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Post by Admin on Feb 23, 2014 23:00:20 GMT
Ukraine's parliament voted Sunday to temporarily hand the country's presidential powers to a top official, a day after former leader Viktor Yankovych -- whose whereabouts are unknown -- was ousted following a week of deadly protests. Ukraine is deeply divided between eastern regions that are largely pro-Russian and western areas that widely detest Yanukovych and long for closer ties with the European Union. Yanukovych's shelving of an agreement with the EU in November set off the wave of protests, but they quickly expanded their grievances to corruption, human rights abuses and calls for Yanukovych's resignation. The political crisis in the nation of 46 million has changed with blinding speed repeatedly in the past week. First there were signs that tensions were easing, followed by horrifying violence and then a deal signed under Western pressure that aimed to resolve the conflict but left the unity of the country in question. Tymoshenko, the long-jailed blond-braided heroine of Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution, left imprisonment on Saturday after the Ukrainian parliament voted to decriminalize the charge on which she was convicted. She increasingly appears to have the upper hand in the political battle as to who will be the next leader of Ukraine, winning the backing Sunday of a leading Russian lawmaker and congratulations from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. senators on her release. Her language gave no hint of political ambition but was laced with emotion. “This is a different Ukraine. This is a Ukraine of free people, and you have given this country to each and all of us, those who are living today and those who will live tomorrow. That is why people were on Maidan, who perished on Maidan will be heroes for ever,” she said. Tymoshenko's name circulated Sunday as a possibility for acting prime minister pending May 25 presidential elections, but she issued a statement via her party Sunday asking her supporters not to nominate her for the position. The disintegration of Yanukovych's government marks a setback for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, who had counted on the Ukrainian leader to bring the country into a Eurasian union of former Soviet-bloc nations. A senior security source said Yanukovych was still in Ukraine, but was unable to say whether he was in Kiev. An ally was quoted as saying he was in the country's generally pro-Russian east.
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Post by Admin on Feb 24, 2014 2:18:40 GMT
“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,/ But to be young was very heaven!–Oh! times.” So wrote William Wordsworth about the commencement of the French Revolution. His words, no doubt, are echoed by many in Kiev today as they contemplate the sudden and shocking success of their revolution. Kiev's Independence Square was calmer on Sunday but protesters remained President Viktor Yanukovych has been chased from power. His opulent palaces are now open to the public to see the extent of his enrichment at public expense. His leading political opponent, Yulia Tymoshenko, has been freed from prison. One of her allies, parliament speaker Oleksandr Turchynov, has assumed the powers of the president and a snap election has been called to elect a permanent successor. Remarkably enough there has been little violence or looting; this has been an unusually orderly revolution–so far. But we have seen just in the past week how dizzying can be the twists and turns of Ukrainian politics, and there is no reason to believe that they are at the end of the journey. Recall that as recently as Thursday, Kiev was the scene of bloody fighting, which was brought to a halt by a power-sharing accord reached on Friday between Yanukovych and opposition leaders. That accord, in turn, was rendered irrelevant by the president’s decision to flee his capital on Saturday. Protesters in the more Russian-leaning city of Kharkiv were protecting the statue of Lenin - several others have been torn down across the country Whatever next? No one can say, but one quarter from which we can expect the unexpected is Moscow. Vladimir Putin has been seen, rightly or wrongly, as the puppet-master pulling Yanukovych’s strings. It was Putin who convinced Yanukovych to forego closer ties with the EU in return for a $15 billion loan from Russia. This was seen as a masterstroke at the time, but it sparked a revolution which has cast Yanukovych from power, at least for now, and instilled, no doubt, deep dread in the Kremlin. If an autocrat can be ejected from power by popular action in Kiev, why not in Moscow? In reality, of course, there are numerous reasons why Putin’s hold on power is more secure, but dictators are habitually paranoid and Putin is no exception: He knows that the example of Ukraine is likely to embolden his opposition in Russia. We can expect a riposte from Putin before long, and from his allies in Ukraine who are down but not defeated. How the revolution will unfold no one knows, but Ukraine has had plenty of experience of thwarted upheavals. This is, after all, the second popular uprising against Yanukovych, the first being the Orange Revolution of 2004-2005. Although thwarted in his attempt to steal that election, Yanukovych returned to power in 2010, managing to win a fair election after his political adversaries failed to show results while in office. This is a second chance for the pro-Western parties in Ukraine to deal with the deep-seated malaise of the economy, the pervasive corruption, and all the other ills that afflict this troubled land. They had better do better than last time–and all the while fending off what are sure to be determined attempts at sabotage emanating from Moscow. Let us hope that the U.S. and the EU will throw their weight on the scales to help prevent Putin’s puppets from slinking back into power.
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Post by Admin on Feb 26, 2014 23:10:51 GMT
Russia ordered surprise military exercises on Ukraine's doorstep Wednesday as tensions in that country's southern Crimea region simmered, with pro-Russian demonstrators facing off against rival protesters in the city of Simferopol. U.S. President Barack Obama tried to circumvent such Cold War rhetoric in comments during a trip to Mexico on February 19. "Our approach as the United States is not to see these as some Cold War chess board in which we're in competition with Russia," he said. "Our goal is to make sure the people of Ukraine are able to make decisions for themselves about their future." But harsh geopolitical reality tells a different story. Since gaining its independence in 1991, Ukraine has been stuck between the allure of the West and a Russia eager to maintain its sphere of influence in the former Soviet space. "Russia, understanding that without Ukraine it would not be able to take its place in the wider arena of Europe and create a new, powerful structure that could counterbalance the United States and others, made the strategic decision to keep Ukraine in its embrace," Leonid Kravchuk, Ukraine's first post-Soviet president, tells RFE/RL's Russian Service. Former U.S. ambassador to Kyiv Steven Pifer speaks in similar terms: "The Russians have very strong motivations. I think this is a big deal for Vladimir Putin. He wants to build a sphere of influence in the post-Soviet space. A big part of that would be the customs union. If Ukraine is moving towards the European Union, there's a big hole in that sphere. And I think it's also important for Vladimir Putin, for his domestic political constituency. Pulling Ukraine back is popular at home. Losing Ukraine would not be popular." Existential threat? But Ukraine's importance for Russia is much more than merely one of popularity. Writing in The Independent on February 23, Andrew Wilson, author of "Ukraine's Orange Revolution," argues that "a real democracy in Ukraine is an existential threat to the entire system that Vladimir Putin has built since 2000." Not only is authoritarian Russia unlikely to welcome an example of an overthrown kleptocracy in the post-Soviet space, Moscow also sees vital economic and security interests in Ukraine. Its Black Sea Fleet is based at Sevastopol, the largest city in Crimea; much of its natural-gas flows to Europe still pass through Ukrainian pipelines; and Russia's oligarchs have extensive and lucrative interests in the country, especially its eastern reaches. Analysts agree the likelihood of a Russian military intervention anywhere in Ukraine - despite occasional calls from Russophone areas for Moscow to send in "peacekeepers" - is minimal. Any such intervention would be far more difficult and costly than Moscow's incursion into Georgia in 2008. However, Russia does seem intent on promoting what it calls the "federalization" of Ukraine, a tactic that could increase its leverage against the central government and enable Moscow to throw up roadblocks to Ukraine's further integration with the European Union by establishing deep economic relations with "autonomous" eastern regions. Analyst Dmitri Trenin, who heads the Moscow Carnegie Center, argued in "The New York Times" on February 23, however, that "although federalization is seen in Kyiv and western Ukraine as a step toward ultimate partition, it could in fact help hold Ukraine together" since "more financial and cultural autonomy" could enable the different parts of the country to coexist more easily. Torn between East, West At the same time, Ukraine's economy is teetering on the brink of collapse. The government has issued a call for $35 billion in immediate assistance and an international donors conference. Russia's leverage via trade and energy - Ukraine is heavily dependent on subsidized gas from Russia - gives the opportunity, if it desires, to stimulate popular discontent and aggravate political divisions. As Wilson wrote in his analysis, "the new government in Ukraine...will be given the briefest of ritualistic honeymoons before Russia uses every instrument at its disposal to try to make it fail." Already on February 24, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev cast doubt on the new government's very legitimacy. "Some of our foreign partners, Western partners, think otherwise - they consider these authorities legitimate. I don't know which constitution and what legislation they are reading from," he said. "I think it is an aberration of consciousness of some kind to give legitimacy to something that in essence is a result of an armed revolt." Being caught in this East-West vortex has been not only painful but harmful for Ukraine since independence, argues Samuel Charap, a senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the Washington-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). In a piece for "Foreign Policy" earlier this month, Charap said that "it is precisely this 20-year tradition of geopolitical one-upmanship that led to this crisis in the first place by allowing a parasitic political-economic system to bargain its way out of reform." He argues that only "international mediation" involving both Russia and the West can produce a long-term solution for Ukraine. "Such common ground seems like a pipe dream given current tension," he concedes. "But the alternative is perpetual crisis."
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Post by Admin on Feb 28, 2014 23:05:29 GMT
President Obama said Friday that he is “deeply concerned” by reports of Russian military activity within Ukraine and warned “there will be costs” for any intervention, urging Moscow to use restraint as the former Soviet state struggles to forge a new government. “Any violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity would be deeply destabilizing, which is not in the interests of Ukraine, Russia or Europe,” Obama said in an unscheduled statement from the White House briefing room. “It would represent a profound interference in matters that must be determined by the Ukrainian people." Ukraine's new interim president accused Russia of a deliberate provocation Obama’s remarks followed a day in which the tensions mounted between the Russian-speaking majority in the Ukrainian province of Crimea and the new, Western-aligned government in the capital, Kiev. Armed men seized government buildings and airports, raising the Russian flag. Airspace over the peninsula was closed, while local news outlets reported Russian transport vehicles were seen moving from the port city of Sevastopol toward the regional capital, Simferopol. It followed the appearance of unidentified armed men in military uniform at key hubs in Crimea President Turchynov appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin to "stop provocations and start negotiations". He said Russia was behaving as it did before sending troops into Georgia in 2008 over the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which have large ethnic Russian populations. "They are implementing the scenario like the one carried out in Abkhazia, when after provoking a conflict, they started an annexation of the territory," President Turchynov said.
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Post by Admin on Mar 1, 2014 5:50:48 GMT
The provisional authorities in Kyiv led by acting President Oleksandr Turchinov are not shying away from confrontation. Today Turchinov said that any further Russian military moves outside their bases in the region would be considered acts of “aggression.” Controversial actions by the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada immediately after the collapse of the government of Viktor Yanukovych increased tensions. The parliament’s moves included the revocation of a controversial language law that had allowed local governments in the areas where Russian was widely spoken to enshrine it as an official language on par with Ukrainian. Meanwhile, ultranationalist groups such as Svoboda (Freedom) and Praviy Sektor (Right Sector) that took the lead in the street fighting in Kyiv are now assuming prominent roles in state security bodies, triggering alarms in Moscow and beyond. Crimea is a very special—and delicate—case. It is Ukraine’s only autonomous republic, though its autonomy was sharply curtailed in the mid-1990s. Its population of nearly 2 million is about 60 percent Russian, many of whom are retired Russian military personnel. Russia’s naval base in Sevastopol is home to some 15,000 active-duty servicemen, and much of the city essentially lives off of the base. About 12 percent of Crimeans are Tatars, who are generally loyal to Kyiv due to their tragic history. (They were persecuted and repatriated by Stalin for alleged disloyalty at the end of World War II and were only able to return to Crimea at the very end of the Soviet period.) Throughout independent Ukraine’s twenty-plus-year history, Crimea’s residents, only 24 percent of whom are ethnic Ukrainians, have seen themselves as a breed apart from the Ukrainian mainstream. It would be a surprise if Russia moved to annex the region outright. Although Putin has maintained his silence on the situation in Ukraine since this past weekend, events on the ground are challenging Ukraine’s territorial integrity and raising the possibility that Russian troops will become directly involved in pulling the country apart. Putin’s hand could be forced (and conflict could come to the region inadvertently) depending on how the new authorities in Kyiv respond to recent moves by the local population. One can easily imagine a harsh Russian response if Kyiv takes rash steps to reassert its authority in Crimea either by sending in troops or by allowing revolutionary paramilitaries to launch a “people’s march” on Crimea. One of the most worrisome by-products of the Ukrainian revolution is the fact that there are now far more guns and advanced weaponry in the hands of nonstate actors than at any point in the country’s post-Soviet history. That means there is a greater risk that even small incidents could have major ramifications. The recent severe deterioration in relations between Moscow and the United States and the EU over Ukraine is an additional source of unpredictability. Russian leaders believe, rightly or wrongly, that the West drove events in Ukraine to the brink of collapse to secure geopolitical advantage over Moscow. Thus, Western appeals for Russian restraint in the event of a crisis over Crimea are unlikely to resonate. The facts that U.S.-Russian high-level lines of communication remain extremely contentious and that the U.S. ambassador to Moscow, Michael McFaul, has just left his post with no replacement in sight provide additional sources of concern. Still, there are several possible steps that might help head off the most dangerous scenarios: - A public statement by Putin supporting Ukraine’s territorial integrity and opposing any moves by Crimea to secede - A public commitment by Turchinov and the new provisional Ukrainian government to resolve all disputes in Ukraine peacefully - Moscow’s recognition of the new provisional government in Ukraine after it is formed and confirmed by the parliament, the return of the Russian ambassador to Ukraine, and the resumption of official dialogue between Moscow and Kyiv - Suspension of the implementation of the Ukrainian parliament’s decision to repeal the language law, which has fomented greater tensions in the country than it has helped fight separatism - Informal suspension by the Ukrainian authorities of the threat to prosecute citizens for separatism (Citizens should, of course, be held accountable for their actions, but it is doubtful that the investigative organs are able to act impartially and carefully during a period of revolutionary turmoil.) - A resolution by the Ukrainian parliament confirming the nonaligned status of Ukraine, which was enshrined in law in 2010 - A reciprocal moratorium by Moscow on provocative steps like the possible distribution of Russian passports in Crimea or military movements by Black Sea Fleet units outside their base - Reestablishment of a human rights monitoring mission in Crimea led by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe that would pick up where a previous effort that ended in 1999 left off The situation in Ukraine has already surprised many experienced observers. What was once seen as impossible has now become all too conceivable. A hot war between Russia and Ukraine would have far-reaching and highly destabilizing consequences, and a transformative effect on Russia’s relations with the West. No effort should be spared to promote a rapid de-escalation of the situation on the ground.
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