President Yanukovich and NATO

After all court procedures in the Supreme Administrative court, Viktor Yanukovich is now preparing for inauguration. The Party of Regions carries on complicated negotiations with different political powers about creating a new coalition and forming a “technical” government that will lead the Ukraine out of the crisis it had been drawn into by the Orange government. Timoshenko doesn’t intend to leave the prime-minister’s post and promises to fight the existing government “to the last ditch”. Nationalistic and quasi-nationalistic powers that lost the elections and are unable to oppose representatives of the regions in the field of economics start crusade against the Russian language. Yushchenko chooses for himself a governmental dacha, gives awards to his supporters and goes on his last tour across the country of exhibitions dedicated to the “fight of heroic Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and Ukrainian Insurgent Army against the Soviet rule”. The West meanwhile discusses the after-election fate of the Ukraine.

“The Ukraine at least won’t insist on providing the prospects of membership either in EU, or in NATO. These questions of Yushchenko’s time stand no longer. Everybody understands that the issue of Ukraine’s joining NATO ceased to be an urgent one for now, and may be forever,” stated Arnaud Dubien, a prominent French political scientist and a leading researcher of IRIS.

Nevertheless, Arnaud Dubien doesn’t rule out the possibility of collaboration of Kiev with the West to be more efficient with Yanukovich at the helm, then it was during Yushchenko’s presidency, in case the situation in the Ukraine is not catastrophic. “We’ll be less talking about membership, prospects and dates and will deal more with boring but necessary issues, such as the adaptation of Ukrainian legislation and standard specifications to the European standards, and so on,” says the scientist. First of all, apart from the cooperation in energy sector, the West is interested in the relations between the Ukraine and NATO. As Arnaud Dubien says, the fact that the “golden age” of Ukrainian relationship with NATO has gone doesn’t impede the real army cooperation.

http://www.eastwest-review.com/article/president-yanukovich-and-nato

Yanukovich and the mines of the language issue

During 5 years of Yushchenko being president sociologists used to inform the language issue wasn’t the priority for Ukrainian citizens. But the first week of Viktor Yanukovich in office has proved it wrong – the language issue stays as one of the most painful problems of the country’s social being. On 5th of March, during his first visit to Moscow, Viktor Yanukovich promised he wouldn’t postpone the adoption of statutes aimed to protect the rights of Russian-speaking population in Ukraine. “We’ll adopt all the necessary laws. I promise to the Ukrainian people to implement this program decision. The issue will be settled in the nearest future”, Yanukovich stated at the press-conference in Kremlin answering the question about solving the problem of protection of Russian language in Ukraine.
http://www.eastwest-review.com/article/yanukovich-and-mines-language-issue

Falklands or Malvinas?

In February 2010 Argentine gained an important diplomatic victory. During the meeting in Mexico heads of all the Latin American states have unanimously adopted the declaration supporting the Argentinean claims for the disputable archipelago. “Argentine cannot be deprived of the right to possess the Islands” — said Brazilian President Brazilian President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, voicing the shared position of more than 30 countries of the Western hemisphere. It is an obvious failure of the British Foreign Office. Who is to be blamed?
http://www.eastwest-review.com/article/falklands-or-malvinas-part-i-britain-haunted-series-diplomatic-failures

Ukraine’s refusal to join NATO: the return to national interests?

It is ridiculous, but the information that Ukrainian authorities made a decision to dismiss bodies responsible for preparing the Ukrainian entering NATO was hardly noticed. In Russian mass-media the event was almost lost among breaking news about the acts of terrorism, and in foreign mass-media the information was represented only by segmental and moderate comments of experts without any significant political statements concerning the issue.

Mikhail Mizin notes that this topic was reasonably paid little attention in western information field, which once more demonstrated its subjective right for assigning importance rates electively. The current information campaign carried out in accordance with all the rules of PR-technologies and dedicated to a new NATO strategy concept uses specially created web-portals and Internet broadcasting channels. However, this campaign scarcely paid attention to the fact that one of the largest European countries, till the recent moment setting oneself as a candidate to join the block, actually demonstrated its refusal to join.

In the same time, western TV channels continued to thoroughly monitor the operation carried out by International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan under the guidance of NATO, providing that Afghanistan is the country situated thousands of kilometers far from European capitals and separated from Europe by whole steps of civilization development...
See the whole article here:
http://www.eastwest-review.com/article/ukrainersquos-refusal-join-nato-return-national-interests

A new strategy in Ukrainian-Russian relations?

On the 22nd of April the negotiations between the Ukrainian leader Viktor Yanukovych and the Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev ended in success: important interstate agreements were signed; the main and the most expected among them were contracts concerning renting of the Russian Naval Forces base in Sevastopol, and gas deliveries. The Black Sea Fleet will stay in Sevastopol for 25 years after the end of the renting (2017); and Ukraine receives a significant discount for Russian fuel. Russian political analyst Alexander Sotnichenko asks himself to what extent can the results of the negotiations be treated successful? What will be the consequences of the agreements for Russia, Ukraine, and the whole world?

This was the first time that the Russian president visited Ukraine after “the orange revolution.” The results of presidential elections have clearly demonstrated that Ukrainian people got tired of anti-Russian propaganda which resulted in a breach of political and cultural connections between the two nations, as well as stagnation of economy. Events of the last two months show that Viktor Yanukovych pays much attention to Russian support of Ukrainian development. The discount granted for gas purchase will help to struggle crisis. However, apart from that further mutually profitable relations between industries of the two countries are to be developed, and breached connections are to be restored...
http://www.eastwest-review.com/article/new-strategy-ukrainian-russian-relations