NEWSBRIEFS

One in three wants to emigrate

KYIV - A poll conducted in late January by the Democratic Initiatives Fund and the Kyiv-based International Institute of Sociology suggested that 34 percent of Ukrainian citizens would like to move to another country, Interfax reported on February 16. The pollsters concluded that 7.7 percent would choose to move to Russia, 7.4 percent to Germany, 3.9 percent to Canada, 3.8 percent to the United States, 1.8 percent to France, 1.2 percent to the United Kingdom and 1.2 percent to Israel. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Opposition condemns Dovira's decision

KYIV - Ukrainian opposition leaders responded angrily to a February 11 decision by radio broadcaster Dovira to terminate the FM retransmission of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service programs on February 17, charging that the move is intended to limit the influence of free media in Ukraine, Ukrainian news agencies reported. "It is undoubtedly a political decision of the Ukrainian authorities, made at the highest level," Interfax quoted Our Ukraine leader Viktor Yushchenko as saying. The Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc said in a statement that Dovira's decision is an "ill-disguised government order" and "another brutal attack on the freedom of speech," according to the Ukrainska Pravda website. "Persecutions against the free media, manipulation of the pro-government media by the presidential administration, the decision to end Radio Liberty broadcasts, and the court ruling to close [daily newspaper] Silski Visti are part of the government's efforts to 'cleanse' the media ahead of the presidential election," the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc added. Dovira Director Serhii Kyrchihin explained the decision by saying that Radio Liberty programs clash with Dovira's pop-music format and put off younger listeners. (RFE/RL Newsline)

PM says he will run if supported by allies

KYIV - Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych said on February 14 that he has not yet decided whether to run for president, Interfax reported. "Today, my task as head of government is to deal with other problems and other duties," he said at a meeting with voters in Donetsk Oblast. Mr. Yanukovych declared that he will run for president if members of his own party and political allies wish it. "I primarily have in mind the leaders of political forces that today represent the centrist bloc, both in Parliament and in the state," he said. Mr. Yanukovych, prime minister since November 2002, also heads the Party of Regions, which has 67 seats in the Verkhovna Rada. A late-January poll by the Democratic Initiatives Fund and the Kyiv-based International Institute of Sociology found that 22 percent of voters would support Our Ukraine leader Viktor Yushchenko (down from 26 percent in October), 9 percent Mr. Yanukovych (versus 10 percent), and 8.9 percent Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko (15 percent), 4.2 percent Socialist Party leader Oleksander Moroz (4.5 percent), and 3.2 percent Yulia Tymoshenko (4 percent). The same poll suggested that 70 percent of respondents do not want President Leonid Kuchma to seek re-election in 2004. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Lazarenko trial soon to begin

KYIV - A court in San Francisco has begun "intensive preparations" for the trial of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko, who held that post in May 1996 through July 1997. Mr. Lazarenko is accused of laundering $114 million through U.S. banks, the Ukrainska Pravda website reported on February 18. Mr. Lazarenko is also accused on 30 other counts, including a number of financial machinations for a total sum of $200 million. If found guilty, he could face a sentence as long as 370 years. Mr. Lazarenko, who has been in a San Francisco jail since 1999, was reportedly released on bail of $86 million in June. The former prime minister of Ukraine denies the charges, maintaining that he is a victim of political intrigue within the Ukrainian leadership. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Kuchma slams Our Ukraine

WARSAW - Speaking at a news conference following talks with Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski in Warsaw on February 12, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma accused the Our Ukraine opposition bloc of obstructing the Polish-Ukrainian commemoration of the so-called 1943-1944 Volyn massacres, Inter Television reported. Mr. Kuchma also said Our Ukraine, which controls the Lviv City Council, prevented a visit by President Kwasniewski to Lviv in 2002 to unveil a monument to Polish soldiers killed in combat with Ukrainian troops in 1918. Turning to the ongoing constitutional reform in Ukraine, President Kuchma said its main objective is to install a political mechanism that could form parliamentary coalitions responsible for the activities of Cabinets. Mr. Kuchma assured journalists that after the constitutional reform is implemented, the Ukrainian president will still have more powers than his Polish counterpart. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Our Ukraine trains election monitors

KYIV - The Our Ukraine opposition bloc has no confidence in the Central Election Commission and is training 100,000 monitors for an independent vote count in the 2004 presidential election, Interfax reported on February 12, quoting Our Ukraine lawmaker Oleh Rybachuk. Mr. Rybachuk said Our Ukraine is planning to have two monitors at each polling station. He added that Our Ukraine wants to set up a vote-reporting center where invited journalists, diplomats and international observers will be able to watch election returns on a "real-time histogram." (RFE/RL Newsline)

Al-Hayat again reports on nuke sales

LONDON - The London-based Arabic-language daily al-Hayat on February 11 repeated its suggestion of February 8 that Ukrainian nationals were involved in the purported sale of tactical nuclear weapons, or "suitcase bombs," to members or operatives of the al Qaeda terrorist network. The daily quoted "reliable sources in Islamabad" that said an unspecified Ukrainian nuclear scientist visited Kandahar in 1998 and mediated in the deal. al-Hayat said the same sources believe that U.S. intelligence agents "learned about the affair and were able to immediately track the deal all the way to Ukraine." The al-Hayat sources added, "The matter, however, remained secret, and its details were not revealed." The Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Ministry dismissed the initial al-Hayat report and suggested it might sue the paper for libel. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Polish, Ukrainian presidents meet

WARSAW - Ukrainian President Kuchma made a short visit on February 12 to Warsaw, where he discussed mutual cooperation in the Polish-led multinational division in Iraq, the power-generating and customs systems after Poland's accession to the European Union and joint projects related to the extension of the Odesa-Brody oil pipeline with Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, Polish and Ukrainian media reported. Mr. Kwasniewski said Poland and Ukraine will seek the creation of a "serious international consortium" with the participation of EU countries to complete the Odesa-Brody-Gdansk project for transporting Caspian oil to Europe. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Officials discuss Iraq, pipeline

WARSAW - Polish Foreign Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz and his Ukrainian counterpart Kostyantyn Gryshchenko met in Warsaw on February 4 to discuss cooperation among Polish and Ukrainian companies in the reconstruction of Iraq and joint ventures in the energy sector, including the Odesa-Brody-Gdansk oil pipeline, the PAP news agency reported. Mr. Cimoszewicz said at a news conference that, following the Ukrainian government's decision to use the Odesa-Brody pipeline for transporting Caspian oil to Europe, both countries must now take practical steps for oil to flow through the pipeline and launch talks with the European Union on support for the project. Last month, both governments signed an accord on extending the Odesa-Brody pipeline to Plock in northern Poland. (RFE/RL Newsline)

U.S. envoy praises pipeline decision

KYIV - The Ukrainian government decided on February 4 that the Odesa-Brody oil pipeline will be used to transport Caspian oil to Europe, as originally planned, despite mostly Russian pressure to pump oil in the opposite direction, Ukrainian news agencies reported. The pipeline has been the focus of a political tug-of-war, with the European Union and the United States pushing for its originally designed use and Moscow proposing a reversal of its flow. "This will enhance the energy independence of Ukraine, and we believe that it will be a big long-term and even short-term advantage for Ukraine's oil industry," U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst said of the decision, according to Interfax. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Rada approves oil transport accord

KYIV - The Verkhovna Rada on February 4 ratified an agreement on cooperation in integrating the Druzhba and Adria oil pipelines, Interfax reported. The agreement was signed by Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Hungary, Slovakia, and Croatia in December 2002. It allows for the transport of an additional 15 million tons of oil annually to world markets via these countries' pipeline systems, with reloading to tankers at the Croatian port of Omisalj.

Rada ratifies Kyoto Protocol

KYIV - On February 4 the Verkhovna Rada voted to ratify the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which obliges signatories to limit carbon-dioxide emissions and take measures toward eliminating the negative consequences of such emissions on the environment. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Kuchma plans research institute

KYIV - Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma said on February 4 that after leaving office he will establish a non-governmental strategic-research institute together with Anatolii Halchynskyi, director of the National Institute of Strategic Research, Interfax reported. The presidential press service announced that the institute would engage in "fundamental research on the Ukrainian model of economic policy." (RFE/RL Newsline)

ROC wants Catholic missionaries out

MOSCOW - Metropolitan Kirill of Kaliningrad and Smolensk, who heads the Russian Orthodox Church's external relations department, said on January 27 that the Roman Catholic Church should end its missionary activity in Russia, ITAR-TASS reported. "Go preach to your own flock," he said. "You have responsibility in Italy and Spain and other countries, while the Russian Orthodox Church is responsible to God for our people." Metropolitan Kirill said that "under certain circumstances" there could be "collaboration" with the Roman Catholic Church. "We bear no enmity, but we cannot accept the continuation of well-planned and financed missionary activity among our people, under the pretext of a dialogue," he said, adding that the Vatican established new Catholic structures on Orthodox canonical territory two years ago without notifying the Moscow Patriarchate. The Orthodox hierarchy is employing a carrot-and-stick strategy toward Rome, Nezavisimaya Gazeta wrote on January 28, noting that Patriarch Aleksei II has said he is ready to meet with Pope John Paul II if such a meeting would help resolve disputes between the two Churches. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Service members' deaths in Iraq noted

WASHINGTON - As of February 2, 522 U.S. service members died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq, according to the Department of Defense. Of those, 363 died as a result of hostile actions and 159 died of non-hostile causes, the department said. The British military has reported 57 deaths; Italy, 17; Spain, eight; Bulgaria, five; Thailand, two; Denmark, Ukraine and Poland have reported one each. (Associated Press)

Azarov hails GDP growth in 2003

KYIV - First Vice Prime Minister and Finance Minister Mykola Azarov announced on January 22 that Ukraine's economy expanded by 9 percent in 2003, outpacing the government's 8.5 percent forecast, Interfax reported. Mr. Azarov also cited a 28 percent growth in exports, a decline in official unemployment to 3.6 percent, an increase in the average wage (500 hrv [$94]) over the subsistence level (342 hrv), and a significant increase in foreign investment. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Legislator questioned in Lazarenko case

MOSCOW - Andrei Vavilov, a Federation Council member and former first deputy finance minister of Russia, who was questioned by the FBI in California earlier this month, said on January 23 that he was questioned as a witness and that U.S. authorities have no further claims on him, Interfax reported. He also confirmed that the interrogation was connected to the embezzlement case against former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko and denied rumors that it had anything to do either with the cases against oil giant Yukos and its jailed former CEO, Mikhail Khodorkovskyi, or with last year's sale of the Severnaya oil company, which Mr. Vavilov owned, to the state-owned Rosneft oil company. Mr. Vavilov was questioned in Aspen, Colo., on January 13 by Martha Boersch, chief of the Organized Crime and Racketeering Strike Force at the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Francisco, The Moscow Times reported on January 26, quoting Mr. Vavilov's spokeswoman. Ms. Boersch is investigating whether Mr. Lazarenko laundered $114 million in U.S. banks. Investigators suspect the money was part of a $450 million loan to Gazprom that went missing in 1996-1997 in a scheme approved by Mr. Vavilov, who was then first deputy finance minister. Mr. Lazarenko, who was indicted in California on money-laundering charges in 2000, was released from a San Francisco jail in June 2003 pending trial, which is to begin on February 17. Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported on January 26 that, in connection with the Lazarenko case, U.S. prosecutors would like to question former President Boris Yeltsin, former Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, former Gazprom CEO Rem Viakhirev, former defense ministers Pavel Grachev and Igor Rodionov, and former Tax Service chief Vitalii Artukhov. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Ukraine to supply electricity to Belarus

KYIV - Ukraine has bested Russian suppliers in bidding to supply Belarus with electricity this year, proposing a price of 1.60 U.S. cents per kilowatt-hour versus a Russian bid of 2.15 U.S. cents, Belapan reported on February 5. Belenerha, the government agency that controls Belarus's power grid, did not sign an electricity-supply contract for February with Russia's Unified Energy Systems after the latter raised its price by about 30 percent. "We lost that Belarusian deal," Oleg Saraev, general director of Russian state-run Rosenergoatom, which controls all nuclear-power plants in the country, told journalists in Moscow on February 4. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Ukrainian population still shrinking

KYIV - The State Statistics Committee announced on February 10 birth and mortality figures for 2003 that suggest the country's population is contracting, according to Ukrainian news agencies. Statisticians recorded 408,591 births and 765,408 deaths in Ukraine over the course of last year, thus reducing the country's population to 47.6 million people. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, February 22, 2004, No. 8, Vol. LXXII

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