speculation on the future of the Ukrainian oil and gas industry

Yuliya Tymoshenko is back and (I find the pun leaping to my typing fingers with the speed of inevitability) she's been cooking with gas. In addition to a whole raft of proposed economic reforms (including the TTI--Tymoshenko Transparency Index--which contains some admirable goals, but is ever-so amusingly self-absorbed) she's been promoting big-time gas and industry changes.

RosUkrEnergo and UkrHazEnergo

The new news is her statement that Yushchenko and the National Security and Defence Council have agreed to eliminate the RosUkrEnergo intermediary from Ukrainian-Russian natural gas trade. If true, this will be a victory for her, as she has long opposed the intermediary (for solid economic reasons, as described in detail in this article, though  the article does get embarrassingly laudatory at times). At another conference on the plans for her visit to Russia (Feb 21-22), Tymoshenko repeated that should be no intermediary. This despite the overall " harmony and understand" theme she was working on to try to put a diplomatic face on things (the Russian government has on occasion attempted to distance itself from RosUkrEnergo, likely because its lack of transparency makes it highly suspicious to the kind of energy investors Russia would like to woo, but has also never showed itself eager to eliminate the company from trade relations; Yushchenko has certainly couched his support for continuing the intermediary in "keep Russia happy" terms).

Moreover, Russia itself seems to be helping her. I thought I was going to be the first to make this connection and bring you some real news instead of bloggy conglomerations, but then I found this article at the Eurasia Heritage Foundation (anyone know something about this source?). The writer, John Marone, also noticed with interest the arrest of Seyon Mogilevich by the Russian government. The Eurasia Daily Monitor article details two prevailing theories on the arrest (that it was done by opponents of Medvedev to show they're still relevant or by Putin to put Mogilevich where he won't be talking to reporters), but Marone was more interested in how Tymoshenko might be able to use the arrest, since Mogilevich happened to be the major Russian participant in that very same RosUkrEnergo scheme.

He reports her statement on the arrest:

“The presence of additional middlemen is a sign of specific corrupt activities. The recent arrests demonstrate that the international community is following events and will not allow the development of any shadow models, including among states bordering the EU. Therefore, my position remains unchanged: all shadowy middlemen will be shut down.”

Nothing surprising there, but her discussions with them at the end of February should be fun to watch.

The White Line 

Simultaneously, she's kick-started discussion of another gas pipeline route, one that would bypass Russia but travel through Ukraine on its way to Europe. This comes at a time when another Russian-bypass pipe project proposed by EU countries themselves (Nabucco) has been foundering. (In an article called Pipedreams published the week before her announcement, Economist described the situation.)

How seriously should we take this? To put things bluntly: this sounds a lot like another Odesa-Brody pipeline and we don't hear much about that these days. Before Tymoshenko's White Line, it was the big pipeline project that was going to get Central Asian oil to Europe without Russia. As the linked RFE-RL article points out, though, Ukraine failed to find the oil to pump under Kuchma, and it's been pumping Russian oil the opposite way since 2004. While there is a prospective extension of that pipeline to Plock, there are still a lot of questions. To create another line to meet whatever unknown demand is left over with as-yet unknown supply does not seem particularly promising.

Nevertheless, even having the option on the table is a bargaining chip. And a reasonable argument can be made that a major reason for the failure of Odesa-Brody was a lack of government will to push it through and risk Russian retaliation (in forms such as raising the then-bargain natural gas rates), a lack Tymoshenko has never felt.

So throwing this idea sounds like fun to me, though I can't see why she called it the White Line and not something more like, say, TymoTunnel.

WTO and, Why Not?, the EU

Ukraine finished WTO bilateral negotiations this January (this was not a Tymoshenko thing; rather it was a steady if obscenely slow process pushed along by the last four government formations). Should the WTO officially welcome in Ukraine at its Feb 5 meeting, as Yushchenko has predicted, there will definitely need to be further reform and efforts to harmonize standards (referred to by the Ukrainian agriculture minister and indirectly by Yushchenko in his call for Tymoshenko to oversee the transition process for the grain sector). Nevertheless, Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin makes his government look rather spiteful and self-absorbed for saying Ukraine (after fourteen years of negotiation; the first ten of which were a wash) has recklessly rushed in "on unfavorable terms just to get in ahead of Russia."

However long we've been waiting for this move, that Ukraine will be getting into the WTO soon is a reason for a little bit of celebrating. Tymoshenko did so by proposing that the EU join Ukraine in a free trade zone and share joint visas with it.

The strategy reminds me of an old Calvin and Hobbes comic I once read:

"Mom, can I set fire to my bed mattress?"
"No, Calvin."
"Can I ride my tricycle on the roof?"
"No, Calvin."
"Then can I have a cookie?"
"No, Calvin."
"She's on to me." 

Who knows, maybe the EU reps will be squishier than Mrs., uh... Mrs. Calvin's Mom. (Then can we have an EU *action plan*?...)

GUAM 10 year anniversary recently marked in NYC at a synposium. Website here for plenary remarks and synopisis and here for Kyiv Post op-ed from Taras Kuzio in regards to GUAM.

Recent GUAM event in London. Launch of a new website observatory-guam.org  Inter-group Union to develop GUAM to be established in Ukrainian Parliament.  GUAM Countries Submitted to UN Draft Resolution on “Lingering Conflicts”. GUAM and Japan meet in Tokyo.

Yushchenko seems surprised Yanukovych doesn't want to go back

It's a bit late for Yushchenko to try to reign in Yanukovych. Since the laws addressing power distribution between the President and PM are vague, a lot of what each can do depends on what each tries to do. No prize for guessing who's winning.

Last week Yanukovych used his power to halt NATO ascension. EDM describes this as Yushchenko and his NSNU party's object lesson in what their "Grand Coalition" will get them.

But NATO isn't the biggest issue on the table. Recently, I found out why the WTO wasn't getting much press recently; Yanukovych has put the breaks on that process as well. The Kyiv Post surmises that this is because he wants to appease Russia by advocating synchronized entry. And last but not least, he's trying to fire all the governors the orange team hired last year, in the name of reform, of course.

Yushchenko's so powerless, his only countermaneuver has been to stop attending Cabinet meetings. His party has suggested Yanukovych should resign. How proactive.

Tymoshenko's sounding happy to be back in opposition; back to her usual feisty speeches. She's even cheekily extended the hand to NU to come join her. And, to a limited extent, it's worked. Some former NSNU allies have already joined her, others may as well.

Russian Relations 

Yanukovych has met with Russian oil companies execs and is increasing the amount being pumped. He came back promising lower gas prices but don't bet on it. There is, of course, the chance that certain unnamed concessions could be made to the Russian government, but as I've mentioned before, neither the government nor Gazprom has looked willing to extend Ukraine's discount days.

Smart move here: the Russian foreign ministry is now bringing up accusations that Ukraine discriminates against Russian and Russians. As I mentioned earlier, Yanukovych and the Party of Regions had promised preferential treatment for the Russian language during the campaign. That promise has recently languished as they've been addressing other matters. For the Russian state to be agitating now is a good political move to keep the language issue on the front burner. It might work, we'll see.

In any case, pro-Russian interests have already gotten another little bonus on the side. While Tarasyuk was appealing to the UN to recognize the Holodomor famine as an act of genocide, the Ukrainian government was, quietly, put off spending any money on a real memorial.

Shucks

After ten days, I was kinda expecting more in the way of news. Things basically just seem to be rumbling along in the same direction, on a macro-level.

I definitely have to start looking into getting some more pictures up.

Beats Confrontation With Russia, Says Tarasyuk

It's going to be an extremely short entry today, as I am working on a new section and a bunch more Carpathians pictures for the site. The pictures should be up before next week, the next section may take two, but in any case they're both taking a fair bit of my blogging time.

One item that has been in the news recently is that Georgia is contemplating leaving the CIS. Since it has made the announcement, a number of questions have been raised about whether or not Ukraine will follow. This is a legitimate question, considering the dissatisfaction Ukrainian Foreign Minister Tarasyuk voiced at the last CIS meeting. But Tarasyuk is at pains to say that while he thinks the meetings are fruitless, this is certainly not any reason to stop going. There's a diplomatic response for you.

[update: Vladimir Socor of the Eurasia Daily Monitor just published an article making a similar point as I did here. Kyiv Post had an article(subscr. only) on this before I did, but I couldn't access it yesterday, their site seemed to be down.]

Coalition Stalling

Have I not mentioned the coalition talks between Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko, Nasha Ukrayina, and the Socialists recently? That's because they're still stalled. It seems Yekhanurov's post election prediction that they'd go on until the deadline was correct. It's not a terribly impressive prediction from Yekhanurov, though, since the reason for the stall is Yekhanurov's NU is doing everything it can to prevent resolution. Certainly blog supporters aren't the ones holding up the process. They're clear they would like to see the parties back in coalition.

Last Wednesday, Tymoshenko and Socialist Leader Moroz called for talks with Yushchenko by that Friday. They didn't get them.

RosUkrEnergo and the Gas Issue

Good news for anyone who'd like to see some resolution in the gas issue. One impediment in reaching resolution, Naftogaz Chief Oleksiy Ivchenko, has resigned. He negotiated the current deal with Russia on behalf of Ukraine, and we were subsequently treated to months of unpleasant revelations about the deal. Let's hope he's replaced by someone more willing to keep negotiations open and transparent.

Also a nice rebuke to Yushchenko for his part in supporting the current non-transparent energy deal (and playing dumb about its owners), written by Taras Kuzio in the Kyiv Post.  I heartily approve.

Hi all. I feel I must observe the Chornobyl twenty-year anniversary here on the blog, though I have very little to add on the subject. Here is an AP article on the debate about the number of victims. Here is another, just your basic commemoration piece. My steadily aging tour piece (written last November, about a trip the year before) is still up.

If you're looking for further reading on the subject, Neeka recommends Svetlana Alexievich's Voices of Chernobyl, recently translated into English.

The Coalition Haggling

In the last two posts, I talked about the haggling between NSNU and BYT over the coalition. Well, it's still going on. Tymoshenko wanted Yushchenko to come in and provide some guidance (and in the process make his views plain) but he rebuffed her. What with Orthodox Easter last Sunday, there was time for little else to happen. The bickering goes on, but ITAR-TASS, for one, points out that at least the coalition hasn't been impregnated.

The Commonwealth of Independent States

The most recent CIS conference seems to have failed. Talks have been failing for a while now, because the first item on the agenda has been the creation of a Common Economic Space (confusingly CES). Russia and Belarus have wanted an economic union from the CES, Ukraine wants nothing more than a free trade area, in order not to jeopardize its EU aspirations. The conflict has never been resolved, and the CIS has done little, but it's failure has not generally been to the point where Ukraine's Foreign Minister and representative calls it: "not a normal international organization," "unresponsive to situations that are most sensitive to member states," "useless," and "has no future."

Gas and Oil

Big big news here: Izvestia, a Russian newspaper owned by Gazprom just outed its co-owners of RosUkrEnergo. What they have said is that Dmitriy Firtash owns 90% and Ivan Fursin 10% of Centragas, the company holding a 50% share of RosUkrEnergo (Gazprom has the other 50%). Raiffaisen Bank, based out of Austria, was holding the shares but refused to reveal who owned them. When Izvestia came out with the news, they confirmed it.

This is surprising to me. I am at a loss to understand why Gazprom would choose to reveal these investors now. I mean, I'm thrilled, the more transparency the better, so I'm certainly happy they did. But Russia has given every indication it wants the current agreement to stand. So why then would they think this would help prevent that? Perhaps they hoped the fact that Firtash and Fursin are Ukrainian would counter some allegations that the company was a Russian front? If anyone out there has another theory, I'm all ears.

Some background: Firtash had been suspected of being one of the owners for a while, as he had been tied to the precursor to RosUkrEnergo, EuralTransGas. (sub only Kyiv Post, for more read this RFE-RL article)

Another tiny, and as yet little reported bit of news. A mystery oil and gas company called Vanko International (incorporated in the US), has won a tender to develop a gas deposit in the Ukrainian part of the Black Sea. It beat Shell and ExxonMobile for the tender. Man I hate transparency-stifling mystery companies. I hope some enterprising Ukrainian journalists take a closer look at this tender and ferret out more information.

An Easter Greeting

Easter GreetingsKristos Voskres, everyone! Lesya and were spending quality time with the family, and hope y'all were able to, too. To celebrate, here are some of our pictures from the Carpathians.

Yushchenko's Parliament Dissolver

For those Orange Ukraine readers who don't know, Yushchenko legally has the ability to dissolve Parliament if a majority faction cannot be formed and a PM not chosen within a set timeframe after the March election. Furthermore, RIA Novosti, not my best source, now has him as saying he may use that ability. I don't see this as a strong threat, but considering some of Yushchenko's policies in the past, I consider it enough of a possiblity to mention in this space.

You'd Have to be MAD

To me the exercise of this right would be the political equivalent of an atom bomb. It would annihilate the current form of government down to the tiniest pieces, and after that it would be anybody's guess what the new government would look like. No politician in the majority non-NSNU Parliament that is sure to arise after the election would agree to any new reformation of the government amenable to NSNU.The result would be chaotic and would leave the nation with essentially no government for months. No sane businessperson would want to work in this environment unless he was expecting to make illicit gains. The political risk in the country would go off the charts, so say goodbye to FDI.Heaven help Ukrainians if it occurs.

I cannot stress enough how bad an idea this would be. Yushchenko should be ashamed for even threatening to use it. Why would he do this?

Poor Posture

In trying to explain this move to myself: I toss this in with the rest of NSNU's contradictory statements about whether it would consider joining in coalition with Yanukovych, or get back together with Tymoshenko after the election.

The Eurasia Daily Monitor is uncertain, citing Yushchenko's statement that the question of whether or not his bloc might form a coalition with Regions of Ukraine cannot be answered until after the election (ForUm has him down as saying Orange forces shouldn't discuss any positions before the election). On the other hand, Roman Zvarych has now dismissed the idea of forming a coalition with Yanukovych categorically and claims there is a secret tally that he thinks will get them the minimum needed Orange coalition.

Roman Bessmirtniy, according to EDM, has joined with Zvarych in stating his assurance that NSNU will join in coaltion with Tymoshenko. Funny, a little over a month ago he was accusing Tymoshenko of using Hitler-like methods to gain support, but now he's ready to join up with her. As I've said at least a thousands times: can NSNU get rid of this waste of a deputy seat, please?

It's no wonder Bessmirtniy is on the blacklist of people in NSNU that Tymoshenko says her bloc would be unwilling to join in coalition with. (though how she would expect NSNU to selectively exclude a small handful of deputies in its own party, I have no idea.) At least on the topic of whether or not she would ever join in coalition with Yanukovych she's clear: no, opposition would be better, and shame on you for even considering it, NSNU.

It's clear to me that Yushchenko's party is trying to revile Tymoshenko and her party as much as possible, knowing that their efforts repulse very few former Orange supporters so much that they will vote for Yanukovych (a good point in this rather astoundingly optimistic article). Therefore NSNU concentrates its fire on Tymoshenko, despite knowing they will have to join in coalition with her after the election, to try to win over some of her votes and become the strong party in the coaltion.

If NSNU does manage to come out significantly ahead, its deputies will be able to argue from strength that Yekhanurov should remain PM and Tymoshenko should only get a secondary ministry position. As a consequence of this infighting strategy, they hardly take a shot at the oligarch-crammed Regions of Ukraine.

As best I can tell, this (foolishly short-sighted) strategy is accompanied by the threat of dissolving the Parliament to get Tymoshenko to back off her efforts to become Prime Minister. This isn't my most solid theory ever (it relies on NSNU having such a poisonous hatred of Tymoshenko they would reject all reasonable debate), so if any of you have a better one, I would be thrilled to hear it.

In other news...

Voter List Problems

The Moscow Times has an interesting article stating that many Ukrainians with Russian last names have had their last names converted to the Ukrainian equivalents on the election rolls. The reason for this deplorable change, however, is less clear. They quote a NSNU spokeswoman as saying "Commission officials could not be reached for comment. But Tatyana Makridi,
a spokeswoman for the ruling bloc, Our Ukraine, said regional and local administrations in the eastern and southern regions were responsible for the voters' rolls and any mistakes on them," and Taras Chernovil as saying it's all part of a plot to disenfranchise Eastern Ukrainians.

The CVU responded with what they've said elsewhere, which is that the election rolls in general (as always seems the case) are a complete mess right before the election(Ukr). Yes, the authorities have called on voters to check their names in the rosters before the election, but that hardly substitutes for getting the books straight in advance. I, for one, would have thought that there would have been more progress in getting the voting rolls in order after having three rounds of elections in 2004 in which many many voters lodged complaints or changed their information.

For whatever reason, it looks like poorly kept voter rolls will again be a significant impediment to people exercising their rights to vote. One of the positive developments in both the second and third rounds of the 2004 elections was that the exactness with which a person's passport name must match the name on the books was relaxed, which helped at least get over people being refused for minor misspellings. Hopefully the system will be sufficiently accomodating in this regard this time around, too.

Watch for the translations of names in specific, though, because it is a particularly biased form of poor recordkeeping. May it be an isolated problem.

Transdniester Backtracking

So the YuGov is celebrating because the Transdiester authorities have lifted their embargo. (that's right, Transdniester's embargo, don't believe the crowing from Russia and the statelet that Ukraine was the one shutting down the border: what Ukraine actually did at the beginning of the month was allow Moldovan customs inspectors to inspect goods exiting the statelet, while Transniester itself blocked off the border in retaliation)

But as Vladimir Socor of the Eurasia Daily Monitor explains, this is not a victory, this is the Ukrainian government backing off. (Kuchma backed off in a single week the last time the topic came up, the YuGov seems to have lasted three) The reason the embargo has been lifted is that Ukraine has opened up some loopholes both in the legal wording of the new customs regime, and by allowing certain goods to simply bypass the Moldovan authorities who should be reviewing all trade.

One would have assumed that shutting down the border was partially political maneuvering ahead of March, but the retrenchment seems to make whatever message was to come out of this rather pointless. Perhaps it was just an attempt to score points in the international community in order to get some good press without needing the guts to actually follow it up with due dilligence.

How sad.

here's hoping for a tight seal

So in its usual bruisingly herky-jerky way, the Yushchenko government has finally cracked down on bandit-state Transdniester. On March 5, Ukraine changed its customs regulations such that "cargos coming to Ukraine from Transdniestria may be cleared only if their clearance is certified by the Moldovan Custom Service". As the Kyiv Post reports, Moldova then demanded that all Transdniester businesses begin to pay Moldovan taxes and reregister in Chisinau (with some tax breaks and other sops).

The extremity of this change in tactics would be hard to overstate, as only last month the government joined up with Russia to circumvent the current negotiations, an act which left out Western participants and accepted the Moscow-Tiraspol argument that, according to EDM, "a) introduced European customs regulations on that border would amount to an "economic blockade" of Transnistria, and b) stated Transnistria has a "right" to conduct its own external trade operations, pending a political settlement of the conflict."

Of course the Transdniester barons and Russia are pissed. Russia has, in fact, been denouncing the new deal non-stop since it went through. Their main reason for opposing the plan is their blindingly obvious insight that Ukraine is using this to try to pressure Transdniester.

Of course it is. When you crack down on smuggled goods out of a country whose economy is based on smuggling, you'd hope it would pressure someone. Transdniester President Igor Smirnov seems to think it will work, too, saying that this means "slow economic death" for the statelet, while his Chamber of Commerce Head just calls it "unacceptable". There was also much talk from Smirnov about how Russia is Transdniester's last real friend.

Prompted by the EU Border Assistance Mission?

In contrast to the Russians and Transdniester government, the EU lauded the crackdown as "very important for the establishment of an orderly regime on the Ukrainian-Moldovan border, to which the EU attaches great importance."

They should know what it represents, too, because they recently established their first ever border assistance mission on the Ukraine-Moldova-Transdniester border, a mission whose effectiveness hinged on Ukraine's border integrity.

Smirnov's theory is that Ukraine is being "used by Moldova", while Moldova's response to the change in policy was "well finally!" This seems like a very timely save by Ukraine in the face of the decline into irrelevance of OSCE mediation, a process described in all its painful detail by Vladimir Socor of the Eurasia Daily Monitor (in chronological order starting last summer): 1 OSCE dodging big issues, 2 Transdniester demilitarization deal flawed and full of holes, 3 New deal does not reduce Russian presence in Transdniester, 4 New negotiations format leaves out West, , 5 OSCE survives through minimal relevance, 7 Moscow destroying OSCE credibility from inside, 8 Russia stonewalls at end year conference, 9 EU critical of OSCE-Russia deal.

So you have an EU that is critical of the weak stance of the OSCE.  With that failure of OSCE intervention, the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy was crumbling. It was on the border and in a position to back up its accusations of smuggling with solid evidence, and it desperately needs Ukrainian assistance to curtail that smuggling. The border mission has just had a few months to really put together a decent report, and so I would guess that it was primarily EU pressure that was motivating Ukraine.

Will It Hold Up?

Well, it's already lasted longer than the last time (under Kuchma in 2001) when Ukraine allowed Moldovan customs officials to inspect shipments from Transdniester. That didn't hold up longer than 24 hours. 

The main actor is likely to be Yanukovych. He should come in on the discussion any day now to condemn the loss of real negotiations and friendly relations with Russia, but what he'll do as PM if Regions wins enough seats to get him in is much less clear. EDM speculated that Petro Poroshenko was likely to have benefitted from the illegal trade, which may explain why the NSNU government would be shutting it down right before Yanukovych is set to gain new powers, rather than earlier.

But Yanukovych may restart the trade anyway, arguing for "improved relations" with Russia and betting he'll be able to weather the NSNU and BYT accusations of smuggling enough to make it worthwhile to pick up where Poroshenko left off.

This is just a quick riff in response to Ukrainska Pravda's article: First Cracks in the Armor of the Kremlin's Spin Doctors.

The article is a commentary on Ukraine's recent decision not to invite the CIS observation mission to observe the March election. UP thinks this is a good move, since the CIS observers deserve to be barred for their partisanship during the 2004 election. (the only one they have ever judged negatively, including elections in Belarus and the 'Stans)

I think this is really dumb. Yes, no legitimate observer group would come away from the 2004 Belarus election claiming it was "free and fair". So what? Let them come and give their inevitable speeches about election fraud on the part of everyone but Regions of Ukraine and maybe the Communists. The observers themselves are unlikely to add to the fraud themselves, and the inevitable contrast between their opinion and that of all the legitimate observers will only provide yet another example showing that they produce results to fit an agenda, not in response to the actual event.

By this point, nobody who does not already subscribe to the anti-democratic CIS agenda gives them any credit. What possible harm could they do as observers that is worse than the moral victory they get by being unable to observe? As observers, they will be judged based on their results. As potential observers barred from the process, they can make, and will make, a slew of accusations of corruption and anti-democratic behavior that they need not support with evidence gathered in the field.

Barring the CIS observers doesn't stop them from saying what they've always said, it just stops them from needing to find supporting evidence. 

Contradicted from On High

I'm starting to think that there is an unspoken agreement in the YuGov that, for any issue, the will of the Cabinet will be represented by the first minister to "call" the issue. At least that's the only way I can explain this idiocy by State Property Fund Chief and Socialist Valentina Semenyuk:

Fund chief Valentyna Semeniuk told Gazeta Po-Kiyevski that the agency, which is responsible for state-owned property and its privatization, is conducting an inventory and looking into allegations of widespread misappropriations during Kuchma's decade in office.

"We have checked 65 percent (of formerly government-owned property), and the preliminary conclusion is: 20,000 businesses were stolen under Kuchma," the newspaper quoted Semeniuk as saying. [AP]

When Tymoshenko said back in February that thousands of businesses might be up for reprivatization she was quickly corrected by Yushchenko. Since then, the official number of likely reprivatization candidates has been thirty, but we've also dealt with investors scared off left and right. It was a massive failure for the YuGov, in term of attracting much needed foreign investment.

Publicized Sabatoge

Now Semenyuk comes along and repeats the same old talk about massive numbers of businesses that might be reprivatized. It's like the woman is trying to sabotage all potential for foreign investment and privatization revenues this year.

Wait a second. She is trying to sabotage all potential for FDI and privatization revenues - She's an unprogressive, unreformed Socialist. She has said from the start that she is opposed to more privatization. She's got a decade-long record of opposing privatization. Keeping in mind that she's head of the State Privatization Fund, she has said of privatization:

"I would like to say that the red line of economic security has been reached. The state retains only 22 per cent of production companies. Compared with the former Soviet countries, we have the highest level of capitalization. So, there is nothing left to sell, as it were."

[ICTV television, Kiev, in Ukrainian 1500 gmt 15 May 05; via BBC Monitoring; I commented on this statement in May here]

Privatization has gone ahead anyway, and I've mentioned that Semenyuk may not be doing anything more than posturing. But that's enough. When Socialist deputies joined the Communists and Party of Regions deputies in posing against WTO reforms, the Kyiv Post said, in effect: "We know that the YuGov and Nasha Ukrayina have been in alliance with the socialists from the start. But the Socialists have already broken the alliance, in spirit, by being willfully obstructionist against their own allies. Kick the bums out." My sentiments exactly.

However, Semenyuk isn't the only minister getting contradicted by Yushchenko these days.

Using Ministers As Lightning Rods

Just a couple entries ago I grumped that it seems impossible to kill the SES (Single Economic Space - I'm going to try to stick with this from now on, to avoid confusion between the Common Economic Space and Commonwealth of Independent States).

I had hoped that Ukraine had finally admitted that the deal was dead when Economic Minister Serhiy Teryokhin talked about moving on a few weeks ago. There was a huge flurry of reporting immediately after that, then Yushchenko and Tymoshenko contradicted him and said Ukraine will continue to try to work on this.

Which makes me wonder if: a) Teryokhin was speaking his mind as if it were the will of the YuGov, the same way Semenyuk did. b) Teryokhin was testing the skies for the YuGov, with the tacit consent of Yushchenko and Tymoshenko. If lightning struck him out of a media storm, then the YuGov would know that he had taken too controversial a stance, and how far the issue could be pushed.

There is precedence for the latter foreign relations strategy in Russia. Rather than taking locally popular but internationally untenable stances himself, Putin lets his allies voice them. In that way, he gets to rally Russians with slogans especially concerning foreign policy, then politely deny those slogans to foreign officials. The foreign officials get a visual display of what Russian people really want, and Putin gets to remain their more rational friend in government.

I've heard more than one person comment on this issue that Zhirinovsky (whose raison d'etre seems to be to make wild populists statements) is the man that foreign officials should look to for the "real" beliefs of Russian politicians. I like to think of his as the national id.

No Party Line, No Party

The problem with this strategy is that if Cabinet deputies go off voicing their own opinions and getting corrected by Yushchenko repeatedly, not only will the political incoherence further depress the YuGov's declining poll ratings (beautifully analyzed in this RFE-RL article), but analysts and voters are going to think of ministers as mere powerless talking heads. Politics in the nation will continue to be about a very small number of individuals and their values, rather than parties with values of their own.

Ukraine has long been a country with parties, but without party lines. The Communists are always easy to place, and the Socialists are at least consistently left-ish, but beyond them, things get very hazy. My theory on this is that since many politicians were just powerful local businessmen in politics for their own gain, and they couldn't voice this credo aloud, they joined on with whatever party seemed most advantageous, and switched parties and slogans when it suited.

If the YuGov really wants to prepare for the March 2006 election, it's going to need to place a lot more emphasis on having each party adhere to a single party political ideology. It's OK if Nasha Ukrayina and Tymoshenko's Fatherland party don't agree on everything, so long as Fatherland deputies are recognizably in agreement on a number of issues, and likewise NU deputies.

This will require a lot of policing of their deputies by Yu and Ty, but their reward will be that when March rolls around, they will be able to present deputies to voters whose views voters understand, and they will not be plagued by dissention in the ranks after the election. If they do no policing, I'm afraid that they will pick up large numbers of opportunist deputies in the build up to March, who will then quietly undermine the party goals in favor of their own goals as soon as they've used allegiance to the party to get elected.

What follows is just a reprint of this Eurasia Daily Monitor article. The idea being discussed sounds grrreat. I've always said that Ukraine needs to hang out with Poland as much as possible, because if any country both knows a) what Ukraine is going through, and b) what are the steps Ukraine should take to improve that situation in the next 5 years, it's Poland.

Furthermore, that the topic of the old Polish Commonwealth can come up like this is also good, because it means angry Ukrainian nationalists are not making enough of a fuss to stop Ukraine and Poland from hanging out. This is a very good thing in Ukraine's context of strong nationalist feelings coming out in relations with Poland.

Interlude on Ukraine's Context: Two years ago, in June of 2003, Ukraine signed a mutual statement with Poland expressing regret and sorrow for the Volyn Massacre and an associated attack on Poles. The nationalists didn't like it because they felt Ukraine had been more wronged (more civilian casualities) than Poland, so the Poles should apologize more. In the end, the bill narrowly passed, and I considered it the high point of Ukrainian politics until the Orange Revolution.

Reconciliation with Poland is a great thing for Ukraine because Poland is Ukraine's best friend: a country a few steps ahead of Ukraine, in a club Ukraine wants to enter, but with similar problems, a similar culture, and interests in greater trade without the baggage of dirty deals, non-transparency, and undemocratic government that makes trade relations with Russia more fraught.

Enough of my opinions, here is the article.

Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine Create Inter-Parliamentary Assemply, Joint Battalion

On May 13, Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, Arturas Paulauskas, and Volodymyr Lytvyn, chairmen of the Polish, Lithuanian, and Ukrainian parliaments, respectively, signed the founding declaration of an Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of the three countries.  The ceremony was held in Lutsk, Ukraine.
 
The forum's ambit is that of the historic Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which included most of present-day Ukraine, and was a constitutional monarchy with deeply rooted parliamentary traditions from the 15th through the 18th centuries. Symbolically, the newly founded Inter-Parliamentary Assembly may be viewed as a distant successor to the Commonwealth's Diet, which ceased to exist when autocratic Russia annexed most of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth's territory in the late 18th century. Beyond symbolism, however, in the real world of politics the recent revival of parliamentary democracy in Poland, Lithuania, and Ukraine signifies the success of European constitutionalism in the historic contest against Russian autocracy in this region.
 
Lutsk is the administrative center of Ukraine's region of Volhynia, which in the course of centuries passed from Lithuanian to Polish to Ukrainian control. The choice of this venue also symbolizes Polish-Ukrainian reconciliation in the post-nationalist era. The idea to create a Polish-Lithuanian-Ukrainian Inter-Parliamentary Assembly arose in December 2004 in Kyiv, when Presidents Alexander Kwasniewski of Poland and Valdas Adamkus of Lithuania successfully mediated a democratic solution to the standoff in Ukraine, preventing the Moscow-backed candidate Viktor Yanukovych from stealing the presidential election.
 
The Inter-Parliamentary Assembly's first plenary session, with the participation of ten deputies from each country, is planned to convene in Kyiv by the end of this month. The forum's main stated goals include: advancing Ukraine's aspirations to join NATO and the European Union, helping transfer Poland's and Lithuania's successful reform experience to the legislatures of Ukraine and other reforming countries, and advocating an open-door policy by NATO and the EU toward aspirant countries.
 
On May 15 in Vilnius, Adamkus conferred with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko on that common agenda for Eastern Europe. At their joint news conference, Adamkus encouraged  "Ukraine at this time to take up the flag of democratization and be a leader carrying it in Eastern Europe." With this, Adamkus seemed to suggest the direction for Ukraine to channel its stated ambitions to play the role of "regional leader." In that context, Yushchenko singled out the problem of Transnistria, "a hot spot on Ukraine's border," underscoring Ukraine's interest in leading international efforts to solve that problem.
 
On May 16 in Warsaw, Presidents Kwasniewski, Adamkus, Vladimir Voronin of Moldova, and Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Borys Tarasyuk representing Yushchenko (who had to change his schedule for medical reasons) held a working dinner at the outset of the Council of Europe summit. They focused on coordinating positions in international organizations, keeping the EU's doors open for such countries as Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia, and advancing the reform agenda in that region. Transnistria also figured prominently on the agenda, with Voronin calling for a solution based on "democratic norms and European standards."
 
Poland, Lithuania, and Ukraine are also close to fielding a tripartite peacekeeping battalion. It is an outgrowth of the existing bilateral Ukrainian-Polish and Lithuanian-Polish battalions (UkrPolbat, LitPolbat). On May 11 in Kyiv, Defense Ministers Anatoly Hrytsenko of Ukraine and Gediminas Kirkilas of Lithuania signed an agreement on joining with Poland to create the tripartite LitPolUkrbat. Its first mission is planned to begin later this year in Kosovo, with Poland and Ukraine contributing 200 to 300 troops each, and Lithuania 140 troops, to the NATO-led, UN-mandated Kosovo Force (KFOR). Outside NATO's framework, it should be wholly realistic for LitPolUkrbat to consider participating in peacekeeping missions in Moldova and Georgia at these countries' request.
 
(PAP, BNS, ELTA, Interfax-Ukraine, May 11-16; Ukrainian TV Channel One, May 15; Moldpres, May 16)
 
--Vladimir Socor
 

[Update: Well, shoot. Now that I've read this article in the LA Times, I'm no longer so gung-ho about Bush's comments on the Yalta Agreement. Here was the most embarrassing part for me:

The truth is that Yalta did not hand Eastern Europe to the Soviets. That territory was already in their possession. Stalin had made clear his plan to take over as much territory as possible back in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of 1939, which carved Poland in half and gave the Soviets the Baltic states. The discovery in 1943 of the massacre of Polish officers by the Soviet army in the Katyn forest was further evidence of Stalin's malign intention to exterminate the leadership of Poland. Then, in 1944, during the Warsaw uprising by the Polish Home Army, Stalin halted the advance of his army on the banks of the Vistula River and allowed Nazi SS units to return to slaughter the Poles. By the time of Yalta, the Red Army occupied all of Poland and much of Eastern Europe.

Theoretically, Churchill and Roosevelt could have refused to cut any deal with Stalin at Yalta. But that could have started the Cold War on the spot. It would have seriously jeopardized the common battle against Germany (at a moment when Roosevelt was concerned with winning Soviet assent to help fight the Japanese, which he received).

Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower was happy to let the Soviets bear the brunt of the fighting as they marched toward Berlin, and he was unwilling to expend American troops on storming the German capital. The only one who was eager to do that was Gen. George Patton, who hoped to take on the Russians as well. Given the domestic pressure to "bring the boys back home," Roosevelt would have been taking a politically suicidal course had he broken with our allies, the Soviets.

And now there is this well-argued piece in the Washington Post, with the following good excerpt:

In the cold light of history, then, counting on Stalin's good faith was a terrible mistake, but what would Roosevelt and Churchill's retrospective critics -- including President Bush -- have had them do? "Whoever occupies a territory also imposes on it his social system," Stalin said in 1945. "Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can reach. It cannot be otherwise."

Going to war with the Soviets in 1945 was hardly a reasonable option, and in fact never proved reasonable in the ensuing 40 years. Had FDR lived, would things have turned out differently with the Soviets? It seems unlikely.

The trouble was not in Washington or London but in Moscow. Just before he left the capital for what would be his last trip to his cottage at Warm Springs, Ga., Roosevelt told an aide: "We've taken a great risk here, an enormous risk, and it involves the Russian intentions. I'm worried. I think Stalin will be out of his mind if he doesn't cooperate, but maybe he's not going to; in which case, we're going to have to take a different view." Roosevelt knew that politics, like life, is an ever-unfolding story. Reflecting on Yalta, Roosevelt told a friend: "I didn't say it was good . . . . I said it was the best I could do."

Governing always looks easier from the visitors' side of the desk in the Oval Office, and history suggests that America would do well to be more forbearing and magnanimous in how we view past, present and, in campaigns, future leaders. "People are constantly evaluating somebody's standing in history, a president's standing in history, based upon events that took place during the presidency, based upon things that happened after the presidency," Bush has said. "And so I just don't worry about vindication or standing." Bush can only hope that his successors will be more generous in their verdicts about him than he has been in judging those who came before.

Looks like I should have remembered my college major and looked into the history a bit more.

In contrast, there is an article by one of my favorite commentators, Ann Applebaum at the Wall Street Journal:

Both left and right would do better to stand back and think harder about how important it is for American diplomacy, and even Americans' understanding of their own past, when U.S. presidents, Republican or Democrat, admit that not every past U.S. policy was successful -- which, by any measure, Yalta was not. Since the end of the Cold War, historical honesty has become more normal everywhere in the West, and rightly so: We aren't, after all, trying to withstand a Soviet propaganda onslaught, and we've grown more used to thinking, at least some of the time, of our national disputes as evidence of the authenticity of our democracy. To put it differently, apologies are something that democracies can do, at least occasionally, but that the Chinese or the Syrians always find impossible. Infallibility nowadays is something that only dictatorships claim.

Both left and right should also consider contexts more carefully. Certainly the president's speech last weekend did not sound personal, as if he were apologizing to feel good about himself. It did not mention Roosevelt by name or wallow in Cold War rhetoric. On the contrary, Bush went on afterward to talk about the democratic values that had replaced Yalta, and to draw contemporary lessons. The tone was right -- and it contrasted sharply with the behavior of Russian president Vladimir Putin, as perhaps it was intended to. Asked again last week why he hadn't made his own apology for the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe, Putin pointed out that the Soviet parliament did so in 1989. "What," he asked, "we have to do this every day, every year?"

The answer is no, the Russian president doesn't have to talk about the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe every day -- but during a major, international anniversary of the end of the war, he clearly should. And no, the U.S. president does not have to talk about Yalta every year, but when he goes to Latvia to mark the anniversary of the end of the war he should -- just as any American president visiting Africa for the first time should speak of slavery. No American or Russian leader should appear unpatriotic when abroad, but at the right time, in the right place, it is useful for statesmen to tell the truth, even if just to acknowledge that some stretches of our history were more ambiguous, and some of our victories more bittersweet, than they once seemed.

I'm very glad I jumped out there with the first thoughts I had on this subject and had to change my mind a couple times; because I've learned a lot more about this issue in the meanwhile. Apologies for waffling on all of you, reading about this event has been a learning experience for me, by which I mean I made a bunch of mistakes.]

My old post:

Considering all the Victory Day events I was a little worried about Bush's visit to Russia. That is why I'm particularly glad he took time out on Saturday to give the harshest criticism of the 1945 Yalta Agreement of any US President, contributing to an overall message that the Eurasia Daily Monitor describes as decidedly pro-Baltic (in contrast to pro-Russian). I think his words were excellent for the occasion. On Friday, the Independent pointed out that:(non-subscription copy to be found here)

George Bush, by contrast [to Gerhard Schroeder] faces the trickiest of diplomatic tasks. Unencumbered by any national experience of the bitter turmoil that ravaged Old Europe, this US president will happily deliver his lines about democracy and freedom, exhorting his audiences to look to the future, rather than the past.

The way Cornwell describes Bush's task, it doesn't seem so difficult, but I think his point was that Bush got to stroll into a situation in which most of Eastern Europe is furious and the US is nearly a complete outsider. That's particularly difficult diplomacy that is always liable to get someone extremely pissed at you.

By focusing on how the US contribution to the Yalta agreement doomed much of Eastern Europe to murderously repressive Soviet rule, Bush both told the truth and engaged in some pre-emptive self-deprecation. This makes it much harder for the obedient Russia media to nail the US for hypocrisy, and may help keep people in this part of the world from slipping off into hazy nostalgia.

Bravo for that.

Good Word, Now How About Some Action?

Before I get too complementary, I need to mention that while the talk has been good, the US government should do some more walking, too. Specifically they should be getting rid of the Jackson-Vanik amendment, which sets up trade barriers against Ukraine.

This would be the clearest first step the US government could take, and as I have mentioned before, Bush said the US was prepared to take that step. Yushchenko asked Congress to "tear down this wall" and in case we'd forgotten, the message has been repeated just recently. How about some action?

Ready for a shock? If MosNews has the facts right:

Russian ambassador to Ukraine, former Russian PM, Viktor Chernomyrdin, said Georgia is more to blame for genocide of Ukrainians than Russia.

Speaking to journalists, the ambassador said that since Joseph Stalin was originally from Georgia, accusations of mass repressions should be directed at that country, Lenta.Ru reported.

Chernomyrdin was asked whether Russia acknowledged the genocide of the Ukrainians by the Soviet leadership. “If we speak about terror in the times of the USSR, as a result of that, the number of Russians killed was far greater than that of Ukrainians. We still cannot answer to our people for that. If anyone is to receive claims, address them to Georgia, the ’father of nations’ Joseph Stalin was from that country,” the ambassador replied.

Chernomyrdin is so ideologically cracked it's theoretically funny, but the humor is too dark for me.

Meanwhile, the Guardian reports in this article and the Telegraph in this article that in a rather ghoulish bit of character vivisection, some Russians are attempting to slice off the best piece of the dictator (didn't actually loose WWII, despite his mistakes) and claim that as Russian.

The attempt to pull the WWII victory out of Stalinist oppression, while still attributing it to Stalin, leads me to believe this UPI article is internally logically consistent and well written, but wrong.

Here is how the author closes:

Does Putin demand recognition and glorification of the Soviet achievement over Hitler to serve his own "autocratic" and "neo-imperialist" agenda for today's Russia? This is what most media appear to claim as the 60th anniversary events in Moscow approach.

Far from it, Putin's ambition is only to claim the right of "historical succession" the end of the Soviet Union bestows upon Russia. The Soviet victory over Nazi Germany was later used to justify the dictatorship of the Communist Party at the expense of the nations who fought and died in that conflict. Putin is intent to do just the opposite. He is not using the end of the war to promote an ideology or as a means to remind other nationalities that they should be beholden to Russia.

He is merely reminding the world the respect Russians deserves for crushing one totalitarian nightmare, living through its own totalitarian darkness, and a first step in the much-needed area of reconciliation. Putin can't do otherwise. To do so would leave open the question: Did Russia defeat Hitler?

What the author argues will be true... when Stalin's name no longer comes up in the description of the victory. Two things must be acknowleged:

• On one level, WWII was the victory of one self-interested dictator over another. There's no glory to be acknowledged in this victory, don't try to pretend there is.
• BUT, and this is a very important distinction, a bunch of mostly-Slavic people, with Russians clearly the most prominent, protected their nations from an unquestionably malicious invading army.

Yes I know that Russia lost the most soldiers, and did so by a wide margin. (and until recently this was neglected in much Western history) However, what made the WWII victory a victory for the countries of Eastern Europe, including Russia, was that in it they repulsed an aggressive military attacker, bent on controlling their countries and enslaving their people. They were unsuccessful at doing the same with Stalin, but they should not be forced to celebrate this as well.

The countries of Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, should happily celebrate WWII as a repulsion of foreign powers, and can feel free to stay home and celebrate, rather than traveling up to Russia for the event. When Russians together react to Stalinism the same way Germans react to Nazism, then they might consider traveling to Russia for the occasion once in a while, as a gesture of respect.

[Thanks to Action Ukraine Report for all the links except the Guardian one.]

[Update: check out the comments for some great footnotes on this conference. Adrian of leopolis.blogspot.com is the one who did the legwork for this one. Thanks, Adrian!]

I am totally jealous of all you in the Washington area. You have a chance to go to this:

From Anders Åslund: Dear Colleague, I would like to invite you to join us for a breakfast meeting on Wednesday, February 16, 2005 on "Ukraine’s New Government and Its Policies" with Taras Kuzio, Anders Åslund and Olexander Sushko. The speakers will discuss the domestic and foreign policy outlook and the economic issues facing the new government. Carnegie Senior Associate Michael McFaul will chair the meeting. Dr. Kuzio is one of the leading experts on contemporary Ukrainian politics and has taught several courses dealing with the post-Communist transition in Ukraine as well as NATO and EU enlargement in the post-Communist world. He is the author of State and Nation Building in Ukraine: Perestroika to Independence, co-author of Politics and Society in Ukraine, and co-editor of Ukrainian Foreign and Security Policy: Dilemmas of State-Led Nation Building. Dr. Åslund chaired the UNDP’s Blue Ribbon Commission on the Second Wave of Economic Reform, an economic program presented to the new Ukrainian president. He served as an economic advisor to the Ukrainian government from 1994 to 1997. Mr. Sushko, Director of the Center for Peace, Conversion & Foreign Policy of Ukraine, is considered to be one of the leading foreign policy specialists in Ukraine. We will meet from 8:30 to 10:00 a.m. in the Carnegie Conference Center at 1779 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC. Please respond by noon on Tuesday, February 15, by calling Marina Barnett at (202) 939-2283 or returning this invitation by fax to (202) 483-3389 or by e-mail to mbarnett@ceip.org. Sincerely, Anders Åslund Director Russian and Eurasian Program.

Got the invite here: http://eng.maidanua.org/node/100

A very happy new year to you all. Just woke up after a trip with friends to Maidan turned into a invitation from Lesya and I for friends to come over, turned into a make-do-with-what's-around feast, turned into a talking until 830am political discussion.

I love it when that kind of stuff happens. And if you're interested, it was spontaneous, I can attest that no planning went into it. Yes we needed to have some basic essentials, but we were able to feed ourselves from what food was around. The weather was fine. And no one paid us to have the conversation.

Ok, enough fooling around.

Last night Georgian President Saakashvili said the following:

1. As a President I couldn't actively support you all while Yushchenko was running, but be assured that I and all Georgians were with you in your quest for freedom. [Saakashvili routinely wore orange ties during the period]
2. Seeing you all here takes me back to my days in college here. [Saakashvili studied law in Ukraine before studying in the US and is also married to a Ukrainian, he was therefore able to deliver his whole speech in Ukrainian - update: someone now tells me she's Dutch? Apologies. But the period of study in Kyiv is correct. Sorry about the foul-up, thanks Jonathan for the correction] 
3. I am with you - a Kyivan. ["Molodtsi!" everyone cried.]
4. Happy New Year!

Yushchenko repeated what he'd said before: Before we were independent, now we are independent and free.

Again, a very happy New Year to all of you.