yushchenko visited Gogol's museum in his native Poltava region (www.president.gov.ua, April 1). At a concert in Gogol's honor, Yushchenko said, "Gogol wrote in Russian, was a Ukrainian, and thought and felt himself to be a Ukrainian. I believe it is ridiculous, and to a certain extent the conflicts surrounding which country he belongs to are demeaning" (www.president.gov.ua, April 1). On the same day, Vladimir Putin hailed Gogol as an "outstanding Russian writer."
The Ukrainian-Russian cultural war had earlier become contested over Yushchenko's propagation of the 1933 famine as directed against Ukrainians and as genocide. Russia has gone on the offensive against both of these Ukrainian claims.
On February 25, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a DVD which will be followed later this year by 3 volumes of 6,000 historical documents to counter the Ukrainian claims. The Head of Russia's Federal Archives Agency Vladimir Kozlov, introduced the DVD at a Moscow press conference, with the claim that the famine was "the result of [Stalin's] criminal policy" against the peasantry, rather than against any specific ethnic group (www.rian.ru, February 25).
Ukraine's debunking of Stalinism and its publicizing of the famine, has forced Russia under Putin to digress from its full-blown rehabilitation of Stalinism. While rejecting Ukrainian claims of an ethnic genocide-famine, Kozlov was forced to admit that a crime (famine) had indeed taken place against the peasantry, as a result of Stalin's collectivization policies. Russia's rehabilitation of Stalinism has propagated the myth that it was the elites who had suffered the most from Stalin's purges (www.gulag.ipvnews.org, September 16, 2006).
The Ukrainian-Russian cultural war and differences over national identity has become acutely important in Ukraine's presidential elections, which are invariably perceived as deciding the country's geopolitical future as either lying with Russia and the CIS or with the West. This was the case in the 1994, 1999 and especially in the 2004 presidential elections, when Russia heavily intervened to halt the "nationalist" candidate (Yushchenko) and lost.. Putin has since taken this as a personal defeat that requires some form of pay back.
With six months remaining until the elections, Yushchenko has described himself as a person who does, "not belong to those people who waver in their patriotism. I am not a little Russian, I am not a khokhol (derogatory term for little Russians). I am a Ukrainian" (Eko Moskvy, April 3). Yushchenko continued, ‘I am a Ukrainian president, I know that this country requires an ideal president' (www.president.gov.ua, April 3).
Ukrainian opinion polls suggest the "pro-Russian" Party of Regions leader Viktor Yanukovych and the "treasonous" Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko are the two leading presidential candidates, neither of whom therefore match Yushchenko's requirements for a "patriotic" president. On April 24 Ukrayinska Pravda and four days later the pro-Yushchenko Ukrayina Moloda both ran leading articles on negotiations already underway for a new "pro-Russian" coalition between the Party of Regions and the Yulia Tymoshenko bloc (BYuT), facilitated by Vladyslav Surkov, first deputy head of the Russian presidential administration.
The Ukrainian-Russian cultural war is part of a wider on-going undeclared conflict between both countries over their evolving national identities. Ukraine's "quadruple transition" has focused on nation and state building, as well as democratic and market economic transition. Russia, which did not declare independence in August 1991, became a reluctant independent state and under Boris Yeltsin it never settled on what nation and state it was building. Under Putin, the emerging Russian national identity is unwilling to accept a Ukraine in any guise except one populated by "little Russians."

http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[swords]=8fd5893941d69d0be3f378576261ae3e&tx_ttnews[any_of_the_words]=Kuzio&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=34955&tx_ttnews[backPid]=7&cHash=239c85bd1a
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Will There Be a Second Crimean War?
By Andreas Umland 
Global Politician, May 13, 2009

The August 2008 war in the Caucasus was a shock to Russian-Western relations. The West’s timid reaction to the five-day conflict and to the de facto annexation of two Georgian provinces, by Russia, do not bode well for the future of European security. While the recent renewal of friendly relations between Moscow and Washington as well as current rapprochement between President Dmitry Medvedev and the liberal Russian intelligentsia give reason for hope, the major source for instability in northern Eurasia remains in place. 
A radically anti-Western and decidedly neo-imperialist faction of Moscow’s elite has gained a foothold in the Russian governmental apparatus, Putin’s United Russia party, electronic as well as print media, (un)civil society, and academia. An array of more or less influential and, often, relatively young ultra-nationalists ranging from newly appointed presidential administration officer Ivan Demidov to popular political commentator Mikhail Leontyev as well as recently elected Moscow State University professor Alexander Dugin have become part and parcel of everyday political, journalistic and intellectual discourse, in the post-Soviet world. These and similarly oriented figures were among the government’s whips during the Russian army’s intervention in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, last year. In the reports of Kremlin-controlled TV channels, the summer 2008 armed confrontation in the Southern Caucasus was as a proxy-war that the Georgians were
fighting for, and with the support of, the US against Russia. The media campaign during and after the August war provided official approbation for the bizarre conspiracy theories that Leontyev, Dugin and Co. have been propagating in both prime-time television shows and high-brow analytic journals, for a long time. 
The years of unfettered xenophobic agitation by Moscow’s revanchist intellectuals in Russian mass media since Vladimir Putin’s rise are showing effects. As recent opinion polling data suggests, anti-Western – especially anti-American and anti-NATO – feelings have become widespread among ordinary Russians. According to Russia’s leading opinion polling agency, the Levada Center, already before the Russian-Georgian War, Russians’ positive feelings towards the US had deteriorated from over 65% in 2000, when Putin became President, to 43% in July 2008, by when Putin had left the Kremlin (http://www.levada.ru/russia.html ). Since the war in August, pro-American feelings have declined further, in all sectors of Russian society. State-controlled Russian polling agency VTsIOM which had earlier downplayed Russian anti-Westernism admitted recently that Russians’ views of, for instance, NATO “have changed fundamentally.” In 2006, 26% of Russians
had regarded NATO an organization pushing, in the first instance, interests of the US. By now, 41% have come to hold this opinion. Whereas in 2006, 21% of the Russian population had regarded NATO as an organization the mission of which was “conducting aggressive military acts against other countries,” in late March 2009, 31% agreed to that statement (http://wciom.ru/arkhiv/, Press Release no. 1191). Whatever “Obama-effect” there currently is in Russia, one suspect that it may soon be over there.
The recent sea-change in the political outlook of the world’s largest country and remaining nuclear superpower gains relevance against the background of several unresolved issues in Moscow’s former empire, among them the future of the Black Sea section of Russia’s naval forces. Currently, the port hosting the Russian Black Sea fleet is the city of Sevastopol, an independent municipality of Ukraine, and, with a population of 379,000, the largest city of the Crimean peninsula. 
Sevastopol gained world fame in the 19th century. Already then the major port of the Black Sea fleet, its almost one year long siege became the major episode of the 1853-56 Oriental or Crimean War between the Tsarist Empire, on the one side, and France, the UK and the Ottoman Empire, on the other. Many of the Tsarist army soldiers who fought and fell at Sevastopol were, in fact, Ukrainians and not Russians. Nevertheless, the Crimean War of the 1850s created, in Russia, a historical imagery of the Russians tenacious defense of Sevastopol against Western invaders, and Moscow's rightful claim to that city. In spite of thousands of Ukrainians' direct contribution to this war, the powerful military mythology around the Tsarist army’ heroic defense of the empire’s Southern border may, by Moscow's political technologists, be exploited also in a contemporary conflict. 
The Crimean War is also relevant to an understanding of generic security risks prevalent in the post-Soviet world and elsewhere. Being the first modern armed conflict, the mid-19th century stand-off between Russia and the West, in the Black Sea, is an example of how international wars have often come about. Today’s public perception of the reasons for war are dominated by Nazi Germany’s military adventures – a topic dealt with in hundreds of documentaries and movies shown on TV, on an almost daily basis, in Europe and elsewhere. Yet, World War II remains an altogether untypical instance. It was caused by one side’s, the "Berlin-Rom-Tokyo-Axis's," long-planned attempt to destroy the states it invaded, annex their territories, and subjugate or kill their populations. 
That has, however, not always been the cause for armed confrontations in world history, as the prehistory of the Crimean War illustrates. Frequently, wars have broken out not as a result of a long-planned and well-prepared military expansion. Often, they were outcomes of an escalation of tensions between states which, originally, had not been intending or not been interested to fight each other, on the battle-field, at all costs. In the 1850s, it needed a long chain of events to cause France, the United Kingdom and Turkey (as well as Sardinia) to form a coalition and enter a fight with the Tsarist army in the Black and other seas around the Russian Empire.
To be sure, the aggressive factions among Moscow’s post-Soviet imperialists would like to annex Crimea – if not all of south-eastern Ukraine – to Russia sooner rather than later. Many of these ultra-nationalists would be also prepared to, right away, wage war for reaching this aim. However, they do not dominate Russian foreign policy. For an escalation of tensions, at the Black Sea, explicitly expansionist policies by the Kremlin would not be necessary. A mere stirring up of emotions around the future of the Sevastopol naval base, the position of Crimea’s ethnic Russian majority vis-à-vis the Ukrainian state, or the rights of the Tatar minority within the Crimean Autonomous Republic could be sufficient to spill first blood. The following sequence of political reactions, social mobilization and mutual accusations, by Kiev and Moscow, would bring Europe’s two largest countries quickly to the brink of an armed confrontation. 
Inter-ethnic violence would put power-holders, on both sides, under pressure to militarily intervene. As the Russian-Georgian war illustrated, Russia has no qualms to use swiftly and on a large scale regular army units beyond its borders. Furthermore, Moscow was prepared to provide "help" to South Caucasian peoples who, in the ethnic Russian heartland of the Russian Federation (RF), frequently suffer from racist prejudices and are classified as "persons of Caucasian nationality" – the term "Caucasian" referring here to "black" rather than "white" people. In the case of Abkhazia, Moscow, moreover, "helped" a population that was under no immediate threat from Georgian troops. The case is remarkable even more so as, in August 2008, the Abkhaz republic was finally excised from the Georgian state territory although, when the Soviet Union fell apart, its titular nationality had, like in many other autonomous republics of the USSR, not constituted a majority
of the population of the Abkhaz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR).. As a result of the peculiar migration policies of the CPSU, during the last census of the USSR in 1989, 45,7% of the inhabitants of the Abkhaz ASSR were classified as "Georgians" whereas only 17,8% called themselves "Abkhaz" – the percentage of Abkhazians being thus only slightly higher than that of the share of Russians and Armenians in the population of Abkhazia. 
With its "recognition of the independence" of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as well as through the stationing of troops on their territories, the Russian political elite has demonstrated that it is interested in a partial revision of the results of the Russian empire's fall. Most of Crimea’s inhabitants are, unlike South Ossetia’s and Abkhazia's populations, ethnic Russians who seem to be actively acquiring RF passports. Should the Russian Federation's public come to believe that the hundreds of thousands of ethnically Russian inhabitants of Crimea are under some sort of threat, the Kremlin may feel forced to “protect the compatriots" – whatever the larger implications and geopolitical costs. The Kremlin’s decision-makers may even understand that the chances, on the Black Sea peninsula, of a full military victory are, unlike in South Ossetia, slim. Yet, a public opinion whipped up by apocalyptic visions and hate-speech from the likes of Leontyev
or Dugin would force even moderate Russian politicians to prove their "patriotism," and "take a principled position."
The West’s two foremost specialists on Crimea, Gwendolyn Sasse of the Oxford University, and Taras Kuzio of Carleton University, explain why existing ethnic tensions have, so far, not led to large-scale violence, on Crimea. Sasse found in mid-2008 that, “in recent years, Russian leaders have understood the benefits of a cooperative relationship with Ukraine, but have also taken advantage of close ties to Crimea as a means of influencing Kiev.” Kuzio is more skeptical towards Russian intentions, in Crimea. But, in early 2009, he too noted that there is a “low level of animosity between ethnic Russians and Ukrainians in Crimea.” Kuzio pointed to, among other aspects, “the ability of the Ukrainian security services to undermine Crimean separatism.” These and other factors listed by Sasse and Kuzio recently are still valid, and will remain so. Yet, it is not clear whether they take into full account recent changes in Russian public opinion on
the outside world, in general, and the political mood of Moscow’s elite regarding its conduct of foreign affairs, in particular. 
In a confrontation between relatively pro- and radically anti-Western political factions within the Kremlin, Russia’s new frame of mind could easily be utilized by Moscow’s ultra-nationalists. An encouragement of anti-Ukrainian and separatist forces, on Crimea, could be seen by the extreme right as a strategy to undermine Russian-Western rapprochement. A resulting Russian-Ukrainian war would be devastating for the relations of the two closely related nations, and disastrous for European security. In the worst case, it could, as was the case during Russia's two Chechnia wars, mean the death of thousands of Crimeans (including many ethnic Russians), and lastingly isolate Russia internationally. However, it would also discipline President Dmitry Medvedev in the way in which the Russian-Georgian War withheld – at least, for some time – the new President’s domestic and foreign initiatives. Another irredentist war would transform Russia into
something like a fortress with an even more rigid internal regime and less international cooperation than today. It would again postpone, or even put an end to the Medvedev circle's attempts to re-democratize Russia. Moscow’s revanchists may calculate that the political repercussions of an escalation of tensions on Crimea will strengthen their position in Russia. Should they get a chance to manipulate the politics of the Black Sea peninsula, a second Crimean War could become reality.

http://www.globalpolitician.com/25610-crimea-russia
--------------------

Russia's Ideological Crusade Against Ukraine
By: Taras Kuzio
Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 6 Issue: 113, June 12, 2009 

According to an interview with Ukraine's Ambassador to Russia Konstantyn Hryshchenko, the country's bilateral relationship with Russia has sunk to its lowest level since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, testimony to the Russian state control of the media and its ideological crusade against Ukraine (www.profil-ua.com, June 6). In the weekly Glavred magazine on May 20 its front cover declared: "Beware Ukrainophobia!"
The Levada Center recently found that 62 percent of Russians hold a negative view of Ukraine with only the United States and Georgia being seen in a worse light. At the same time, 91 percent of Ukrainians hold positive views of Russia, a reflection of media pluralism and the lack of state directed propaganda against Russia. Analyzing these polls, the head of the Center for Military-Political Research in Kyiv summarized this relationship in his headline: "We like them but they do not like us" (www.pravda.com.ua, May 5).
The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) is openly raising the question of the intensification of Russian intelligence activities within Ukraine, and Russia's return to Soviet KGB tactics. This concern was expressed in SBU chairman Valentyn Nalyvaychenko's comment that the FSB within the Black Sea Fleet should withdraw from the Crimea (www.radiosvoboda, June 2). Nalyvaychenko explained that one of the functions of the SBU was counter-espionage, and that was why they did not agree with the FSB being based in the Fleet.
The main suspects of the murder in Odessa on April 17 of a student member of the Ukrainian nationalist NGO Sich, Maksym Chayka, belong to the "Antifa(scist)" NGO financed by the Russian nationalist Rodina party. The presidential secretariat requested that the SBU investigate their activities to discover if they are coordinated "with foreign organizations of an anti-Ukrainian orientation" (www.president.gov.ua, April 22). The SBU appealed to the justice ministry to consider if there were grounds to revoke Rodina's registration, based on among things, their link to organized crime and financing from abroad. The suspects have fled to Russia.
The conflict between the Sich and Antifa NGO's is historically based; specifically the controversy surrounding the unveiling of a monument to Empress Catherine in Odessa in October 2007. Ambassador Hryshchenko pointed out that unlike the constant Russian interference in Ukraine, Kyiv does not protest against Russian glorification of Tsar Peter and Tsarina Catherine -even though both are regarded very negatively in Ukraine. Ukrainian history equates both Russian leaders as the destroyers of the Ukrainian autonomous Hetmanate in the late eighteenth century and the re-organization of Ukrainian territories into gubernia, as well as the introduction of serfdom and the banning of the Ukrainian language.
The Russian foreign ministry assumes the right to condemn the unveiling of monuments to historical figures in Ukraine. For example, Ukraine will unveil a monument to Cossack Hetman Ivan Mazepa on Independence Day (August 24) in his home region of Poltava on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the Battle of Poltava, where Ukrainian-Swedish forces were defeated by Russia. Mazepa has undergone rehabilitation as a hero in independent Ukraine, and his picture is displayed on the 10 hryvnia note.
The Russian Orthodox Church imposed an "anathema" on Mazepa and he was condemned as a "traitor" to Russian-Ukrainian unity by tsars and commissars alike. The on-going furore has led to a split within the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) with Metropolitan Dmytruk, the head of the UOC's foreign relations, supporting the growing call to remove the church's anathema (www.pravda.com.ua, May 26).
Russia's new historiography incorporates additional Russian chauvinists, such as White Army General Anton Denikin. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's recent reference to Denikin's description of Russia and Ukraine as "great" and "little" Russia shows the degree to which these Russian views of Ukraine remain deep seated. Putin's use of "little Russia" infuriated all shades of Ukrainian opinion. As Ukrainian historians pointed out, Denikin hated "Ukrainian separatism" more than he did the Bolsheviks, and this was his undoing.. Denikin's march on Moscow was foiled by uprisings in Ukraine, where his forces terrorized everything Ukrainian (www.unian.net, May 28).
Memoirs published in the West after the Russian revolution by white Russian émigrés described "Ukrainian separatism" as an "Austrian" plot against Russia. "Ukrainian separatism" in the 1990's evolved into a "Western plot," while two thirds of Russians in January 2005 believed that the Orange Revolution was an "American conspiracy" (see the critical review of the new anti-Ukrainian book "American Salo [pork fat]" www.unian.net, May 29).
These views of Ukraine's "artificiality" and "fragility" remain deeply rooted within the Russian mindset, and explain the state orchestrated campaign depicting Ukraine as a "failed state" that requires international supervision. Putin described Ukraine as an "artificial" entity with lands given to it by Russia and the USSR during his speech to the NATO-Russia Council in Bucharest in April 2008. The March 16 issue of Russian political scientist Gleb Pavlovsky's Ruskyi Zhurnal was devoted to "Will Ukraine Lose its Sovereignty?" (www.russ.ru).
Ukraine's former Ambassador to the United States Yuriy Shcherbak, wrote a lengthy analysis of the campaign conducted by senior Russian officials. Shcherbak believes that the aim is an "ideological-propaganda preparation of a future operation for the seizure of the territory of a sovereign state" (Den, May 26).
One of the Russian officials named by Shcherbak was the director of the Institute for CIS Countries Konstantin Zatulin, who recently called upon Russia to see ethnic Russians in Ukraine "in the same rank as the army, the fleet and church" (www.russkie.org). Zatulin was again denied entry to Ukraine at Simferopol airport. The SBU spokesperson explained this by saying that Zatulin remained on a banned list of Russians entering Ukraine. More importantly, "The stance of the SBU on this question is very tough: independent of the citizenship and position held (of the person) there is no place in Ukraine for separatists and extremists" (www.pravda.com.ua, June 6).
In their rush to "reset" the button with Russia after its invasion of Georgia and Barack Obama's election, Brussels and Washington have ignored Russia's ideological crusade against Ukraine. They should heed the warning from Ambassador Shcherbak, who believes Russia's ultimate aim is to "destroy Ukrainian statehood" (Den, May 26).

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Averting a Post-Orange Disaster: Constitutional Reforms and Political Stability in Ukraine
By Andreas Umland
Harvard International Review, June 2009

After several years of impressive economic growth and encouraging political change, Ukraine has recently entered troubled waters. The democracies west of Ukraine are institutionally consolidated and internationally embedded enough to circumscribe the political repercussions of their so far relatively mild economic contractions. While being hit almost as hard as Ukraine by the world financial crisis, Russia has managed to build considerable financial reserves thanks to the enormous cash inflow into her state budget during the years of rocketing energy prices, allowing her to soften the social repercussions of the economic downturn. 
Ukraine, in contrast, has neither a consolidated political system nor significant financial reserves. During the first quarter of 2009, the Ukrainian economy seems to have contracted between 20-23 percent, and its industrial production might have fallen as much as 30 percent. Given the limited capacities of the Ukrainian government to deal with the social aftermath of these developments, the effects of the crisis on Ukrainian domestic politics and foreign relations are unpredictable. To be sure, Ukrainians have shown considerable maturity in earlier periods of political crisis, such as during the country's last contested presidential elections. It is often ignored, however, that 2004 was not only the moment of the Orange Revolution, but also a year of steep economic growth of almost 10 percent. In contrast, Ukraine's economy today is experiencing a depression that rivals the 1992-1994 plunge in industrial production. 
As if this were not challenging enough, Ukraine is facing an increasingly assertive Russia on which it is economically dependent. Until recently, Ukraine's energy reliance on its Eastern neighbour was partly neutralized by Russia's heavy dependence on the Ukrainian gas pipeline system which delivers Russian gas to the European Union (EU) and on the Kremlin's stated interest in preserving the Sevastopol naval base for Russia's Black Sea fleet. Neither of these two balancing mechanisms is fully functional today. Out of parochial interests, the EU has been pressuring Ukraine to "internationalize" energy transportation. While understandable from a Central and West European view, “internationalization” is weakening Ukrainian control of perhaps the most important instrument of securing Ukrainian independence from Russia. Out of his familiar political myopia, President Viktor Yushchenko has prematurely declared that Ukraine, in any case, intends to close
 Sevastopol for the Russian fleet when the current contract for the lease of the Crimean port expires in 2017. Whereas earlier, the Russian and Ukrainian governments had something to negotiate about, Kiev’s diplomatic leverage has diminished today. The Kremlin, aware of Ukraine's new weakness on a daily basis, threatens via mass media to cut gas deliveries if Ukraine does not pay in time for them. 
Moreover, in 2008, the Moscow leadership demonstrated in Georgia – not the least to Kiev - that it is prepared to use military force to defend vital interests in her "near abroad." Many Russian politicians have let it be known, in public, that the Crimea’s majority Russian ethnic makeup places the peninsula within Moscow's natural sphere of influence. Some even see Crimea as a part of Russia's historic territory. 
Worse, Ukraine's political system prescribes new presidential elections in January 2010, when a new standoff between Ukraine and Russia concerning gas deliveries and payments is likely to occur. In fact, given the Ukrainian state's current financial difficulties, Russia may regard it politically opportune as well as domestically and internationally justifiable to cut gas deliveries to Ukraine already before January 2010. Polling data shows that anti-Ukrainian sentiment is growing in Russia’s population as a result of the daily xenophobic brainwashing by the Kremlin-directed propaganda machine. As a hard line against Kiev becomes increasingly popular among ordinary Russians, the Moscow leadership may conclude that cutting gas deliveries to Ukraine would kill two birds with one stone: it would divert attention from its own omissions in reforming Russia's post-Soviet state and economy, and it would cause serious trouble for Kiev's Orange government, in
 domestic affairs and/or foreign relations. 
In the case of new gas delivery cuts, the government of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko will face an awkward choice. If it chooses to stomach the cuts, it will alienate the Ukrainian population when further industrial plants come to a standstill and Ukrainians’ flats become cold. If it chooses to siphon gas from the Ukrainian pipelines that deliver gas from Russia to the European Union, Ukraine's Orange cabinet will alienate its EU partners and violate international law. 
As Ukraine's economic, social and political crisis sharpens, more and more Ukrainians may question the wisdom of conducting a costly presidential election when the Ukrainian state is almost bankrupt – if not on the brink of collapse. After all, Ukraine does have a legitimate legislature as well as a more or less operational government. In the increasingly difficult situation that Ukraine awaits during the coming months, the election of a second ruler appears as luxury. Moreover, by participation in these elections, Ukrainians would legitimize the semi-presidential system that is obviously unsuitable for Ukraine – as has been manifestly demonstrated by the agonizing intra-executive conflicts, during the last years.
Not only is the current Ukrainian dual power system deficient, but semi-presidential systems, at least in transition countries, are generally a bad choice, if one believes the results of comparative research into this political system. For instance, in 2008, the Irish government professor Robert Elgie and American political researcher Sophia Moestrup published the collected volume “Semi-Presidentialism in Central and Eastern Europe.” This book contains research papers by leading specialists on post-Soviet institutional design and performance in Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Ukraine. The study confirms previous scholarly work that has indicated concerns about the political system that Ukraine inherited when it acquired independence in 1991. Elgie’s and Moestrup’s paper collection shows once more that the impact of semi-presidentialism on the transition to and
 consolidation of, democracy is negative or at least unhelpful. In the case of Central and Eastern Europe, this concerns both highly presidentialized semi-presidentialism, like Ukraine until 2005, and balanced presidential-prime ministerial semi-presidentialism, like Ukraine has had since 2006. The scholars conclude that, "if democracy is fragile, then semi-presidentialism of any form is probably best avoided." 
With presidential elections scheduled for January 17, 2010, Ukraine is about to reproduce a political system that will be detrimental to its interests, especially considering the possibly grave domestic repercussions of the world financial crisis and Moscow's continuously growing imperial appetite. In the unlikely best-case scenario that the latter issues do not become salient, Ukraine will still be losing if it decides to go ahead with the 2010 presidential elections.
Recent rumours in Kiev are indicating that at least a part of the Ukrainian political elite seems to be interested in serious institutional reform. From late May to early June 2009, secret negotiations were conducted between Tymoshenko's Bloc and Viktor Yanukovych's opposition Party of Regions about the formation of a coalition to change the constitution, create a parliamentary republic, and cancel next year's presidential elections. The idea was to have Ukraine’s parliament, instead of the people, elect the President. This would preserve the current dual executive and power-sharing arrangement while depriving the President of a direct popular mandate. Although Ukraine would still be ruled by both a President and Prime-Minister, the two leaders would be dependent on parliament and on each other; they would be less inclined to enter into the agonizing conflicts prevalent throughout the last few years. While these changes would not have solved Ukraine's
 two major headaches – payment for gas deliveries and Kremlin hostility – they would have calmed down political bickering in Kiev and stabilized the Ukrainian government. The modification was obviously designed to provide Yanukovich with an important office in the executive. It would also have avoided the dirty electoral campaigning that has already started and the costly two-round voting process scheduled for early 2010. However, Yanukovich decided to leave the negotiation table. As of today, the presidential elections will thus continue as prescribed under the current Constitution. 
Hard times are awaiting Europe's youngest and largest democracy, and one can only hope that the encouraging sanity and moderation that Kiev's elites have shown before will also prevail in the current situation. Ideally, Yanukovich and Tymoshenko will return to the negotiation table and reconsider the issue of the upcoming elections. Preserving the current semi-presidential system serves neither the short-term nor the long-term interests of Ukraine. Switching to a parliamentary republic would free Kiev’s political elite to focus its attention on numerous other pressing problems. In the coming months, Kiev’s political elite will need to concentrate on far more important issues than electoral campaigning. 

http://hir.harvard.edu/index.php?page=article&id=1862
http://hir.harvard.edu/index.php?page=article&id=1862&p=2
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SBU Challenges the FSB in Crimea
By: Taras Kuzio
Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 6 Issue: 134, July 14, 

In line with implementing stricter security policies in Sevastopol and the Crimea, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) is adopting tougher policies towards Russian intelligence activities in the peninsula. These follow the August 2008 decrees restricting the movement of Russian Black Sea Fleet vessels in and out of Sevastopol without Ukrainian consent. The SBU has officially given its Russian equivalent, the Federal Security Service (FSB), until December 13 to remove itself from Ukraine. SBU chairman Valentyn Nalyvaychenko warned that if the FSB has not left by that date, "then they would bear criminal responsibility. The criminal code contains an article on ‘espionage'" (www.pravda.com.ua, June 28).
The FSB officers also operate in counter-intelligence matters. Russia utilizes its domestic intelligence agency, (the FSB) in its dealings with the CIS, because it is regarded as the "near abroad" (the SVR is used in the "far abroad"). Russian policy would be the equivalent of the FBI rather than the CIA operating in Central and Latin America.
Nalyvaychenko explained that he had consulted the Ukrainian foreign ministry before advising Moscow of the cancellation of the protocol permitting the FSB to operate in Sevastopol. Nineteen FSB officers currently operate in Sevastopol. Russian intelligence has always been thought to support separatist, anti-NATO and anti-American groups and parties, even providing Black Sea Fleet personnel who wear civilian clothes to participate in protests. Nalyvaychenko revealed that one factor behind the decision to terminate the right of the FSB to maintain its presence in Sevastopol was that they did not restrict themselves to the naval base. "Foreign special services operate in the city of Sevastopol. And this is against Ukrainian law," he said (www.bbc.co.uk/ukrainian, June 18).
One member of the Ukrainian parliamentary committee on national security and defense, Oleksandr Skybinetsky, said that most Ukrainian experts in security affairs are concerned that Russian intelligence orchestrates various groups and protest movements that are hostile to Ukrainian sovereignty. The SBU has instituted criminal charges against separatists and brought in political leaders for interrogation. The leader of the Progressive Socialist Party faction in the Sevastopol city council, Yevhen Dubovyk, was recently questioned after he threatened radical steps to unite Sevastopol and the Crimea with Russia (Ukrayinsky Tyzhden, June 12).
A second factor of concern to the SBU is the possible recruitment of Ukrainian citizens who comprise the majority of the 20,000 workforce in the fleet and military-industrial enterprises that provide services to it. Financial inducements are hard to resist when pay in the fleet and its ancillary industries is twice that in other Russian naval units and many times higher than the average pay in Ukraine.
Why the FSB needs to be involved in the security of the Black Sea Fleet is puzzling, since this would more normally be the task of military intelligence. Ukrainian military intelligence operates in Sevastopol and it is assumed by Kyiv that Russian military intelligence maintains a presence within the fleet.
The ostensible reason the Black Sea Fleet claims it needs Russian intelligence units is to safeguard the security of the fleet on foreign territory. The question is against whom? The SBU has offered to provide full security for the fleet. Nalyvaychenko revealed that the SBU had established a new "powerful counter-intelligence unit in Simferopil, Sevastopol and other cities of the Crimea." This unit would be ideally suited to protect the fleet, he added (Nezavisimoy Gazete, June 15). As soon as this unit was established, Nalyvaychenko advised his Russian counterparts that the FSB was no longer required in the Crimea.
The SBU could deal with law and order and terrorist issues. "We do not need assistance or the physical presence of foreign secret services," Nalyvychenko said (Nezavisimoy Gazete, June 15). The Russian reaction was predictably negative and similar to Yushchenko's August 2008 decrees. The Russian foreign ministry reiterated that the FSB was in Ukraine based on earlier agreements in relation to the fleet. They could only be removed through mutual agreement (www.pravda.com.ua, June 18).
Anatoliy Tsyganok, the head of the Russian Center for Military Forecasting, believes that the FSB will ignore the Ukrainian demand (www.pravda.com.ua, June 17). Kiril Frolov, a representative of the Institute for the CIS, warned of an "asymmetrical response" from Russia for this "unfriendly Ukrainian act against the Russian state" (www.bbc.co.uk/ukrainian, June 18). It remains unclear how Russia can retaliate, since Ukraine has no military base on its territory and the SBU only has a minimal presence in its diplomatic representations within Russia.
The old and technologically obsolete vessels in the fleet are not a threat to the four NATO member countries in the Black Sea. The only occasion they have been used is in the August 2008 invasion of non-NATO member Georgia. NATO has long known everything it needed to know about the Fleet. In December 1991, this author faxed to Ukrainian members of parliament, after they had held a successful referendum on independence, xeroxes of the pages pertaining to the Black Sea Fleet in the International Institute for Strategic Studies' Military Balance. Open source IISS publications were purchased by the Soviet Embassy who then classified them as "confidential" and they were subsequently placed in the restricted areas ("spetsfond") of Soviet libraries.
Sevastopol was neglected by Kyiv since independence. The city has few memorials dedicated to Ukrainian history, but is full of Russian and Soviet symbols tying the twice "hero city" to Russia. The city's youth is "educated exclusively on Russian history, Russian patriotism and loyalty to Russian statehood." The fleet plays an important role in this process, which transcends its military function, "especially in the areas of education, propaganda, information and culture" (Ukrayinsky Tyzhden, June 12).
On June 12 Ukrayinsky Tyzhden asked: "What about official Kyiv?" "Well, it (official Kyiv) undertakes a policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of Ukraine." Russian policies towards Sevastopol are conducted within the context of "great power politics." Ukrainian policies in contrast are "the private affair of individual patriotically inclined persons who have become accustomed to disinterest from official Kyiv" (Ukrayinsky Tyzhden, June 12).

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Kremlin's historical hyprocisy: By falsifying history, the Kremlin aims to undercut the notion of an independent Ukrainian nation
By Valeriy Stepanenko
Kyiv Post, 16 July 2009

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs accuses official Kyiv of “twisting” historical facts concerning both nations’ shared historical past in an effort to push Ukrainians into an “artificial, far-fetched confrontation with Russia.” 
The Russian Federation also tries to counteract the idea of a separate Ukrainian political nation, an idea that is nourished inside Ukraine by positive historical examples of its own. Every independent state has a right to defend its national interests. But Russia is doing so by ignoring, hiding or even falsifying historical facts, restricting access to archives, using the unworthy methods of agitation and propaganda common in periods of totalitarianism. 
Russian Federation President Dmitry Medvedev even ordered recently the establishment of a special presidential committee “for counteracting attempts to harm Russian interests by way of historical falsification.”
Making fools of one’s own population by using pseudo-historical myths to divert people from urgent internal problems is a time-tested cornerstone of Moscow domestic policy. It follows the principle of imperialists to divide and rule. Kremlin rulers realize perfectly that the democratic form of rule and Russia's centralized state of governance are incompatible.
European democracy derives from ancient Greece and Rome. But Moscow state tradition derives from the Mongol hordes. Because of this, the autocratic Moscow only followed imperial state interests, never the interests of its own people. History that doesn’t glorify the state is not recognized, especially if it involves Moscow’s former colonies in the former Soviet Union.
Official Moscow is irritated by official Kyiv’s interpretation of historical facts related to Holodomor (the murderous famine in Ukraine from 1932-1933), World War II and the OUN-UPA (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists – Ukrainian Insurgent Army), and this year’s 300th anniversary of the Battle of Poltava. Let’s consider these historical events:
Holodomor
The Kremlin denies that the Holodomor in 1932-1933 was genocide against Ukrainians. An estimated 7 million Ukrainian peasants died from forced starvation. And yet, even now, the archives of that mournful period are sealed in the Russian Federation. The Soviets completely blockaded rural settlements with military troops. The Holodomor was organized by the Kremlin consciously with the aim to break the Ukrainian village, the backbone of the Ukrainian soul.
World War II and OUN-UPA freedom fighters
The peak of Moscow’s irritation came when President Victor Yushchenko called the leaders of Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) “national heroes” and, in particular, rewarded its commander-in-chief Roman Shukhevych with the title of Hero of Ukraine. 
The members of this military force in Kremlin-controlled mass media are labeled as “fascists” and “Nazi collaborators.” They were, however, unlike the U.S.S.R., which in 1939 concluded with fascist Germany the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, together with secret protocols about the redistribution of Europe. The UPA never concluded any agreement on collaboration with Hitler. In 1939, after Poland was split between fascist Germany and the Soviet Union, joint Nazi-Soviet parades were held in Brest and Grodno in today’s Belarus. By the way, the last Soviet freight train with raw materials for friendly fascist Germany crossed a new border that was determined between the two allied states just shortly before the attack of fascist Germany on the U.S.S.R. on June 22, 1941.
There is also conclusive evidence confirming an exchange of military experience between the Nazis and Stalin. The so-called “zagradotriady” (entanglement detachments) could be considered the common offspring of Nazis and Soviets. UPA leader Stepan Bandera and his comrades-in-arms, following the principle of “an enemy of my enemy is my friend” tried to use situational cooperation with Nazi Germany on June 30, 1941, in Lviv, for the independent Ukrainian state. Almost all OUN leaders were arrested shortly after such a proclamation and placed into concentration camps. Official Moscow considers such a short situational cooperation as a sufficient foundation to name the Ukrainian sacrificial patriots “fascist servants,” saying nothing about the Soviet cooperation with Nazis in 1939-1941. On May 17, during the commemoration of the Memory Day of victims of political repressions in Ukraine, Yushchenko equated the U.S.S.R. with Nazi Germany: “They
 could be compared by the misanthropic essence and similarities in the extraordinary scales of mass murders.”
Battle of Poltava 
The foreign policy authorities of the Russian Federation dislike Ukrainian measures to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the Poltava battle. In particular, they are not fond of the intention to open a monument to hetman Ivan Mazepa in Poltava and start a new state award -  The Cross of Mazepa. This is seen in Moscow as official Kyiv’s attempt to pull Ukrainians into an artificial confrontation with Russia.
At the time, Ukrainian hetman Ivan Mazepa fought with his kozaks on the side of Sweden’s King Karl XII and was defeated by Moscow czar, Peter The Great. He was labeled as a “traitor” of Ukrainian people. Actually, the Moscow empire used to label in such ways all Ukrainian leaders who struggled against the czarist empire for freedom of their motherland.
In the meantime, Moscow lackeys of Ukrainian origin were almost proclaimed Ukrainian national heroes (let’s remember the last Communist Party ruler of Ukraine, Volodymyr Shcherbitsky, whose Russification policy set back usage of the Ukrainian language in all spheres of state and public life during the two last decades of the U.S.S.R.’s existence). The tragedy of hetman Ivan Mazepa is also the tragedy of all Ukrainians, a literate people that the czarist empire tried mightily to transform into almost illiterate “Little Russians.” 
Ukrainians will never allow themselves to be forced by a totalitarian empire into glorifying their bloody executioners - Peter The Great, Catherine The Great, Lenin, Stalin. The long-suffering Ukrainian people will write their own truthful history and define their national heroes. It doesn’t matter if the former so-called ‘Big Brother’ likes it or not.
(Valeriy Stepanenko is a freelance journalist living in Kyiv.)

http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op_ed/45375
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Ukraine Tightens the Screw in Sevastopol
By: Taras Kuzio
Eurasia Daily Monitor, Volume: 6, Issue: 141, July 23, 2009

President Viktor Yushchenko announced his bid for a second term on July 18 defying pundits who believed his low popularity of 2-3 percent would deter him (www.president.gov.ua, July 18). Yushchenko used the highest peak in Ukraine - Hoverla in the Carpathians - to declare his bid for re-election, following a tradition set on Hoverla in 2002 (when he launched the Our Ukraine political party) and 2004 (when he announced his presidential candidacy).
Yushchenko's election speech included little concerning everyday realities facing Ukrainians such as the global financial crisis, but it was instead full of references to Ukrainian national identity, the re-writing of history, historical memory, language and the nation. The speech - as reflected in actual presidential policies in the Crimea - points to Yushchenko following Leonid Kravchuk in 1994 in campaigning for re-election on a nationalistic platform.
Yushchenko had targeted the Black Sea Fleet during the August 2008 Russian-Georgian war, passing two decrees that sought to restrict its ability to move in and out of Sevastopol without Ukrainian authorization. The Black Sea Fleet, which sent vessels and marines to the August 2008 war, refused to abide by these decrees, while the Ukrainian president did not seek to enforce them in the face of Russian objections.
Typically, the decrees therefore remained on paper reinforcing the Yulia Tymoshenko government's view that it was pointless issuing them, since it would not have risked a direct confrontation over the Black Sea Fleet. Most Ukrainian politicians have always sought to grudgingly accept its presence, through a temporary twenty year provision in the Ukrainian constitution that bans foreign bases, and hope that Russia will abide by the treaty and withdraw in 2017.
This approach to Sevastopol and the fleet only served to embolden Russia to act with impunity and ignore the 1997 basing agreement and Ukrainian legislation, whether through illegally occupying buildings, such as lighthouses, or transporting missiles through Crimean towns without Ukrainian authorization. In addition, Russia - particularly Moscow Mayor Yuriy Luzhkov - invested large financial sums into Sevastopol while Kyiv ignored the challenge of raising Ukraine's profile in the port by financing socio-economic and educational institutions (Ukrayinsky Tyzhden, June 12). Sevastopol has a large shopping mall named "Moscow" and branches of the Moscow State University provided by the mayor of Moscow.
Yushchenko has ordered law enforcement agencies to investigate Russian activities in Sevastopol (www.pravda.com.ua, July 5). Yushchenko believes that they are "directed not only against the state, but against us all, against our families, and our children. These are those projects that bring instability and squabbles" (www.pravda.com.ua, July 5).
Yushchenko has also lobbied for the idea of removing Sevastopol's Soviet era special status which combined with Kyiv, gives it an all-republican status. His aim is to integrate Sevastopol with the Crimea. In Yushchenko's criticism of Russian projects he in effect called for the Ukrainianization of Sevastopol by tying it closer to Ukraine geographically and through promoting Ukrainian national identity and military traditions. Luzhkov denied Yushchenko's charges that its Sevastopol education and economic projects were "unfriendly" and a "provocation against Ukraine," counter claiming that the Ukrainian authorities have invested little themselves (www.pravda.com.ua, July 6).
Moreover, Yushchenko has also tightened the screws on Sevastopol in other ways. On July 8 a Russian military convoy of three trucks transporting SS-N-2 short and SS-N-9 medium range missiles without permits through Sevastopol was intercepted by Ukrainian Interior Ministry (MVS) Special Forces. The missiles were en route to a technical repair base 30 kilometers outside the port that is used by the fleet.
SS-N-9 missiles, capable of carrying nuclear warheads, were used as conventional weapons during the fleet's intervention in the 2008 Russian-Georgian war. The Russian foreign ministry protested at the Ukrainian intervention claiming that transporting missiles was permitted by the 1997 agreement. "Our sailors were not conducting any new type of action," the statement said (www.pravda.com.ua, July 21). On July 21 another Russian convoy was halted by MVS traffic police that was transporting "Malakhit" missiles without a permit or the required fire engine escort, while three more trucks carrying missiles were stopped on July 23.
Earlier this year Ukraine protested over plans to add a submarine to the Black Sea Fleet, claiming it cannot be enlarged without Ukraine's consent. A separate addendum would have to be agreed to the 1997 basing agreement in order to permit the fleet's expansion. Russia continues to distribute passports to Crimean's thereby infringing Ukrainian legislation, which does not permit dual citizenship. The practice, used extensively in South Ossetia, permitted Russia to claim that it was intervening to protect "Russian citizens" from "Georgian aggression" and could thereby provide a similar pretext for a future Russian intervention in Sevastopol, in the event of a Ukrainian crackdown on separatists.
Another widely used infringement is the violation of Ukrainian immigration laws by the fleet's personnel. Last month it protested against Ukraine's new policy of checking the documentation of Russian naval personnel, claiming it was an "unfriendly move directed against Russian-Ukrainian relations" (www.pravda.com.ua, June 8). The Ukrainian interior ministry, which oversees the issuing of passports and immigration controls, estimated that 10 percent of illegal immigrants in Sevastopol were Russian sailors.
The Black Sea Fleet has positively responded to one Ukrainian demand and requested permission (for the first time in 18 years) to hold its annual parade. A spokesman from the Ukrainian embassy in Moscow said that, "this step will strengthen the practice of providing full respect by the Russian side towards Ukrainian sovereignty, its legislation and the bilateral agreement that regulates the basing of the Russian Black Sea Fleet on Ukrainian territory" (www.pravda.com.ua, July 14).
Equally, Russia is likely to negatively respond to the majority of Ukrainian demands. Although Russia is conducting an ideological campaign against Ukraine (EDM, June 12) and is openly provocative, Yushchenko's nationalist election platform is likely to maintain tense relations with Russia, while deepening Western European suspicions of him as a Russophobe. Consequently, this might reduce Ukraine's prospects to pursue closer European integration. Yushchenko's nationalistic campaign for a second term repeats that of Kravchuk's desperate attempt for re-election in the 1994 pre-term presidential elections. However, Yushchenko's nationalist platform, reminiscent of Kravchuk's, is likely to fail while also undermining the young pretender Arseniy Yatseniuk's campaign -by splitting the Our Ukraine vote between two candidates.

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Kirill on a Mission: Will the New Patriarch of Moscow Succeed in His New Role in Ukraine?
By Andrei Zolotov, Jr.
Russia Profile, July 27, 2009

On Monday, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia began a visit to Ukraine, unprecedented both in its scale and symbolical significance. Its results will greatly influence both the future of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine and, to some extent, that of the Russian-Ukrainian relations, as well as the status of the Moscow Patriarchate itself.
It began in the capital of Kiev, where the Patriarch is to lead the celebrations dedicated to Saint Prince Vladimir, the Baptist of Rus’, on Tuesday. His 10-day-long pilgrimage will then take him to Donetsk and Gorlovka in Eastern Ukraine, which is traditionally pro-Russian. Then he will go to the Crimea, where on August 2 the Patriarch will worship in the ancient Chersonesus where Prince Vladimir himself had been baptized. The last – and likely most daring –days of the visit will be spent in the Western regions of Ukraine, where the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches epitomized by the Russian and Western civilizations had been the historic rivals and neighbors, and which is today dominated by the anti-Moscow political and church forces. Visits to Rivno, Luts’k, and Volodymyr-Volynsky are all on the agenda, and the trip will conclude on August 5 at the Pochayiv Monastery, the outpost of Orthodox Christianity in the West.
For an outsider who is not familiar with the intricacies of Ukrainian history, it is not easy to understand the complexity of the church situation in Ukraine. Over the centuries, the heirs to Prince Vladimir’s baptismal font have repeatedly found themselves in different states and different Churches, while the numerous wars that have rolled over this part of Europe inevitably turned out to be civil wars for the ancestors of those who make up the people of Ukraine today. It was only within the framework of the Soviet Union that Ukraine’s current borders were set. When the Soviet Union disintegrated and Ukraine became an independent state, a complicated and as of yet unfinished process of forming a united Ukrainian nation began. There are few other places in the world where the religion factor would play such an important role both in the day-to-day life of the people and in the identity of the nation. That is in Ukraine, the Church is an object of
 colossal political pressure, often directed at breaking the spiritual and historical ties. As a result, the Orthodox Christians in Ukraine are presently divided into at least three church groups and live next door to Greek Catholics, or Uniates, -- Christians who abide by the Byzantine Rite while belonging to the jurisdiction of the Vatican.
Patriarch Kirill repeatedly emphasizes that he is coming to Ukraine with a pastoral visit, to worship on the holy sites of this land and pray for the unity of the Church, for the unity and well-being of the Ukrainian people, who are presently living through a difficult economic and political crisis, and for the unity of all nations tracing their history back to the Kievan Rus – and that is not only Ukrainians, but Russians and Belorussians as well. The Moscow Patriarchal See identifies itself as a successor to the ancient Kievan See. It is not a political visit, Church officials say. The Patriarch is coming to his flock.
However, there is another side to this statement. By coming to his Ukrainian flock and speaking to it not only in Russian or in our common Church Slavonic liturgical language, but also in Ukrainian, by emphasizing his respect for the Ukrainian statehood, Patriarch Kirill shows that he is not a patriarch of the Russian Federation and not just the head of the church of the Russian people, no matter how handy such an interpretation would be for both Russian and Ukrainian nationalists. He sees himself as the patriarch of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and all the Orthodox Christians throughout the world, who see in him as the earthly head of their Church.
In this he is somewhat different from his predecessor--the late Patriarch Alexy II who in 1990 granted a wide-ranging autonomy to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and, facing protests in Kiev when he came the same year to hand the Tomos of Self-Government to the then-Metropolitan and later a self-proclaimed schismatic Patriach Filaret, did not set foot on the Ukrainian soil for almost 18 years. A year ago, 80-year-old Patriarch Alexy came to Kiev when it became the site of a grand intra-Orthodox and international drama staged by President Victor Yushchenko. At the time, two Orthodox Patriarchs – one of Moscow, another of Constantinople – were simultaneously in Kiev, the latter being nudged by the presidential administration to unite the Ukrainian Orthodox under his jurisdiction, not under Moscow’s. Paradoxically, after the meeting in Kiev, which could result in a major schism of the Orthodox Church worldwide, a new phase in the relationship between
 the Moscow and Constantinople Patriarchates began. It developed further last month, when Russian participants described Patriarch Kirill’s visit to Turkey as an exceptional success. Among other things, the two most influential Orthodox Patriarchates appear to have reached some agreement on Ukraine, which has not been revealed to the public.
It would be wrong today to see the very Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate as simply a branch of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine. With all of its complex internal processes usually described as a rivalry between a pro-Moscow and a pro-independent party, with all of its organizational flaws, one can still decipher a formation of a separate Ukrainian Orthodox identity somewhere in between the East and the West. This identity is being promulgated today by the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church in no lesser (if not greater) way than the breakaway groups, which had until recently positioned themselves as the main standard-bearers of Ukrainian national consciousness.
The relatively young and energetic Patriarch Kirill, who has 20 years of top Russian Orthodox diplomat’s experience on his resume, is prepared to face the protest rallies, which predictably began when he first stepped on Ukrainian soil. He is prepared to address his Ukrainian flock in Ukrainian and lay flowers at the memorial to the victims of the Joseph Stalin-era famine. It is not a coincidence that to a large degree, he owes his victory in being elected as Patriarch of Moscow in January to the Ukrainian bishops and Ukrainian delegates of the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, who voted overwhelmingly for Kirill. On Monday, he held a session of the Holy Synod of the entire Russian Orthodox Church in Kiev for the first time. He repeatedly calls this city not only by its traditional title “the Mother of all Russian Cities,” but also uses a newly coined term – “the Southern Capital of Russian Orthodoxy.” He sees himself as a
 spiritual leader of the entire “Eastern Slavic civilization” and  tries to bring the whole “Church of the historical Holy Rus” back to its roots in Kiev. He strives to find a way of maintaining the unity of this civilization while respecting the political and cultural boundaries and distinctions of the present-day states and nations.
He is attempting to emphasize the universal, supra-national character of his Church and build a new relationship with the Western Christianity, and primarily with the Roman Catholic Church, in the face of the challenges of the secular world. In the meantime, Ukraine is the land where historically both the rivalry and the mutual enrichment of the two great Christian civilizations had been taking place.
Will he succeed in this grandiose project? Will Patriarch Kirill manage to eventually become not another outside force tearing the Ukrainian people apart, but a unifier of Ukrainian Orthodox Christianity and a builder of a new relationship with the Christian West? Time will tell. But the visit to Ukraine that began on Monday will foreshadow.

http://www.russiaprofile.org/page.php?pageid=International&articleid=a1248717160
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Joe Biden's Trip to Ukraine and Georgia
By Ariel Cohen, Ph.D
Heritage Foundation, July 27, 2009

Last week, the White House dispatched Vice President Joe Biden to Ukraine and Georgia to assuage fears that America may be abandoning its allies in the post-Soviet space, as Washington continues to try to push the reset button with Moscow.
Instead, fudged messages and more confusion prevailed. As Biden visited Kyiv and Tbilisi, the Obama Administration managed to dilute a key message--that Russia should respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of its neighbors.
The mere fact that the Vice President ventures into what Russia calls its "near abroad" two weeks after President Obama's visit to Moscow indicates that the White House has downgraded its relationship with Ukraine and Georgia.. In the past, a U.S. President en route to Moscow would make a stopover in the Baltic States, Ukraine, or another country in the former empire. These visits were a signal that Washington would not have "preferred partners" in the region.
Things have changed since the Obama Administration decided to prioritize the relationship with Moscow in such vital areas as Afghanistan, Iran, and arms control. While the global agenda is important, so is U.S credibility. It is crucial to demonstrate to U.S. allies near and far that the United States stands by its friends. Unfortunately, Joe Biden's messages, carefully monitored in Moscow, fell short of making that case.
"Tough Love" Toward Ukraine
Biden offered "tough love" to the political elite in Kyiv, and deservedly so. However, his tone was pedantic, if not high handed--something the Ukrainian political elite will surely resent.
Biden pointed out that the promises of the Orange Revolution of 2004 have not been completely fulfilled. He publicly criticized the lack of cooperation between President Victor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko, rivals in the forthcoming January 2010 presidential elections. And his team's assumption that after the elections Ukraine will scale down Euro-Atlantic integration may be wrong.
The Vice President called for an intensified fight against corruption, an effort to increase energy efficiency, and an improvement in Ukraine's abysmal economic performance (negative 14 percent of its GDP). Ukraine's dependence on Russian gas and its inability to pay market prices to Gazprom are at the heart of the country's strategic insecurity. Biden's criticisms on these points were fully warranted.
Biden also announced a meeting of the U.S.-Ukraine Strategic Partnership Commission to be held in Washington in the fall. The intention is to implement the U.S.-Ukraine Strategic Charter, signed in December 2008 by the Bush Administration, and to deepen bilateral cooperation in the areas of security, economy, trade, energy, and the rule of law.
Where Biden fell short was in the area of national security. According to Kommersant Daily, in April 2008, then-President Vladimir Putin told George W.. Bush at the NATO summit in Bucharest that Ukraine is "not a real state." Since then, he has pejoratively referred to Ukraine as "Little Russia."
Vice President Biden was tight-lipped in describing what kind of security and military cooperation the U.S. and NATO can have with Ukraine. While he left the matter of potential Ukrainian Euro-Atlantic integration to the Ukrainian people, Biden ignored Russia's staunch opposition to the prospect. He also failed to call upon America's European allies to step up Ukraine's integration into the EU.
"Finlandizing" Georgia?
Biden's trip to Georgia was even more problematic, despite receiving a hero's welcome there. People lined the streets with slogans "Don't Forget Us" and "No to Occupation" in reference to Russia's occupation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the summer of 2008. Biden met with the democratic opposition, which is demanding President Mikheil Saakashvili's resignation, yet indicated that the U.S. will not dictate an election timetable.
In a speech before the Georgian parliament, Biden correctly rejected Russia's claims to a 19th-century-style sphere of influence. He delivered a message that the U.S. is seeking a free, secure, democratic, and united Georgia. Yet again, he fell short of operational details.
Biden's call to the world not to recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia is the minimum Washington can do, yet the Vice President rejected any "physical security guarantees" to Georgia in case of a Russian attack. Nor did he articulate any concrete roadmap intended to restore Georgia's sovereignty and hold Moscow to its commitments to the Medvedev-Sarkozy accords of August 2008, which call for the restoration of the status quo ante along Georgia's borders.
Behind closed doors, Biden warned against any future use of force to liberate the Russian-occupied territories--a position inherited from the Clinton and Bush Administrations--and rejected Georgia's requests for defensive weapons, such as anti-tank and anti-aircraft systems. Denying Georgia defensive weapons will hamper its ability to defend itself in case of another Russian attack and may be interpreted by some in Moscow as de-facto encouragement of a tougher line toward the Saakashvili administration.
While Biden was in Tbilisi, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin warned that Moscow will take "concrete measures" against any country that seeks to rearm Georgia. Particularly in this light, Biden's declaration of a partial weapons embargo and refusal to provide "physical security guarantees" may be interpreted as an Obama Administration cave-in to Moscow's pressure.
What Should the Obama Administration Do?
The Obama Administration is walking a tightrope between trying to improve the frayed relationship with Russia while simultaneously rejecting Moscow's spurious claims to a "sphere of exclusive interests" in the former Soviet Union and Eastern and Central Europe.
To boost the confidence of U.S. allies while ensuring that Russia remains in a cooperative mode, Washington should:
    * Expand cooperation with NATO allies in formulating and implementing a joint policy that clearly delineates security "red lines" in Europe, including contingency planning for the defense of Eastern and Central European NATO members--something that has so far been postponed.
    * Continue to cooperate with, upgrade, and improve the militaries in the post-Soviet states, especially Azerbaijan, Georgia and Ukraine, which are interested in NATO membership.
    * Work with post-Soviet states on developing democratic institutions, transparency, the rule of law, and good governance, as stronger institutions and stronger states also enhance national security and improve the investment climate.
    * Announce a visit by President Obama to a non-Russian state of the region in the first half of 2010. The President should deliver a strong message of support for their sovereignty, territorial integrity, diplomatic and security cooperation, Euro-Atlantic integration, democratic development, and energy security.
"Don't Forget Us"
"State sovereignty must be a cornerstone of international order," declared President Obama in his speech at the New Economic School in Moscow on June 7. "Just as all states should have the right to choose their leaders, states must have the right to borders that are secure, and to their own foreign policies. That is true for Russia, just as it is true for the United States.. ... That's why we must apply this principle to all nations--and that includes nations like Georgia and Ukraine." Yet after Biden's visit, these words ring somewhat hollow.
The Administration is understandably focused on Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and other priorities, but Eastern Europe and Eurasia, the heart of the Eastern hemisphere, cannot and should not be neglected. Nor can they be abandoned to the geopolitical ambitions of those with transparent anti-American agendas. President Obama and Vice President Biden should make certain that this message rings loud and clear even before their next visit to the region.
(Ariel Cohen, Ph.D., is Senior Research Fellow in Russian and Eurasian Studies and International Energy Security in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation. )

http://www.heritage.org/Research/RussiaandEurasia/wm2565.cfm
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Kirill is not the Kremlin's man: Patriarch Kirill isn't doing Russia's bidding in Ukraine. What he wants is a unified, independent Orthodox church
By Adrian Pabst
UTV, 28 July 2009

This week's visit by Russia's Orthodox patriarch, Kirill, to neighbouring Ukraine has been the subject of some controversy. Many suspect that Kirill is the Kremlin's cleric, intent on advancing a pro-Russian agenda. The accusation is that his presence will precipitate the looming schism among rival Ukrainian Orthodox churches.
However, one of the key priorities of Kirill's patriarchal reign is to improve relations among Orthodox churches weakened by divisions and conflict. These divisions have a long history, but tensions flared up in the early 1990s when the Soviet Union collapsed and was replaced by newly independent states that sought to bolster their autocephalous national churches, with their own patriarchs and full jurisdictional authority.
Since then, Ukrainian Orthodoxy has been split between those who pledge loyalty to the Moscow patriarchate and those who seek to establish a fully independent body under the aegis of the Kiev patriarchate, which is considered schismatic by the Russian Orthodox church. Kirill's visit in the Ukraine seeks to avoid a full-blown schism.
The Ukrainian scenario encapsulates a wider problem across the Orthodox world – tensions between the Moscow patriarchate that accounts for almost half of around 270 million Orthodox faithful and the other national churches. Some, like the Kiev patriarchate, refuse any links with the Russian church and lack any external recognition. Others look to Constantinople – the cradle of Orthodoxy – and its ecumenical patriarch who enjoys the status of "first among equals" (primus inter pares) within the Orthodox episcopate.
Yet others accept the Moscow patriarchate's traditional claim to pre-eminence over the other Orthodox churches. Since the demise of the Byzantine empire, Moscow has often arrogated to itself the dubious title of "Third Rome" – the sole legitimate successor to the legacy of Roman empire in the west and the Byzantine empire in the east. Pointing to the proximity between the Moscow patriarch and the Kremlin in the post-Soviet era, critics say that this sort of messianic faith fuels both Russian religious supremacism and political imperialism.
The trouble is that in modern times most, if not all, Orthodox churches are predominantly national communities that support and serve the sovereign state – a marked difference with the transnational Roman Catholic church led by an independent pope who does not owe his authority to any secular power. For complex historical reasons, the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople (now Istanbul) has to be a Turkish citizen resident in Turkey, giving the republic's strongly secular influence over internal church affairs.
By forging closer links with other Orthodox churches, Kirill is determined to reassert the trans-national character of Orthodoxy. On his first visit as patriarch in Constantinople at the beginning of this month, he appealed to the common theological tradition that binds together the Orthodox sister churches. Crucially, he also described the ecumenical patriarchate of Constantinople as the new Rome that safeguards the unity of all local communities across the Orthodox world.
As the head of the single largest Orthodox church, Kirill's desire to defend the special contribution of the Moscow patriarchate "to the common Orthodox witness before the modern world which is losing its spiritual and moral guidelines" is not reactionary nostalgia. Rather, it underscores his continued commitment to a shared supranational Orthodox identity.
Nor is it accurate to brand him as a Russian neo-imperialist dressed in the clothes of religious piety. Like his predecessor Patriarch Alexy II, under whom he served as metropolitan in charge of ecumenical relations, Kirill has already improved ties with other Orthodox churches. Last summer, he opposed the creation of a new patriarchate in Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia, arguing that political independence is no reason for the South Ossetian Orthodox church to cut ties with the Georgian patriarchate. (Both the Moscow and the Georgian patriarchs spoke out publicly against the military conflict). Kirill's visit to the Ukraine is of a piece with the logic of Orthodox unity rather than an ill-conceived exercise in pro-Russian PR.
Key to a stronger pan-Orthodox identity is greater church autonomy from the state – Kirill's other key priority. In a sermon during his enthronement service attended by both President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin, he criticised the Russian government's response to the current economic downturn, enjoining the president to take bolder action and inveighing against the authorities for violating the standards of justice and righteousness..
Moreover, only a fortnight ago Kirill obtained guarantees from Russian politicians that the Moscow patriarchate would be allowed to preview all legislation considered in the State Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament. This extraordinary agreement enables the church to examine proposed legislation and influence its outcome. Staunch secularists and atheists will be up in arms, but this is potentially a stunning reversal of the widely perceived subordination of the Orthodox church to the Russian state.
None of the patriarch's initiatives are uncontroversial, but the charge that he is the Kremlin's cleric simply doesn't wash. At 62, Kirill is relatively young and his patriarchal rule could last for a generation. Together with the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople and others, he will seek to strengthen Orthodoxy against the forces of aggressive secularism and atheism and to affirm the autonomy of the church vis-à-vis the state without divorcing religion from politics.

http://u.tv/News/Kirill-is-not-the-Kremlins-man/7f03c912-1fad-4c49-b80a-aeec4412a60d
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Patriarch Kirill and political orthodoxy
By Zenon V. Wasyliw
Kyiv Post, 30 July 2008

His Beatitude Metropolitan Volodymyr (Sabodan), leader of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarch), addressed representatives of local Orthodox churches under the presidency and invitation of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew last October.
He cited the vibrancy, growth and strong structure of his church. He noted continued dialogues striving toward church unity with representatives of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyivan Patriarchate and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church that are not canonically recognized. The three combined jurisdictions would number over 17,000 Ukrainian parish communities.
Despite these impressive statistics and sincere efforts toward unity, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarch) is not officially recognized as a particular church. It is not accorded the same status as that of the world’s 15 autocephalous Orthodox churches. Metropolitan Volodymyr was only a guest speaker at the Phanar. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is officially a branch of the Russian Orthodox Church.
An article on Patriarch Kirill’s enthronement, published in the Orthodox Church of America’s official publication, The Orthodox Church, cites Metropolitan Vladimir (or Volodymyr) of Kyiv as one of the Russian Church’s two senior hierarchs. There is never any mention of a Ukrainian Orthodox Church. This status evolved politically under Russian tsarist expansive imperialism and Soviet control of and collaboration with the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.  We now live in post-colonial and post-Soviet times that call for an honest acceptance of autocephalous self-governance for Orthodox Christians in Ukraine. 
Patriarch Kirill opposes “political orthodoxy,” yet the Russian Orthodox Church closely collaborates with Russian leaders Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev in spreading a Russian nationalist  (some say proto-fascist) message in Russia and the “near abroad.” 
Putin, Medvedev and Kirill, a powerful Russian troika, engage in joint political and religious commemorations of the White General Anton Denikin, supporting and echoing Denikin’s denigration of Ukrainians, the political canonization into sainthood of Tsar Nicholas II, his wife and five children, in support of a reactionary Russian imperial ideological foundation of Autocracy, Orthodoxy and Russian Nationality with its legacy of chauvinistic policies and pogroms.
Many other examples bring to question whether Patriarch Kirill’s visit is a political mission to re-engage a reactionary past of a revived vision of Russian imperial control over Ukraine.
The Russian Orthodox Church remains silent on many recent and current human rights abuses by the Russian state, such as the suspicious deaths of journalists critical of the government, the assault upon the human rights group Memorial, the censorship and political control of history, among many others.
The Russian troika should accept that Ukrainians have their own identities and values in a post-colonial and post-Soviet space. Good relations between Ukraine and Russia are important and should be based on mutual respect and equality, not spheres of influence through ecclesiastical control.  Only a self-governing, autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church can spiritually respond to Ukrainians’ unique and varied identities, developments and issues. The Russian Orthodox Church in Russia has its own issues and concerns it needs to attend.
Serge Schmemann, son of the famous Orthodox theologian, notes in the April 2009 National Geographic the catastrophically low level of monthly church attendance in Russia, estimated at 10 percent to less than 1 percent. Ukraine, on the other hand has a far higher level of belief and liturgical participation.  Metropolitan Volodymyr has stated that over 70 percent of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church membership is found in the nationally conscious and linguistically Ukrainian European oriented western half of Ukraine, in contrast to the Eurasian orientation of Russian Orthodoxy.
The only true realizable path toward self-governance is the return of a Kyivan-Ukrainian Orthodox Church Metropolitan in union with the Ecumenical Patriarchate, as was the case prior to its political assimilation into the Moscow Patriarchate in 1686. Those of Russian nationalist orientations in Ukraine can be served by Russian patriarchal clergy, as is done in the United States. But it is evident that Patriarch Kirill, with the political influence of Putin and Medvedev, will not acknowledge this right.
An Autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church, with its primate in Kyiv and not Moscow, will best serve the spiritual needs of its faithful and the realities of daily life. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church would then join world Orthodoxy as an equal to the Autocephalous Orthodox Churches of Albania, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Georgia, Greece, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia and the four ancient patriarchates of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem.  Autocephaly is not a myth reality.
(Zenon V. Wasyliw is a professor of history at Ithaca College in Ithaca, NY..)

http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op_ed/46190
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Russia-Ukraine Diplomatic War
By: Taras Kuzio
Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 6 Issue: 147, July 31, 2009

On July 27 the Kommersant daily, citing diplomatic sources, said that Ukraine intended to expel the Russian General Consul in Odessa, Oleksandr Grachov. The Ukrainian authorities have long accused the consulate of involvement in the illegal distribution of Russian passports to Crimean citizens. Kommersant described the expulsion of two Russian diplomats in close proximity as "the beginning of a diplomatic war between Moscow and Kyiv." Ukrainian sources revealed that the first diplomat that was expelled, a senior adviser to the Russian Embassy Vladimir Lysenko, had responsibility for maintaining contact and cooperating with "compatriots" in Ukraine. In effect, he provided finance for pro-Russian organizations in Ukraine, a Ukrainian diplomatic source told Ukrayinska Pravda (July 27). Lysenko was warned two years earlier by the Ukrainian foreign ministry. On that occasion Lysenko had questioned Ukrainian sovereignty over the Crimea in conjunction with the
 Black Sea Fleet base.
Ukrainian leaders are anxious that Russia will refuse to withdraw from Sevastopol in 2017, since Moscow continues to raise the question of extending the lease indefinitely and adding new vessels to the fleet. On July 26 the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy Admiral Vladimir Vysotskiy attended the Black Sea Fleet annual parade, the first occasion that such a senior Russian officer has carried out the duty. Vysotskiy said during his visit that a portion of the fleet should remain in Sevastopol after 2017. "We are saying that Sevastopol is for us unfortunately not the main base of the Black Sea Fleet, as it is outlined in the 1997 agreement, but it is an important base" (Ukrayinska Pravda, July 26). Vysotskiy blamed political speculation by Ukrainian politicians for claims that the fleet could not remain beyond 2017.
The fleet is based there on a temporary article in the Ukrainian constitution that permits foreign bases for twenty years. After 2017 the article will not be valid and for the fleet to be permitted to remain beyond that date would require changing the Ukrainian constitution. This would be highly unlikely, as it would require 300 votes, which the pro-Russian forces could never muster. Opinion polls show that public support for Party of Regions leader Viktor Yanukovych and Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko total 40 percent, a long way from a two thirds constitutional majority.
The Ukrainian foreign ministry responded to Admiral Vysotskiy by saying that "we would like to stress that on the question of the term for the basing of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation there are no different viewpoints; there is simply a state (derzhavna) position declared on different levels." Documents on the termination of the basing agreement in 2017 are in preparation, the spokesman said, as the constitution forbids any alternative scenario (www.mfa.gov.ua, July 27). Tension surrounding the fleet remains high. The Ukrainian interior ministry, acting on intelligence provided by military intelligence and the security service, recently halted the transportation of fleet missiles on three occasions (since they lacked permits), as they were transported through the streets of Sevastopol. On two of these occasions the transportation did not include the required fire engine in case of an accident in a heavily populated area.
According to the 1997 agreement, the fleet is obliged to request from the Ukrainian defense ministry a permit for transportation of any kind outside the Sevastopol base. If no permit is received, then the transportation infringes Ukrainian legislation, an adviser to Ukraine's foreign ministry stated (Ukrayinska Pravda, July 24).
The National Security and Defense Council (NRBO) issued a statement on July 24 on the issue of transportation by the fleet. The NRBO stated that infringements had reached a "systematic character" that "continues to ignore what is laid out in the bilateral agreement, international law and in Ukrainian legislation. The result is that the inhabitants of Sevastopol and Ukraine's national security have been placed under serious threat." The statement continued, "It would appear that this is purposefully undertaken to demonstrate disrespect to (Ukraine's) national sovereignty..."
Admiral Vysotskiy admitted that this had broken the 1997 agreement and promised an investigation. Whether the investigation will lead to any change in the fleet's posture in Sevastopol is doubtful. During Leonid Kuchma's presidency from 1997-2004 the Ukrainian authorities turned a blind eye to the fleet's repeated flouting of the 1997 basing agreement.
The "rocket-diplomatic war," as Ukrayinska Pravda (July 24) described it, is a new phenomenon, as the current Ukrainian leadership has opted to force the fleet to adhere to every aspect of the 1997 agreement. One factor influencing President Yushchenko to adopt this policy is the shock in Kyiv over the use of fleet to attack Georgia in August 2008. Ukraine had not expected that its territory would be used to launch any aggression against an ally. The missiles illegally transported through Sevastopol were the same type used against the Georgian navy during the Russian aggression against Georgia..
On the eve of the fleet's annual parade attempts to hold a rehearsal were also blocked by the Ukrainian interior ministry due to the lack of permits for 22 Russian armoured personnel carriers to trundle through Sevastopol. One Russian diplomatic source described this as another "provocation" (Ukrayinska Pravda, July 23).
Tension in the Crimea is at its highest since Ukraine faced the separatist challenge in the mid-1990's. Externally, Russia has launched a widespread ideological campaign against Ukraine (and Georgia) that has made the former the third most disliked country in Russia. This tension in the Crimea is largely ignored by the E.U., NATO and the U.S. - though it is an increasing priority in Kyiv.

http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[swords]=8fd5893941d69d0be3f378576261ae3e&tx_ttnews[any_of_the_words]=Kuzio&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=35347&tx_ttnews[backPid]=7&cHash=ae7794ac59
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Speaking the Truth: Biden on Russia. 
By David J. Kramer 
The Weekly Standard, August 1, 2009

Vice President Biden had just completed a successful visit to Ukraine and Georgia last week when he created a new controversy with dire predictions about Russia. His comments, arguably ill-timed for his boss's efforts to reset relations with Moscow, were not the only ones in the past few days offering a gloomy outlook on Russia. The outgoing European Union Ambassador to Russia Marc Franco similarly warned that Russia would maintain "many characteristics of a Third World economy" unless it established real rule of law. 
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on July 23, Biden described a Russia with a looming demographic crisis, a "withering economy", and a banking sector in trouble. He noted Russia's interest in negotiating further cuts in nuclear weapons because they cannot afford to maintain even current levels. Russia is having difficulty adjusting to "loss of empire," Biden said, adding that it is "clinging to something in the past that is not sustainable." 
In a separate interview over the weekend with Reuters, Franco cited Russia's insufficiently developed civil society and lack of freedom of the press. "I do believe," Franco said, "that you cannot have rule of law without the basic elements of democracy, implying free elections and a vibrant civil society supported by a free press."
In their descriptions of current Russia, both Biden and Franco were on the mark. Russia's economic troubles (the World Bank predicts GDP will decline 7.9 percent this year) are compounded by its continued dependence on the export of raw materials (energy, metals), leaving it vulnerable to outside factors beyond its control. Over the past eight years despite the bounty from high oil prices, Russia's leaders failed to diversify the economy or invest in its declining infrastructure and energy sector, production in which has flattened out and likely to decline in the next several years. At the same time, Russian corporate debt is estimated at $500 billion, $130 billion of which is due this year.
Meanwhile, Russia's population has been declining by an average of 700,000 per year and may reach a low, in worst case scenarios, of 100 million by 2050 from roughly 143 million today. This will have enormous implications for Russia's labor force, its military, and its ability to control restive regions like the North Caucasus, one of the few places where the population is on the rise. Corruption remains a huge problem, while civil society activists, journalists, and opponents of the government deal with regular harassment, attacks, and even murder. Russia, in other words, faces a very difficult future.
In an appearance on Sunday's Meet the Press, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described Russia as a "great power" and reiterated President Obama's hope to see a "strong, peaceful, and prosperous" Russia. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement Saturday evening, "The president and vice president believe Russia will work with us not out of weakness but out of national interest." 
Alas, that is wishful thinking. Contrary to Biden's description of Russia's leaders as "pretty pragmatic in the end" and likely to cooperate with the U.S. out of national interest on issues such as Iran, the very problems he identified are likely to make Russia a more difficult country with which to engage. We and Russian leaders simply do not share many national interests, to say nothing of common values.
A Russia facing the kinds of problems Biden and Franco described is more apt to deflect its population's attention from the growing number of difficulties at home by projecting onto others like neighboring Georgia or Ukraine. There's nothing like a "threat" from Tbilisi or Kyiv -- or from NATO enlargement -- to drum up popular support and take everyone's minds off the problems at home, at least temporarily. Even on the issue of arms control, Russian leaders have insisted that a final agreement be linked to the U.S. abandonment of missile defense plans in Poland and the Czech Republic. If Russia cannot afford to maintain its current declining levels of nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles anyway, Obama need not cave to Russian demands to link a post-START agreement to missile defense. Russian leaders need an arms control treaty more than we do. 
On Iran, Biden said, "I can see Putin sitting in Moscow saying, 'Jesus Christ, Iran gets the nuclear weapon, who goes first?' Moscow, not Washington." This, too, is wishful thinking given that Russian leaders have repeatedly declined to get tougher with Iran over its nuclear weapons aspirations. They would much prefer the United States and its allies play the role of the heavy vis-à-vis Tehran while Russia reaps the benefits of economic, energy, and arms sales ties with Iran.
A Russian leadership facing the kinds of problems Biden and Franco describe is less, not more, likely to work together with us on a whole host of issues. Its leadership is apt to clamp down even more against the slightest possible threats to its control, increasing the dangers to the country's own human rights activists and journalists such as Natalya Estimorova, murdered in Chechnya July 15. Sadly, these are not the characteristics of a "great power" or even a country with a leadership that reflects "pragmatism" or "shared interests" with us. As the Obama administration seeks to reset relations with Moscow, it should do so very much keeping in mind the truth, inconvenient and ill-timed though it may be, spoken by the vice president.
(David J. Kramer is a Senior Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and served as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor and a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State responsible for Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova, in the George W. Bush Administration.)

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/803tfwfc.asp?pg=1
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Eradicating the Effect, But Not the Cause: Modernizing Ukraine’s Pipeline System without Russia’s Involvement Could Prove to Be Dangerous
By Roland Oliphant
Russia Profile, August 3, 2009

On Friday, the European Commission and several international banks announced a deal to shore up Ukraine’s troubled gas industry. But it is not a silver bullet for the annual gas disputes. The $1.7 billion in loans is destined to improve infrastructure, which should reduce leakage and improve transparency. But to avert a repetition of previous years’ gas disputes, someone needs to pay for the gas Ukraine consumes – and no one wants to.
The deal links reform of Ukraine’s gas sector to loans from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the World Bank, and the European Investment bank. In exchange for a total of $1.7 billion, Ukraine gas monopoly Naftogaz will have to stop subsidizing domestic customers and find a way to make Ukrainian distribution companies pay their bills.
At first glance this may look like a victory for Russia – at an EU-Russia summit in May the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev suggested that the European Union should lend Ukraine the money to pays its gas bills. But that is not what is happening. The loans are destined for maintenance and development of infrastructure, not for buying gas. And it would not be enough money anyway: Ukraine originally said it would need $4 billion to cover its gas debts.
Nonetheless, the current deal should go some way in easing the supply and transit problems that have wracked Ukraine – and its relations with Russia and the EU – in the past few years. “The current infrastructure, which was built in the Soviet times, is crumbling. That means a lot of gas is lost in leaks, and often it is difficult to tell how much gas is being pumped to where. So modernizing the infrastructure will reduce leakage, and make the whole system more transparent,” said Denis Shavruk, an oil and gas analyst with Alfa Capital in Ukraine.
This is of obvious benefit to all parties in the smoldering gas-transit dispute, but it has not always been welcomed by Russia. When the idea of helping Ukraine modernize its gas transportation system was raised at an EU-Ukraine conference in March, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement warning that “…any actions to modernize it that had not been agreed with Russia will result in an increase in technological risks and possible disruptions in the supplies of natural gas to Ukraine and Europe.”
Which, according to Shavruk, is quite true. “The Soviet-built gas pipeline system is monolithic. The Ukrainian and Russian networks cannot be separated – they are the same thing. So if you don’t coordinate modernization in Ukraine with Russia, you could get all kinds of technical complications – the explosion in Turkmenistan in April shows you how important that is,” he said. Russia has thus far been acquiescent over Friday’s announcement.
A bigger issue is whether the loans will actually arrive in full (they have yet to be approved by the various banks’ boards), and that will depend on Naftogaz’s ability to deliver on its side of the bargain. Namely raising gas prices for consumers and getting distribution companies to pay up.
The first part – raising prices for households – would be necessary even if the European banks had not insisted on it. “Most of the gas extracted in Ukraine is sold to households at a price lower than the cost of extraction and transportation. You’ve got to change that sometime,” said Shavruk. And Ukraine has already committed itself to quarterly price increases as one of the conditions attached to a multibillion dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund.
The first twenty-percent hike for domestic consumers is due in September, and the IMF was happy enough with Ukraine’s performance to give the go ahead to the third $3.3 billion tranche of its loan last week. Naftogaz, which is facing a deficit worth 2.6 percent of Ukraine’s GDP this year, is already said to be exerting pressure on distribution companies to get the money it is owed.
But even if the loan does come through, and the modernization of Ukraine’s shaky Soviet-era pipelines and pumping stations goes ahead, it will not address to root of the annual “gas wars” with Russia – Ukraine’s ability to pay for the gas it consumes.
Naftogaz has previously said that it would need $4 billion to refill its storage tanks in preparation for winter, and it is still not clear where that money is going to come from. “Ukraine doesn’t have it, Russia is unwilling and Europe is reluctant,” said Chirvani Abdoullaev, an oil and gas analyst who watches the Market from Moscow. “Frankly, it’s still a game of wait and see.” 

http://www.russiaprofile.org/page.php?pageid=International&articleid=a1249320384
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Kremlin Burning Bridges With Every Neighbor
By Vladimir Ryzhkov 
The Moscow Times, 04 August 2009
	
Russia’s foreign policy failures are snowballing at such a rate that they threaten a second geopolitical collapse on a par with the disintegration of the Soviet Union 20 years ago.
What makes this tragedy so comic is that our leaders are essentially running backward into the future and calling it progress. At the same time, they shake their fists and foam at the mouth as they rant about Russia’s greatness, claim that it is “getting up from its knees” and endlessly repeat myths about its “new successes” and “historical initiatives.” By running backward, Russia inevitably stumbles and falls, while its clumsy foreign policy initiatives become the laughing stock of the world.
The Kremlin was not able to exploit its huge reserves that it accumulated after eight years of an oil boom by turning its economic power into political clout in the global arena. On the contrary, Russia’s global standing has worsened across the board.
Russia’s leaders have managed to alienate even its strongest allies.. The alliance with Belarus is crumbling before our eyes as Kremlin leaders attempt to punish Minsk for years of foot-dragging over the sale of Belarus’ largest enterprises to Russia’s inefficient and nontransparent monopolies, for delaying plans to introduce a unified currency and establish other political and economic institutions intended to strengthen ties between the two states. Russia reacted with “milk and meat wars,” and Minsk responded in kind by refusing to attend a Collective Security Treaty Organization summit even while it was supposed to hold the rotating chairmanship of the organization — an embarrassing, if not humiliating, snub to President Dmitry Medvedev. What’s more, Belarus has joined the Eastern Partnership offered by the European Union and has actively diversified its foreign policy.
Armenia, which is hemmed in on all sides by closed borders with Azerbaijan and Turkey, suffered greatly during the days of the Russia-Georgia war last August. This quickly drove Yerevan to intensify its dialogue with Turkey over prospects for opening their common border that has been closed for decades, and, like Belarus, to join the EU’s Eastern Partnership.
Russia has also burned bridges with Turkmenistan. Throughout the recent economic boom years, Turkmenistan pumped gas to Russia to compensate for its growing deficiency, thereby helping to save the reputation of Gazprom — and thus Russia — as a reliable supplier of gas to Europe. But Moscow’s gas war with Kiev forced the EU to cut back sharply on purchases of Russian gas. This led to a drop in gas prices, and once that happened Moscow unceremoniously reneged on its contractual obligations to purchase gas from Turkmenistan. In early April, Russia shut the valve on the pipeline that imported Turkmen gas. This was the alleged cause of a major explosion in Turkmenistan — and a major explosion in Russian-Turkmen relations as well. The result is that Turkmenistan is now searching for more reliable commodity markets, has offered to join the Nabucco project as a gas supplier, is ready to discuss the Trans-Caspian pipeline project and has already given the
 Chinese access to its gas fields. A gas pipeline to China is also under construction.
Moscow was entirely alone in its decision to recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Besides Nicaragua, not a single country followed Russia’s example. Russia has even managed to sever ties with Georgia — a country with a Russian Orthodox population that has always enjoyed warm relations with Moscow — for the highly questionable goal of wanting to maintain two microscopic puppet-satellite states in one of the most explosive regions of the world. If the Kremlin’s goals were to achieve international isolation and disdain and to increase the threat of a military conflict in the Caucasus, it was very successful.
Russia’s unnecessarily antagonistic actions toward Ukraine have turned the otherwise “brotherly relationship” into a hostile one. In the 1990s, when Ukraine also had trouble paying for its imports of Russian gas, the shortfall was simply added to its external debt, which it later paid back. Today, Moscow’s actions have helped consolidate Ukrainian society around an anti-Russia platform, prompting Kiev to seek membership in the EU and NATO. It also pushed Ukraine toward formulating a new national idea that is based on a rejection of the historical fraternity between our two nations.
The EU also drew its conclusions about Russia’s unreliability after the latest battle in January of the endless succession of gas wars, which resulted in more than 20 European countries being left without heat in bitterly cold temperatures after Russia cut off gas shipments that had already been purchased. Consequently, the EU reduced its purchases of Russian gas, made headway on developing the Nabucco pipeline, including allocating increased funding for the project, and stepped up the development of projects to import gas from Africa and the Middle East. The EU also invited Ukraine to join an alliance for purchasing gas from countries other than Russia. Both South Stream and Nord Stream have experienced setbacks that may complicate the future development of these pipeline projects. In short, this is the lowest point in the 16 years of EU-Russian relations.
Meanwhile, Russia’s relationship with NATO is also becoming increasingly adversarial. Azerbaijan is distancing itself from Russia and aligning itself more with the West. Moscow gave financial aid to Kyrgyzstan to push Bishkek to close the U.S. military base at Manas. But in the end, the Americans were allowed to stay after they increased the rental payments and renamed the base as a “transit center.” Despite U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Moscow for the July summit, no “reset” in U.S.-Russian relations has taken place. In fact, they remain unchanged, as is evidenced by Vice President Joe Biden’s recent visits to Kiev and Tbilisi and by the sharp comments toward Russian that he made in his interview with The Wall Street Journal a week ago.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s attempt to restore Russia’s influence over the former Soviet republics has failed miserably. Moscow’s standing in the region is weaker now than it was even eight years ago, when Putin took over the presidency from Boris Yeltsin. This is a direct result of Putin’s failed policies during his two terms as president — the inability to modernize the economy, the systemic destruction of the country’s democracy, the sharp rise in corruption and the increase in the monopoly control of key industries under his state capitalism model. If you add to all of this a countless string of inept foreign policy disasters, it is easy to understand why Russia’s neighbors have turned their backs on Moscow and are looking to Western military, economic and political institutions for support and cooperation.
(Vladimir Ryzhkov, a State Duma deputy from 1993 to 2007, hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy.)

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/1016/42/380114.htm
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US disappointment for the Rose and Orange revolutionaries in Georgia and Ukraine
By Albina Kovalyova
Daily Telegraph, August 4, 2009

US vice-president Joe Biden walks the fine line between making friends with Russia and staying friends with Georgia and Ukraine 
Georgia and Ukraine were eagerly awaiting the arrival of US vice-president Joe Biden, hoping he would use his visit to signal support for their post-coloured revolution yet troubled governments. And, even more importantly, that he would give a clear message about America's intolerance of Russia’s influence over their affairs. 
But despite the high hopes of these two former-Soviet countries, Biden’s words broke through their rose- and orange-tinted hopes to draw attention to their own internal setbacks. [Georgia’s “Rose” revolution was in November, 2003; Ukraine’s “Orange” revolution lasted from November, 2004, until January, 2005.] 
Biden’s speeches in both former-Soviet countries were lacking the anti-Russian rhetoric typical of his predecessor, Dick Cheney. The United States seems to have a different policy toward Russia, as was made clear by President Barack Obama when he visited Moscow. During his stay, Obama mostly looked to future cooperation with the former Cold War enemy, and tried to avoid rocking the boat by not mentioning the less pleasant internal problems of the country. 
Does this mean that Georgia and Ukraine are now included in Russia’s domestic problems, as far as the United States is concerned? Not quite. Biden stressed during his trip that America will stand by their independence.. But his careful rhetoric with regard to Russia has intensified the former-Soviet countries’ worries about the consequences that closer US-Russian relations could have for eastern Europe. 
Biden expressed his support for Ukraine, but warned that the country’s future would depend on its own efficiency. “Ukraine, in my humble opinion, must heed the lesson of history. Effective, accountable government is the only way to provide a stable, predictable and transparent environment that attracts investments… the economic engine of development,” he said in a speech to Ukraine leaders. 
The vice-president also emphasised the breakdown of communications within the Ukrainian government that has destabilised the country in the last several years. This willingness to mix words of support with criticism, the now famous “reset”, demonstrates the current administration’s departure from the George Bush administration’s foreign policy regarding Russia and former Soviet states. 
In Georgia, Biden claimed that the improving of US-Russian relations should not be done at the expense of Georgia. Addressing the Georgian government, the vice-president condemned Russia’s actions toward its southern neighbour. 
“We call upon Russia to honour its international commitment, clearly specified in the April 12 ceasefire agreement, including withdrawal of all forces to their pre-conflict positions and ultimately out of your territorial area,” said Biden. 
Indeed, the time of friendly relations with ex-Soviet countries at the expense of the relationship with Russia is now over for the United States, believes Masha Lipman of the Carnegie Centre. America wants to be able to get on with both. But Biden’s cooler approach toward Ukraine and Georgia also has a lot to do with the internal problems in the two countries. 
In Ukraine this has to do with a lack of an economic infrastructure and a heavy reliance on Russia both politically and economically. But it also has to do with the internal split in the country’s government, between President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. 
“The politicians themselves are destabilising the country,” said Lipman, “especially in the very difficult economic crisis that Ukraine faces. This provides more foundation for the more removed approach of the United States.” 
Georgia also has difficulties, as this year’s protests calling for the resignations of President Mikheil Saakashvili have shown. The country was strongly supported by the United States under Bush, but this intensified Russian mistrust of both, leading to accusations that America backed Georgia in last year’s August war. 
The concerns that Ukraine and Georgia share, of Russian aggression, are shared by other nations. Last week, 22 former east European leaders signed an open letter to Washington, in which they stated that the threat from Russia was still very real for them. 
Lipman believes that these fears have substantial foundations. 
“I think that this letter has been dictated by the war with Georgia and the change of the US administration,” she said, “which no longer has the policy of supporting countries of the former Soviet Union if that jeopardises its relationship with Russia.” 
“This is clearly a concern for countries who believed that their main ally and protector was the United States.” 
The letter voices a serious concern for the future of US plans to place elements of a missile defence shield and radar in the Czech Republic and Poland. Obama has so far been much more sceptical than his predecessor about the plans for the construction of the missile system. The talks between Russia and the United States in the last couple of months have shown that both countries are willing to put off the project. But the east European countries – or at least their former leaders – warned that they should have more say in the process. 
“Abandoning the programme entirely or involving Russia too deeply in it without consulting Poland or the Czech Republic can undermine the credibility of the United States across the whole region,” read the former leaders’ letter, which was republished on the Open Democracy human rights website. 
The letter is, however, somewhat of an anomaly, as its interpretation of the reasons for the missile defence system is at odds with the official position in Washington. It implies that the system is needed to protect Europe from Russia, an idea Washington denies, claiming instead that it is needed as protection against Iran. 
But security against Russia is of paramount importance to Georgia after August’s confrontation. Georgia, like Ukraine, wants to be part of Nato, but Biden’s words on the subject were noncommittal. Although this may ease US-Russian tensions, perhaps a bigger reason for America’s reluctance to have these countries in Nato is simply that they are not yet ready. 
“This is not a matter of America’s preferences, but of the desire of these countries and their lack of compliance to Nato standards,” Lipman said. 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/russianow/5971622/US-disappointment-for-the-Rose-and-Orange-revolutionaries-in-Georgia-and-Ukraine.html
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To be accepted in NATO Ukraine has to forgo its Russophobia, Canadian political expert says 
ZIK, August 5, 2009

Keeping the NATO door closed for Ukraine does not depend so much on Uncle Sam or other members of the alliance as on Ukraine’s domestic policy, Taras Kuzio, the noted political expert from Toronto, said addressing a roundtable in Lviv Aug. 5. 
Ukraine’s major security threats are the chaos and political rift which had been afflicting Ukraine for the past 4-5 years. Ukraine didn’t get NATO action membership plan in 2006 because Yushchenko didn’t want to see Tymoshenko back in the premier’s seat. 
Taras Kuzio’s advice for Ukraine is to increase the number of pro-NATO Ukrainians, something which is possible only in the conditions of political stability and after a large-scale information campaign. These steps should then be followed by a referendum. 
According to Kuzio, NATO’s and EU’s biggest Russophiles are France and Germany. Ukraine, therefore, has to convince Paris and Berlin, not Washington, which supports Ukraine’s entry in NATO as it is. Ukraine should make its case in Brussels, Paris and Berlin, but not as anti-Russian because it won’t be accepted in this form. In other words, Ukraine has to follow the example of Obama who is trying to reset his relations with Russia. 
It is good that Yushchenko “hits Russia in the eye” but it hurts Ukraine’s interests in Berlin or Paris as, regretfully, Yushchenko is viewed as a Russophobe, like Saakishvili, due to a strong anti-Yushchenko spin in the West. 
Taras Kuzio also said Tymoshenko and Yanukovych have hired US spin doctors to manage their campaigns while Yatseniuk has preferred the Russian ones. 
Kuzio believes the recent talks with Regions, due to their secrecy, had a negative impact on Tymoshenko’s ratings. 
As for Yushchenko, he has three achievements: the free media, although a little passive, free elections and his nation-minded agenda. However, Yushchenko focused too much on the nationalist issues. The next president will have to balance between historical and current issues, notably social and economic ones. 
The expert said there are US spin doctors on Yanukovych’s team, adding he couldn’t see any difference – save for one thing: Yanukovych began to wear his neckties. 
Arsenyj Yatseniuk, according to Kuzio, has placed his bets on the Russian spin doctors that assisted Yanukovych in 2004 and came up with the ill-fated poster dividing Ukrainian into 3 categories. 
“As for Tymoshenko, she has had her Washington PR expert for quite some time. I don’t know if she will hire more US spin doctors,” Kuzio said. 

http://zik.com.ua/en/news/2009/08/05/191304
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From Ukraine to the World: The Moscow Patriarch’s Encyclical 
By Andrei Zolotov
Russia Profile, August 7, 2009

Patriarch Kirill has returned to Moscow after a high-profile ten-day visit to Ukraine. And despite inevitable controversy surrounding the trip, his attempt to reach out to Ukraine’s orthodox believers was broadly successful. By constantly preaching reconciliation, avoiding polemics on the schism and making a point of his respect for all states and cultures, Kirill sought to position himself as a strictly spiritual leader. This marks a new approach for the Moscow Patriarchate, and could herald a new era in relations with the Ukrainian church.
UKRAINE/The bells at the majestic Pochayev Monastery in Western Ukraine rang a farewell to Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia as he set out on the way to Moscow after an unprecedented ten-day pastoral visit to the cradle of Russian Orthodoxy, which today, like centuries ago, finds itself separated from Northern Rus by state and cultural boundaries. 
Behind him were thousands of kilometers traveled by plane and car, fourteen stops of varying duration at cities and monasteries, a dozen services, meetings and a joint prayer with tens of thousands of believers, inspired sermons, an hour-and-a-half interview on the main Ukrainian TV channel that broke all ratings, tears in the eyes of clergy and laity meeting their primate, and the shouts of a small but vocal group of protesters. Ahead lays the unwrapping and discussion of the consequences of the visit both for Ukraine and for the whole Russian Orthodox Church. 
“I am leaving this blessed land and I am leaving part of my heart here… because I see myself as a successor to the metropolitans of Kiev and All Rus, who were the custodians of their people’s faith in times of hardship,” the patriarch said in one of his last speeches in Pochayev, where he prayed together with tens of thousands of pilgrims for unity inside Ukraine and for the unity of all the peoples of the historical “Holy Rus.” 
The idea of the “Holy Rus,” or “the great Eastern-Slavic civilization,” as a spiritual and historical rather than a political entity, capable of saying something important to today’s secularized world without forfeiting the link between the earthly and the divine, served as the leitmotif throughout all of the patriarch’s speeches. It was in essence during his Ukrainian visit that the patriarch positioned himself most clearly as a supranational spiritual leader – not as “the Russian patriarch,” but as the head of the Patriarchate whose spiritual power has straddled many state borders. 
In his last sermon at the Pochayev Lavra, Patriarch Kirill addressed first the Ukraine, then the countries of “Holy Rus” including Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova, and then the political map of Europe. He warned of the dangers of building a life without God, as the Soviet Union had attempted to. “Undoubtedly, this was a pastoral visit and a pilgrimage, but it was also a worldview visit,” Vladimir Legoyda, the head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s information department, told RIA Novosti. 
His Ukrainian counterpart, the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s information and educational department, Archpriest Georgy Kovalenko, noted the missionary character of the visit. “We see Patriarch Kirill as a twenty-first century missionary,” he said. 
The pointedly supranational view of the church declaring respect for the states and cultural features of all lands represents a shift of emphasis in the policy of the Moscow Patriarchate, a shift connected with the personality of the new patriarch. In effect, he opposes both the identification of Orthodoxy with the “Russian faith” and the fostering of Russian patriotism, as well as the principle of an “independent church to an independent state” advocated by Ukrainian autocephalists. It was not by chance that during his visit the patriarch spoke about obtaining Ukrainian citizenship as well as his Russian one, and about the place of the Moscow Patriarchal Throne in the so-called “Pentarchy,” the ancient system of universal church governance by five patriarchates. 
“Here in Ukraine, as soon as they hear a universalist program, the non-church circles prick up their ears,” says Vladimir Burega, a historian at the Kiev Theological Academy, “because they see the danger of the leveling of local features, restriction of sovereignty and so on.” 
As for the divided Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the patriarchal visit has revealed some new developments. The trip undoubtedly consolidated the congregation of the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine, and caused rumblings among those, both within and outside the church, who define Ukrainian identity mainly in opposition to Moscow. However, it is important to note that although the patriarch did not come up with any new proposals on ways to heal the Ukrainian schism, he blessed both his adherents and his opponents. Wherever he went, he stressed that his word is addressed both to those “who kiss the motherly hands of the Church and those who are prepared to twist its arms.” With this phrase the patriarch constantly made a plea for love, the only thing that can heal the wound of the schism. None of his speeches contained any polemics on the schismatics.
The patriarch repeatedly said that it was important for him to see his Ukrainian brethren and to pray together with them. “I felt your ardent prayer,” he said. 
The visit, a kind of “contact reconnaissance,” was a success. His trip to Rovno in Northwestern Ukraine was first canceled at the behest of the Ukrainian authorities. But it eventually went ahead and developed into a dramatic demonstration of the patriarch’s support for his “catacombs” in Ukraine and his claim to be the patriarch of all Ukrainian Orthodox believers - both those who greeted him with the singing of anthems, and those who shouted “down with the Moscow priest..” Will the patriarch ever forget the tears in the eyes of those who had been subjected to veritable persecution in the 1990s and who sang uninterrupted chants to him in Lutsk, another Northwestern city? 
One can imagine that the visit will prompt the Moscow Patriarchate to work out a new approach to its negotiations with the breakaway Ukrainian brothers and to the future status of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which enjoys broad autonomy within the Moscow Patriarchate. 
For 18 years, the situation in Ukraine, while remaining a smarting wound on the body of Russian Orthodoxy, was marginal to the interests of the church “center.” It was a problem of religious Kiev, but not of religious Moscow. Patriarch Kirill’s ten-day visit has shown that this period has come to an end. The Moscow patriarch is emerging as an important factor in Ukraine’s church affairs, something that the opponents of the Moscow Patriarchate amongst the Ukrainian public, and indeed the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, will have to come to terms with. 
“We expect careful and well-considered actions on the part of the Moscow Patriarchate, said Archpriest Kovalenko. “After all, a way was found to unite with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. So, given goodwill and commitment, we can do the same.”

http://www.russiaprofile.org/page.php?pageid=International&articleid=a1249662405
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Eight Reasons to Become Ukrainian
By Paul Goble
The Moscow Times, 10 August 2009

Patriarch Kirill’s suggestion that he is ready to acquire dual citizenship in Ukraine has prompted activists of the Russian National-Democratic Movement (RNDM), a nationalist but not statist group, to conduct a survey on whether residents of Russian regions bordering Ukraine would like to take Ukrainian citizenship.
While many writers have discussed whether Ukrainian citizens might like to take Russian citizenship, this is one of the very few efforts to determine how Russian citizens might feel about moving in the opposite direction. And while the number of people polled is too small to be reliable, the reasons the activists suggested they might have for doing so are intriguing.
According to RNDM, there are eight reasons “why [ethnic] Russian people might express a desire to receive Ukrainian citizenship. First, the movement says, the population of Ukraine is far more uniformly Slavic than that of the Russian Federation, thus allowing ethnic Russians to feel comfortable.
While in the Russian Federation, “peaceful and unarmed Slavic indigenous residents” are frequently attacked by “armed bands” from the Caucasus, thus creating what might be called “an inter-ethnic war,” “in Ukraine, there has been only one case of such an attack," the RNDM activists say.
Second, in Ukraine but not in the Russian Federation, religious organizations can register “freely.” Many religious groups, including Old Believers, find it difficult if not impossible to conduct their affairs in Russia, but the same people, RNDM activists say, would have absolutely no problem if they were in Ukraine.
Third, the Ukrainian government unlike the Russian one is not against the titular nationality. No senior Ukrainian official, the activists say, would permit himself to suggest that “Ukraine is not for Ukrainians,” while nearly all senior Russian Federation officials are appalled by any suggestion that “Russia is for the Russians.”
Moreover, the RNDM activists note, Ukraine lacks an article in its criminal code like paragraph 282 under the terms of which Russian Federation officials routinely seek to suppress those of their opponents who Moscow portrays as “extremist” or interested in “exacerbating” relations among ethnic and religious groups.
Fourth, the site continues, “conditions of service in the [Ukrainian] army are much more tolerable” than those in the Russian military.. In Ukraine, RNDM says, there are “practically no cases of suicide or deaths of those in uniform.”
Fifth, “the conditions for conducting a business [in Ukraine] are more civilized” than they are in Russia. In Russia, the RNDM says, “it is impossible to conduct a legal business” because businessmen must pay off “bandit structures that consist to a large extent of the workers of the MVD, the FSB and the senior officials of the Russian government.”
Sixth, the level of crime is much lower in Ukraine than it is in Russia. Seventh, medical care is “much more accessible.” And eighth, according to the RNDM activists, Ukrainian men currently live longer, an average of 62 years, compared to their Russian counterparts who now die on average at 59.
The article on the ANVictory.ru website reporting these conclusions also features a discussion of ethnic Ukrainians in Russia, a group Moscow says numbers fewer than three million but one that may be three times as large not only in the regions adjoining Ukraine itself but also in the Far East, a region Ukrainians call the “Zeleniy klin” or “Green Triangle.”
After providing a brief history of how these Ukrainian communities arose on the territory of what is now the Russian Federation, the site points out that Russian officials have done everything they can to force the Ukrainians to give up their language and national identity and become Russians ethnically as well as politically.
At present, it suggests, Ukrainian has been reduced to the status of “rare languages” by Russian state policy. “There are only a few Ukrainian-language schools in the Russian Federation now (in Moscow, Belgorod region and Krasnodar region) and only a single library of Ukrainian literature in Moscow.”
The staff of that library, ANVictory.ru continues, has been subject to persecution not only for “propagandizing Ukrainian language and culture” but also “for several letters [they have written] to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation and the President of Ukraine."
Moreover, as Ukrainian scholars have pointed out, Russian textbooks present a highly distorted image of the history of Ukraine, one far more problematic than the distortions of Russian history by Ukrainians and others about which Russian scholars, commentators and propagandists routinely complain.
As a result, many ethnic Ukrainians in the Russian Federation also have an interest in taking Ukrainian citizenship in order to be in a position to return to their homeland, a trend very different than most analysts have assumed and yet another way in which Patriarch Kirill’s recent remarks are likely to have unintended consequences in Russia.

http://www.moscowtimes.ru/article/1328/42/380384.htm
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Ulyanchenko reads Pres Medvedev’s true motives 
By Vira Ulyanchenko 
ZIK, August 12, 2009

Aug. 12, Vira Ulyanchenko, the head of Our Ukraine and Yushchenko’s chief of staff, has published her statement on Russia Pres. Medvedev’s open letter to Pres Yushchenko. Regrettably, Medvedev’s letter allows Ukrainians to draw the main conclusion: Russia’s young leaders have become hostage to old imperial traditions that make them permanently invent foreign enemies of Russia and replace a productive dialog with neighboring states by the language of threats and humiliation, Ulyanchenko’s statement posted on the OU official site runs
Pres Medvedev’s assurances that Russia wants to treat Ukraine as an equal business partner cannot but cause surprise, she says. Russia has repeatedly failed to honor its obligations toward Ukraine as regards the free economic zone which is beneficial to both countries. Similarly, Moscow’s bare-knuckled gas policy has become an integral part of its foreign policy agenda. This policy was received with negative assessments both in Ukraine and the EU, Ulyanchenko stresses.
Furthermore, another Medvedev’s claim that the gas-pumping system is a common asset of Ukraine and Russia is also open to criticism. It follows, Ulyanchenko argues, that Ukraine can now lay a claim to Russia’s gas and oil reserves, like it was in the days of the FSU.
Medvedev’s charges that Russian-speaking Ukrainians are harassed do not hold any water, Ulyanchenko goes on. They are easily disproved by the opinion of numerous international organizations. Thus, Russia, with its multi-million Ukrainian diaspora, does not have a single Ukrainian language magnet school. By contrast, there are 1,400 Russian language magnet schools in Ukraine, with Russian language and literature taught at all other schools in Ukraine. All Russian-language theaters and cultural centers are funded from the Ukrainian budget.
The claims of harassment, regrettably, cause our indignation and concern with the present political tactics and strategies of the Russian leaders. Today, this concern is shared by scores of countries worldwide, Ulyanchenko statement runs.
Ukraine does all it takes to make up for Kremlin’s short-sighted policy to promote a friendly attitude to Russia among Ukrainians. Recent polls jointly run by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology and Russia’s Levada-Tsentr have shown that the number of Ukrainians who treat Russians as their good friends and neighbors has increased from 88% to 93% from March 2008 to March 2009.
At this backdrop, we are concerned by perpetual anti-Ukrainian brainwashing in Russia. On Medvedev’s watch alone, the number of Russians who view Ukraine as an unfriendly state has increased from 30% to 56%, or almost a double, Ulyanchenko said.
According to Vera Ulyanchenko, Pres Medvedev’s open letter has backfired on its author, emphasizing yet again for Ukrainians the need of domestic consolidation regardless of any partisan affiliations. Medvedev’s aggressive style is aimed not only at Yushchenko but rather at our country and its people, Ultyanchenko sums up. 

http://zik.com.ua/en/news/2009/08/12/192167
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Medvedev Takes Sides in Ukraine Poll
By Nikolaus von Twickel
The Moscow Times, August 12, 2009 

President Dmitry Medvedev lashed out at Ukraine’s pro-Western leader Viktor Yushchenko on Tuesday, indicating that the Kremlin is counting on a change of leadership when Russia’s most important neighbor state votes in a presidential election.
Analysts said Medvedev was effectively telling Ukrainians to vote Yushchenko out of office in the election scheduled for January.
In an open letter to Yushchenko, Medvedev said he would postpone sending a new ambassador to Kiev and accused the Ukrainian president of putting gas supplies to Europe at risk by souring ties with Moscow.
Medvedev suggested that only a new president could restore friendly relations between the two countries.
“I am sure that our relations will return to a strategic partnership in the foreseeable future. I hope that a new Ukrainian leadership will be ready for this,” he said in a video address published on his blog on Tuesday.
Medvedev announced that Russia’s new ambassador to Ukraine, Mikhail Zurabov, would only be dispatched after relations improved.
“In the present situation, I decided not to send our ambassador to Ukraine. He will start his job later. The time will depend on the dynamics of our relations,” he said.
The appointment of Zurabov, a former health and social development minister, has been beset with difficulties. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry only formally endorsed him last week, almost two months after Moscow’s previous envoy, Viktor Chernomyrdin, retired.
But national media reported at the same time that Yushchenko would probably not immediately hand credentials to Zurabov and that the Kremlin was considering withholding the ambassador until the presidential vote.
Sergei Markov, a State Duma deputy for United Russia, said the impasse surrounding Zurabov was one of the reasons for Medvedev’s anger.
“He is reacting to the unprecedented delay of a formal agreement to the ambassador. … It seems the only reason for this is that Mr. Zurabov will represent the Russian Federation,” Markov told The Moscow Times.
Speaking on a balcony at his Sochi residence in front of the Black Sea, a casually dressed Medvedev outlined what he called “Kiev’s openly anti-Russian positions.”
As examples, he named “the obstruction” of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, a “campaign” to roll back public use of the Russian language and Ukrainian attempts to “distort” Soviet history. Medvedev also accused Ukraine of supplying weapons that Georgia used in last year’s five-day war over South Ossetia. “It was with Ukrainian weapons that civilians and Russian peacekeepers were killed,” he said.
Ukraine was one of Georgia’s biggest arms suppliers in the years before the war.
Moscow’s lease of a base for the Black Sea Fleet in the Crimean port of Sevastopol has been a thorn in relations with Kiev since Ukraine’s independence in 1991. Both sides have also clashed over Ukrainian attempts to describe the deadly Holodomor famine of the 1930s as a genocide ordered by Josef Stalin.
But the biggest sparring point has been Yushchenko’s ambition to bring Ukraine into NATO, a policy that is unpopular with many Ukrainians.
Yushchenko did not immediately react Tuesday, and Ukraine’s acting Foreign Minister Volodymyr Khandohiy merely told reporters that Medvedev’s letter was being studied. Khandohiy also said Yushchenko had approved on Friday a program to prepare the country to meet NATO membership criteria, Bloomberg reported.
Medvedev’s foreign policy aide, Sergei Prikhodko, said the president’s address did not indicate a “severing or freezing” of relations with Kiev.
“Over the last few years, we have to say objectively that the political leadership of Ukraine has pursued a course of curtailing mutually beneficial, open and equal cooperation with our country,” Prikhodko told reporters in Sochi.
Markov said the recent visit of Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill to Ukraine was also to blame. He recalled that the patriarch had to skip a planned trip to Ukraine’s western Rivne region because of nationalist protests and that his 10-day visit was overshadowed by a tit-for-tat expulsion of diplomats between Moscow and Kiev.
“Patriarch Kirill took great pains to restore ties with Ukraine, and this is what he got for that,” Markov said.
He accused Kiev of staging the diplomatic expulsions to spoil Kirill’s visit.
Ukraine ordered an adviser at the Russian Embassy to leave for “undiplomatic activity” on July 30, shortly after Kirill arrived. Moscow in turn expelled the head of the Ukrainian Embassy’s political section.
Medvedev said Kirill’s visit was “very significant” and that he and the patriarch had agreed at a meeting afterward that “our brotherly people could not be disunited.”
In what appeared to be a thinly veiled warning to the European Union, Medvedev also complained that Kiev had bypassed Moscow by signing an agreement with EU leaders that was “absolutely incompatible” with a Russian-Ukrainian deal that ended a gas war in January. The deal committed Ukraine’s Naftogaz Ukrainy to fill up its storage tanks this summer with gas bought from Gazprom and sell it back in the winter for supply to the West.
On July 31, the EU, Ukraine and international lenders reached a deal on gas sector reforms that will pave the way for $1.7 billion in loans to support gas deliveries to Western Europe.
Moscow has criticized that agreement because it forces Western-style reforms on debt-ridden Naftogaz that might bring the company further outside of its control.
Raising the prospect of a new gas war, Ukraine wants to sharply cut the amount of Russian gas that it buys next year from the 52 billion cubic meters stipulated in a 10-year contract to just 35 bcm, a reduction that could save it $1.8 billion, Vedomosti reported Tuesday. Gazprom has rejected any cuts.
Andrei Ryabov, a political analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center, said Medvedev’s address was clearly connected with the beginning of the election campaign in Ukraine. “The criticism is directed not at Ukraine or at a political faction but quite clearly at one person, that is Yushchenko,” Ryabov said.
“It is a warning to all political forces that if you want to work with the Kremlin, you cannot associate yourself with Yushchenko,” he said.
In Ukraine’s presidential vote in 2004, then-President Vladimir Putin publicly supported the pro-Russian candidate, Viktor Yanukovych.
Yushchenko, whose approval rating stands at about 4 percent, has little chance of winning re-election. Yanukovych is in the lead with 24 percent.
Ryabov also suggested that Medvedev’s comments were the latest volley in a campaign to prove that he is a tough leader. The first volley, he said, was Medvedev’s recent statement that he alone made the decision to order Russian troops into South Ossetia during the conflict with Georgia last August. The second was a bill sent to the Duma on Monday that would widen the president’s powers to deploy troops abroad, he said. “He is telling political elites at home that he is just as tough as his predecessor,” Ryabov said.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/600/42/380524.htm
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Russian Military Weakness Could Delay Conflict with Ukraine
By: Pavel Felgenhauer
Eurasia Daily Monitor, Volume: 6, Issue: 156, August 13, 2009 

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has publicly attacked his Ukrainian counterpart Victor Yushchenko and called his administration's policies deliberately anti-Russian. In an open letter and in a video posting on his official Kremlin blog, Medvedev accused Ukraine of supporting "barbaric attacks" by the pro-Western regime of President Mikheil Saakashvili during the Russian invasion of Georgia in August of last year. Medvedev alleged that "civilians and Russian peacekeepers were killed by Ukrainian weapons," while Kyiv is continuing to supply the Georgian military with more arms and "shares responsibility for the crimes committed." Medvedev accused the Ukrainian leadership of conspiring with the E.U. on natural gas trade issues against Russian interests, blocking the activities of its Black Sea Fleet in Crimea, suppressing the use of the Russian language and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church element that is subordinate to Moscow. Medvedev castigated Ukraine
 for aspiring to join NATO, "falsifying history" by emphasizing the crimes of totalitarian communist rule, and promoting nationalist leaders that collaborated with the Nazis as well as disrupting economic ties (www.kremlin.ru, August 11).
Medvedev expressed his disgust with Ukraine in a highly aggressive tone, implying that the Kremlin is fed up in dealing with Kyiv. Tension between Russia and Ukraine, according to Medvedev, is very high. A number of recent tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions were described as outrageous. After listing the negative Ukrainian actions, Medvedev announced that Moscow will not send the newly appointed Ambassador Mikhail Zurabov to Kyiv until Ukrainian policies change, in effect downgrading diplomatic relations. Medvedev emphasized that the Kremlin's disgust is not against "brotherly Ukrainian people," but Yushchenko and his government. Commentators in Moscow believe that the Kremlin will refuse to have any dealings with Kyiv until there is regime change and Yushchenko is ousted. The Russian policy in dealing with Yushchenko seems to be in essence the same as with Saakashvili. The hope apparently is that the coming Ukrainian presidential election on January 17,
 2010 will oust Yushchenko and a pro-Moscow administration will be elected (Kommersant, August 12).
Last year Moscow announced that it had invaded Georgia to defend Russian citizens. Ukraine has the largest Russian and Russian-speaking population outside of Russia itself. Soon after the Russo-Georgian war, the French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner suggested that Russia might next move against Ukraine or Moldova under the same pretext (Reuters, August 27, 2008). The former Ukrainian ambassador in Washington Yuri Sherbak believes that Moscow might be contemplating a possible invasion of Ukraine to partition its territory, arguing that Ukraine is a "failed and ungovernable state" (www.newsru..com, May 21).
After Medvedev's anti-Yushchenko broadside, the leader of the Eurasia Movement (a Kremlin-connected nationalist think tank) Alexander Dugin told reporters, "The downgrading of diplomatic relations has created a pre-war situation," and that, "Russia is preparing to cease to recognize Ukrainian territorial integrity, as it did with Georgia. An armed conflict may soon begin in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine that will result in these territories becoming a Russian protectorate." According to Dugin, "war has been declared not against Ukraine, but America," that is attacking Russian influence within the post-Soviet space. Yushchenko is not important, stated Dugin, "a sick blister" while the real foe is the United States (RIA Novi Region, August 11).
The Kremlin insists its conflict is with the regimes in Kyiv and Tbilisi, but not with "our longtime Orthodox brothers" - the people of Georgia and Ukraine. A recent public opinion poll by the independent Levada Center showed a strong dislike of Ukraine, with 47 percent of the population having a negative attitude and 44 percent - positive, while Georgia scores even worse with 63 percent negative and 25 percent positive. The U.S. scored slightly better with 40 percent negative and 47 percent positive. The pollsters believe that these public attitudes are the direct result of state policies and propaganda (Kommersant, August 12).
Medvedev has introduced legislation this week to legalize the use of Russian forces abroad "to defend Russian soldiers and citizens, fight piracy and defend foreign nations against threats." Medvedev announced during a meeting with leaders of parliament that the legislation is connected with the Georgia war, "so that in the future these questions will be clearly regulated." Duma leaders promised to pass the amendments as soon as possible (www.kremlin.ru, August 10). Medvedev in effect acknowledged that the invasion of Georgia was illegal. Under present legislation, Russia did not have the legal right to invade Georgia, since its territorial integrity was not under threat and it did not have any defense treaties with South Ossetia or Abkhazia. The upper house of parliament did not decide to send troops into battle within Georgia, as the constitution demands (Kommersant, August 11).
The legislation that may legalize a possible future invasion of Crimea "to defend Russian soldiers and citizens" could be passed soon and Medvedev's rhetoric sounds warlike, but the Russian military at present is clearly not ready to take on an offensive "liberation" campaign deep within Ukraine. The Ukrainian armed forces are ineffective, but the territory of the possible theater of conflict is vast and densely populated, requiring a massive deployment of well-prepared troops. Russia needs at least three more years of radical military modernization and some rearmament, before it may contemplate a Crimea and Ukraine mission. Now a new bitter gas war with Kyiv is on the horizon, which might once more cut supplies to Europe. While further Russian attempts to influence domestic politics in Ukraine continue, the military threat will linger in the background.

http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=35404&tx_ttnews[backPid]=7&cHash=ec8929b9cc
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Europe´s Share in the Ukrainian Malaise
By Andreas Umland 
American Chronicle, August 13, 2009

The EU commits a mistake of historical dimensions denying Kyiv a membership perspective
Much can be heard from Western visitors of Ukraine or observers analyzing the post-Soviet region that Kyiv politics today is a "mess." Hardly anybody (least of all, Ukrainians themselves) will disagree. Even lowbrow EU citizens may come up with an opinion on current Ukrainian affairs, and criticize the ensuing political chaos, in Kyiv. Sometimes, Western ignorance mixes with European arrogance to re-produce stereotypes about Ukraine eerily similar to the way in which former KGB officers in Moscow would like to portray Europe´s largest new democracy.
Worse, what mostly remains unmentioned in West European assessments of current Ukrainian affairs, is that the foremost Western organization dealing with Ukraine, the EU, bears responsibility for the current political disarray, at Kyiv. Most analysts would readily agree that the EU perspective played a considerable role in, or even was a necessary precondition for, the quick stabilization and democratization of post-communist Central Europe. Many political scientists would admit that, in Western Europe too, peace, stability and affluence during the last 60 years have been closely linked to European integration. However, few EU politicians and bureaucrats are prepared to state in public what would seem to logically follow from these observations, concerning the Ukrainian case. If EU prospects and membership had a clearly beneficial effect from Tallinn to Dublin, then the absence of a European perspective for a manifestly European country means also – the
 absence of that effect, in the case of Ukraine.
The post-war notion of "Europe" is intimately linked to the economic, social and political dynamism of increasing pan-continental cooperation. When we say "European" today we often mean the EU and the largely positive repercussions which the integration process had and has on securing economic, political and social progress across borders. In the light of these historically recent achievements, some, however, forget about the state of Europe, in general, and of some European countries, in particular, before integration. Much of pre-war European history was, by contemporary standards, far "messier" than today Ukrainian politics is. Remember the League of Nations, Weimar Republic or Spanish Civil War?
Enlightened East European intellectuals too might admit that, without the prospect of EU membership, their countries could today look more like Belarus or Georgia rather than Portugal or Ireland. Both West and East European political elites and governmental apparatuses needed a road map towards a better and common future. Only when European integration, whether after the Second World or the Cold War, provided such a vision was it that politicians, bureaucrats and intellectuals of many EU member states got their act together, and made their countries more politically and economically successful..
If one admits the relevance of the prospect of, preparation for, and eventual attainment of, EU membership for the internal development of many European states, one should also acknowledge the effects that an explicit denial of such a vision has, on Ukraine´s elites. Kyiv finds itself left in the "old Europe" of the pre-war period. Unlike politicians in most other European countries, Ukraine´s leaders still have to navigate through a world of competing nation states, shifting international alliances, introverted political camps, and harsh zero-sum-games where the win of one national or international actor is the loss of the other. That is how domestic and European politics functioned across Europe before (and eventually resulted in) the two world wars. East of the EU´s current borders these incentive structures are still largely intact and led to, among numerous other negative repercussions, the recent wars, on the Balkans and Caucasus.
Most Ukrainians themselves would be the first to admit that Ukraine is today not ready for EU membership or even for the candidacy status. However, many pro-European Ukrainians find it difficult to understand EU policies and rhetoric concerning these issues: Why, on the one hand, is Turkey an official candidate for EU membership, and Romania or Bulgaria already full members, when Ukraine, on the other hand, is not even provided with the tentative prospect of a future candidacy? Is Turkey more European, and are Romania or Bulgaria really that much higher developed than Ukraine? Didn´t the Orange Revolution and two following parliamentary elections – all approved by the OSCE, Council of Europe and EU – show the adherence of Ukrainians to democratic rules and values? Hasn´t Ukraine been more successful than other post-communist countries in averting inter-ethnic strife and in integrating national minorities? Didn´t the elites and population of
 Ukraine show restraint when tensions were building up between conflicting political camps, in Kyiv, or as a result of provocative Russian behaviour, on Crimea?
Of course, there are also recent developments, in Ukraine, that point in the opposite direction. They include continuing governmental corruption, increasing political stalemate, stagnating public administration reform, or silting industrial restructuring. However, with every passing year since the Orange Revolution, one asks oneself more and more: Are the various setbacks in Ukraine´s recent political and economic transition the reasons for, or rather a result of, the EU´s continuing unwillingness to offer a European perspective for Kyiv? May it be that one cause for Ukraine´s frustrating domestic conflicts and halting economic transformation is the indeterminacy the country´s foreign orientation? Could it be that the EU´s demonstrative scepticism with regard to Ukraine´s ability to integrate into Europe is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy? Aren´t the leaders of the EU themselves, to some degree, becoming responsible for Ukraine´s continuing
 failure to meet "European standards"?
As a result of EU introvertedness, Kyiv is left in a geopolitical nowhere land. Lacking a credible long-term vision of its own, Ukraine becomes the unofficial battlefield in a political proxy war between pro-Western and pro-Russian governmental and non-governmental organizations fighting for the future of this key, yet unconsolidated European country. Without the disciplining effect that a credible EU membership perspective provides, there is no commonly accepted yardstick against which the elite´s behaviour could be measured. Ukrainian politicians, bureaucrats and intellectuals lack a focal point in the conduct of their domestic and international behaviour. They are left to guess what the West´s and Russia´s "real" intentions with regard to Ukraine are, and how they should behave in order to secure economic development and political independence, for their country.
A stabilization of Ukraine is not only in the interests of the citizens of this young democracy, but should be also a key political concern for Brussels, Paris and Berlin. An economically weakened, politically divided and socially crisis-ridden Ukrainian state could destabilize and exhibit disintegrative tendencies. Ukraine´s population could polarize along linguistic lines with the ukrainophone West and Center put against the russophone South and East. Such a development, in turn, could serve as a pretext for Russian intervention – with grave repercussions not only for East European politics, but also Russian-Western relations. In a worst-case scenario, the entire post-Cold War European security structure could be called into question.
The EU membership perspective constitutes a key instrument, for the West, to influence Ukrainian domestic affairs. The prospect of future European integration would reconfigure political discourse and restructure party conflicts, in Kyiv. Neither the Ukrainian common man nor Russia´s political leadership are, in distinction to their stance on Ukraine´s possible NATO membership, principally opposed to the idea of a Ukrainian future entry into the EU. Even an entirely official statement by the EU on a possible admission of Ukraine to the EU some day would oblige the Union and member states to little, during the next years. The Delegation of the European Commission at Kyiv is already engaged in a wide range of cooperation projects with the Ukrainian government. Offering Ukraine a European perspective would require only few practical changes in the current conduct of EU policies towards Kyiv. Yet, such an announcement would have a benevolent impact on the
 behaviour of Ukraine´s elites and make a deep impression on the population of this young democracy (as well as in Russia).
The EU´s leaders should try to see the larger picture, remember the recent past of their own countries, and stop their unhistorical cognitive dissonance. They should try do understand Ukraine´s current issues against the background of the West and Central European states' experience of instability before their participation in European integration. In the interest of the entire continent and all its peoples, they should offer Ukraine a European perspective sooner rather than later.
(This article appeared, in Russian and Ukrainian, first in "Zerkalo nedeli"/"Dzerkalo tyzhnia," and, in English, on the WWW site "Open Democracy.")

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/114204
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Ukraine PM says wants to deepen ties with Moscow
By Sabina Zawadzki
Reuters India, August 14, 2009

Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said on Friday she wanted to deepen ties with Moscow, which has criticised the president for "anti-Russian" policies, but said Kiev's foreign policy would not be influenced by anyone.
Tymoshenko, due to run for president in the Jan. 17 election in which Russian ties will be an issue, does not usually comment on foreign policy but said she "could not stay silent" after Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev's remarks earlier this week.
Medvedev's open letter to President Viktor Yushchenko, in which he said he wanted a new leader in Ukraine who was easier to deal with, was seen by analysts as an attempt to influence the presidential election and as a warning shot to candidates.
"As prime minister, I have done and will do everything possible to deepen mutually advantageous co-operation between Russia and Ukraine, especially in the economic sphere for which the government is responsible," she said in a statement. 
 "I have developed and will develop relations with Russia as equals, on the basis of national interests, common advantages, with respect to sovereignty and territorial integrity.
"Ukraine will independently, with no external influence, define its foreign and domestic policy," she added.
Ukrainian media saw her comments as a message to Moscow that as president, her policies would be warmer than Yushchenko's. He has been a thorn in relations between the ex-Soviet states since the 2004 "Orange Revolution" that swept him to power.
"We are always ready to listen and take into account the opinion of our partners in the East and the West, to take into account their interests, but interference in our domestic affairs is unacceptable," she said.
Yushchenko waited two days before responding to Medvedev's tirade against him, calling his remarks disappointing and unfriendly and accusing Russia of shrugging off responsibility for the "serious problems" that exist between the two states.
The exchange marked a new downturn in ties between Moscow and Kiev, which have been soured by Yushchenko's bid for Ukrainian membership of the NATO alliance, rows over Russia's Black Sea Fleet in Crimea and disputes over gas supplies.
Yushchenko is expected to lose the election as his support has dwindled to just 4 percent. Former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich -- the Moscow-backed candidate who lost out in the 2004 revolution -- leads the polls, followed by Tymoshenko.

http://in.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idINLE43457120090814
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Medvedev’s Strange Gift to Yushchenko
By Yevgeny Kiselyov
The Moscow Times, 14 August 2009

There is an old Russian anecdote that would shock most people in the West, but it reflects the mores here all too well.
A man comes home from work and no sooner does he step through the doorway than he wallops his wife with such a backhand that it sends her sprawling on the floor.
“Vanya, what was that for? I didn’t do anything wrong,” she asks.
“I know. If you really had done something wrong, I would have killed you!” he replies.
I was immediately reminded of this joke after hearing President Dmitry Medvedev’s video address posted on his blog Tuesday. Out of the blue, Medvedev struck out against President Viktor Yushchenko and announced that he would postpone sending Russia’s new ambassador to Kiev, a political demarche that is roughly equivalent to recalling an ambassador entirely.
Everybody was left scratching their heads and wondering, “What could have prompted such a disproportionately harsh speech by Medvedev?” The only thing worse than this would have been to break off diplomatic relations with Ukraine entirely, as Moscow did with Georgia last year and with Israel over 40 years ago. Recall that when Israel trounced its Arab enemies in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, the Soviet Union, which had placed all of its political eggs for that region in the Arab basket, broke off diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv out of spite.
This example is a good illustration of the consequences of such reckless and poorly thought-out policies. For the 24 years during which the Soviet Union had no diplomatic relations with Israel, the Kremlin lost almost all influence in the Middle East. (Official relations were restored only in 1991, just weeks before the Soviet Union’s collapse.) Today, Russia is formally a sponsor of the Middle East peace process, but that is probably more a weak consolation prize from the other participants in the negotiations than recognition of Moscow’s actual influence in the region. Unfortunately, the same fate awaits Russia in the Caucasus. Just like with Israel, Moscow will one day — perhaps in 24 years? — need to establish normal diplomatic relations with Georgia once again.
And the same scenario could unfold in Ukrainian relations if the Kremlin continues its inflammatory rhetoric. The arguments Medvedev used to defend his diplomatic attack against Kiev do not hold water. All of the problems the president mentioned do exist, but they first appeared long ago and most had arisen even before Yushchenko took office. They include the disagreements over the transit of Russian gas through Ukrainian territory, the future of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, the status of the Russian language in Ukraine, conflicting interpretations of Russian-Ukrainian history and difficulties encountered by Russians doing business in Ukrainian markets, to name a few. Moreover, Medvedev clearly inflated the importance of these problems.. They hardly justify the president of one country leveling such scathing statements at the president of a neighboring country.
What is really going on?
One conspiracy theory holds that Yushchenko violated some type of secret agreement between Moscow and Kiev concerning the only issue that Russia truly cares about — gas shipments. But this theory has not yet been substantiated.
Another version of the conspiracy theory — which seems bizarre at first glance — suggests that Medvedev is actually trying to help Yushchenko’s re-election bid by publicly lambasting him just before Ukraine’s presidential election. According to this theory, by interfering in Ukraine’s internal affairs, Medvedev will help increase Yushchenko’s popularity by giving credence to his anti-Russian platform. After all, Yushchenko is practically the only presidential candidate who speaks openly about the so-called Russian threat to Ukraine’s national independence.
Yushchenko’s critics have always held that he suffers from paranoia, but Yushchenko has had little hard evidence to support his alarmist anti-Russian statements. In this sense, Medvedev’s speech is a huge gift for Yushchenko. Now he can say, “Look, I told you so. Russia is openly threatening us and trying to dictate our policies.”
The obvious question is: What does Moscow have to gain from this approach? However paradoxical it might seem, the so-called anti-Russian Yushchenko may actually be advantageous for Russia. Moscow views Yushchenko as a weak politician, but this presents an excellent opportunity that Moscow can exploit to its advantage. Yushchenko can do the Kremlin’s work for it by continuing to paralyze Ukrainian politics through his constant bickering with Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and other opposition politicians. In addition, Yushchenko has always supported RosUkrEnergo, the shady intermediary for gas transports between Moscow and Kiev.
True, this theory does have one major flaw: Yushchenko’s electoral support is so low that Medvedev’s help would probably be too little to boost Yushchenko’s miserable ratings. Interestingly enough, in 1996, former President Boris Yeltsin had about the same level of support when he started his successful re-election campaign. The big difference, however, is that Yushchenko lacks Yeltsin’s charisma and his notorious administrative resources. As former President Leonid Kuchma famously said, “Ukraine is not Russia.”
Therefore, it remains to be seen how Ukrainian voters will react to Moscow’s new anti-Ukraine campaign. But if Medvedev’s strategy is successful, we might see an amazing, come-from-behind victory for Yushchenko in January’s presidential vote.
(Yevgeny Kiselyov is a political analyst and hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.)

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/1016/42/380785.htm
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Putin's Reset Button: Pressing Ukraine
By Ken Blackwell
The American Thinker, August 15, 2009 

It's really amazing how soon the Obama administration's chickens are coming home to roost. They made a big deal out of finding a "reset" button for U.S.-Russia relations. They wanted to reject what they saw as George W. Bush's truculence over the Russian invasion of Georgia last summer. So they went out of their way to send a message to Russia that they wanted a new beginning in their relations with Moscow.
Well, they've gotten it. London's prestigious Financial Times reports that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has sent a tough "ultimatum" to Ukraine's leadership.
Medvedev sent his blunt warning in the unusual form of an "open letter." He wants the world to know what he's telling President Yushchenko. 
And what he's telling him is chilling. Medvedev charged that Yushchenko was "ignoring the opinion of your country's citizens" in seeking membership in NATO. Medvedev roughly accused Yushchenko of meddling in the Russia-Georgia territorial dispute by helping to supply invaded Georgia. 
Medvedev told Yushchenko he was risking Europe's supply of natural gas. How can this be? Russia has most of Europe's natural gas and they can turn off the spigot whenever Medvedev or his boss, Vladimir Putin, decide to turn up the pressure on the West. 
The 2004 elections in Ukraine were widely hailed in the West as an "orange revolution" because that was the color of Viktor Yushchenko's victorious political party. That party was dedicated to preserving Ukraine's always perilous independence from Moscow. 
Ukraine has for centuries been under Russia's thumb. When the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, the Ukrainians took advantage of an historic opportunity to make a break for freedom. Persuaded by the U.S., Ukraine gave up nuclear weapons. It seemed a good idea at the time, to reduce the number of countries with nukes might make non-proliferation treaty enforcement easier, it was believed. 
That was when Boris Yeltsin's star was on the rise in the Russian Republic. It seemed reasonable to think that Russia might be headed for a new future as a free and democratic state. 
That was before former KGB agent Vladimir Putin eased the aging, alcoholic Yeltsin into an early retirement on the eve of the new Millennium. Putin doesn't drink. Putin is a martial arts enthusiast. With his brutal crackdown on Chechnya (a restive part of the Russian Republic) and last summer's invasion of Georgia, Putin is showing the world just how adept he is at "the martial arts."
Even liberals understand what's happening now. Lilia Shevstova is a senior analyst at the Moscow Carnegie Center. She told FT that the Medvedev letter is "a message to any new leader [in Ukraine] that we will deal with you only when you accept our demands."
To underscore his seriousness, Medvedev is holding back on appointing a new Russian ambassador to Kiev, Ukraine's capital, until the Ukrainians come around to his line of thinking. 
Is this Joe Biden's crisis, the early test of Barack Obama's leadership? You'll recall that Biden told a group of Seattle Democratic donors that Barack Obama would be tested in the first six months of his presidency and that it would not be immediately apparent that we would be on the right side. 
Russia is clearly turning up the pressure on Ukraine. The freedom of 45 million people in Eastern Europe is very much at risk. If Ukraine is clawed back into Moscow's orbit, can Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia hold out? What about the tiny, freedom-loving Baltic States?
When we see Barack Obama embracing Hugo Chavez and Raul Castro, handing out Medals of Freedom to the anti-American UN apparatchik, Mary Robinson, and his administration of amateurs falling all over themselves to appease Russia, is it any wonder Vladimir Putin is pressing his own reset button? It's Ukraine--and Putin is pressing it hard. 
(Ken Blackwell is a former US Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission and a senior fellow at the Family Research Council.)

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/08/putins_reset_button_pressing_u.html
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Ukraine and Russia's war of words
By David Hearst 
The Guardian, August 17, 2009

In the weeks before the fighting erupted in the wars that were to spell the end of Yugoslavia, no one locally could give an adequate explanation of why the roadblocks were going up – at least not one rooted in recent memory. I asked a Serb manning a barricade that cut a village in eastern Croatia in half whether there had been any tension between the two communities. No, he said, they got on fine. Did one half of the village lord it over the other? Apparently not. Did they take more jobs at the bread factory? No, they had an equal slice of that. So why was he now pointing his gun at his neighbours? "Because of that," he said, pointing to the chequered flag on my hired car's number plate. "We are fighting fascists," referring to the symbol of the Croatian Ustashi who fought alongside the Germans in the second world war.
I get a similarly uneasy feeling when Ukraine and Russia reach back 300 years to find something to quarrel about. The Battle of Poltava in 1709 was the turning point in a long war between Russia and Sweden for supremacy in northern Europe and Peter the Great won it, despite the defection of a local warlord and leader of the Cossack state, Ivan Mazepa, to the Swedish side. Ukraine's increasingly nationalist president Viktor Yushchenko now wants to honour Mazepa as a local hero. He plans to erect monuments to the Ukrainian Cossack, who already appears on the 10 hryvnia bill, treating him as a failed leader of a proto-independent state. It is doubtful Mazepa's state would have ever been that, as had Sweden won, Mazepa would have only traded a Russian overlord for another – the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth. But the parallels with Yushchenko's aspirations to join Nato are just too tempting.
The Ukrainian nationalist interpretation of Mazepa's role is an attempt to reinvent Ukraine's history, which is at least as intertwined with Russia's, religiously and culturally, as Scotland's history is with England's. More recently, Ukraine asserted its view that a Stalin-era famine in 1932 and 1933, known in Ukrainian as the Holodomor, was a form of genocide aimed by Russians specifically against the Ukrainian people.
Last week the Russian president Dmitri Medvedev sent Yushchenko a letter blaming him for bringing relations between the two countries to their lowest levels since the collapse of the Soviet Union. He angrily accused Ukraine of selling weapons to Georgia that were then used to attack South Ossetia, a claim Ukraine has not denied.
With a Ukrainian presidential election coming up next January, it is not difficult to see where this war of words is heading, particularly as the previous presidential elections set off the Orange Revolution. In the meantime, a democratic awakening for Ukraine has been bedevilled as much by splits between former allies in the Orange ranks as it is has been by Russian strong-arm tactics over the gas supply. Many European analysts suspicious of Barack Obama's attempts to press the reset button with Russia after the war in Georgia last year are predicting that Ukraine could be the undoing of the new US policy. If it is, then the spectre of the former Yugoslavia is a sobering one, as more than 17% of the population of Ukraine is ethnically Russian. If the increasing swell of nationalism in the relationship between Russia and Ukraine is to be countered, it would be better for the leadership of both countries to deal with the present rather than the past.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/17/ukraine-russia-war-of-words
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Kremlin Backing Issues, Not Candidates, in Kiev
By Vladimir Frolov
The Moscow Times, August 17, 2009

Two weeks ago, I used this column to urge President Dmitry Medvedev to respond to mounting slights of Russia by leaders of other former Soviet states.
Last week, he did exactly that by delivering a public rebuke to Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko for his provocative anti-Russian policies that have plunged relations between Moscow and Kiev to a historical low, culminating in the recent mutual expulsion of diplomats.
By announcing a delay in sending new Ambassador Mikhail Zurabov to Kiev, Medvedev made it clear that the Kremlin no longer views the sitting Ukrainian president as a viable partner and would rather wait a few months to engage his successor.
With barely 3 percent in approval ratings, Yushchenko stands no chance in the next presidential election in January. Politically, he is not even a lame duck but a dead man walking — a completely discredited figure who betrayed the trust of the people who brought him to power. Medvedev is justified in concluding that engaging Yushchenko would be a waste of time.
Medvedev’s statement is both an invitation to engagement and a warning to the two most likely successors of Yushchenko — Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and Party of Regions leader Viktor Yanukovych.
Although Moscow views both of them as a major improvement over Yushchenko, Medvedev’s statement should not be interpreted as an endorsement of either Tymoshenko or Yanukovych. The Kremlin is not going to repeat the mistake of 2004, when it publicly supported Yanukovych. Rather, Medvedev outlined a list of issues where Russia expects a dramatic shift with the next Ukrainian leader in order to hit a “reset button” in relations.
The Kremlin is making good on its promise to support positions, not candidates, in Ukraine’s next presidential election. Russia would engage immediately and constructively with any Ukrainian leader who broke with Yushchenko’s failed policies. Medvedev also sent a warning to Tymoshenko and Yanukovych that Moscow expects from them deeds, not promises, before the new engagement unfolds. The Kremlin harbors no illusions about the ability of these two Ukrainian leaders to keep their word, and is preparing a mix of carrots and sticks to keep them on the right track.
Throughout this year, many Ukrainian politicians have urged the Kremlin to state clearly what Russia wants in Ukraine. Last week, they got their wish.
Vladimir Frolov is president of LEFF Group, a government-relations and PR company.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/1016/42/380832.htm
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Separated at Birth: The Key to These Nations’ Self-Determination Lies in the Aspects of the Historic Past They Chose to Remember
By Andreas Umland and Ingmar Bredies
Russia Profile, August 17, 2009

The last few years’ developments in the former Soviet Union fascinated the specialist and puzzled the layman: why have Europe’s two largest countries, Ukraine and Russia, developed in such different ways? Despite these nations’ similar Eastern Slavic Orthodox cultures and intertwined histories, Russia has returned to authoritarianism, while Ukraine is still on the bumpy road toward democracy.
The answers to this question have often been based on the particular circumstances of Ukraine’s and Russia’s transformations since 1990. The Ukrainian nation’s division into two regional and political cultures created numerous problems, but also had the effect of supporting pluralism. The stalemate between the historically distinct regions of pro-Western Galicia, Transcarpathia, Volhynia and Bukovina, on the one side, and of the pro-Russian Eastern and Southern Ukraine on the other meant that the country’s political landscape has become, as Lucan Way put it, “pluralistic by default.”
Post-Soviet Russia, in contrast, is culturally more homogeneous. Often seen as a multi-national country, the Russian Federation’s population is, in fact, 80 percent ethnically Russian, and there is little cultural-regional differentiation. The remaining 20 percent are split among small nationalities and diasporas, who play an important role in Russia’s self-definition as a poly-ethnic state but do not represent a consolidated political force exerting direct influence on Moscow’s foreign and domestic policies.
While these explanations are valid, they do not fully answer the question of why Ukraine is, so far, the only 1922 Soviet-founding republic on a way toward a consolidated democracy. Additional explanations can be found in Ukraine’s history, or rather in Kiev’s historical mythology.
First and foremost, Ukraine’s centuries-old struggle for political autonomy and independence from foreign dominance – Mongol, Muscovite, Polish, Lithuanian, Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian and Soviet – is the guiding idea of Ukrainian historiography. The preservation of sovereignty is supported by the most relevant decision-makers and intellectuals. Ukraine can be seen as a post-colonial country where liberationist nationalism supports rather than counteracts democratic tendencies. Moreover, identity politics in contemporary Ukraine more often than not refer to pre-Soviet proto-democratic experiences, seen as constitutive for the Ukrainian nation and demonstrating its “embeddedness” in Europe.
Thus, the idea of democratic rule is traced back to the era of Kievan Rus from the 9th to the 12th century, considered the Golden Age in Ukrainian pre-national statehood. Kievan Rus is seen as a state having grass-roots democracy in local assemblies (“vicha”), developing the relatively sophisticated legal code of “Ruska Pravda” and making tentative attempts to establish an elective monarchy. With the rise of the Cossack Hetmanate in the 16th century, there emerged another Ukrainian proto-state, playing an important role in contemporary national identity. The Cossacks formed, along the Dnepr riverbank, a military republic with a male assembly – the Rada – that chose its Hetman, a military leader, by election. The Cossacks’ love of freedom and semi-democratic style of governance continues to influence Ukrainian self-image to this day.
Even more important than the actual course of history is the fact that these (and some other trends) inform historical myths which, in turn, presently define national identity. Ukrainians see themselves as having a tradition of individualism and love of freedom, and their country as always having been diverse, lacking strong rule, and even ungovernable.
This is different from the historiography and auto-stereotypes that dominate Russia today. To be sure, Muscovite history has a number of proto-democratic tendencies as well. Russia can also lay claim to the heritage of the Kievan Rus and the Cossack self-rule. Moreover, in the middle ages, the famous city states of Novgorod and Pskov featured a collective ruling organ representing the nobility (“veche”), elections of executive power holders, as well as rudimentary checks and balances. Later, the “Zemsky Sobor” elected the first Romanov tsar Mikhail. In 1861, his descendant Alexander II started the so-called Great Reforms.
While these facts are, of course, well-known in Russia, they play a relatively minor role in Russian national mythology and shaping the nation’s self-perception. Instead, affirmative assessments of figures like Alexander Nevsky or Peter the Great, and, partly, of Ivan the Terrible and Josef Stalin, dominate popular historical memory. These men were successful military leaders and often modernizers of sorts. Yet, they also concentrated power and did not tolerate checks on their prerogatives. Even the most pro-Western among Russia’s tsars, Peter the Great, played an ambivalent role in Russian history: the modernized state that Peter left was also highly centralized, if not proto-totalitarian.
In a way, Vladimir Putin’s meteoric rise can be explained against this backdrop. Although a lucky rather than great leader, the current Russian prime minister seems to fit the image of a new Peter the Great– an authoritarian yet (seemingly) effective modernizer.
It is not so much the glorious history of the Russian people and their many geniuses - more often than not, harassed by their government - that defines the Russians’ view of their fatherland’s history. Instead, Russia’s imperial legacy of military might, territorial expansion and victories in wars is what many Russians feel makes them unique. Most Ukrainians see the Dnepr Cossack republic not as a militaristic order (which it was in some ways), but as a stronghold of freedom. Kiev’s elite welcomed the break-up of the Soviet Union with a sigh of relief. In contrast, the Russians’ deep frustration about the loss of their empire and super-power status in 1989 to 1991 has led some observers to speak of a “Weimar syndrome” and to compare post-Soviet Russia with pre-fascist Germany.
History is obviously not everything. As post-fascist Germany’s development shows, countries can change rapidly. However, as long as Russia and other post-Soviet republics stick to a national mythology that pays little attention to proto-democratic beginnings in their history, they will remain trapped in their authoritarian traditions. Ukraine provides an example of how a country can break with an unusable past and create a pluralistic polity drawing on appropriate (if, sometimes, idealized) precedents in its past.
(Ingmar Bredies teaches at the University of Regensburg and Andreas Umland at the Catholic University of Eichstaett-Ingolstadt.)

http://www.russiaprofile.org/page.php?pageid=International&articleid=a1250529728
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Russia’s botched policy in its own backyard
By Anders Åslund
Financial Times, August 17, 2009

Relations between Russia and Ukraine have always been difficult. Since Ukraine’s Orange revolution in late 2004 they have been dismal. Conflicts have involved gas, agricultural trade, the Russian naval base in the Crimea, the war in Georgia and Ukraine’s interest in Nato. Even so, politicians from the two countries rarely meet.
Last year Vladimir Putin, then Russia’s president, escalated the conflict by publicly questioning Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. He has repeated his claims as prime minister. President Dmitri Medvedev’s strident open letter to President Viktor Yushchenko amounted to a further escalation, with its declaration that Russia would not send a new ambassador to Kiev. Mr Medvedev offered no constructive proposals but listed old Russian grudges, claiming that all faults lie with Ukraine.
The language was reminiscent of Leonid Brezhnev in its detachment from reality. Mr Medvedev claimed that no Russian threat against Ukraine exists, as if he were unaware of his prime minister’s statements. He went on in Soviet vein: “Russia endeavours to be a predictable, strong and accommodating partner” to its neighbours. Well, hardly, as Mr Yushchenko noted in his response.
Mr Medvedev’s obvious aim was to influence the Ukrainian presidential elections scheduled for January, expressing hopes for improved relations with the “new Ukrainian leadership”. Mr Yushchenko is no longer a credible candidate, having proven himself an ineffective ruler. The two leading candidates are instead Yulia Tymoshenko, the current prime minister, and Viktor Yanukovich, the former prime minister, with Arseniy Yatseniuk, the former speaker, as the only other plausible contender.
But however much effort Moscow puts into the Ukrainian elections, it is not likely to achieve its aims, as the Orange revolution illustrated. Contrary to common misconceptions, no real separatism exists in Ukraine. The Kremlin has given up on Mr Yanukovich, the leader of largely Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine, realising that no serious Ukrainian politician can be pro-Russian. Recently, the Kremlin has preferred Ms Tymoshenko as somebody they can do business with, but there is no love lost.
The Kremlin’s misunderstanding of Ukrainian politics is based on the fact that, unlike Russia, Ukraine is a democracy. The Russian leaders think they can “buy” Ukrainian politicians, but in the end they must listen to their voters, not Moscow, to gain office. This is an alien thought to the authoritarian Muscovites, who believe everything is manipulated from above and by Washington. Persistent anti-Ukrainian propaganda on Russian state television also turns eastern Ukrainians against the current Russian regime.
Mr Medvedev’s statements appear to be a reflection of the rivalry between the Putin and Medvedev camps, which confuses all central policymaking in Russia at present. Ominously, Mr Putin has made Ukraine-bashing one of his trademarks and Medvedev needs to keep up. Russian economic policy is suffering as a result of this strife and Ukraine may do so too.
The broader problem for Russian foreign policy is that the country’s rulers do not know how to deal with their post-Soviet neighbours. Their policy objectives are mixed. Gazprom wants to monopolise gas supply, transportation and sales. Private businessmen aspire to expand their corporations. Agricultural interests block imports. Russian nationalists persist in neo-imperialism and populist politicians try to win domestic support by attacking their neighbours.
The result is that post-Soviet nations are trying to develop relations with anybody but Russia. Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan are opting for gas exports to China. Most starkly, Georgia and Ukraine are turning to the west, but even Belarus, the ultimate Russian loyalist, is fed up with the Kremlin and seeking other options.
For the west, the conclusion is that it needs to solidify its support for Ukraine regardless of who wins the elections. Fortunately, it is doing so. Joe Biden, the US vice-president, made this point clearly during his recent trip to Kiev, while the European Union is pursuing efforts at integration, notably through a forthcoming European Association Agreement on trade.
The writer is a senior fellow of the Peterson Institute for International Economics and author of How Ukraine Became a Market Economy and Democracy

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e799a49c-8b59-11de-9f50-00144feabdc0.html
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Ukrainian-Russian Diplomatic War Intensifies
By: Taras Kuzio
Eurasia Daily Monitor, Volume: 6 Issue: 158, August 17, 2009 

On August 10 President Dmitry Medvedev accused President Viktor Yushchenko of taking Ukraine on an "anti-Russian course" (www.blog.kremlin.ru, August 10). Moscow also recently engaged in tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions (EDM, July 31). The two Ukrainian diplomats expelled were Ukraine's General-Consul in St.Petersburg Natalia Prokopovych and Oleh Voloshyn a senior adviser to the Ukrainian Ambassador in Moscow. Russia claimed that this was in response to the "unfriendly actions of the Ukrainian authorities" towards two Russian diplomats. It regarded Kyiv's actions as an "openly anti-Russian step which harms the development of relations between Russia and Ukraine" (www.mid.ru, July 29).
Ukraine's Foreign Ministry (MZS) and National Security and Defense Council (NRBO) both expressed their surprise over the Russian response. "We are very surprised at such a severe and unfortunate reaction by the Russian side," the MZS stated (www.mfa.gov.ua, July 29). The MZS had provided to its Russian counterparts a dossier of documents outlining the undiplomatic activities of the two expelled Russian diplomats. "On the question of the Russian ambassador's adviser it was tied to his openly anti-Ukrainian statements as well as the Odessa General-Consul and his de facto support for radical political forces" (www.mfa.gov.ua, July 29).
The two expelled Ukrainian diplomats had never been involved in undiplomatic activities and were not warned at any stage by Moscow. The MZS claimed that the two expelled Russian diplomats breached the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and had intervened in Ukraine's internal affairs. First Deputy Head of the NRBO and former Foreign Minister Volodymyr Ohryzko described the Russian response as a return to "the tried and tested reactionary Soviet mentality of the Homo Sovieticus (sovkova) in responding to absolutely lawful actions by (the Ukrainian) state," Ohryzko commented (Ukrayinska Pravda, July 30).
On July 31 Ukrayinska Pravda was told by unofficial sources that the two "so-called diplomats," as Ohryzko described them, were involved in espionage and subversive activities. Odessa General-Consul Oleksandr Grachov financed and sought to cooperate with local political leaders by drawing on funds generated by illegal hard currency operations undertaken through shadow economic structures. This "illegal espionage activity in support of Russia's political steps," sought to recruit "agents of influence" to advance Russian interests in Ukraine.
One of these controlled political groups was the Odessa-based Rodina Party, whose members were accused of the murder of a Ukrainian nationalist in Odessa in April (EDM, June 16). Grachov was directly subordinated to the Federal Security Service (FSB) leadership who passed his reports directly to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (Ukrayinska Pravda, July 31). Grachov's apartment, purchased with these illegally earned funds, was located in the same building in Odessa as Rodina Party leader Igor Markov's office.
Expelled Senior Adviser Vladimir Lysenko undertook "active espionage and subversive activities in Ukraine," the same sources told Ukrayinska Pravda (July 31). "Lysenko established unofficial contacts with representatives of local organs of power with the aim of obtaining confidential information on Ukraine's position in negotiations over the Black Sea Fleet" (Ukrayinska Pravda, July 31).
Lysenko also sought to recruit agents of influence among the Crimean Tatar community with the aim of replacing the leadership of the Medzhilis (Tatar unofficial parliament) with individuals of a more pro-Russian orientation. The Crimean Tatars have long been pro-Ukrainian in their orientation and Medzhilis leaders were elected to the national parliament within Rukh (1998) and the Our Ukraine bloc (2002, 2006, 2007).
A third area - long suspected of Russian diplomats - was their subversive activities with the FSB based in the Black Sea Fleet to sponsor "public protest actions," when for example, NATO vessels arrived in Sevastopol they organized protests in support of the Russian navy. Anti-NATO and anti-American protests began in earnest in the Crimea in summer 2005, immediately after Viktor Yushchenko was elected president. They were organized against Ukraine's joint exercises within the framework of NATO's Partnership for Peace (PfP). Moscow had not mobilized similar protests in the Crimea against these exercises in 1995-2004 under President Leonid Kuchma.
Russian leaders, Crimean communists and Crimean Russian nationalists have repeatedly warned that if Ukraine moved towards NATO membership that it would do so without the Crimea. This threat of using separatism to undermine a country's Trans-Atlantic integration was implemented in Georgia in August 2008. Crimea has never been regarded, unlike Abkhazia or South Ossetia, as a frozen conflict. Nevertheless, the Ukrainian authorities are preparing for future conflict scenarios and, not coincidentally after the expulsion of Russian diplomats, a large-scale "anti-terrorist" exercise was held in the Crimea on August 3-7 organized by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU)'s Anti-Terrorist Center.
The SBU "Alpha" unit, units from the ministry of emergency situations, interior ministry special forces and the Ukrainian navy's marines worked together with the authorities during the planned exercises. The two-fold aim of the exercises was to ascertain the level of cooperation between the Ukrainian security forces and the authorities in the event of a "state of emergency" or "undertaking anti-terrorist operations" (www.sbu.gov.ua, July 28). Both scenarios involved countering hypothetical threats from "terrorists" (in this case, a euphemism for separatists).
Leaked information about Lysenko's work with the FSB explains why the SBU last month demanded the withdrawal of the FSB from the Black Sea Fleet by December (EDM, July 14). The ostensible reason for the FSB being in Sevastopol is to provide security for the Black Sea Fleet. Judging from Ukrainian sources, this should be secondary to working with Russian diplomats in the fields of espionage or subversion. However, it remains unclear if Ukraine's tougher line towards Russian espionage and subversion is a product of the election campaign to increase Yushchenko's nationalistic credentials in Western Ukraine or growing Russian intelligence activities against Ukraine, or a combination of both.

http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[swords]=8fd5893941d69d0be3f378576261ae3e&tx_ttnews[any_of_the_words]=Kuzio&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=35420&tx_ttnews[backPid]=7&cHash=7e7b22c75e
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War Between Russia and Ukraine – A Possibility
By George Bovt 
EU-Russia Centre, August 18, 2009

What exactly is going on in Russian – Ukrainian politics? Nobody can give a precise answer nor can they explain what really provoked the strongly-worded statement of Russian president Dmitry Medvedev on August 11th, in which he denounced the Ukrainian president for his anti-Russian policy and announced that the new Russian envoy to Ukraine would remain in Moscow for the time being. 
There is only one other country within the whole post-Soviet space, where Russia does not currently have an envoy, Georgia. The two countries broke the diplomatic relations after the five-day war last year. 
Ukraine and Russia do still have diplomatic relations, but these are in their worst state since collapse of the USSR. If asked if war could possibly break out between Russia and Ukraine in the foreseeable future, I would not rule it out. I would claim that the two countries are much closer to the war today than they ever have been during the post-Soviet period; they are certainly a long way from a peaceful coexistence based on mutual respect and political equality.
In his message to his Ukrainian counterpart, President Medvedev accused the leader of imposing NATO membership upon a reluctant Ukrainian population. Other issues irritating both parties are their contradictory attitudes towards their common Imperial and Soviet past, notably the Stalinist period and the 1930s famine in Ukraine; Kiev officially positions the latter as genocide specifically targeted at Ukrainians. Friction is also caused by “the repression of the use of the Russian language” and attempts by Ukrainian leaders to eliminate its widespread use in the country (more than 1,400 schools in Ukraine teach in Russian or teach the Russian language and literature; conversely there is no Ukrainian school in Russia, despite the presence of more than 12 million ethnic Ukrainians in the Russian Federation).
There was also an uneasy atmosphere surrounding the recent visit of the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Cyril to Ukraine. However, the Russian Patriarch interpreted this very differently to Mr Medvedev. His letter of respect and gratitude to Mr Yuschenko was posted on the Ukrainian president‘s website on the same day that Medvedev gave his strongly-worded address. 
However, Viktor Yuschenko, the Ukrainian president took a stand and did not respond immediately to his Russian counterpart. Instead, the head of his secretariat Vera Ul’yanchenko drew the Ukrainian peoples’ attention to the Russian president’s “aggressive tone” and called for solidarity in defending the country’s national interests, critiscing Russia’s “neo-imperial tone” in its dealings with Ukraine. 
Yuschenko’s ally hinted at multiple refusals by the Russian president to hold direct official negotiations with his Ukrainian counterpart, negotiations which sought to resolve at least some of the unsettling issues facing the two countries. The postponement of the new envoy’s arrival in Kiev for an indefinite period appeared to be just another example of Moscow’s inability to maintain dialogue, according to the head of Yuschenko’s secretariat.
Surprisingly (and perhaps unwittingly), Medvedev’s statement provided some political assistance to the Ukrainian president; whose recent very low popularity would appear to have deprived him of any hope of reelection next January. He may have gained some ground, with some people switching to support the head of the state against an “aggressive neighbour”. 
Most European and Ukrainian observers were puzzled by Medvedev’s statement. Why was it publicised now, with no imminent major occasion or other pretext? What exactly was the reason for such a statement, other than the probable concealed one? Was it an attempt to play on the frictions within the Ukrainian politics in order to indirectly support Yulia Timoshenko, Yuschenko’s main rival in the forthcoming elections and considered by the most of the population as more likely to achieve effective dialogue with Russia, especially with the prime-minister Vladimir Putin? 
Such calculations could well have been behind the Medvedev’s statement. But Russia’s overall understanding of relations with Ukraine are much more complex. And potentially dangerous. 
For the Russian ruling elite Ukraine is, in many ways, “the last bastion”, which Moscow just can not allow itself to surrender. This means that Moscow would probably do “whatever it takes” to prevent its neighbour from falling into the sphere of Western influence. Even though Russian politicians recognise the territorial integrity of Ukraine and its integration of the Crimea peninsula, deep in their hearts they have not accepted the idea. Neither has the vast majority of the Russian population. For the Russian ruling elite, it is impossible to imagine the sight of NATO troops on the Dnepr River. They do not consider this possibility in terms of clear strategic analysis nor political balances, rather they react to it emotionally in terms of what they perceive to be the survival of the Russian state. 
I do not believe that any of the current Ukrainian politicians, if they became the next president of this country, would resolve this existential problem for Moscow; because none of them would voluntarily give up Ukrainian sovereignty. Almost all of them would insist – in one form or another – on supporting and strengthening this sovereignty first of all, despite all efforts by the former imperial “mother country”. Secondly, they would seek a coherent relationship with the EU and other European institutions. 
There is no solution to this serious problem (for Russia) in the context of bilateral Russian –Ukrainian relations, or even multilateral Russia-Ukrainian-European relations. This problem could only be resolved within the context of internal Russian politics, presumably on the basis of changing its whole current paradigm.
Is there any other option for resolution? Maybe, just one – war between Russia and Ukraine.
In my opinion, it could happen in the very near future, and certainly no later than 2017, when the Russian Black Sea Fleet is set to leave Sebastopol, as the lease agreement with Ukraine to use this “city of Russian military glory” expires.

http://www.eu-russiacentre.org/our-publications/column/war-russia-ukraine-possibility.html
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Medvedev Changes His Tactics Over Ukraine
By Fyodor Lukyanov
The Moscow Times, 19 August 2009
	
The economic crisis didn’t have the effect on Russia that the West was counting on. Instead of compliance, they’ve shown more aggression. Rather than being scattered around the world, Russia’s now focused on strengthening its position as an independent center of gravity. In other words, it’s expanding its markets and political influence into adjacent territories.
The zigzag of replacing World Trade Organization membership with a customs union that surprised so many people, the new push to turn the Collective Security Treaty Organization into a functioning military alliance, and moving closer to Turkey are all elements of one strategy. The new approach toward Ukraine proclaimed by President Dmitry Medvedev last week is in the same vein.
Many people think Russia is getting involved in the Ukrainian election campaign, which will go into full swing right after the vacation season winds down. And likely, that’s exactly what’s happening. But Russia’s hand will be different from the one it played in 2004. Openly betting on a particular candidate ended in such confusion five years ago that the Kremlin would have to be masochistic to try it again. Now Russia’s position is formulated on a much broader scale: No matter who wins in January — and the Kremlin doesn’t believe in a reincarnation of Viktor Yushchenko — the new president must immediately take into account the long list of framework conditions set forth by Moscow.
It seems that Medvedev’s address has brought an end to the previous approach, under which the goal was to treat relations between Russia and Ukraine like those of any two “ordinary” foreign countries. In reality, that was never the case, but no senior political leaders were willing to say publicly that Kiev was for Moscow — or that Moscow was for Kiev — something more than simply an external partner.
To get the gist of this new approach, you need to look at both what was said in Medvedev’s public address to Yushchenko and the comments made on his video blog about his recent discussion with Patriarch Kirill, who had just returned from Ukraine. The visit by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church showed that there’s a new public figure in Russia whose political weight and diplomatic skills surpass those of the secular authorities. He combines tact and kind civility with a firmness of his ideological positions, and his address to worshippers calling for unity and reconciliation is a demonstration of the “soft,” nonstate power that Moscow has long been criticized for lacking.
That impression only became stronger when, a day after Medvedev’s address, the patriarch’s press service published thank you letters to the people he met with in Ukraine, including Yushchenko. Not only did Kirill thank the Ukrainian leader for his attention and help in organizing the visit, he also noted that “despite all of the difficulties, Ukraine is successfully consolidating its statehood.” His letter to the president concludes: “May God’s blessing be with the people of beautiful Ukraine, with its leaders and military, and with all of us.”
At first glance, the patriarch’s remarks sharply contrast with those of Medvedev, who said Ukrainian weapons were used to kill Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia. In reality there’s no contradiction, however, since the authors of the two addresses to the Ukrainian president are speaking from entirely different positions. For Medvedev, Yushchenko is an unpleasant — it’s not being hidden anymore — counterpart; for Kirill, he’s a member of the faith, who needs to be put back on the true path if he strays from it. And the pastor’s approach is ultimately much more likely to have a political effect than the efforts of the presidential administration or the Russian government.
What they have in common is that both Russian leaders — spiritual and secular — are saying they intend to hold a dialog with their neighbor outside the typical political channels. The patriarch addresses his congregation, which by its very definition should not be divided by citizenship or state loyalties. Medvedev appeals directly to the Ukrainian people, letting them know in no uncertain terms that the dialog with their political elite has become unproductive. In fact, the symbolic meaning of not sending a new Russian ambassador to Kiev also ties into this desire to reduce official dialog to a purely technical level.
In their nearly 18 years of independence, Ukraine and Russia still haven’t found a stable form of coexistence. They’ve tried everything from imitating brotherhood and relying on corrupt schemes to petty alienation and indirect military and political confrontation. Yet their overlapping interests — from culture and history to economics and security — are extremely tangled. Passions are tearing through the cloth of all of these types of relations and sparking crises for all of Europe, as happened, for example, in January.
Both countries are in the process of nation building within borders that they never before occupied. That determines an awful lot. And there’s a temptation for Russia to make use of the still unsettled configuration of the post-Soviet space, particularly when it involves land with a disputed history. Additionally, Ukraine is trying to stake out a permanent claim as part of the non-Russian world, even as its internal political environment remains unstable. This psychological interdependence has made pragmatic ties impossible, at the very least for now.
The Russian authorities’ attempts to build ties with Ukraine from below, making use of its resources there, is generally understandable since the country is lacking an accountable and consolidated elite. But this clever plan can only work if the Russian strategists accurately estimate Ukrainian society’s sympathies toward Russia. It’s no secret that the policy, maintained during Yushchenko’s presidency, of a sharp break from Moscow and everything Russian has been unpopular with a portion — and likely not a small one — of the Ukrainian people. It’s not clear, however, that those same people are therefore willing to forgo their national sovereignty, which many of them have gotten used to over the years.
Of course, the Kremlin would most likely be satisfied if the weight of public opinion forced the Ukrainian authorities to move toward a policy of compromise on the most important issues for Moscow, namely security and energy. But by resorting to “Great Game” tactics, Russia should expect a similar response. It’s easy for Kiev to turn the situation into platitudes that “our country’s in danger,” with all of the resulting internal and external consequences. Yushchenko will answer yet. And that’s when we’ll know whether Russia’s evaluation of the situation in Ukrainian society — and its wager on a direct appeal — was correct.
(Fyodor Lukyanov is editor of Russia in Global Affairs.)

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/1016/42/380924.htm
==============


III SOME STATEMENTS BY POLITICAL ACTORS

Russian expert warns of possible provocations over Black Sea Fleet
Interfax, July 24, 2009

Moscow, 24 July: In the next few months Ukraine's law-enforcement bodies may increase pressure on the Russian Black Sea Fleet, Konstantin Zatulin, the director of the CIS countries institute and a member of the State Duma, believes.
"I think that as Ukraine's next presidential election draws nearer, Russian diplomats and sailors have to be prepared for new large and small provocations," Zatulin told Interfax on Friday (24 July).
According to him Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko's goal is to "escalate tensions in the lead-up to the election, for only chaos and conflicts can raise his very low rating."
Zatulin believes that by committing acts such as stopping Russian military vehicles in Sevastopol, the Ukrainian authorities intentionally "hit the most sore place".
"The detention of the Russian fleet's vehicles is heightening tension ahead of perhaps the main event for the people of Sevastopol - Russia's Navy Day.. For the Russian Black Sea Fleet sailors, for the people of Sevastopol, this day is no less important, perhaps even more important, than New Year Day or Easter," Zatulin said.
Zatulin believes that another reason for worsening the situation in Sevastopol is linked to the recent visit to Kiev by US Vice President Joe Biden. "One recalls in this connection that before Georgia's aggression White House representatives visited (Georgian President Mikheil) Saakashvili. Here, probably, the visit by a representative of the US administration has brought about Yushchenko's feeling of permissiveness, fits of aggression which are sufficient for provocations only. Between Russia and Ukraine there is no territory like South Ossetia, otherwise the August 2008 scenario could be repeated," Zatulin said.
On 23 July Ukrainian traffic police in Sevastopol stopped a column of special rocket-carrying vehicles, moving from one of the bases of the Russian Black Sea Fleet which were carrying Mirazh anti-ship cruise missiles. This is the third incident like this in a month. 

http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/2009-140-25.cfm
-----------------------------

Medvedev delays sending Russian ambassador to Ukraine
RIA Novesti August 11, 2009

MOSCOW, August 11 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced on Tuesday he was holding off sending Russia's new ambassador to Ukraine over Kiev's anti-Russian policies.
"I would like to inform you that over Ukraine's anti-Russian policies I have made the decision to delay sending our new ambassador to Ukraine," Medvedev said in a video message to his Ukrainian counterpart, Viktor Yushchenko.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has already approved of the appointment of former health minister Mikhail Zurabov to the post.
Medvedev added that the timing of Zurabov's arrival would be determined later, depending on the development of bilateral ties.
The Russian president pointed the finger at his Ukrainian counterpart, Viktor Yushchenko, for the worsening in relations between the neighbors, expressing his "deep concern at the current, without exaggeration, crisis in Russian-Ukrainian relations."
"We observe that during the years of your presidency, and it is impossible to see it differently, that the Ukrainian side has withdrawn from the principles of friendship and partnership with Russia," Medvedev said, taking the unusual step of speaking directly to Yushchenko in the open address.
With Yushchenko fighting for his political life ahead of presidential elections in January, Medvedev also warned against "yielding to the temptation of embroiling our nations for the sake of anyone's geopolitical interests or political career."
Medvedev chose to make his message public because of the level of interest among the people of Russia and Ukraine in the state of bilateral relations, which "directly affects their daily life and future."
The Russian leader went on to speak to the people of Ukraine.
"Ukrainians have from time immemorial been and remain not only neighbors but a fraternal nation toward which we will always have the kindest feelings, with which we are brought closer together by common history, culture and religion, are united by close economic cooperation, strong kindred and human ties," he said.
Medvedev said that the strains in relations were making it impossible to fully develop the potential of bilateral economic relations.
"Russian companies regularly have to deal with open opposition from Ukrainian authorities," he said.
"Bypassing Russia, Ukraine's top political leadership agreed with the European Union's leadership on Russian gas deliveries to Europe, and signed a document completely out of line with January's Russian-Ukrainian agreements," the Russian leader said.
Ukraine and the European Union signed a declaration in March to modernize the ex-Soviet state's natural gas pipeline network. Russia, which transits about 80% of its Europe-bound gas via Ukraine, said it was excluded from the talks in Brussels, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin threatened to review ties with the EU.
Medvedev also said Kiev took an openly anti-Russian position in last August's war over South Ossetia.
"A year after the tragic events, the issue of how peaceful civilians and Russian peacekeepers in Tskhinvali were killed with Ukrainian weapons is again being pointedly raised. Those in Kiev who supplied armaments to the Georgian armed forces... share the responsibility for committed crimes with Tbilisi," he said.
Medvedev added that bilateral relations were complicated also by the unwillingness of Ukrainian authorities to cooperate on issues involving Russia's Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, but added that he hoped for a new strategic partnership with the next leaders of Ukraine.
Yushchenko is polling in the single digits, with Party of Regions leader Viktor Yanukovych favored by about a quarter of the electorate, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko on 15% and former parliamentary speaker and millionaire businessman Arseniy Yatsenyuk in third place with about 13% support.

http://en.rian.ru/world/20090811/155780433.html
------------------------------------------------

Ukrainian response to Medvedev's statement
Viktor Avdeyenko
RIA Novesti, August 11, 2009

KIEV. (Viktor Avdeyenko, RIA Novosti) - On Tuesday Russian President Dmitry Medvedev posted a new entry on his video blog to report sending a letter to his Ukrainian counterpart where he called Ukraine's policy under President Yushchenko a divergence from the principle of developing friendship and partnership with Russia.
President Medvedev also added that he decided to refrain from sending a new Russian ambassador to Ukraine.
Deputy Secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council Dmytro Vydrin believes that it is Ukrainian and Russian political institutions that bear responsibility for the deteriorated relations between Kiev and Moscow.
"The relations are at a low. There have been no top-level meetings, with almost all joint projects frozen. If one analyzes the bilateral cooperation in specific areas, one will find grave shortcomings. The political structures are to blame for this," Vydrin said.
"I do not know any conflict where only one party is guilty," Vydrin said. He added that relations between two countries are not normally confined only to their presidents.
Members of Ukraine's oppositional Party of Regions consider Medvedev's decision to postpone sending an ambassador to Ukraine a lamentable, but absolutely consistent step.
"As a politician and a Ukrainian citizen, I see Russia's step as both regrettable and understandable at the same time; it is possible to justify this move since today Russia has no partner it can interact with," vice chairman of the Party of Regions Hanna Herman said.
The party's leader, Viktor Yanukovych, pledged that if he wins the presidential election in January 2010 - and he has the best chance to win - he will restore neighbourly relations with Russia.
The press service of the Party of Regions cited its leader as saying, "Unfortunately, under the present government there is little hope that relations with Russia will improve. That's why our first job when we come to power will be a restoration of normal, neighbourly, equal and mutually beneficial relations with our strategic partner, Russia. Such relations will offer new vistas for both states."
The Communist Party of Ukraine also shares the Russian president's criticism of the Ukrainian head of state.
"Medvedev simply stated an obvious fact, palpable to many people," one of the Communist Party leaders Olexander Holub said. As he put it, the Ukrainian Presidential Secretariat "has initiated a crusade against everything that unites us."
"This attitude does not reflect the sentiments of the majority of people, and splits Ukrainian society from the inside," Holub added.
Deputy Speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, Mykola Tomenko from the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko is sure that Medvedev's rigid statement is a testament to the Kremlin's intention to influence the election campaign in Ukraine.
In Tomenko's view, Medvedev's team has outlined a number of issues they regard critical in the forthcoming election campaign in Ukraine. "Drawing attention to the issues the Russian president highlighted in his statement is virtually a bid for intended participation in the presidential election campaign," Tomenko noted.
Member of the pro-presidential party Our Ukraine-People's Self-Defense, Andry Paruby shares Tomenko's view.
"This statement marks the beginning of the presidential election campaign in Ukraine and the Kremlin's participation in it. This is a new wave in Russia's media campaign against Ukraine and its government," the MP said.
Head of the Executive Committee of the Center for Applied Political Studies Penta Volodymyr Fesenko called the Russian president's statement a rigid political demarche, comparable to recalling a mission's head.
At the same time, Fesenko believes that Medvedev had grounds for such a statement: First, Russia is going to influence the presidential election campaign in Ukraine in January 2010, and second, Russia intends to continue channeling political developments in the post-Soviet republics.
"Medvedev has sent a clear message to all Ukrainian politicians that Russia is unwilling to cooperate with President Yushchenko. Medvedev has outlined the issues that Russia sees as significant and wishes to be altered. In addition, Russia has signaled a rigid policy in the post-Soviet republics," Fesenko said.
Ukraine's Foreign Ministry hasn't commented on Medvedev's statement saying that it is President Yushchenko's prerogative.
"Since the letter is addressed to the president, he is the one to give impression and comments," Ukraine's acting Foreign Minister Volodymyr Khandogy said.
Meanwhile, since Viktor Chernomyrdin was relieved of his post as the Russian ambassador to Ukraine on June 11, the Russian Embassy in Kiev has continued working as usual.
"The embassy continues working actively, as it used to. We hold our scheduled meetings and fulfill the tasks Moscow has commissioned us with," Russia's acting Charge d'Affaires in Ukraine, Vsevolod Loskutov told RIA Novosti.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.

http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20090811/155785884.html
---------------------------

Yushchenko defends Ukraine against Medvedev charges
Kyiv Post, August 13, 2009

(Reuters) - President Viktor Yushchenko on Thursday defended himself against Moscow's charges of anti-Russian policies and invited Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev to bilateral talks.
Medvedev's comments, in which he said he wanted to see a new leader in Ukraine who was easier to deal with, marked a downturn in ties between Moscow and Kiev which have slumped since the 2004 pro-Western "Orange Revolution" swept Yushchenko to power.
The Russian leader's open letter was seen by analysts as a warning shot to Ukrainian candidates in a presidential election next year, which Yushchenko is unlikely to win.
"I will be frank -- I am very disappointed with its unfriendly character," Yushchenko said of Medvedev's comments in a statement addressed to the Ukrainian people.
"I cannot disagree that there are serious problems in relations between our countries, but it is surprising that the Russian president completely shrugs off Russia's responsibility for this," he said.
Yushchenko has irritated Moscow with his bid for Ukraine's NATO membership and insistence that Russia vacates its Black Sea Fleet based in the Crimea, a Ukrainian peninsula populated by mainly ethnic Russians.
Rows over subsidised gas from Russia and energy bills unpaid by Kiev have also led to Moscow turning the gas taps off to Ukraine in January, leaving millions of Europeans in the cold.
Yushchenko also backed Georgia in its brief war for its breakaway regions with Russia a year ago and was angry Moscow used warships from the Black Sea Fleet in its operations there.
Moscow in turn was furious to find Ukraine had been supplying arms to Georgia, but Yushchenko said on Thursday the arms sales were completely legal as no embargo had been placed on sales to Georgia by any international organisation.
OPEN INVITATION
Ukrainian analysts noted Yushchenko's calm tone in contrast to Medvedev's harsh criticism and said it could serve to show Yushchenko to be more reasonable on the one hand and try to win favour with Ukraine's Russian-speakers ahead of the election.
"The tone and general mood is optimal -- with no hysteria or passion, but with the message that instead of raising the temperature of the tensions, problems must be solved," said Volodymyr Fesenko, director of the Penta thinktank.
With just 4 percent support however, Yushchenko is likely to lose the Jan. 17 poll and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and opposition leader Viktor Yanukovich are seen to want better relations with Moscow.
The latest diplomatic spat follows Kiev's expulsion of a Russian diplomat last month, accusations that Russia tried to transport rockets without agreement out of its base and the delay over the appointment of a new Russian ambassador to Kiev.
The Kremlin said later on Thursday Medvedev had appointed Mikhail Zurabov as the new ambassador though he is yet to send the envoy to Kiev and Medvedev has said the timing would depend on how this diplomatic spat develops.
Neither Yushchenko nor Medvedev have met face to face since the Russian took over from Vladimir Putin, now prime minister. Putin felt Kiev had slipped out of Russia's sphere of influence after Yanukovich, backed by Moscow, lost out in the 2004 revolution. "I confirmed my willingness to talk round the negotiating table at least three times in the past year in my letters to the Russian president," Yushchenko said.
"This invitation is still open today. Unfortunately, I received invitations only to horse races and other multilateral events. I hope this time, the reaction of the head of the Russian state to my call for dialogue will be constructive." 

http://www.kyivpost.com/nation/46907
------------------------------------

Yushchenko urges Medvedev to continue dialogue
Itar- Tass August 13, 2009

KIEV, August 13 (Itar-Tass) - Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko urged Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to continue the dialogue.
Yushchenko said he hopes for a constructive reaction from Russia. “Ukraine supports broad cooperation with the Russian Federation on the basis of mutual respect, equality, constructive dialogue, including at the top level,” the Ukrainian president said in his reply to Dmitry Medvedev’s letter on Thursday.
Yushchenko admitted “serious problems in relations between our countries”. At the same time, he stated that Ukraine “has never deviated from the principle of friendship and partnership reflected in the 1997 Big Treaty and has done its best to develop fruitful and mutually advantageous relations”.
Commenting on the armed conflict in the Caucasus, Yushchenko stressed that Ukraine’s position regarding “last year’s events in Georgia is well-known and coincides with the stance of all countries of the world”. He considers criticism for arms supplies to Georgia to be groundless. Yushchenko recalled that Georgia “was not and is not subject to any international sanctions or embargos from the U.N. Security Council, the OSCE, the European Union or other international organisations in respect of supplies of arms, military hardware and dual-purpose goods”.
In his letter he reiterated Ukraine’s policy towards integration into NATO, citing its right “to choose international means of ensuring national security, and specifically participation in military-political alliances”. Yushchenko said the parliament had passed a law that “envisions Ukraine’s direct integration into NATO, including membership in the alliance”.
At the same time, he said, “Our state’s drive for membership in the alliance is not aimed against Russia by any means, and the final decision will be made only after a nationwide referendum.”
The president tries to prove that Ukraine “is committed to its international obligations regarding the temporary deployment of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in the territory of Ukraine till May 28, 2017 and performs the 1997 basic agreements in full”. He noted that the Russian Black Sea Fleet command in the Crimea “has systematically committed gross violations of the agreements and Ukrainian legislation”.
He said Ukraine “consistently advocates the development of pragmatic relations with Russia, primarily in the energy sector”. Yushchenko disagreed that the Russian language “is forced out of public life in Ukraine”.
“The Ukrainian leadership respects canons and traditions of churches and religious organisations” and “no one can forbid citizens to express their position on any issue, including religious ones”, he said.
Speaking about the recent diplomatic scandal, Yushchenko said he was hopeful that in the future the two states “will be able to avoid such annoying incidents that mar bilateral relations”. In his view, “the resolution of the existing problems in Russian-Ukrainian relations requires intensive work.” That is why Dmitry Medvedev’s decision to postpone the arrival of a new ambassador to Ukraine “will not, of course, facilitate constructive development of our relations”, Yushchenko pointed out. 

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=14231747&PageNum=0
--------------------

Tymoshenko says Ukraine will independently decide on its domestic, foreign policies 
UKRINFORM August 14, 2009 

KYIV, August 14 /UKRINFORM/. Ukraine will decide on its domestic and foreign policies independently, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has said in connection with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's open letter addressed to Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko.
"Notwithstanding the fact that the foreign policy is the constitutional prerogative of the president, I cannot keep silence on the latest developments in Ukrainian-Russian relations. Taking into account their importance, I'm concerned over an extremely high level of public polemics on this subject," she said in a statement posted on the official Web site of the government on Friday.
Tymoshenko said that responsibility for the country was a good way for any politician to restrain his or her emotions, even in very difficult situations.
"As prime minister, I have always done my best to deepen mutually beneficial cooperation between Ukraine and Russia, first and foremost, in the economic sector controlled by the government. I will continue doing this in any post to which the Ukrainian people entrust me," she said.
Tymoshenko also vowed to build "equal relations with Russia, based on national interests, mutual benefit, respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity." “Ukraine will independently decide on its domestic, foreign policies, including in the humanitarian sphere. We will independently study our past, deal with our present, and build our future,” the premier said.
“We have always been ready to hear and heed the opinion of our partners in the East and in the West, taking into account their interests, but any interference in our internal affairs is unacceptable," Tymoshenko said.
She expressed hope that Ukrainian and Russian diplomats would resolve all of the problems not by means of confrontation and public polemics, but at the negotiating table.
“I think that any halt in the development of cooperation between Ukraine and Russia is unacceptable. Our government will act in line with this [principle],” Tymoshenko said.

http://bsanna-news.ukrinform.ua/newsitem.php?id=10080&lang=en
------------------------------------

Ex-Pres. Kravchuk lashes out at Regions and Communists, calling them Moscow’s doormats 
ZIK, August 14, 2009

Ukraine’s first president, Leonid Kravchuk, has bashed the Party of Regions and Communists for siding with Russia Pres Medvedev in his criticism of V. Yushchenko’s allegedly anti-Russian policies.  Commenting on the lack of solidarity among Ukraine politicians to The DAY, Kravchuk said:
“Unfortunately, the discord among Ukraine leaders is a permanent feature. The only exception occurred during the Tuzla island stand-off with Russia when the politicians were really united. During the Russian war with Georgia our politicians were split again. At present, some of them have stooped to saying improper things about Russia’s absolutely correct stand”, he said.
That some Ukrainians should so openly side with the other country politician in blasting Ukraine could not happen elsewhere in the world. I am in sync with what people think and I know that the middle and young generations of Ukrainians won’t tolerate the humiliation of Ukraine, Kravchuk continued.
Kravchuk stressed that he is, probably, Viktor Yushchenko’s major critic in Ukraine.
But I will never say that [the low in Russia-Ukraine relations – Ed..] is entirely Ukraine’s fault [as Pres Medvedev claimed – Ed.]. Meanwhile, some Regions and Communist lawmakers are touting Medvedev’s lecturing. In doing so, they act like slaves, they are political doormats of Moscow, he remarked indignantly.
The atmosphere of independence and democracy has allowed some with servile mindsets to make their way to the top of political establishment in Ukraine, Kravchuk added.
“They have not changed over the years. They are political deadwood. Their main priority is to sway voters their way. They don’t care about any other things,” he explained.
“I wish to tell Ukrainians now not to trust those who play doormat and serve their foreign masters, who are prepared to betray everything in order to grab the highest office,” the first president went on.
“We must serve only Ukraine. It’s a shame to serve an alien regime of an alien country. Such servile politicians are aliens in their own country,” he argued. Roman CYR">”There are hundreds, thousands of true Ukrainians who should not stand aloof. I can’t understand why they are silent,” Kravchuk said. I am convinced that the forthcoming presidential election as well as other elections will produce more advanced politicians. Then we will get rid of those who sing praises of the Russian president for badmouthing their own one,” Leoniod Kravchuk said. 

http://zik.com.ua/en/news/2009/08/14/192509
-----------------------------

Lytvyn: Ukraine-Russia war impossible
Kyiv Post, August 18, 2009

A war between Ukraine and Russia is impossible under any circumstances, Chairman of Ukrainian parliament Volodymyr Lytvyn said.
"First of all, I cannot yet see any people who act irresponsibly and will act that way. There is no indication that there are any such people around. Secondly, I think the blood ties between our peoples should be taken into account as well. And finally, you will realize perfectly that the world is interconnected with ties of responsibility. Even if some hotheads did think up some [armed] action, I do not think the world would let it go ahead. Nor would anyone want to end up in isolation," Lytvyn said in a program on Moscow's Ekho Moskvy radio on Tuesday.
In comments on a current draft law on the use of Russian armed forces outside Russia, Lytvyn said he "would not stir such a political hullabaloo" over it but insisted that the Russian government explain publicly what the bill, introduced by President Dmitry Medvedev specifically meant.
The proposed law has the purported goal of providing the president with a legal mechanism for the prompt use of armed forces abroad. It is based on directives issued by Medvedev after he met on February 17, 2009, with the governing body of Russia's upper house of parliament.

http://www.kyivpost.com/nation/47136
--------------------

Lytvyn: Suspension of arrival of Russian ambassador indicates minor role of Ukraine in Russian foreign policy
Kyiv Post, August 18, 2009

Verkhovna Rada Chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn has said the suspension of the arrival of Russian Ambassador Mikhail Zurabov in Ukraine indicates a minor role of Ukraine in the foreign policy of the Russian Federation.
Volodymyr Lytvyn gave his stance in an interview with the National Radio. 
"I believe the very fact of lowering the level of representation in Ukraine indicates that Ukraine does not play any important role in the foreign policy of Russia," said the Ukrainian speaker. 
Volodymyr Lytvyn noted that the United States has no ambassador in Ukraine either. 
"There is no ambassador of the United States today either. The fact, by the way, gives justification to those talks that in the process of re-load of the relations between the United States of America and Russia Ukraine is a change coin," Lytvyn said. 
In the opinion of the Ukrainian parliamentary speaker, the world community is psychologically tired of those conflicts in which Ukraine is engaged. 
This is seen from the absence of any active reaction from the European community to the letter of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko. 
As Ukrainian News earlier reported, President Medvedev has signed a presidential decree appointing Mikhail Zurabov Russia's ambassador to Ukraine. Meantime, the Russian president has decided to suspend the arrival of the ambassador in Ukraine, as he views the course of the Ukrainian leadership as being an anti-Russian one. 

http://www.kyivpost.com/nation/47138
=========================


IV ANNOTATIONS OF RECENT RUSSIAN BOOKS ON UKRAINE

[NOTE: The texts of the annotations are unedited blurbs from the presentations of these books by various booksellers.]

Dikii, Andrei. Neizvrashchennaia Istoriia Ukrainy-Rusi: S Drevneishikh Vremen do Nachala XIX Veka [An Untwisted history of Ukraine-Rus: From earliest time to the early XIX century]. Moscow: Samoteka, 2007. 512 p. Hardcover. 12 x 20 cm. ISBN 9785901838599.

This book on the history Ukraine and its relations with Rus (Russia) is written by an officer of the White Army, émigré Andrei Dikii.
--------------------

Dikii A. Krasnaia svitka: neizvrashchennaia istoriia Ukrainy-Rusi ot zaporozhtsev do kommunistov | A Red Scroll: True Russo-Ukrainian History from the Zaporozhye Cossacks to Communists. M.: Algoritm, 2007. 448 p. Hard. ISBN 978-5-9265-0475- 7. 5000 copies. In Russian.

The aim of this edition is to provide a true Russo-Ukrainian history and disprove all the perversions in which the Ukrainian separatist historiography abounds. The book is of particular current interest, as nowadays the Russian and Ukrainian nations are separated with borders and Ukraine witnesses the blowing up anti-Russian hysteria.
--------------------

Smirnov A.S. Proekt "Ukraina", ili zvezdnyi god getmana Skoropadskogo | Project ''The Ukraine'', or hetman Skoropadsky' s sidereal year. Series: IUzhnaia Rus' | Southern Rus. M.: Algoritm, 2008. 384 p. 21 cm. Hard. ISBN 978-5-9265-0460- 3. 4000 copies. In Russian.

The book is devoted to hetman Skoropadsky, an extraordinary man, a real patriot of the Ukraine and Russia, a leader of the Zaporozhe Cossacks.
---------------------

Ukraina i ukraintsy: obrazy, predstavleniia, stereotipy. Russkie i ukraintsy vo vzaimnom obshchenii i vospriiatii: Sbornik statei | Ukraine and Ukrainians: images, beliefs, stereotypes. Russians and Ukrainians in mutual communication and perception: Collected articles. M.: Institut slavianovedeniia RAN, 2008. 400 p. Soft. ISBN 978-5-7575-0226-6. 300 copies. In Russian.

Retrospective analysis of how Russians and Ukrainians perceive each other, form and use their stereotypes and images, propaganda cliche and myths in the Russian-Ukranian relations. The book also touches upon some historical, cultural, linguistic and literary problems.
---------------

Sannikov G.Z. Bol'shaia okhota: Bor'ba s vooruzhennym podpol'em OUN v Zapadnoi Ukraine | Great chase: Struggle against the armed OUN underground in western Ukraine. M.: Pechatnye traditsii, 2008. 544 p., il. Hard. ISBN 978-5-91561-021-6. 3000 copies. In Russian.

The book focuses on the activities of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, history of its development, and describes the bloody confrontation in western Ukraine in 1942-1943.
-----------------------

Banderizatsiia Ukrainy - Glavnaia Ugroza dlia Rossii [The Banderization of Ukraine - Great threat for Russia]. Comp. by Iu.K. Kozlov. Moscow: Iauza Press, 2008. 480 p.   Ugrozy Rossii  Hardcover. 12.5 x 20 cm. ISBN 9785903339761.

This book is not directly about Stepan Bandera (1908-1959) or the insurgent army led by this person but about modern Ukraine which, according to the compiler of this book, is getting to be a less and less friendly neighbor to Russia. This book is a collection of 28 historical essays about the past and current history of Ukraine and its anti-Russian trends. These essays touch upon the most sensitive issues in Russian-Ukrainian relations: Ukrainian anti-soviet emigration, Ukrainian fascism and its leaders, collaborationism, genocide against Poles, golodomor, Bandera's terror, "Orange" movement, fight against the Orthodox Church, and more. Among contributors to this book are: V.P. Beliaev, E.F. Bezrodnyi, Iu. Kozlov, Iu. Mukhin, M.P. Sheliug, G.S. Tkachenko, A.A. Voitsekhovskii, etc.
------------------------

Kalashnikov M. Nezavisimaia Ukraina. Krakh proekta | Independent Ukraine. Project failure. M.: FOLIO, 2009. 413 p., il. Hard. ISBN 978-5-94966-188-8. 10000 copies. In Russian.

The book describes the origin, history, and current problems of the Ukrainians and their country. It focuses on their complicated relations with the Russians, the split between the West and the East within the country, and prospects of further development.
---------------

Sever A. Russko-ukrainskie voiny | Russian-Ukrainian wars. M.: IAuza-press, 2009. 384 p. 20 cm. Hard. ISBN 978-5-9955-0033-9. 4000 copies. In Russian.

The book presents a harrowing story of the Russian-Ukrainian fratricidal wars of the past centuries. This is - the truth about the destroyer of Slavic brotherhood, the main enemies of the true Ukraine and Russia: from the betrayer Mazepa to petlyurovtsy and banderovtsy, from the Ukrainian nationalists of the XIX century who rewrote roughly the history of the fraternal peoples to the modern "orange" Nazis.
--------------------------

ZHil'tsov S.S. Ukraina: perezagruzka | Ukraine: reload. M.: Vostok-Zapad, 2009. 464 p. Hard. ISBN 978-5-478-01249-6. 1500 copies. In Russian.

The book covers the struggle unfolded in Ukraine between the major political forces. This battle began after the presidential elections in November-December 2004, and was called "Orange Revolution". The author analyzes the economic and social policy of Ukraine for the past four years. He shows rivalry of opposing clans and regions (east - west), the different foreign policy orientation, the role of the "Russian factor".
----------------

Savitskii G. Pole boia - Ukraina. Slomannyi trezubets: Roman | Battlefield - Ukraine. Broken trident: Novel. Series: Voina na poroge | War coming. M.: IAuza; Eksmo, 2009. 288 p. Hard. ISBN 978-5-699-33396-7. 5000 copies. In Russian.

The book describes events that take place in Ukraine in 2010. Initiating the mass disorders the "orange" Nazis launch the civil war in Ukraine. With the help of the peacemaking NATO, American aviation and armored equipment Western Ukrainian squads having a trident on their shoulder straps begin to destruct Russian-speaking population destroying the whole cities. Russia helps warriors of the Resistance movement.
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Lativok N.P., Mazur E.A. 1932-1933 gody: golodomor v Evrope i Amerike. 1992-2009 gody: genotsid v Ukraine. Fakty i dokumenty. Analiz | 1932-1933: holodomor in Europe and America. 1992-2009: genocide in Ukraine. Facts and documents. Analysis. Series: Za Soiuz Ukrainy, Belarusi i Rossii | For the Union of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. Issue 1: M.: Belye al'vy, 2009. 404 p. Hard. ISBN 978-5-914640-21-4. 1000 copies. In Russian.
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Din M. Posobniki KHolokosta: Prestupleniia mestnoi politsii Belorussii i Ukrainy, 1941-1944. Perevod s angl = Collaboration in the Holocaust: Crimes of local police in Byelorussia and Ukraine, 1941-1944. Translation from English. SPb.: Akademicheskii proekt; DNK, 2009. 268 p. Soft. ISBN 978-5-901562-95-6; 978-5-7331-0366-2. 1000 copies. In Russian.

The book describes collaboration of Byelorussian and Ukrainian police in the Holocaust during World War II. Based on witness testimonies and documents, it casts light on their participation in the Nazi crimes, arrest of the Jews, escort to the place of execution, and shooting.
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Istoriia TSentral'no-Vostochnoi Evropy: Perevod s frants | History of Central and Eastern Europe: Translated from French. SPb.: Evraziia, 2009. 1120 p.., il. Hard. ISBN 978-5-8071-0229-4. 3000 copies. In Russian.

The book by French and Polish scientists provides the history of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe: Poland, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Hungary, Bulgaria, Belarus, Serbia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Romania, Slovenia, Montenegro and Croatia.
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DISCLAIMER: The composition of RNB's issues does not necessarily express the compilers' views. All topical English-language texts that come to the attention of the compilers, and are related to Russian nationalism are, as far as that is technically feasible, included.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: The contents of RNB are compiled with the help of, among other sources, CDI's "Johnson's Russia List," Monika Kirschner's "Ost-Verteiler," Sova Center's "Xeno-News," UCSJ's "Bigotry Monitor" and "FSU Monitor," Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's "Newsline," Dominique Arel’s "The Ukraine List," and E. Morgan Williams's "Action Ukraine Report."
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