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ukraine

Happy 19th anniversary of Ukrainian Independence (Updated)

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Ukraine celebrated it’s 19th anniversary of independence today, below are some news stories coming out of the wire:

Ukrainian president says wants more powers

Yanukovich said the former Soviet republic needed a new, stable political system led by a "strong president" to guide it through potentially painful structural reforms.

"In order to achieve this we need to reform the constitution thoroughly," he said in a televised speech on Ukraine’s Independence Day.

Ukraine curbed presidential powers in favour of parliament through constitutional amendments introduced in 2004 when pro-Western politician Viktor Yushchenko came to power after the "Orange Revolution" street demonstrations.

The curbs, promoted by Yanukovich’s supporters at the time, limited Yushchenko’s effectiveness as president and set up confrontation with parliament and prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko. The dispute ultimately contributed to his downfall in an election earlier this year.

Yanukovich supporters now say his hand should be strengthened so he can push through unpopular reforms such as raising household gas prices and slimming down the bloated pension system.

Many of the reforms have been undertaken at the behest of the International Monetary Fund which has extended a new $15 billion stand-by arrangement to Ukraine to help stabilise its economy.

Read the rest of the article

How can Presidential powers be relinquished for pro-Western President Yushchenko, and then be asked to be returned for pro-Russian President Yanukovych. In addition to that he wants the Constitution reformed (gutted) for a Chinese style one-party government that eliminates the opposition and leaves the door wide open for a return to Communism – on the 19th anniversary of the country’s independence!

Meanwhile a Kharkiv reporter critical about authorities has been missing and feared dead for two weeks now, as freedom of the press, speech and to organize have been under attack under this regime.

 

Interview: Scholar Says Ukraine’s Greatest Achievement ‘Survival’

As Ukraine marks its Independence Day on August 24, one analyst says Kyiv’s greatest accomplishment since independence has been "survival." But he adds that survival is not good enough.
Andrew Wilson, the author of books like "The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation" and "Ukraine’s Orange Revolution" and a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, talks to RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service correspondent Maryana Drach about the high and low points of the country’s 19 years of statehood.

RFE/RL: According to the latest opinion surveys, 45 percent of Ukrainians have doubts about whether Ukraine is truly an independent state. What is your view?
Andrew Wilson: In some ways, I might be one of them… Its economy has actually been in trouble recently, and with so many sectors falling under Russian influence, there is a question mark about how economically independent Ukraine really is.

RFE/RL: What is the biggest achievement by Ukraine during the last 19 years?
Wilson: Survival…

Continue reading Happy 19th anniversary of Ukrainian Independence (Updated) →

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Ukraine’s only independent TV stations to be taken off the air by Yanukovych government

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Last month I posted that Ukrainians who want independent and fair TV news coverage only had Channel 5 (Kanal 5) and TVi left. Channel 5 played a crucial role during the Orange revolution and TVi was set up by a Russian media tycoon who was the first victim of Vladimir Putin’s squeeze on media in Russia. Recently a court has stripped them of their new broadcast frequencies:

The board claimed that the court hearing was being influenced by Ukrainian Security Service head Valery Khoroshkovsky. Khoroshkovky owns the rival media holding Inter Media Group, which has asked for a new tender for frequencies. Khoroshkovsky strongly denied exerting pressure on Channel 5 and demanded proof of the allegations made by its editorial board.

"What kind of direct proof one can have, other than the fact that Khoroshkovsky is one of the owners of Inter Media Group? He is the chief of the security service, a member of the Higher Council of Justice. His wife is the manager of Inter Media Group. Here you have double standards," Roman Skypin, a journalist who heads TVi’s information service, said in an interview with RFE/RL.

As a result TVi will remain a satellite channel with little coverage in Ukraine, and Channel 5, whose licence allows it to be mainly about entertainment, may not be able to retain its news programmes.

It’s not surprising that independent media would start to disappear when the Yanukovych government decided to sack the current head of the SBU (secret service) and replace him with a rival television network and media empire owner. It is clearly a conflict of interest and journalists are vying for an independent parliamentary commission to investigate as well as Khoroshkovsky’s dismissal.

The development follows weeks of growing complaints by journalists about the resurgence of censorship and heightens fears that a Kremlin-styled crackdown on media freedoms could be in the works five months into the presidency of the Moscow-friendly Viktor Yanukovich.

Oleh Rybachuk, a former presidential administration chief turned civic activist, said “censorship is re-emerging, and the opposition is not getting so much coverage. There are similarities to what [Vladimir] Putin did when he came to power. We are seeing Putin-style attempts to monopolise power.”

In 2012 Ukraine makes the transition to digital broadcast television, in which all the old analog channels will discontinue and TV stations must re-apply for these new digital frequencies. Telekritika, a media watchdog news website and magazine commented in her Kyiv Post interview ‘Power wants monopoly’:

TVi had prepared the frequency for itself. It is common practice here that after that there has to be a tender held. By agreement with the National Council and all market players, the initiator has historically received the most frequencies. But they had to share with others, too.
But Inter Group claimed most of these frequencies – and that’s unfair. [Having understood that the claim would not be satisfied], they withdrew their application, and then filed a lawsuit. It’s not very clear why.

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The desire of the new power to control and monopolize television is visible through many of its actions and through the quality of the news we have.

Khoroshkovsky is a member of the High Council of Justice. In any democratic country, undoubtedly, this kind of a court hearing, with major procedural violations, simply could not happen.

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Another point is that something needs to be changed at the National TV and Radio Council. These sorts of commercial disputes lead to the loss of news channels. This shows inadequate work of the National Council, which has to make sure that we have information channels, public TV and that the needs for Ukrainian-language media are satisfied. But it has never done it in a civilized way.

And finally some background on television and politics in Ukraine:

During the Presidency of President Kuchma Ukrainian television was more or less controlled by Kuchma while the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (united) controlled Inter TV[1]. After the Orange Revolution Ukrainian television became more free. In February 2009 the National Council for Television and Radio Broadcasting claimed that "political pressure on mass media increased in recent times through amending laws and other normative acts to strengthen influence on mass media and regulatory bodies in this sphere".

As of January 2009 Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko refused to appear in Inter TV-programmes "until journalists, management and owners of the TV channel stop destroying the freedom of speech and until they remember the essence of their profession – honesty, objectiveness, and unbiased stand".

Members of Ukraine’s media have banded together to form the ‘Stop Censorship!’ movement to protest these actions of flagrant censorship.

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Ukraine’s security service welcomes Russian spies, intimidates Catholic church to spy on students (Updated)

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From Window On Eurasia:

Aleksandr Bortnikov, the head of Russia’s FSB, and Valery Khoroshkovsky, head of Ukraine’s SBU, have signed a five-year agreement that will allow Moscow again to put intelligence agents in Crimea, from which 19 such Russian officers were expelled at the end of last year for attempting to recruit Ukrainians as spies.

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The behavior of Russian agents last year, Rostislav Pavlenko, the director of the School of Political Analysis of the Kyiv-Mohylev Academy, said, raises doubts as to whether any document Moscow officials sign or any statements they make can be trusted. After all, what the Russians did last year was prohibited by bilateral agreements.

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Given that Ukraine has agreed to extend the presence of the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol for another 25 years, there is certainly time for the appearance of a situation “when the Black Sea Fleet and the special services based within it can be used in actions that are counter to the interests of Ukraine.”
But the impact of this FSB-SBU accord is likely to be even larger, Ukrainian political scientist Yevgeny Zherebetsky argued. That is because the commanders of the Black Sea Fleet, immediately after the extension of the basing accord, began a “massive” downsizing, retiring some 7500 staffers, “of whom 6500 are civilians and citizens of Ukraine.”

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In addition, the fleet plans to retire 550 officers, many of whom will like the civilians have relatively low pensions and thus be open as are the civilians for recruitment by the Russian special services for work against Ukraine as a way to supplement their relatively small benefit checks.
According to Zherebetsky, it is “very important for Russians to obtain control over Crimea” because it lacks warm water ports. But “if everything will develop so ‘well’ [for Moscow] as it is now, then the Russians will try to extend their influence to Odessa, Kherson, and Nikolayev,” in an arc extending from Transdniestria to Abkhazia.
For that purpose, he continued, “Russia needs a broad network of agents of the special services,” but its prospects for success if these agents are active are very good because “over the course of the period of independence, the Ukrainian leadership has done nothing so that Ukraine could obtain complete power over the territory of Crimea.”

Read the rest of the article

Meanwhile the SBU recently tried to recruit a Ukrainian Catholic priest to become a secret informant to infiltrate student protests, many whom dislike the Yanukovych government:

Continue reading Ukraine’s security service welcomes Russian spies, intimidates Catholic church to spy on students (Updated) →

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Education minister Tabachnyk approves unified Russian-Ukrainian textbooks: Stalin’s mass murders ‘entirely rational’

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Among the many ‘bend over’ deals Yanukovych signed with Medved on his visit to Ukraine last week, this slipped through many people’s radars:

The release of the first unified Russian-Ukrainian textbook for history teachers is planned for the end of 2010, the Ukrainian education minister said at a RIA Novosti video link-up

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“The textbook is being created for to the teachers who work with…secondary school pupils – to understand each other better,” Dmitri Tabachnyk said.

Many Ukrainians despise Tabachnyk for his professed hatred of Ukrainian nationalism. Not surprising then is his approval of school materials in Russia that have been quietly transforming into Soviet-era propaganda pieces for the government to idolize Stalin for a new generation:

Stalin acted ‘entirely rationally’ in executing and imprisoning millions of people in the Gulags, a controversial new Russian teaching manual claims.

Fifty-five years after the Soviet dictator died, the latest guide for teachers to promote patriotism among the Russian young said he did what he did to ensure the country’s modernisation.

The manual, titled A History of Russia, 1900-1945, will form the basis of a new state-approved text book for use in schools next year.

It seems to follow an attempt backed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to re-evaluate Stalin’s record in a more positive light.

Critics have taken exception, however, to numerous excerpts, which they say are essentially attempts to whitewash Stalin’s crimes.

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Historians believe up to 20 million people perished as a result of his actions – more than the six million killed during Hitler’s genocide of the Jews.

Now the new teaching manual is attempting to tell a generation of Russian schoolchildren that Stalin acted rationally.

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The manual informs teachers that the Great Terror of the 1930s came about because Stalin ‘did not know who would deal the next blow, and for that reason he attacked every known group and movement, as well as those who were not his allies or of his mindset.’

It stresses to teachers that ‘it is important to show that Stalin acted in a concrete historical situation’ and that he acted ‘entirely rationally – as the guardian of a system, as a consistent supporter of reshaping the country into an industrialised state.’

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The controversial manual is produced by the country’s leading school book publishers Prosveshenije, a state-supported company that was a monopoly supplier of classroom texts in the Soviet era, and appears to be returning to that role.

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Alexander Kamensky, head of the history department at the Russia State University for the Humanities, said the manual was, ‘sadly,’ a sign that teaching history in schools has become ‘an ideological instrument.’

But it seems to echo Putin’s remarks to a group of history teachers in June 2007 when he said while Stalin’s purges were one of the darkest periods of the country’s history, ‘others cannot be allowed to impose a feeling of guilt on us.’

An earlier manual called Stalin an ‘effective manager’.

Read the rest of the article

With this being taught in Ukrainian schools, as well as erections of Stalin busts in the country it seems that a new Soviet Union is in the works.

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Sad state of Ukraine

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Here are the latest happenings in the country, under the Russia-friendly Yanukovych government

The presidents of Ukraine and Russia, Viktor Yanukovych and Dmitry Medvedev, have laid wreaths before the Eternal Flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Kyiv Park of Glory. The ceremony took place amid heavy rain and hail.

Then, from the Eternal Flame, the presidents went on to the Memorial to the Holodomor Victims, where they also laid wreaths and lit oil lamps to commemorate the victims of Ukraine’s famine of 1930’s.

Yanukovych had some troubles at the ceremony – an eerie premonition from the country’s consciousness perhaps: ‘Stop selling out Ukraine’s national interests to Moscow’ or ‘Proclaim that the Holodomor was in fact genocide’

As of Tuesday afternoon, only three Ukrainian channels have aired this: Novy.tv, KanalUkraina.tv and 5.ua.
Reuters reportedly complied with the Yanukovych admin’s request to keep the embarrassing footage in the closet. [Ukrainiana]

 

Political persecution of opposition

Mrs Tymoshenko, who lost to President Viktor Yanukovich in a bitterly-fought election in February, immediately accused her old foe of conducting "open, undisguised repression" to silence her as an opposition force.

The prosecutor’s main investigation section said Mrs Tymoshenko had been called in on Wednesday and formally told that the case, which had been prematurely halted in January 2005 without a proper investigation, had been reopened.

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Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is paying an official visit to the ex-Soviet republic on May 17-18 and Mrs Tymoshenko’s BYuT bloc says it will organise protests if any more agreements are signed which it deems against the national interests.

As she left the prosecutor’s office, Mrs Tymoshenko told journalists she had been summoned to see investigators again on May 17 and she linked the move to Mr Medvedev’s visit.

"Yanukovich wants to demonstrate how he deals with the opposition," she said.

"Once again it shows he is … simply a puppet, ready to do whatever is required to humiliate and bleed Ukraine of its life’s blood.

"Yanukovich is now hauling out old cases which will lead nowhere. He is creating open, undisguised repression," she said.

 

Russia Plans to Open New Military Bases in Ukraine

Russia plans to reinforce Black Sea fleet in Ukraine and open new military bases in response to NATO expansion to the East, edition Nezavisimaia Gazeta informs about it.
Submarine base acting in Soviet Union in Balaklava will be restored first of all. Museum belonging to Ukraine’s military – marine forces runs on the territory of the base now.
Ukraine may give its consent on opening military bases in the mouth of Nikolaev, Odessa and Dunai.
Commander of Russian Black Sea Fleet Aleksandre Kletskov states that the government is working on not only modernization of the fleet but on plans of equipping Russian militants in Sevastopol and Crimea. Black Sea Fleet modernization plan is calculated till 2020.

 

Dreams of EU, NATO integration crushed

Ukraine’s representative to the European Union Andriy Veselovsky and head of the Ukrainian mission to NATO Ihor Sahach have been dismissed from their posts.
The relevant decrees were signed by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych on Wednesday, the president’s press service reported.
The documents do not state why the two were dismissed.

 

No more protests – depending who you cheer for 

Hundreds of supporters of President Viktor Yanukovich threw a cordon around the Ukrainian parliament today as opposition politicians and demonstrators angrily accused the leadership of selling out the country to Russia.

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Several hundred members of the pro-Yanukovich Regions Party today formed a barrier to the entrance to the parliament building, while police kept back about 3,000 supporters of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko from drawing near.

 

Censorship in Ukraine’s media

A European media rights watchdog says it is concerned about pressures on journalists working for Ukraine’s TV channels and is urging authorities to respect media freedom.

"We are concerned by these developments which threaten to reverse major steps we saw in past years toward democracy, partly thanks to press freedom, said Arne Konig, President of the Brussels-based European Federation of Journalists, in a statement Tuesday.

Last week, journalists from Ukraine’s two major private TV channels complained about censorship by authorities.

Last month, Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said the ex-Soviet nation has seen a return of intimidation and physical attacks on journalists and abuse of authority directed at the media since the election of its new, Russia-friendly president earlier this year.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych said on Thursday he would not allow any restrictions on freedom of expression in the country.

Moscow hopes for improved relations with Ukraine in the media sphere as a result of improving bilateral ties,  Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday.

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Yushchenko’s government reduced the presence of Russian television channels in Ukraine by banning several Russian channels in 2008 for not broadcasting in the Ukrainian language.

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Lavrov said the issue of expanding Russian media to other countries in the CIS calls for a comprehensive approach, based on conserving a common media space.

The release of the first unified Russian-Ukrainian textbook for history teachers is planned for the end of 2010, the Ukrainian education minister said at a RIA Novosti video link-up on Thursday.

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Russia and Ukraine differ in their interpretation of the 1930s famine in Ukraine. Ukrainian nationalists say Russia, as the legal successor of the Soviet Union, should bear responsibility for the famine in which more than 3 million people perished.

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He (Yanukovych) said the current authorities do not share the plans of the previous administration to make heroes of figures such as nationalist Stepan Bandera, a Nazi collaborator popular in the west of the country.

 For Ukrainians who want independent and fair TV news coverage, experts say the choices have dwindled to two options: Channel 5 and TVi.

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TVi’s owner, exiled Russian businessman Konstantin Kagalovsky, claims his channel is being unfairly stripped of frequencies by the State Committee on Television and Radio.
"Information airwaves have narrowed for the opposition. Censorship is re-emerging, and the opposition is not getting covered as much.”

So what about the rest?

One by one, they have fallen victim to the political interests of their owners, state censorship or old-fashioned journalistic self-censorship out of fear of running afoul of President Viktor Yanukovych’s administration.

 

Russian Payback – the neo Soviet Union

While it would be a stretch to say that Russia was the sole architect and puppet master of Ukraine’s February presidential election and Kyrgyzstan’s messy coup in April, the country certainly played a key role. It sheltered and supported Kyrgyz opposition leaders and made it clear to Ukrainian voters that a victory for Viktor Yanukovych would usher in a new era of cheap gas and increased trade. Moreover, this year’s strategic victories have inspired the Kremlin to encourage further regime change in what Russians still call their "near abroad."

Medvedev, on his first state visit to Ukraine, said he would welcome the former Soviet republic into the Russian-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO).

"If in the future you would consider it proper to join the CSTO, we would be happy to accept you," Medvedev said in Kiev. "The CSTO is not the Warsaw Pact… we do not need confrontation with NATO or other military blocs."

The Kremlin leader sought to draw Russia’s ex-Soviet neighbor closer to Moscow’s vision of European security on the last day of a visit in which the two sides have agreed to renew long-term cooperation after five years of cold relations.

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In a bid to shore up Yanukovich at home, Medvedev defended the fleet’s presence in the Black Sea port of Sevastopol as a guarantee of stability in the region.

"Will Russia use its Black Sea fleet to attack neighboring states? No, it will not," he told a gathering of university students in Kiev.

He made no mention of the deployment of the fleet’s flagship, the rocket cruiser Moskva, to blockade the Georgian port of Poti in 2008 during Russia’s brief summer war with Georgia.

Yanukovich has endeared himself to Moscow by pushing possible membership of NATO — pursued by his predecessor — off the agenda, but during Medvedev’s two-day visit, he stressed Ukraine’s neutral status as a "non-bloc state."

The Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada has upheld President Viktor Yanukovich’s decision to admit foreign servicemen to Ukraine in 2010 for taking part in multinational exercises.

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Ukraine will train together with NATO and neighbors, among them Russia, Belarus and Moldova.

The Party of Regions and the Communist Party opposed such exercises in the past. Party of Regions faction leader Alexander Yefremov explained the changed position with the need for training Ukrainian servicemen.

 

Russia is exploiting U.S. and European inattention to reassert its influence in the former Soviet republics, spending more than $50 billion to turn the “near abroad” into an engine of economic and political power.

Initiatives include Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s proposal to unify Ukraine’s state energy company with Moscow- based OAO Gazprom, discussed during talks this week in Kiev. Russia also cut gas prices to Ukraine to secure a naval base there, formed a customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan and pledged 75 percent of a $10 billion regional fund to help countries including Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

Russia aims to restore its leadership of a region with about 276 million people that produces 26 percent of the world’s gas and almost 16 percent of its oil, says analyst Sergei Mikheev. That would help Russia keep pace with the other BRIC countries — Brazil, India and China — and blunt EU and NATO expansion in an area it views as its sphere of influence.

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The EU, which gets 20 percent of its gas from pipelines running through Ukraine, declined to comment on the Russia- Ukraine proposal. Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said the deal was up to the two companies.

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the U.S. and EU refrained from speaking out during April’s Kyrgyz revolution, in which President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was toppled by an interim administration that secured $50 million in aid from Russia. Bakiyev’s collapse was caused by corruption and failure to ensure economic development, Medvedev said April 15.

Former Ukrainian prime minister and current opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko warned on Saturday that Ukraine may lose the Tuzla island in the Kerch Strait at the border with Russia as a result of forthcoming talks between the Russian and Ukrainian presidents.

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"As early as during the next visit [by the Russian president], discussions and decisions are expected to take place on one more territorial problem between Russia and Ukraine — the Kerch Strait, where Ukraine has an outlet to the Sea of Azov, where Ukraine has a possibility to develop strategic offshore oil and gas deposits," Tymoshenko said in a live broadcast on the Ukrainian Inter television channel.

"What is to be agreed and signed now — it means that we practically lose the Tuzla island. This is a question of a real territorial loss," the opposition leader said.

Medvedev signed a raft of agreements with President Viktor Yanukovych at the start of a two-day visit to Ukraine, including on border demarcation, aerospace, interbank cooperation and cooperation between intelligence services.

But difficulties were expected in talks on natural gas after Kiev’s cool reception of a proposal by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to merge Gazprom and Naftogaz, the countries’ main state energy holdings.

 

Gas-for-fleet was certainly no deal

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says his nation won’t scrap prospective pipeline routes bypassing Ukraine, but is ready to discuss other energy projects with the new Ukrainian leadership.

Medvedev told a Russian-Ukrainian business forum Tuesday that Russia’s state-controlled natural gas monopoly Gazprom and Ukraine’s Naftogaz company will continue talks on prospective means of cooperation.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has recently offered to merge Gazprom and Naftogaz. The proposal has drawn criticism from the Ukrainian opposition, which sees it as an attempt by Moscow to wrest control over a sprawling network of gas pipelines carrying Russian natural gas to Europe.

 

About 80 percent of Russia’s gas exports to Europe are delivered by Ukrainian pipelines. Gazprom twice in the past four years cut supplies to Ukraine because of pricing disputes.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych said he was not concerned about the South Stream pipeline project, designed to pump Russian gas to Europe bypassing Ukraine, Russian media has said.

The South Stream pipeline will pump 63 billion cubic meters of Russian natural gas annually to Bulgaria, Italy and Austria and is part of Russia’s efforts to cut dependence on transit nations, particularly Ukraine and Turkey.