With the kind permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, InfoUkes Inc. has been given rights to electronically re-print these articles on our web site. Visit the RFE/RL Ukrainian Service page for more information. Also visit the RFE/RL home page for news stories on other Eastern European and FSU countries.
Return to Main RFE News Page
InfoUkes Home Page
UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT WRANGLES OVER SESSION AGENDA... The Verkhovna Rada on 20 June voted down a proposal for an agenda of its current session that consisted of 106 issues, including the impeachment of President Leonid Kuchma, UNIAN reported. The proposal was opposed by United Ukraine, the Social Democratic Party-united, the Communist Party, and the Socialist Party. The Communists and the Socialists said they voted against the agenda primarily because it included a motion to ban the Communist Party. Lawmaker Oleksandr Turchynov from the Yuliya Tymoshenko Bloc, which proposed a motion to impeach Kuchma, said the bloc will resort to both "parliamentary and non-parliamentary" methods of struggle if it is "illegally deprived of the possibility" to submit draft bills to the parliament. Meanwhile, Our Ukraine has refused to participate in voting on the session's agenda as long as it does not include a proposal to set up a commission for investigating the bankruptcy of the Ukrayina bank and the privatization of Ukrsotsbank. JM
...DEMANDS PROBE INTO FORMER SECURITY CHIEF. The previous day, the Verkhovna Rada approved a request by Hrihoriy Omelchenko from the Yuliya Tymoshenko Bloc to open a criminal investigation against former Security Service chief Leonid Derkach and his son, lawmaker Andriy Derkach, AP reported. Omelchenko based his request on an RFE/RL interview with National Security and Defense Council chief Yevhen Marchuk in April, in which Marchuk said that Derkach and his son made "illegal deals that made a colossal loss to the state economy." In January, the parliament demanded an investigation into the Derkachs' alleged involvement in selling arms to the Taliban when they ruled Afghanistan (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 15 January 2002). In May, former presidential bodyguard Mykola Melnychenko claimed on RFE/RL that his tapes made secretly in Kuchma's office confirm that Derkach had links with the Iraqi and Iranian governments (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 23 May 2002). JM
POLISH FORMER MINISTER CHARGED OVER YAMAL PIPELINE DEAL. Prosecutors have charged five people -- including Waclaw Niewiarowski, industry minister in Hanna Suchocka's cabinet in 1992-93 -- with exceeding their authority and harming the public interest in a deal involving the construction of the Yamal-Europe natural gas pipeline and the accompanying fiber-optic cable (see "RFE/RL Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine Report," 21 November 2000). In particular, Niewiarowski is accused of depriving Poland of control over the pipeline project by letting a private contractor, the Gaz Trading Company, take a stake in it. According to an intergovernmental agreement, Poland's PGNiG and Russia's Gazprom were each to hold 50 percent of the shares in the Polish-Russian company EuRoPol, which built the pipeline. Prosecutors charge that Niewiarowski's activities allowed Gaz Trading to take a 4 percent stake in EuRoPol, while PGNiG and Gazprom were each left with 48 percent. JM
MOLDOVA POSTPONES RENEWED NEGOTIATIONS WITH TIRASPOL. Moldova on 19 June announced it has postponed the resumption of negotiations with Tiraspol, RFE/RL's Chisinau bureau reported. Chisinau believes the planned meeting in Kyiv necessitates more thorough preparations, and Moldovan officials said they intend to submit to the forum a draft document on the special status of the Transdniester. They also said the draft proposed by Tiraspol reflects the separatists' "negative attitude," and described the document as hardly different from their 1999 version. They said Tiraspol continues to speak of "two equal-right subjects of international law," of mutual recognition of "sovereignty," and of settling disputes on the basis of "international law." MS