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UKRAINIAN PROSECUTOR-GENERAL DISMISSES CHARGES BY FORMER SPY... Prosecutor-General Hennadiy Vasilyev told journalists in Kyiv on 2 March that his office will not open a criminal case in connection with documents recently submitted by a former intelligence officer posted at the Ukrainian Embassy in Berlin, Ukrainian news agencies reported. General Valeriy Kravchenko claimed last month that the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) has been illegally ordering its operatives abroad to spy on Ukrainian opposition lawmakers and cabinet members (see "RFE/RL Belarus and Ukraine Report," 2 March 2004). Our Ukraine lawmaker Mykola Tomenko met with Kravchenko in Berlin last week and subsequently passed to the Prosecutor-General's Office the SBU instructions that purportedly corroborate Kravchenko's charges. Vasilyev said there were no grounds to open a probe since the documents provide no evidence that the law was broken. At the same time, Vasilyev warned Tomenko against making the content of Kravchenko's documents public, saying the lawmaker could thus face criminal responsibility for revealing state secrets. JM
...AS OPPOSITION LAWMAKER PUBLICIZES ALLEGED SECRET DOCUMENTS. Mykola Tomenko did not heed Vasilyev's warning on 2 March and made the content of Kravchenko's documents known to journalists on 3 March, the "Ukrayinska pravda" website reported. Tomenko distributed among journalists the alleged texts of four confidential instructions in which the SBU headquarters in Kyiv orders Kravchenko to prevent potentially compromising material from being shown on a German television channel; spy on visiting Ukrainian officials in Germany; gather comprehensive information on a Kyiv conference that was being organized by the EU and Ukrainian opposition; spy on all Ukrainian delegations visiting Germany; and gather "preemptive" information among the Ukrainian diaspora. "Restricted-access information may be disseminated without the authorization of its owner if it is publicly significant, if the right of the public to know this information surpasses the right of its owner to its protection," Tomenko said, citing Ukraine's law on information. JM
Moscow took an unprecedented step last month to discipline Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka and remind him that it is high time for him to start behaving in the manner the Kremlin wants him to -- Gazprom on 18 February halted gas supply to Belarus completely, charging that Minsk exhausted contracted gas quotas and began to siphon off Russian gas flowing in transit to third countries. Gazprom has refused to supply gas to Belarus since the beginning of the year, demanding a higher price for deliveries and favorable terms in the potential purchase of a controlling stake in Belarus's gas-pipeline operator Beltranshaz. To these two demands Lukashenka has steadfastly objected, at least until recently.
An accord to set up a Belarusian-Russian joint venture to run Belarus's gas-pipeline network, which is now run by Beltranshaz, was signed in April 2002, in addition to an agreement on the supply of 10 million cubic meters of gas to Belarus at a preferential price of some $30 per 1,000 cubic meters (which is Russia's domestic price for gas supplied to Smolensk Oblast bordering on Belarus). The planned sale of a stake in Beltranshaz to Gazprom collapsed in mid-2003, after Lukashenka valued the company at $5 billion and offered only a 50 percent stake, while Gazprom said it would pay only $600 million for a controlling stake.
Since the beginning of January, Belarus received gas from the formally independent traders Itera and Transnafta under short-term, "emergency" contracts, paying some $47 per 1,000 cubic meters. When a subsequent contract expired on 18 February and Minsk showed no willingness to sign another one, Gazprom turned off the tap.
Lukashenka's first reaction to the gas cutoff was furious. Unlike several previous bitter rows with Moscow, this time the Belarusian president did not look for some "backstage" culprits, but attacked Russian President Vladimir Putin directly. He accused Putin of pursuing economic "terrorism," adding that such a hostile step had not been made against Belarus since the end of World War II. But later the same day, Lukashenka suddenly backed down and agreed to pay a higher price -- $50 per 1,000 cubic meters -- for Russian gas. In what seemed to be his last propagandistic salvo of anti-Putin spitefulness, Lukashenka publicly announced that he will take money from "Chornobyl victims" and "people who rotted in the trenches" to pay the higher gas bills.
An unidentified official from the Russian Foreign Ministry lambasted Lukashenka on the ministry's official website for his "provocative statements" on 19 February, arguing that Belarus's defective socioeconomic development and international isolation were caused by none other than the Belarusian president himself. It was the first time that Moscow officially criticized Lukashenka's policies. Quite understandably, the Russian Foreign Ministry kept totally silent about the fact that it has been primarily the Kremlin's unconditional political support and cheap gas supplies that allowed Lukashenka to pursue such policies for almost 10 years. But now it seems that Moscow has decided to close the period of cheap gas supplies to Belarus for good.
Lukashenka has threatened to renounce unspecified "agreements" with Russia in retaliation to Gazprom's demand of a higher price for gas, but it is rather unlikely that, as some analysts suggest, he might immediately decide on re-establishing a full-scale customs border with his eastern neighbor, thus putting a practical end to the much-publicized Russia-Belarus Union. Even though the idea of a union state with Belarus seems to have lost influential advocates in Russia, Lukashenka has no other reliable political foundation on which he could place his hopes for political survival, especially as many Belarusian observers assert that he is planning to remain in power beyond the end of his second term in 2006.
A day after consenting to pay the higher price for gas, Lukashenka backed down even further and called against "politicizing" the gas dispute with Moscow. He seems to realize that it is Putin who is now dealing the cards in the Russia-Belarus integration game. Therefore, Lukashenka will pay higher gas bills, even if grudgingly, and will most likely try to bargain away Beltranshaz for the highest possible price, including the Kremlin's consent to his staying for a third presidential term.
Judging by his incoherent reactions, Moscow's decision to cut off gas supplies to Belarus took Lukashenka completely by surprise. Indeed, it was an extreme measure to which Russia did not resort even during its row with Ukraine over gas siphoning in 2000-01, when the cost of the Russian gas allegedly stolen by the Ukrainians reached, according to some estimates, hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars.
But Ukraine's case for Russia is somewhat different from Belarus's. Even if warily, Kyiv has allowed Russian businesses to penetrate the Ukrainian market and participate in some major Ukrainian privatizations. Lukashenka, on the other hand, is keeping the most attractive privatization assets in Belarus strictly under his control and does not allow the Russians to snatch away a single one of them. Thus, Moscow's harsh measure to force him into submission is understandable, at least at an emotional level. And this measure seems to have worked, even if it is not clear yet whether Lukashenka will finally agree to sell Beltranshaz and at what price.
The current gas conflict between Minsk and Moscow is also a difficult dilemma for the Belarusian opposition. Objectively, Lukashenka is defending the country's economic interests, even if these interests are very closely linked to his political career. On the other hand, there is a general belief among Belarusian opposition leaders that it is impossible to depose Lukashenka without Moscow's blessing and/or nudge. Therefore, the Belarusian opposition seems to be in two minds over what to do now -- to protest Moscow's economic blackmail and thus indirectly take Lukashenka's side or, quite the opposite, to join Moscow in pressing the Belarusian president to adopt a more relaxed privatization policy and thus face Lukashenka's accusations of acting against national interests.
So far, the baffled Belarusian opposition has not issued any statement on the gas dispute and its implications. Ironically, it was the government that mobilized several hundred workers in front of the Russian Embassy in Minsk for an ad hoc anti-Moscow demonstration on 19 February, after Gazprom halted the gas flow. Lukashenka, the main engine of the Russian-Belarusian integration until recently, is now assuming some tasks of its staunch opponents as well.
GREF PLEDGES TO CHOP NUMBER OF FOREIGN TRADE MISSIONS. Acting Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref told an audience in Moscow on 2 March that the number of Russia's foreign-trade missions abroad will be cut by 60 percent, ITAR-TASS reported. Some 29 missions will be retained. Staff specializing in trade and economics at Russia's embassies will perform the work now done by the missions. The agency did not specify the time period during which the reductions will be made. After China, Russian goods face the most barriers to trade in the world, First Deputy Economic Development and Trade Minister Aleksei Kaulbars told reporters in Moscow on 2 March, RIA-Novosti reported. As a result of discriminatory measures, Russia loses an estimated $2.5 billion a year, Kaulbars said. The countries with the most trade barriers for Russian products are China, EU member countries, India, Ukraine, and Belarus. JAC
ART IMITATES LIFE. A musical titled "The Erotic Exploits Of Ivan Rybkin In Kyiv" will open this week in Moscow, based on the presidential candidate's mysterious five-day trip to the Ukrainian capital last month (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 11, 12, 17, and 18 February 2004), dpa and Interfax reported on 2 March. The play, which offers a ribald explanation for Rybkin's disappearance in the midst of the presidential-election campaign, features actors playing Rybkin, Rybkin's wife, self-exiled tycoon Boris Berezovskii, and Rybkin's Ukrainian lover. According to "Komsomolskaya pravda" on 3 March, when asked to comment on the production, Rybkin's campaign manager Ksenia Ponomareva said: "Creative freedom is creative freedom. Let them do what they like." RC
Moscow took an unprecedented step last month to discipline Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka and remind him that it is high time for him to start behaving in the manner the Kremlin wants him to -- Gazprom on 18 February halted gas supply to Belarus completely, charging that Minsk exhausted contracted gas quotas and began to siphon off Russian gas flowing in transit to third countries. Gazprom has refused to supply gas to Belarus since the beginning of the year, demanding a higher price for deliveries and favorable terms in the potential purchase of a controlling stake in Belarus's gas-pipeline operator Beltranshaz. To these two demands Lukashenka has steadfastly objected, at least until recently.
An accord to set up a Belarusian-Russian joint venture to run Belarus's gas-pipeline network, which is now run by Beltranshaz, was signed in April 2002, in addition to an agreement on the supply of 10 million cubic meters of gas to Belarus at a preferential price of some $30 per 1,000 cubic meters (which is Russia's domestic price for gas supplied to Smolensk Oblast bordering on Belarus). The planned sale of a stake in Beltranshaz to Gazprom collapsed in mid-2003, after Lukashenka valued the company at $5 billion and offered only a 50 percent stake, while Gazprom said it would pay only $600 million for a controlling stake.
Since the beginning of January, Belarus received gas from the formally independent traders Itera and Transnafta under short-term, "emergency" contracts, paying some $47 per 1,000 cubic meters. When a subsequent contract expired on 18 February and Minsk showed no willingness to sign another one, Gazprom turned off the tap.
Lukashenka's first reaction to the gas cutoff was furious. Unlike several previous bitter rows with Moscow, this time the Belarusian president did not look for some "backstage" culprits, but attacked Russian President Vladimir Putin directly. He accused Putin of pursuing economic "terrorism," adding that such a hostile step had not been made against Belarus since the end of World War II. But later the same day, Lukashenka suddenly backed down and agreed to pay a higher price -- $50 per 1,000 cubic meters -- for Russian gas. In what seemed to be his last propagandistic salvo of anti-Putin spitefulness, Lukashenka publicly announced that he will take money from "Chornobyl victims" and "people who rotted in the trenches" to pay the higher gas bills.
An unidentified official from the Russian Foreign Ministry lambasted Lukashenka on the ministry's official website for his "provocative statements" on 19 February, arguing that Belarus's defective socioeconomic development and international isolation were caused by none other than the Belarusian president himself. It was the first time that Moscow officially criticized Lukashenka's policies. Quite understandably, the Russian Foreign Ministry kept totally silent about the fact that it has been primarily the Kremlin's unconditional political support and cheap gas supplies that allowed Lukashenka to pursue such policies for almost 10 years. But now it seems that Moscow has decided to close the period of cheap gas supplies to Belarus for good.
Lukashenka has threatened to renounce unspecified "agreements" with Russia in retaliation to Gazprom's demand of a higher price for gas, but it is rather unlikely that, as some analysts suggest, he might immediately decide on re-establishing a full-scale customs border with his eastern neighbor, thus putting a practical end to the much-publicized Russia-Belarus Union. Even though the idea of a union state with Belarus seems to have lost influential advocates in Russia, Lukashenka has no other reliable political foundation on which he could place his hopes for political survival, especially as many Belarusian observers assert that he is planning to remain in power beyond the end of his second term in 2006.
A day after consenting to pay the higher price for gas, Lukashenka backed down even further and called against "politicizing" the gas dispute with Moscow. He seems to realize that it is Putin who is now dealing the cards in the Russia-Belarus integration game. Therefore, Lukashenka will pay higher gas bills, even if grudgingly, and will most likely try to bargain away Beltranshaz for the highest possible price, including the Kremlin's consent to his staying for a third presidential term.
Judging by his incoherent reactions, Moscow's decision to cut off gas supplies to Belarus took Lukashenka completely by surprise. Indeed, it was an extreme measure to which Russia did not resort even during its row with Ukraine over gas siphoning in 2000-01, when the cost of the Russian gas allegedly stolen by the Ukrainians reached, according to some estimates, hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars.
But Ukraine's case for Russia is somewhat different from Belarus's. Even if warily, Kyiv has allowed Russian businesses to penetrate the Ukrainian market and participate in some major Ukrainian privatizations. Lukashenka, on the other hand, is keeping the most attractive privatization assets in Belarus strictly under his control and does not allow the Russians to snatch away a single one of them. Thus, Moscow's harsh measure to force him into submission is understandable, at least at an emotional level. And this measure seems to have worked, even if it is not clear yet whether Lukashenka will finally agree to sell Beltranshaz and at what price.
The current gas conflict between Minsk and Moscow is also a difficult dilemma for the Belarusian opposition. Objectively, Lukashenka is defending the country's economic interests, even if these interests are very closely linked to his political career. On the other hand, there is a general belief among Belarusian opposition leaders that it is impossible to depose Lukashenka without Moscow's blessing and/or nudge. Therefore, the Belarusian opposition seems to be in two minds over what to do now -- to protest Moscow's economic blackmail and thus indirectly take Lukashenka's side or, quite the opposite, to join Moscow in pressing the Belarusian president to adopt a more relaxed privatization policy and thus face Lukashenka's accusations of acting against national interests.
So far, the baffled Belarusian opposition has not issued any statement on the gas dispute and its implications. Ironically, it was the government that mobilized several hundred workers in front of the Russian Embassy in Minsk for an ad hoc anti-Moscow demonstration on 19 February, after Gazprom halted the gas flow. Lukashenka, the main engine of the Russian-Belarusian integration until recently, is now assuming some tasks of its staunch opponents as well.
ACTION UKRAINE REPORT..Special News Alert, Two Articles Action Ukraine Coalition (AUC), Washington, D.C., March 3, 2004
1. NEW RFE/RL AFFILIATE RAIDED IN UKRAINE,
TRANSMITTERS CONFISCATED
PRAGUE - Ukrainian authorities today raided the offices of RFE/RL's affiliate partner in Kyiv, Radio "Kontynent," confiscating the FM broadcaster's transmission equipment, sealing the office and detaining three people, including the station's chief engineer. The seizure was carried out on the basis of an order issued to local law enforcement officials by the Ukrainian State Center of Radio Frequencies (in Ukrainian, "Ukrchastnotnaglyad"). The three detained individuals were later released.
RFE/RL President Thomas A. Dine condemned the attack on "Radio Kontynent," saying: "We at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty are angry and outraged by this blatant act in suppressing factual news and information from a variety of high-quality journalists. Ukraine's name and its people are badly damaged; the first freedom -- free expression -- is harmed. In fact, after what happened today to Radio Kontynent, one can reasonably ask, 'Who's next?'"
"Kontynent," which also broadcasts programs by Voice of America, BBC and Deutsche Welle on 100.9FM, added two hours of RFE/RL Ukrainian Service programming to its schedule on February 27. This latest act again eliminates RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service from the FM airwaves in the Ukrainian capital.
RFE/RL Ukrainian programs were abruptly taken off the air on February 17 in Kyiv and cities across Ukraine, as the Ukrainian FM Radio Dovira network carried out its threat to end its five-year affiliate relationship with RFE/RL. At the time, Dine called the Dovira move "a deeply disturbing political development and serious setback to freedom of expression in Ukraine."
In light of today's events, senior officials at RFE/RL are expressing serious concerns about the evolving pattern of pressure applied by Ukrainian authorities on independent media and freedom of speech as such. Many RFE/RL affiliates have expressed concern that the penalty for carrying Ukrainian Service programs on their airwaves may be to share the fate of "Radio Kontynent".
Dine also expressed remorse on learning of the death of Heorhiy Chechyk, General Director of the Poltava Radio and Television Company "UTA" that owns FM broadcaster "Radio Poltava Plus". Chechyk died in an automobile accident today, while on his way to Kyiv for a meeting with RFE/RL officials to discuss affiliation opportunities.
RFE/RL is supervised by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the federal agency that runs all U.S. international, nonmilitary broadcasting, including the Voice of America.
Radio Kontynent Director Serhiy Sholokh
The head of a Ukrainian rebroadcaster of several Western-funded radio stations has fled the country, saying he has received threats.
Serhiy Sholokh, director of independent Radio Kontynent in Kiev, said his station came under pressure after it announced it would start rebroadcasting US-funded Radio Liberty programmes.
The Ukrainian authorities said Kontynent had not been licensed to broadcast in the popular FM band.
Mr Sholokh said he was threatened by representatives of the United Social Democratic Party, headed by presidential chief of staff Viktor Medvedchuk. "They told me that if I started rebroadcasting Radio Liberty, that would be the end of me and my station," Interfax-Ukraine news agency quoted Mr Sholokh as saying.
Mr Sholokh told the agency by phone he had fled to an unspecified country and would return only if Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma guaranteed his personal safety.
The station has often come out in support of the Ukrainian opposition and rebroadcast the BBC, Voice of America and Deutsche Welle.
Radio Liberty's previous FM partner in Kiev, Radio Dovira, cancelled their rebroadcasting contract after its head was replaced with a supporter of Mr Kuchma.
Authorities in Ukraine have been severely criticised by Western governments and human rights groups.
They accuse Mr Kuchma of stifling media freedom in the former Soviet republic ahead of a presidential election due in October.