elsid13
10-06-2008, 08:33 AM
Looks like Putin is at it again and wants the Crimera. The gas pipeline is part of the deal to get a pro-Russia PM elected.
Putin: Ukraine gave military aid to Georgia in war with Russia
The Russian prime minister called Ukraine's involvement a 'crime,' but still agrees to a gas contract with Kiev.
By Arthur Bright
posted October 03, 2008 at 10:20 am EDT
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1003/p99s01-duts.html
E-mail Print Letter to the Editor Republish del.icio.us digg
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin charged Ukraine with supplying arms and manpower to Georgia during its recent war with Russia, and said if Ukraine's involvement was proven, it would be a "crime."
Russian news and information agency RIA Novosti reports that Mr. Putin made the accusation Thursday during a meeting with Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to sign a new contract on Russian natural gas exports to Ukraine.
"I don't think there is a graver crime than supplying arms to a conflict zone," Putin told his Ukrainian counterpart, Yulia Tymoshenko, during their meeting at the Russian premier's residence near Moscow.
He also said that he regretted "that Ukraine thought it acceptable to supply weapons to the conflict zone."
Putin also said Moscow had evidence proving that Ukrainian military experts were present in the conflict zone during the five-day war that began when Georgian forces attacked breakaway South Ossetia.
The BBC writes that Ms. Tymoshenko said she was confident that Ukraine's involvement in the war in Georgia would not be confirmed. The BBC adds that Putin's accusation "amounted to an attack on [Tymoshenko's] political rival, [Ukrainian] President Viktor Yushchenko," who sets Ukraine's defense policy.
Reuters reports that despite Putin's accusation, he and Tymoshenko agreed to a new deal to gradually increase Ukraine's payments for Russian gas over the next three years. Kiev, which has been paying Russia roughly $180 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas, had been concerned that Russia would require it to immediately start paying market prices, which are more than $500 per 1,000 cubic meters.
The Times of London reports that the Kiev-Moscow talks come amid a power struggle in Ukraine between Tymoshenko and Mr. Yuschenko. The two came to power during Ukraine's 2004 "Orange Revolution," but the government, a coalition of their two parties, has been wracked by infighting ever since. The Times writes that just before the talks, Tymoshenko accused Yuschenko of commandeering her plane to stymie her negotiations with Putin, highlighting one of the key disputes between the two: Ukraine's relationship with Russia.
Since Russia has in the past used gas supply as an instrument of policy against neighbouring states, the talks are being watched closely by the whole of the Ukrainian political class. The key question is whether Ms. Tymoshenko will give too much ground to the Kremlin. President and Prime Minister are at loggerheads over Mr. Yushchenko's openly critical view of Moscow's intervention in Georgia. In August he told the Times that the war was a compelling reason for accepting Ukrainian membership of Nato. Ms. Tymoshenko on the other hand has voiced almost no criticism of the Kremlin about the Georgian crisis.
This prompted accusations from presidential advisers that Ms. Tymoshenko was soft-peddling on Russia in order to win Russian cash and government support for her bid to supplant Mr. Yushchenko as president. Elections have to be held before 2010 and jostling for position has already begun. The Secret Service has been asked to investigate whether the prime minister had acted "to damage the country's national interests." Last month the President said Ms. Tymoshenko's actions were "aimed at destabilising the situation" and were tantamount to treason.
Russia's influence in Ukraine is not limited to diplomacy. The Chicago Tribune reports that Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula is home to a large ethnic Russian population and a major Russian naval base. Although Crimea's regional government is not separatist, like those in Georgia's South Ossetia and Abkhazia regions, there are concerns in Ukraine that Russia could use a similar excuse to invade Crimea as it did in Georgia.
"There is indeed a parallel situation here in Crimea," says Sergei Kulik, director of Nomos, an independent think tank in Sevastopol. "Many people in Crimea have both Russian and Ukrainian passports, which makes it possible to one day declare that the rights of Russian citizens have been violated and must be defended. That would bring us to the same situation we saw in Georgia."...
Sevastopol has been home to Russia's Black Sea Fleet since 1783. In 1997, Ukraine agreed to lease the port to the fleet until 2017, when the agreement would be up for renewal. Angered by Russia's actions in Georgia, Ukrainian leaders no longer want to renew the fleet's lease after 2017.
If the Black Sea Fleet is forced to leave Sevastopol, said Leonid Grach, a Communist Party member of Crimea's autonomous parliament, "then Crimea will explode. It'll become Kosovo, or Abkhazia, or South Ossetia. ... We won't have enough cemeteries to bury all the dead people."
Eviction from Sevastopol would force the Kremlin to spend tens of billions of dollars to make the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk fit for naval ships, destroyers and submarines. The fleet's presence in Sevastopol also serves as an invaluable vanguard of influence in Ukraine that Russia would find hard to replace.
But one of Russia's concerns about Ukraine looks to be allayed, at least for the time being. Although Yushchenko has campaigned for Ukraine's membership in NATO, The Wall Street Journal reports German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced Thursday that Germany would not support giving a membership "road map" to Ukraine or to Georgia this year.
Mrs. Merkel's rejection of a NATO track for Georgia and Ukraine, at a news conference with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in St. Petersburg, would effectively act as a veto. The Western military alliance operates by consensus.
U.S. officials had hoped a NATO ministerial meeting set for December might be the occasion for the alliance to extend a so-called Membership Action Plan, or MAP, to the two ex-Soviet States. However, any quick move toward their NATO membership grew less likely after Georgia's five-day war with Russia in August.
The U.S. State Department declined to comment, saying it hadn't seen or heard Mrs. Merkel's remarks.
Putin: Ukraine gave military aid to Georgia in war with Russia
The Russian prime minister called Ukraine's involvement a 'crime,' but still agrees to a gas contract with Kiev.
By Arthur Bright
posted October 03, 2008 at 10:20 am EDT
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1003/p99s01-duts.html
E-mail Print Letter to the Editor Republish del.icio.us digg
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin charged Ukraine with supplying arms and manpower to Georgia during its recent war with Russia, and said if Ukraine's involvement was proven, it would be a "crime."
Russian news and information agency RIA Novosti reports that Mr. Putin made the accusation Thursday during a meeting with Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to sign a new contract on Russian natural gas exports to Ukraine.
"I don't think there is a graver crime than supplying arms to a conflict zone," Putin told his Ukrainian counterpart, Yulia Tymoshenko, during their meeting at the Russian premier's residence near Moscow.
He also said that he regretted "that Ukraine thought it acceptable to supply weapons to the conflict zone."
Putin also said Moscow had evidence proving that Ukrainian military experts were present in the conflict zone during the five-day war that began when Georgian forces attacked breakaway South Ossetia.
The BBC writes that Ms. Tymoshenko said she was confident that Ukraine's involvement in the war in Georgia would not be confirmed. The BBC adds that Putin's accusation "amounted to an attack on [Tymoshenko's] political rival, [Ukrainian] President Viktor Yushchenko," who sets Ukraine's defense policy.
Reuters reports that despite Putin's accusation, he and Tymoshenko agreed to a new deal to gradually increase Ukraine's payments for Russian gas over the next three years. Kiev, which has been paying Russia roughly $180 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas, had been concerned that Russia would require it to immediately start paying market prices, which are more than $500 per 1,000 cubic meters.
The Times of London reports that the Kiev-Moscow talks come amid a power struggle in Ukraine between Tymoshenko and Mr. Yuschenko. The two came to power during Ukraine's 2004 "Orange Revolution," but the government, a coalition of their two parties, has been wracked by infighting ever since. The Times writes that just before the talks, Tymoshenko accused Yuschenko of commandeering her plane to stymie her negotiations with Putin, highlighting one of the key disputes between the two: Ukraine's relationship with Russia.
Since Russia has in the past used gas supply as an instrument of policy against neighbouring states, the talks are being watched closely by the whole of the Ukrainian political class. The key question is whether Ms. Tymoshenko will give too much ground to the Kremlin. President and Prime Minister are at loggerheads over Mr. Yushchenko's openly critical view of Moscow's intervention in Georgia. In August he told the Times that the war was a compelling reason for accepting Ukrainian membership of Nato. Ms. Tymoshenko on the other hand has voiced almost no criticism of the Kremlin about the Georgian crisis.
This prompted accusations from presidential advisers that Ms. Tymoshenko was soft-peddling on Russia in order to win Russian cash and government support for her bid to supplant Mr. Yushchenko as president. Elections have to be held before 2010 and jostling for position has already begun. The Secret Service has been asked to investigate whether the prime minister had acted "to damage the country's national interests." Last month the President said Ms. Tymoshenko's actions were "aimed at destabilising the situation" and were tantamount to treason.
Russia's influence in Ukraine is not limited to diplomacy. The Chicago Tribune reports that Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula is home to a large ethnic Russian population and a major Russian naval base. Although Crimea's regional government is not separatist, like those in Georgia's South Ossetia and Abkhazia regions, there are concerns in Ukraine that Russia could use a similar excuse to invade Crimea as it did in Georgia.
"There is indeed a parallel situation here in Crimea," says Sergei Kulik, director of Nomos, an independent think tank in Sevastopol. "Many people in Crimea have both Russian and Ukrainian passports, which makes it possible to one day declare that the rights of Russian citizens have been violated and must be defended. That would bring us to the same situation we saw in Georgia."...
Sevastopol has been home to Russia's Black Sea Fleet since 1783. In 1997, Ukraine agreed to lease the port to the fleet until 2017, when the agreement would be up for renewal. Angered by Russia's actions in Georgia, Ukrainian leaders no longer want to renew the fleet's lease after 2017.
If the Black Sea Fleet is forced to leave Sevastopol, said Leonid Grach, a Communist Party member of Crimea's autonomous parliament, "then Crimea will explode. It'll become Kosovo, or Abkhazia, or South Ossetia. ... We won't have enough cemeteries to bury all the dead people."
Eviction from Sevastopol would force the Kremlin to spend tens of billions of dollars to make the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk fit for naval ships, destroyers and submarines. The fleet's presence in Sevastopol also serves as an invaluable vanguard of influence in Ukraine that Russia would find hard to replace.
But one of Russia's concerns about Ukraine looks to be allayed, at least for the time being. Although Yushchenko has campaigned for Ukraine's membership in NATO, The Wall Street Journal reports German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced Thursday that Germany would not support giving a membership "road map" to Ukraine or to Georgia this year.
Mrs. Merkel's rejection of a NATO track for Georgia and Ukraine, at a news conference with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in St. Petersburg, would effectively act as a veto. The Western military alliance operates by consensus.
U.S. officials had hoped a NATO ministerial meeting set for December might be the occasion for the alliance to extend a so-called Membership Action Plan, or MAP, to the two ex-Soviet States. However, any quick move toward their NATO membership grew less likely after Georgia's five-day war with Russia in August.
The U.S. State Department declined to comment, saying it hadn't seen or heard Mrs. Merkel's remarks.