NEWSBRIEFS (08/27/06)

NEWSBRIEFS

Independence Day to start with prayer ...

KYIV - The leaders of Ukraine have invited the leaders of various Christian denominations to a joint prayer service to be held in St. Sophia Cathedral on August 24 to start the celebration of Independence Day. Participating will be Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and Verkhovna Rada Chairman Oleksander Moroz. "We are expecting the participation of representatives of all the Christian Churches, even those who have certain reservations regarding participation in such events, at this particularly important and unifying event," said Markian Lubkivskyi, advisor to the president. (Religious Information Service of Ukraine)

... UOC-MP refuses to participate

KYIV - Metropolitan Volodymyr Sabodan, head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), will not take part in a prayer service at St. Sophia Cathedral on August 24, Ukrainian Independence Day. According to Vasyl Anisimov, head of the UOC-MP press service, the metropolitan will not participate because representatives of Churches that the UOC-MP does not recognize will participate. The news was posted on nr2.ru on August 15. "What kind of prayer can there be if [Patriarch] Filaret [head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kyiv Patriarchate], excommunicated from the Church, will be there?" said Mr. Anisimov. "There will be some representative [of the UOC-MP]," said Mr. Anisimov, "but not the main leaders. Perhaps Archbishop Mytrofan [Yurchuk], UOC-MP administrator." (Religious Information Service of Ukraine)

Ukraine aims to pay off gas debt

KYIV - Fuel and Energy Minister Yurii Boiko said in a television interview on August 21 that the state-run company Naftohaz Ukrayiny will repay by mid-October all it owes to the Swiss-based intermediary RosUkrEnergo for gas supplies to Ukraine this year, Interfax-Ukraine reported. Last week, Naftohaz Ukrayiny paid nearly $50 million of its $372 million gas debt to RosUkrEnergo. Mr. Boiko also pledged to repay "in the near future" Ukraine's gas debt to Turkmenistan, but failed to mention the sum involved. Mr. Boiko was to travel to Moscow on August 22 for talks with Gazprom on gas supplies to Ukraine in 2007. In a press interview published on August 21, Mr. Boiko ruled out the possibility that Ukraine could cede control over its gas-transportation system to Russia in return for a preferential gas price in 2007. "Why should we rent anything as a concession? A key problem of Ukraine's gas-transport system is lack of financing. There are no other problems - it is working to full capacity, the staff are well-qualified. We are able to manage it ourselves," he noted. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Explosions rock ill-fated arms depot

NOVOBOHDANIVKA, Ukraine - A fire broke out at an artillery-ammunition depot near the village of Novobohdanivka in Zaporizhia Oblast on August 19, triggering a series of explosions and injuring four people, Ukrainian and international media reported. Some 1,500 civilians were evacuated from around the village and some 4,000 others were sent temporarily to shelters. Explosions at the same depot in May 2004 continued for a week, killing five and injuring four. A small fire and a series of explosions in the depot occurred also in July 2005, injuring one person. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Villagers demand compensation for blast

NOVOBOHDANIVKA, Ukraine - Some 500 inhabitants of the village of Novobohdanivka in Zaporizhia Oblast have addressed local authorities with an appeal to give them the status of war veterans, declare their village a zone of environmental disaster, and pay them compensation for material and moral damages they suffered in recent years because of blasts at a local artillery-ammunition depot, the Ukrayinska Pravda website reported on August 22. Because of fires at the depot, the ill-fated village was shelled in May 2004, July 2005 and last week. Five people were killed and a dozen injured in those incidents. (RFE/RL Newsline)

President addresses World Forum

KYIV - Speaking to a crowd of some 3,500 people at the World Forum of Ukrainians in Kyiv on August 18, President Viktor Yushchenko said the country's policy priorities remain the same despite the nomination earlier this month of his presidential rival from 2004, Viktor Yanukovych, as prime minister, Ukrainian media reported. "We should publicly reject the disease that has begun creeping into Ukrainian politics, which is called federalism. ... This is not Ukraine's choice," Mr. Yushchenko noted. He also stressed that Ukrainian will remain the only official language in Ukraine. Speaking about the country's integration into the European Union and NATO, Mr. Yushchenko emphasized that it is an "irreversible course." He added, "We are a great people. We are committed to the values of democracy, liberalism and national progress. In the 21st century, we will stand as a united Ukrainian people, a consolidated and powerful community that is present in the life of the planet with its actions, its work, and genuine national success." (RFE/RL Newsline)

Are perceptions of 1991 coup changing?

MOSCOW - Several polls published in conjunction with the 15th anniversary suggest that the respondents have mixed feelings about the coup, RIA Novosti reported on August 19. One survey by the Levada Center recorded 39 percent of respondents as arguing that the coup reflected only a power struggle within the elite, 36 percent as saying that the loss of life made it a tragic event, and 13 percent as calling it the triumph of a democratic revolution, Ekho Moskvy radio reported on August 19. A poll by the All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) indicated that 66 percent of Russians regret the collapse of the Soviet Union and 57 percent feel that its demise could have been prevented, the state-run daily newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta noted on August 19. That same day, regnum.ru reported 49 percent of respondents as saying that they experienced the events of 15 years ago as "close to my heart," while 21 percent said that they felt "no special emotions" then. Some 24 percent said they are too young to know. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Gorbachev on USSR's collapse

MOSCOW - Former Soviet President Gorbachev told RFE/RL's North Caucasus Service that he agrees with Russian President Vladimir Putin that the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991 was "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century," rferl.org reported on August 18. He argued that "things certainly needed to change, but we did not need to destroy that which had been built by previous generations." He charged nonetheless that the hard-liners who staged the August 1991 coup came from the "reactionary nomenklatura" and were determined to reverse a healthy reform process that was well under way. Mr. Gorbachev said he believes that they chose to stage a coup rather than fight an open political battle because they knew that "nobody wanted a return to Stalinism." Asked why his perestroika remains more popular abroad than in Russia, Mr. Gorbachev replied that Europe liked it because it ended the confrontation of the Cold War. For the former Soviet republics, it ultimately led to their independence. But Russians, under the leadership of his rival, President Boris Yeltsin, after 1991 experienced "poverty..., corruption, mass theft..., and shock." Mr. Gorbachev said that it is "therefore natural that people naturally looked back to the Soviet Union and the social guarantees that it offered. The guarantees were modest, but at least they were guarantees. Now, even though things are improving under Putin, I would still estimate that about 50 percent of our people live in poverty." (RFE/RL Newsline)

Russia not a 'textbook democracy'

MOSCOW - According to former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, any "stability that was offered by the Cold War was a false one," rferl.org reported on August 18. He added that matters then "were tricky and dangerous. We in the Russian and U.S. governments knew better than anybody what the true situation was and what it could develop into, because we knew what point we were at in the arms race. We knew that the kind of technology that we were operating was powerful enough to put the fate of civilization in question should there be some sort of slip-up. We also knew that the arms race was leading to an unprecedented depletion of national resources." Referring to today's Russia, Mr. Gorbachev noted that "there are frequent accusations that democracy is being suppressed and that freedom of the press is being stifled. The truth is, most Russians disagree with this viewpoint. ... When [Vladimir] Putin first came to power, I think his first priority was keeping the country from falling apart, and this required certain measures that wouldn't exactly be referred to as textbook democracy. ... [But] Russia has changed to such an extent [over the past 20 years] that going back is now impossible." Mr. Gorbachev said he believes nonetheless that "we need the people to participate in the changes that are being enacted in the country. Democracy needs to be effective. The law needs to be efficient. Thieves and corrupt officials should not feel safe. We need to follow the path of democracy toward a free, open, and prosperous country." (RFE/RL Newsline)

Gorbachev: some 'seek to hold onto power'

MOSCOW - Marking the 15th anniversary of the 1991 coup by hard-liners against his reforms, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev told Interfax by telephone on August 18 that "a repeat of those events is impossible today. Society and the structures responsible for security have learned all the appropriate lessons from what happened. He added nonetheless that "the [subsequent] development of our country has shown that not all conclusions have been drawn yet. Instead of holding an investigation into the shelling of the Parliament building, the persons involved in it were effectively amnestied." This is an apparent reference to an incident during the parliamentary revolt of October 1993 against Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who emerged from the 1991 coup attempt greatly strengthened at the expense of Mr. Gorbachev. The two men are not now on speaking terms. Mr. Gorbachev also said that "a large number of people" who backed the 1991 coup now hold important positions and "have received awards." He stressed that "even today, a lot of people seek to hold onto power by any means. But they don't want to do it through honest and open elections, in which the voters make the decision. It is high time to understand that only democracy, freedom of speech, a responsible social policy, and a transparent market economy can help improve people's lives and make the state stronger." (RFE/RL Newsline)

Sochi summit: mainly symbolism?

SOCHI, Russia - At the informal Sochi summit of the Eurasian Economic Community on August 16, President Vladimir Putin said that Uzbekistan had agreed to become a full member again of the CIS Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Russian media reported. The CSTO was formed in 1992 and currently comprises Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and now Uzbekistan. In 1999, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Georgia quit the CSTO. Mr. Putin added on August 16 that Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan "have agreed on and signed a document instructing the [Eurasian Economic Community] secretariat and those three countries' [authorities] ... to make the necessary efforts to prepare the legal base for establishing a customs union. And, of course, the final goal is to see all Eurasian Economic Community member states join the customs union." Such a customs union has been under discussion for some years but has been held up by the conflicting interests of the states concerned. Ukraine and Armenia were present at the summit as observers. New Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych said that his country would seek full membership "if it were in Ukraine's interests." On the margins of the summit, Prime Minister Yanukovych and his Russian counterpart, Mikhail Fradkov, reached an agreement on gas prices, the exact terms of which remain unclear. Mr. Yanukovych told reporters that "the [gas] price will be market-based, of course, but the mechanism of its formation will be transparent and certainly adequate to the level of economic relations between Ukraine and Russia." (RFE/RL Newsline)

PM pledges unchanged gas price

SYMFEROPOL - Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych told journalists in Symferopol on August 16 that the price of gas for the population won't change until the end of this year and will remain at 414 hrv ($82) per 1,000 cubic meters, Interfax-Ukraine reported. Mr. Yanukovych was speaking after his return from Sochi, where he discussed gas supplies for 2006-2007 with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov. Ukraine's individual consumers are supplied with gas extracted domestically. In 2005, Ukraine extracted 20.5 billion cubic meters of gas, which accounted for some 25 percent of the country's annual demand. Following his talks with Mr. Fradkov, Mr. Yanukovych told journalists in Sochi that he believes this year's price for gas imported by Ukraine will not exceed the current level of $95 per 1,000 cubic meters. He also suggested that there will be no steep increase in the price of gas imported by Ukraine in 2007. "In the course of negotiations I didn't get the feeling that our partners wanted to supercharge the situation," Mr. Yanukovych noted in Sochi. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Constitutional Court sworn in

KYIV - On August 4 the following judges of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine were sworn in: Volodymyr Kampo, Dmytro Lylak, Viktor Shyshkin, judges appointed by the president of Ukraine; Anatolii Holovin, Mykhailo Kolos, Maria Markush, Viacheslav Ovcharenko, Petro Stetsiuk, judges appointed by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine; Vasyl Bryntsev, Viacheslav Dzhun, Anatolii Didkivskyi, Ivan Dombrovskyi, Yaroslava Machuzhak, judges appointed by the Congress of Judges of Ukraine. The judges of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Volodymyr Ivaschenko, Valerii Pshenychnyi, Susanna Stanik and Pavlo Tkachuk continue to execute their duties. Beginning on August 7, in accordance with Article 22 of the Law of Ukraine "On the Constitutional Court of Ukraine," the duties of the chairman of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine are executed by the eldest judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, Judge Dombrovskyi. The chairman of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine and the vice-chairmen of the court will be elected at the special plenary session of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine according to the established procedure. (Embassy of Ukraine in the United States)

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