NEWSBRIEFS (08/08/04)

NEWSBRIEFS

Kyiv seeks to sell UkrTelekom stake

KYIV - State Property Fund Chairman Mykhailo Chechetov and Vice Prime Minister and Finance Minister Mykola Azarov announced on August 3 that the government is planning to sell by September 30 a 42.86 percent stake in UkrTelekom, the largest national telecommunications operator in Ukraine, Interfax reported. "We could receive from $600 million to $800 million, judging by offers from those investors that have announced their desire to bid," Mr. Chechetov told journalists, adding that the government has not yet finalized terms for the tender to sell the UkrTelekom stake. Following the sale, the government will retain a 50 percent plus one share in the company. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Representatives of two patriarchates meet

KYIV - Representatives of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Russian Orthodox Church met in Kyiv on July 13-14. This was in accordance with a previous agreement and permission from the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan Volodymyr Sabodan. The representatives discussed possible ways to overcome Church schisms in Ukraine. Constantinople was represented by Archbishop Vsevolod Majdanski of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the U.S.A. and Hieromonk Filip Yahnysh. The Russian Orthodox Church was represented by Protopriest Nikolai Balashov, secretary of Inter-Orthodox Relations of the Department of External Church Relations, and Sergei Govorun, representative of the Department of External Church Relations. The meeting participants were received by Metropolitan Volodymyr at the Kyiv Monastery of the Caves. They discussed current religious issues in Ukraine. The consultative meetings in Kyiv were organized with the support of the head of Ukraine's National Committee on Religious Matters, Viktor Bondarenko, who expressed the opinion of the Ukrainian government on this matter. The participants highly praised the joint efforts of both patriarchates to solve current religious problems in Ukrainian society. (Religious Information Service of Ukraine)

Two UOC-MP archbishops ordained

KYIV - Metropolitan Volodymyr Sabodan, head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), on July 28 ordained two bishops as archbishops: Anatolii (Hladky) of Sarny and Polissia (northern Ukraine) and Bishop Ioann (Siopko) of Khust and Vynohradiv (southwestern Ukraine's Transcarpathia region). Archbishop Anatolii was born in the Khmelnytskyi region of central Ukraine in 1957. He graduated from the Leningrad Theological Seminary and the Leningrad Theological Academy. In 1982 he was ordained deacon, and in 1992, at the Kyiv Monastery of the Caves, he took his monastic vows and was named a hegumen (father superior). His episcopal ordination took place on October 28, 1993. Archbishop Ioann was born in Rivne (northern Ukraine) in 1964. He was ordained a priest in 1987, and from June 1991 to December 1993 served in the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. On December 29, 1993, he was received into the UOC-MP. He took his monastic vows on December 31, 1993, and was ordained bishop on December 13, 1996. (Religious Information Service of Ukraine)

Ukraine to reduce its armed forces

KYIV - Defense Minister Yevhen Marchuk said on July 29 that Ukraine's armed forces will be reduced to 100,000 troops by 2015, UNIAN reported. At a press conference in Kyiv, Mr. Marchuk presented the Strategic Defense Bulletin, the document outlining threats to Ukraine's national security and the duties of the state and the armed forces in countering these threats. The bulletin also provides a two-stage process of reform for the military. In the first stage, to be completed by 2009, the Ukrainian army would be reduced to 200,000 troops. The second step, to be completed by 2015, is the reduction to 100,000 troops. The plan also foresees outfitting the army with the most modern equipment. Defense spending, according to the bulletin, will increase from the current 5.6 billion hrv ($1.06 billion) to 17.2 billion hrv in 2015. Ukraine currently has some 350,000 troops in its military. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Expert calls for GUUAM's dissolution

MOSCOW - Kirill Frolov, head of the Ukraine department of the Institute for the CIS, has called on Moscow to try to secure the abolition of the GUUAM regional organization that comprises Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldova, strana.ru reported on July 28. In an interview with that website, Mr. Frolov branded GUUAM a focus of anti-Russian intrigues and predicted that a victory by opposition Our Ukraine candidate Viktor Yushchenko in the October 31 Ukrainian presidential election would greatly strengthen it. Commenting on recent talks between President Vladimir Putin and Uzbekistan's President Islam Karimov on military-technical cooperation, Mr. Frolov said that as a condition for military aid to the Karimov regime, Moscow should demand from Tashkent a commitment to quit GUUAM. "I do not understand why we do not do that. The reptile should be crushed," concluded Mr. Frolov. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Russian oil flows into pipeline

KYIV - UkrTransNafta, the operator of Ukrainian oil pipelines, has started pumping Russian crude through the Odesa-Brody pipeline in the "reverse" direction, from Brody to the oil terminal at the Yuzhnyi port in Odesa, Interfax reported on August 2. The action follows the recent signing of a contract between UkrTransNafta and the Russian oil company TNK-BP, which will ship 9 million tons of Russian oil annually for the next three years. The West and Russia have long been engaged in a political tug-of-war over the Odesa-Brody pipeline and the direction of the oil flow in it. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Kontynent director receives asylum

KYIV - Serhii Sholokh, the director of Radio Kontynent, has received political asylum in the United States, reported TV 5 Kanal. Mr. Sholokh told the station: "I got asylum, it is not political asylum, it is refugee status, as far as I know, in the U.S.A. Whether I am happy or not about this, it is hard to say. I am Ukrainian, a citizen of Ukraine, and I will remain a citizen of Ukraine for a long time." He added: "I believe that I will return to Ukraine, to a new Ukraine, with a new president and a new government." Mr. Sholokh had complained of threats and fled Ukraine in March after the authorities had shut down Radio Kontynent, which rebroadcast programs of the BBC, Deutsche Welle and Radio Liberty. (BBC Monitoring)

PM seeks to cut troops in Iraq

KYIV - Ukraine's prime minister Viktor Yanukovych on August 2 called for reducing the country's troop contingent in Iraq. Ukraine's 1,576 troops are the fourth-largest non-U.S. contingent in Iraq. On August 1, Defense Minister Yevhen Marchuk had said that a new brigade to be rotated into Iraq beginning in September would consist of 1,722 - an increase of nearly 10 percent. President Leonid Kuchma, who has the final word on the deployment, has not indicated whether he would support Mr. Yanukovych's call for a troop reduction. Seven Ukrainian soldiers have died in Iraq - three of them in combat in April. About 20 have been wounded. Mr. Marchuk said last week that Ukraine had begun talks with the United States and Poland on an eventual Ukrainian withdrawal, but said that no time-frame had been determined. (Associated Press)

Reports of navy pullout denied

SEVASTOPOL - The first deputy commander of Ukraine's naval forces, Ihor Kabanenko, on August 2 denied media reports alleging that the Ukrainian fleet deployed in Sevastopol will be relocated to Novoozerne near Yevpatoria. "These reports do not correspond with reality and are of a provocative character," Mr. Kabanenko said, according to Interfax. Some Ukrainian media have quoted a statement by the Ukrainian Sevastopol Public Committee saying that Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin have reached agreement on the withdrawal of Ukrainian naval ships from Sevastopol and their transfer to the Donuzlav base in northwestern Crimea. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Marchuk confirms Euro-Atlantic course

KYIV - Defense Minister Yevhen Marchuk said on July 28 that amendments to Ukraine's military doctrine do not change the country's course toward Euro-Atlantic integration, Interfax reported. Mr. Marchuk said that military doctrines determine policy, on average, for about 10 years. "Life has changed, so corrections and the new version of the military doctrine have been made," he said, adding that there are strategic things like Euro-Atlantic integration and cooperation with NATO, which were not altered. The defense minister also said the new doctrine will not influence the reform of Ukraine's armed forces. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Rescue worker dies in mine

KYIV - An electrical outage cut the ventilation to a mine, killing one rescue worker and leaving another unconscious as they helped uncover the bodies of three miners killed in a methane explosion the previous week, officials said on July 28. Four searchers were carrying the dead miners out of the Krasnolymanska mine in eastern Ukraine when electricity was suddenly cut, said a spokeswoman for Vice Prime Minister Andriy Kliuyev, who heads the government commission investigating the July 19 disaster. The ventilator that was cooling the tunnel stopped and the temperature increased, killing one rescue worker, according to spokeswoman Anna Tymchenko. The other worker was rescued after losing consciousness, and the last two emergency officials escaped unharmed. The cause of the outage was unclear. The three miners had been among five missing since the explosion; the official death toll now stands at 34; two miners remain missing and are presumed dead. (Associated Press)

Churches request to share premises

IVANO-FRANKIVSK - Bishop Sofron Mudryi of the Ivano-Frankivsk Eparchy of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, Metropolitan Andrii of Halych of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church and Archbishop Yoasaf of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kyiv Patriarchate signed a joint request to Mykhailo Vyshyvaniuk, head of the Ukrainian Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast Administration, Vasyl Brus, head of the Oblast Council, and Zinovii Shkutiak, mayor of Ivano-Frankivsk, to give permission for alternating religious services in a former church that now serves as a museum of art. "Relying on general public opinion, we are expressing our sincere desire and that of our faithful to see this ancient church as the common heritage of the Church of Christ, which will serve for the veneration of the laws of God and Christian traditions and rites for the sake of educating future generations of God's children," reads the statement issued by the three hierarchs. "This church will be a good example of unity in Christ within one national Ukrainian Church of Christ, which was a dream of the great metropolitans Petro Mohyla, Veniamin Rutskyi, Andrey Sheptytsky and Patriarchs Mstyslav and Josyf, as well as other Church hierarchs." (Religious Information Service of Ukraine)

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