Monday, September 29, 2008
Ukraine's president, Viktor Yuschenko, meets with President George W. Bush at the White House on Monday.
Bush's spokeswoman, Dana Perino, said the two leaders will discuss how to reinforce democracy, security and national sovereignty in Ukraine. In addition, she said Thursday they will review Ukraine's efforts to become part of the Euro-Atlantic community.
Yushchenko's pro-Western coalition with Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko collapsed earlier this month. The two leaders have been feuding ahead of the 2010 presidential elections. They also have disagreed about how to react to Russia's war with Georgia last month.
The Kremlin has bitterly opposed the prospect of NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine.
Source: The International Herald Tribune
Ukrainian President Yushchenko declares democratic sovereignty
In the context of the Russian-Georgian conflict and pro-Russian forces active in the Krimean area, Yushchenko said that he is ready to fight and protect his sovereign nation and determine it’s own defense and security policy. He strongly confirmed that his territory would never be used for any country to deploy nuclear weapons. Addressing the fears of communist presence in the government, Yushchenko did not understand how Prime Minister Temeshinko made their top partnership with communists because, he said, “there are no Ukrainian communists. These communists always represented interests of a different country.”
Yushchenko confirmed his support of NATO, saying it is “the best model to guarantee security in the (Ukraine’s) international coordinates”. The President continued to declare his plan for a democratic Ukraine and integration into the European Union under the Association Agreement. The Association Agreements would include a free trade area and a start to negotiations of visa free access between the EU and Ukraine.
Source: The Talk Radio Service.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Round One
As planned by the commission on debates, most of the night was devoted to foreign policy and there we give the clear edge to Mr. McCain. This is the ground where the 72-year-old is most comfortable, and you could see it in his self-confidence, as well as his command of history and facts. He showed it too in the specificity of his answers, notably on Russia: Watch Ukraine, he said, and "the Crimea," because Vladimir Putin's Georgian expedition is a prelude to Russian adventurism there.
Mr. Obama was well briefed, but almost in the way a Ph.D. candidate gives his dissertation defense. He knew the subject but without the conviction or detail that comes from wide experience. One surprise: Mr. Obama declared that both Georgia and Ukraine should get an immediate action plan to enter NATO. This is welcome as a policy matter, though we have our doubts how much this conviction would hold up in an Obama Administration as Mr. Putin growled and made trouble for the U.S. in Iran and Eastern Europe.
Click here for complete story.
Source: Wall Street Journal
Why McCain Loves Misha
Straight out of the gate, Saakashvili fired 80,000 state employees, including 90 percent of the old KGB-trained security force and every last member of the country's notoriously corrupt traffic police. Since then three Parliament members, 16 prosecutors, 45 judges, 400 police and even a serving cabinet minister have been indicted and jailed for graft. And bypassing Georgia's old ruling class, Misha filled his cabinet with young, Western-educated former NGO staffers. "Only young people had the enthusiasm to change the country," says Georgia's state-security secretary, Alexander Lomaia, 50, the cabinet's oldest member. (The defense minister is 29.)
Click here for full story.
Source: Newsweek
McCain and Obama spar in first debate
You can sum it up with the exchange on the issue of Russia - whose petro-dollar fuelled resurgence as a regional power is going to test the next president throughout his term of office.
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Mr McCain was able to describe meeting Vladimir Putin, "looking into his eyes and seeing three letters, K, G and B" - a reference to the old Soviet intelligence agency for which Mr Putin once worked.
Does it sound corny to foreign ears, with a slight B-movie flavour to it? It probably does. I would say in America it plays much better as a tough-guy sound-bite, suggestive of a president who knows how to stand up to Moscow.
Mr Obama's answer on Russia rambled quite a bit and veered off into a dissertation on the need to develop alternative energy sources - not his first of the night.
You could see the logic - Russia is an oil exporter and one of America's biggest problems is dependence on imported oil.
Click here for complete story.
Source: BBC
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Russian Neighbors Urge U.N. to Stand Against Kremlin Aggression
Victor A. Yushchenko, the president of Ukraine, told the General Assembly that his country condemned Russia’s action and he hinted that Ukraine would not succumb to Russian intimidation over its ambition to join NATO.
“It is essential to turn down blackmailing and threatening vocabulary,” Mr. Yushchenko said.
Click here for complete article.
Source: NewYork Times
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Disputes Strain Ukrainian-Russian Ties
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Source: Voice of America
Ukraine rejects Russian pressure to prevent NATO entry
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) — Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko on Wednesday rejected Russian pressure to prevent his country from joining NATO.
"It is essential to turn down blackmailing and threatening vocabulary," he told the UN General Assembly here.
"Ukraine rejects pressure of any kind regarding ways to ensure its own security and to determine membership in collective security structures," he added. "Such attempts of infringement are short-sighted and counter-productive."
Without ever naming Russia, Yushchenko also condemned "all acts of aggression and the use of force that occurred in the region."
He was apparently referring to both Georgia's recent offensive against separatists in its breakaway enclave of South Ossetia and the ensuing Russian military intervention there to dislodge Georgian troops.
"Ukraine vigorously denounces the violation of the territorial integrity and inviolability of the Georgian borders and armed annexation of its territory," the Ukrainian leader said.
"Ukraine does not recognize the independence of the self-proclaimed republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia (and) condemns the endeavor of the illegitimate and separatist affirmation of the statehood of any territories," he added.
Click here for complete article.
Source: AFP
Ukrainian Leader Cautiously Condemns Russian Aggression
Mr. Yushchenko told the U.N. General Assembly Tuesday that Ukraine does not recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia - the pro-Russian breakaway territories in Georgia that Moscow has recognized as independent states.
The Ukrainian leader said his country sympathizes with all those hurt by last month's conflict in Georgia - Ossetians, Russians and Georgians alike. He called on the General Assembly to work towards peaceful settlement of the conflict, and he said Ukraine will support all such efforts.
He also voiced concern about the rise of what he called Cold War rhetoric. But he said tensions in the Caucasus can not be solved either by isolating Russia or by the continued use of military force.
Mr. Yushchenko also noted that his country is marking the 75th anniversary of the Great Famine, known as Holodomor. He called on all former Soviet-bloc countries to commemorate their national tragedies and never to forget the crimes committed under the totalitarian regimes of Stalin and other leaders.
Ukrainian president to meet Bush next week
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KYIV, September 24 (RIA Novosti) - Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko plans to meet with his U.S. counterpart, George Bush, next Monday, national media reported Wednesday.
Ukraine's pro-Western leader told the press about the upcoming meeting while attending the UN General Assembly session in New York, the UNIAN news agency said.
The agency quoted Yushchenko as saying that the two presidents would focus on bilateral relations. He said Kiev and Washington could extend a bilateral agreement on security.
The United States is a staunch supporter of Ukraine's bid for EU and NATO membership, while Moscow strongly opposes the former Soviet republic joining the military bloc as a threat to Russia's national security.
Russia, which is Ukraine's major energy supplier, leases its main Black Sea naval base from the country. At least 50 warships and smaller vessels, along with 80 aircraft, are stationed in the Crimean port of Sevastopol.
The base has been a source of friction between Russia and Ukraine, and Yushchenko has demanded that the Black Sea Fleet must leave the base when the lease expires in 2017.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Plus ca change, plus ce le meme chose?
Click here for complete story.
Source: UNIAN
Q&A: Yushchenko balances Russian, EU relations
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko is to arrive in the U.S. on Monday for the U.N. General Assembly.
Click here for complete story.
Source: Washington Times
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Rice Says Georgian War Leaves Russia Isolated
Rice called Russia's move into Georgia "premeditated," and noted that after hostilities ended in Georgia, the world rushed to help rebuild the country's infrastructure that had been damaged by the presence of Russian troops.
Meanwhile, she said, Russia had to be satisfied with encouragement from only the most trivial of backers -- from Nicaragua and the Palestinian group Hamas, which she described as "not a diplomatic triumph."
And Rice said Russia failed to reap any lasting benefits from the war in Georgia. It proved the obvious, she said, namely that it could easily defeat a small neighbor. But she noted that Georgia's democracy remains intact, its economy will soon thrive again, and with the help of its allies, its independence will be guaranteed.
Russia, meanwhile, will have gained nothing. "Russia's invasion of Georgia has achieved -- and will achieve -- no enduring strategic objective," she said. "And our strategic goal now is to make clear to Russia's leaders that their choices could put Russia on a one-way path to self-imposed isolation and international irrelevance."
Click here for complete story.
Source: Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
Bitter Medicine for Little Volodya Putin, aka Lilyput Putin
So now little Volodya Putin is frowning and screaming and bitterly resenting having to swallow so much distasteful reality. How the mighty have fallen! It seems like only yesterday that Putin was strutting and preening and being called “person of the year.” How utterly vacuous and stupid those fawning statements now seem, in the light of Russia’s barbaric military action in Georgia — which totally failed to unseat Georgia’s hated president — and in light of the stock market’s humiliating implosion and the neo-Soviet manner in which Putin has helplessly, impotently responded to it.
Click here for full article.
Source: La Russaphobe
President thinks BYuT, PR and communists coalition has minimal chances
He also added that such a coalition may be created but some forces would be forced to resign from a number of priorities they had declared before. In case with Byut these would be promises to aim for Ukraine gaining NATO MAP.
Beside that, according to President Yushchenko the electorate of ByuT and PR would not accept the alliance between these two political parties.
Speaking about contacts between these political forces President Yushchenko stressed that he welcomes any political dialogue because the parliamentarians have their right for it. “If final agreement is reached on these alliance, as the President I will accept them. I will not try to reverse that agreement by any attempts to create a coalition in the Parliament ... Howewer if political partners don't say their word, than the President will say his”, - he added
Source: Official Website of President of Ukraine
Ukraine's Ruling Coalition Collapses
President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko worked together in an "Orange" coalition for nine fractious months, but their alliance gradually unraveled, not for the first time, faltering on serious policy and personality differences.
Their failure to patch up differences after a 10-day cooling-off period came as Mr. Yushchenko -- whose supporters have charged Ms. Tymoshenko with collaborating with Moscow -- accused Russia of trying to destabilize Ukraine.
Policy and personality differences led Ukraine's Yulia Tymoshenko, right, with Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, and Viktor Yushchenko to end their coalition.
"For some of our partners, instability in Ukraine is like bread and butter," he said in an Associated Press interview, suggesting Moscow was stirring up separatists on the volatile Crimean Peninsula, where Russia's Black Sea Fleet is based.
He said Ukraine wouldn't allow itself to be drawn into a war in the way he said Georgia had last month when Russian troops responded to a Georgian attack on South Ossetia by occupying large swaths of its territory.
Click here for complete story.
Source: Wall Street Journal
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Russia eyes Mediterranean as alternative to Sevastopol naval base
Yushchenko has called for the Russian navy's early pullout, tougher deployment requirements and higher fees, demands that have not been backed by his former coalition ally, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
Russia-Ukraine tensions heightened after several Black Sea Fleet warships dropped anchor off the Georgian coast during and after the armed conflict with Tbilisi over breakaway South Ossetia last month.
Russia's naval base in the Crimea currently has 50 warships and patrol boats, along with around 80 aircraft, and employs coastal defense troops.
Would we really miss Russian fleet?
Click here for complete story.
Source: Ria Novosti
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Ukraine Prez: Russia Wants To Destabilize Ukraine
Yushchenko said Russia was interested in causing "internal instability" in parts of Ukraine.
"Without a doubt, such scenarios exist," he said.
Click here for complete story.
Source: Yahoo News
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Shots in the back half a century later Do the communist leaders have the right to accuse the OUN and the UPA of treason?
But the communists maintained a discreet silence about the fact that the USSR concluded the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and was supplying Germany with material resources in the heat of Hitler’s offensive in Europe, and that the West’s Lend-Lease program, although it did not play a decisive role in the victory, came to the USSR during the most critical days of the war, when it was desperately needed.
As for “shooting in the back” of the Soviet Army, this was the handiwork not of the mythical “UPA bandits” but the communists themselves. Recall the notorious Order no. 227 of July 28, 1942, authorizing the formation of penal battalions and barrier troops in which 427,910 men saw service. Most of them were killed in action or became disabled (see, the statistical reference book Russia and the USSR in 20th-Century Wars edited by Col.-Gen. G. Krivosheev, Moscow, OLMA-Press, 2001).
Click here for full story.
Source The Day
Friday, September 12, 2008
After The Georgian Crisis, The Breaking Of Europe
The EU is nearly paralyzed by a fragmentation of the will, a condition which was in ample evidence at the EU-Ukraine summit in Paris on September 9. On that occasion, in a feat of extreme verbal contortionism, the EU promised Ukraine everything but a guaranteed prospect of membership. Most EU member states fear Ukraine may already face a real threat from Russia, yet the bloc's strategic interests were nowhere in sight at the ambassadorial meetings in Brussels preceding the summit, where the Netherlands and other member states skeptical of enlargement argued that giving Ukraine a binding pledge of membership would be too unpopular back home.
Neither has the EU done anything to match the U.S. diplomatic "surge" in which top State Department officials have visited Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan, not to mention Georgia. Again, the bloc's 27 member states have conspicuously failed to marshal the requisite collective resolve.
Seems like they (EU) are castrated. Especially the French and Germans. Click here to read full article.
Source: RFERL
Diplomat: Russia stalling over Georgia observers
Russian soldiers stand at a checkpoint in Karaleti district, northwest of Gori.
The official, who has been intimately involved in three weeks of negotiations, accused Russia of stalling for time in an effort to keep observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe out of the two breakaway regions.
"It has become clear that Russia doesn't want any agreement. I think they're afraid of what the observers will see," the diplomat told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the talks.
Click here for full story.
Source: CNN
Russian aggression could pull U.S. into war: Palin
Ms. Palin said she "definitely" supports a U. S. strategic alliance with Ukraine and Georgia because "the Rose Revolution, the Orange Revolution, those actions have showed us that those democratic nations, I believe, deserve to be in NATO."
The United States needs to strengthen NATO because it "is the group that can be counted upon to defend one another in a very dangerous world today," she said.
Click here for complete story.
Source: The National Post
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Ukraine: Cheney IOU against Russia
Sept. 4, 2008 Cheney and Yushchenko shake on U.S. guarantees against Russia
Another pre-emptive threat by Washington
Last week as McCain made his speech to the Republican faithful, Vice President Dick Cheney visited Ukraine and unconditionally pledged America's support against any attempt by Moscow to corrupt, much less invade, that giant.
This is hardly popular stuff in a war-embattled America where billions are spent each month in an unnecessary occupation of Iraq.
But another entanglement may loom. The United States (under Clinton) signed an iron-clad agreement in 1994 with Ukraine, Britain (under John Major) and Russia (Boris Yeltsin). The Ukrainians back then got these three to guarantee its sovereignty as the quid pro quo for Ukraine's agreement to dismantle and hand over its entire arsenal of nuclear weapons and missiles to Russia.
Click here for full story.
Source: The National Post
Ukraine comes to the forefront
Click here for complete story.
Source: The Economist
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Cracks in Putin's kingdom
He can best be characterized by the term "sovok," one of those many-layered pieces of word play in which Russians delight. In this case, it can be summarized as someone who embodies the dark and circumscribed world view of the Soviet man in the street, suspicious of the outside world, resentful, who holds a grudge and remembers a slight. Putin speaks passionately about the "tragedy" of the Soviet Union's collapse, a personally scarring time when he found himself unemployed.
He trusts very few people. Aides say he makes policy on key issues – Georgia, Ukraine, NATO – himself, along with a small circle, and tends to improvise. He shows little interest in the Russian stock market, which has taken a battering since the outbreak of the Georgia crisis, while most of the mega-rich, many of them close associates, have attained their fortune by obeying one rule: Do exactly what Putin says.
In the past, everybody obeyed this rule, and many in the ruling elite were genuinely convinced that he was the right leader for these times. Now, doubts are creeping in, and people are bracing themselves for tense years. The strong man has started to show his weaknesses.
Click here for full story.
Source: Yahoo News.
U.S. accuses Russia of waffling on cease-fire
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States on Wednesday criticized Russia for failing to live up to the cease-fire agreement in Georgia and for refusing to remove its military forces.
U.S State Department spokesman Sean McCormack says the Russians "need to get out of Georgia."
"Look, these guys are trying to, at every turn, trying to wiggle out of a commitment that they made and that their president put his name to," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said at his morning briefing. "We've seen it since August and it continues. They need to get out of Georgia and they need to stop finding excuses to do that."
Click here for full story.Source: CNN
EU offers reassurance to Ukraine
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Mr Sarkozy's reassurance comes after rising tensions between Russia and Ukraine over its Crimea region.
Ukraine has also been offered an association agreement with the EU, to be signed next year.
The accord represents cautious support for possible eventual EU membership for Ukraine.
"In the eyes of Europe, [territorial integrity] is absolutely non-negotiable," Mr Sarkozy said in a response to a question from reporters in Paris.
He underlined that the accord left the path for future membership of the 27-member state bloc open, saying: "This association accord does not close any avenues."
Click here for full story.Source BBC On-line
Monday, September 08, 2008
Dmitry Medvedevi a 'political corpse' or a puppet?
President Medvedev said Russia did not fear calls for its isolation |
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has described his Georgian counterpart as a "political corpse", saying Moscow does not recognise him as president.
Same can be said about this clown of a president, who in reality is a puppet to Lilyput Putin, and has the nerve to come out with such absurd statement.
US gives $1bn to rebuild Georgia
Meanwhile, another country, Nicaragua, whose leftist government fiercely opposes the US, now appears to have become the second nation to recognise the independence of the republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Adrug wielding puppet from Nicaragua and a Alexander Lukashenko, the last dictator in Europe at the head of an outpost of tyranny. We are really impressed now Lillyput Putin. Are there any more takers out there?
Click here to read the following interesting article in BBC on line.
Source: BBC
Sunday, September 07, 2008
Georgia's Human Chain Stronger than Russian Tanks
Click here for complete story.
Source: American Thinker