Latest Articles about Ukraine
YUSHCHENKO SWEARS BY RUSSIAN GAS DEAL WHILE YEKHANUROV SPILLS THE BEANS
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko is risking his political credibility by blindly defending the Russian-Ukrainian gas deal despite severe criticism of it by Western and Ukrainian experts and a majority of the Ukrainian parliament. Rather than addressing the agreement on its merits, Yushchenko ignores Western critics... MORE
PUTIN OFFERS TO SHORE UP A WEAKENED YUSHCHENKO
Russian President Vladimir Putin is shifting tactics toward Ukraine. Following the "gas attack" designed to produce regime change in Ukraine at the upcoming parliamentary elections, Putin is now apparently moving to reach an understanding with the severely weakened President Viktor Yushchenko. The January 4 signing... MORE
YUSHCHENKO’S GOVERNMENT LOSES VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE
Yesterday, January 10, the Ukrainian parliament voted no confidence in the government of Prime Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov, which has only been in place since late September 2005, when he replaced Yulia Tymoshenko (rada.gov.ua). President Viktor Yushchenko seems oblivious to the building furor over the new... MORE
MARKET ECONOMICS TAKES A DRUBBING IN RUSSIA-UKRAINE GAS DEAL
If the Soviet Kremlin invoked "internationalism" to cover the expansionism of the Soviet state, President Vladimir Putin's Kremlin invokes free-market economics to cloak the Russian state's use of the energy trade for rebuilding its power in Eurasia. Some key European officials seem to have accepted... MORE
XENOPHOBES TO CONTEST SEATS IN UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT
Ukraine's parliamentary election campaign is in full swing. In accordance with political reform approved in December 2004 (see EDM, January 3), the election scheduled for March 26 will be contested exclusively by parties and blocs of parties, without any first-past-the-post constituencies for individual candidates. By... MORE
CONTROVERSIAL ASPECTS OF RUSSIA-UKRAINE GAS AGREEMENT DISCLOSED IN KYIV
Ukraine's former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko made public yesterday [January 5] the confidential text of the Russia-Ukraine gas agreement, signed on January 4 in Moscow. Three aspects that officials on both sides downplayed or omitted in their briefings stand out in the confidential text (UNIAN,... MORE
KREMLIN ENERGY POLICY IN UKRAINE: UNWIELDY COMBINATION OF STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES AND PRIVATE INTERESTS
The controversial deal that brought an end, at least for now, to the acrimonious gas dispute between Russia and Ukraine (see EDM, January 5) appears to reflect a contradictory mix of interests that shape Kremlin energy policies. While Russia failed to attain most of the... MORE
RUSSIA-UKRAINE GAS TRUCE: MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS
On January 4, after all-night negotiations in Moscow, Russia's Gazprom and Naftohaz Ukrainy signed five-year agreements on the supply of Russian and Turkmen gas to Ukraine and transit of Russian gas via Ukraine to European countries. Literally overnight, the agreements bring a truce to the... MORE
UKRAINIAN AND MOLDOVAN PRESIDENTS CLOSE RANKS, APPEAL TO EUROPEAN UNION ON GAS CRISIS
On January 3, Presidents Viktor Yushchenko of Ukraine and Vladimir Voronin of Moldova announced joint steps to cope with the gas-supply crisis and appealed to the European Union to intercede with Russia in support of the Ukrainian-Moldovan position. Voronin initiated this joint demarche after Gazprom... MORE
YUSHCHENKO CHALLENGES CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM
On January 1, 2006, Ukraine began its transformation from a semi-presidential republic into a parliamentary democracy. The reform is in line with the constitutional amendments that the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) passed at the height of the Orange Revolution in late 2004. This was a compromise... MORE