NEWSBRIEFS

Yushchenko: Gongadze murder solved

KYIV - President Viktor Yushchenko said on March 1 that the murder of Internet journalist Heorhii Gongadze in 2000 has been solved and the suspected murderers have been arrested, Ukrainian media reported. "Yesterday, when we were discussing how to conduct the operation, I was made familiar with some circumstances of the last moments of the life of Giya [Heorhii] Gongadze," the Ukrainska Pravda website quoted Mr. Yushchenko as saying. "It was a horrendous death, which has been corroborated by testimonies of the murderers." President Yushchenko accused former President Leonid Kuchma's regime of lacking the "political will" to solve the murder and of protecting Gongadze's killers. "I and my team promised to solve this case, and we have done this," Mr. Yushchenko added. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Procurator general comments on case

KYIV - Procurator General Sviatoslav Piskun said in a telephone interview with Channel 5 on March 1 that investigators will not only disclose those who killed Heorhii Gongadze but also those who ordered and organized this killing. "We have enough evidence to sanction the arrest of those who committed this terrible crime," he stressed. Mr. Piskun told journalists earlier the same day that two police officers the rank of colonel have been arrested in the Gongadze case. Meanwhile, quoting a "reliable source," Interfax reported on March 1 that the Security Service of Ukraine detained three people in the Gongadze case, two colonels and one general. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Melnychenko remains unconvinced

KYIV - Former presidential security officer Mykola Melnychenko told Channel 5 on March 1 that he does not believe the Gongadze murder has been solved. Mr. Melnychenko added that he does not trust Procurator General Sviatoslav Piskun. "Piskun is tripping Yushchenko up," Mr. Melnychenko said. Mr. Melnychenko reportedly made hundreds of hours of secret recordings in the office of former President Leonid Kuchma. Some of these recordings suggest that President Leonid Kuchma and other former top officials, including former Internal Affairs Minister Yurii Kravchenko, might have had a role in Gongadze's murder. "Without taking the Melnychenko tapes as evidence [in the Gongadze case], it is improbable to pin down the person who ordered the assassination, and Ukrainian society will hardly be satisfied if the investigators limit themselves to the executors [of the crime] and avoid touching those who ordered it," Ukrainian political scientist Dmytro Vydryn commented to the Ukrainska Pravda website. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Former president loses perks

KYIV - The Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers on February 26 revoked Leonid Kuchma's state benefits as a former president, Interfax reported. A special, unpublished Cabinet decree passed on January 19 had granted Mr. Kuchma the benefits. They included a monthly pension of 8,293 hrv ($1,560), bodyguards, personal assistants, one adviser, lifetime use of a government dacha, two cars, four drivers, one cook and two maids, as well as free medical services for himself and his wife and free travel within Ukraine. Interfax reported that as there is no law on benefits for former presidents, President Kuchma would receive those given to former President Leonid Kravchuk. Upon leaving office in 1994, Mr. Kravchuk was given a monthly pension of 4,000 hrv ($755), free medical care, six bodyguards and a car. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Moldovan president visits Kyiv

KYIV - Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin made an unannounced visit on March 1 to Kyiv, where he met with his Ukrainian counterpart, Viktor Yushchenko, Ukrainian and Moldovan media reported. President Yushchenko's press service reported that the meeting was devoted exclusively to the development of bilateral relations between the two countries and the settlement of the Transdniester conflict. The meeting reportedly did not touch upon Moldova's March 6 parliamentary elections. Mr. Voronin has visibly stepped up his international contacts in recent days by telephoning Romanian President Traian Basescu and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. Mr. Saakashvili was expected to visit Chisinau on March 2. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Protesters against Euro-integration

KYIV - Approximately 500 supporters of the Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU) held demonstrations at Ukraine's Presidential Secretariat on February 21, demanding a rejection of policies Ukraine has declared for joining the European Union and NATO. About 100 faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Moscow Patriarchate held a prayer service next to the protest. According to the participants of the prayer service, they also came to the secretariat building to protest NATO entry and to support a pro-Russian policy for Ukraine. The representatives of the CPU protested Ukraine's Euro-Atlantic integration and demanded immediate withdrawal of Ukrainian peacekeeping troops from Iraq. Anatolii Hrytsenko, Ukrainian minister of defense, predicted Ukraine will join NATO before 2009. Ukraine has previously declared its readiness to submit an application for joining the EU. (Religious Information Service of Ukraine)

New embassy to Vatican is blessed

ROME - Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, head of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, and Cardinal Marian Jaworski, primate of the Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine, have consecrated the new premises of the Embassy of Ukraine to the Holy See, newsukraina.ru reported on February 21. Representatives of Ukrainian Church and civic groups in Italy took part in the ceremony. Hryhorii Khoruzhyi, Ukraine's ambassador to the Vatican, spoke at the festivities. He stressed the importance of partnership relations between the state and the Church for the further consolidation of Ukrainian society and the progress of democratic reform in the country. (Religious Information Service of Ukraine)

Yushchenko meets with Husar in Lviv

LVIV - During his trip to Lviv on February 16 Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko visited the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church's Cathedral of St. George. The president also talked for an hour with Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, head of the UGCC. The cardinal acquainted the president with a group of documents regarding the improvement of Church-state relations. While in the cathedral, President Yushchenko laid flowers before an icon of the Mother of God and visited the crypt where leaders of the UGCC are buried, including Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky and Patriarch Josyf Slipyj. (Religious Information Service of Ukraine)

Donbas union loses bid for steel mill

DONETSK - The Donetsk-based Industrial Union of the Donbas (IUD) has lost a bid to buy the Polish steel mill Huta Czestochowa, Interfax reported on February 26. The news agency quoted the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza, which reported that U.S. company Mittal Steel won the exclusive right to continue its bid for the giant steel mill, which is being privatized by the Polish government. The Polish newspaper quoted Ukrainian National Deputy Anatolii Matvienko as saying that the decision on Huta Czestochowa may cause a storm in Ukraine, given that President Viktor Yushchenko has supported the Industrial Union of Donbas in this tender. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Orthodox to conduct manifestation

KYIV - Orthodox civic organizations of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus are preparing to start a way of the cross (religious walk) through cities of the three countries. The walk is to end in Moscow on July 17, the day the last Russian emperor, Tsar Nicholas II, was killed, together with members of his family. This event will be a demonstration of unity and of the fact that the faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Moscow Patriarchate refuse to accept the idea of separating from the Moscow Patriarchate. This was reported on February 23 by the Interfax news agency. "The way of the cross is to symbolize the repentance of the Russian people for destroying a great nation, and for Cain's sin of brotherly hatred that the Ukrainian people are being thrown into by nationalists and supporters of Church schism," said Kirill Frolov, press secretary of the Union of Orthodox Citizens. According to Mr. Frolov, the participants of the walk intend to demonstrate the unity of the three Slavic peoples and of the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as that "the Orthodox faithful of Ukraine do not accept the idea of separating from the Moscow Patriarchate and are prepared to offer adequate resistance against any intrusion into Church life." (Religious Information Service of Ukraine)

Russia: Iran deal will not harm relations

MOSCOW - An agreement signed between Tehran and Moscow on February 26 regarding the provision by Russia of nuclear fuel to Iran will not harm U.S.-Russian relations, Duma International Relations Committee Chairman Konstantin Kosachev (Unified Russia) told ITAR-TASS on February 27. Mr. Kosachev said that the agreement, under which Iran pledged to return all spent nuclear fuel to Russia, "responds to complaints from the [International Atomic Energy Agency] and the United States" and means that "we can now go even further in our cooperation." Federal Atomic Energy Agency Director Aleksandr Rumyantsev said that U.S. President George W. Bush's statement in Bratislava on February 24 that Moscow and Washington share a common view of Iran's nuclear program means that "the Americans have recognized that our cooperation [with Iran] meets all international rules," ITAR-TASS reported on February 27. Mr. Rumyantsev said Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant will come on line at the end of 2006 and that supplies of nuclear fuel will begin about six months prior to that. (RFE/RL Newsline)

McCain: suspend Russia from G-8

WASHINGTON - U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said on February 27 that the United States should exclude Russia from the July meeting of the Group of Eight (G-8) leading industrialized countries in Scotland, Reuters reported. "This latest step of the Russians vis-a-vis the Iranians calls for sterner measures to be taken between ourselves and Russia," Sen. McCain said. "It has got to, at some point, begin to harm our relations." Sen. McCain accused President Vladimir Putin of acting "like a spoiled child" and carrying out "aberrational" policies, both internationally and domestically. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Analyst questions U.S. change of tack

MOSCOW - The deputy director of the USA and Canada Institute at Russia's Academy of Sciences, Viktor Kremenyuk, suggested on TV-Tsentr on February 24 that Russian pundits are baffled as to why the Bush administration has become so insistent on democratic principles in Russia in its fifth year of contact with the Putin administration. "Has Washington never before heard about the situation in Chechnya, the Yukos affair or the concentration of power in Putin's hands?" Mr. Kremenyuk chided. "Or does it believe that the situation with Russian gubernatorial elections can be resolved in talks between the [U.S.] White House and the Kremlin?" He suggested that the Bush administration does not want to accept the present situation in Russia, since it wants to be "100 percent confident that Russia is a predictable and normal country." Washington believes that Russia can be such a country, Mr. Kremenyuk said, only if Moscow respects the principles on which the U.S. administration is insisting. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Melnychenko tapes cited as evidence

KYIV - Ukrainian Socialist Party leader Oleksander Moroz has called on Procurator General Sviatoslav Piskun to accept the so-called Melnychenko tapes as evidence in the official investigation of the kidnapping and murder of Internet journalist Heorhii Gongadze in 2000, Interfax reported on February 24. Former presidential security officer Mykola Melnychenko reportedly made hundreds of hours of secret recordings in the office of former President Leonid Kuchma. Some of these recordings suggest that Mr. Kuchma and other former top officials might have had a role in Gongadze's murder. The Ukrainian authorities have never corroborated the authenticity of the Melnychenko tapes. Mr. Melnychenko has recently declared that he does not trust Mr. Piskun and will not pass the tapes on to him. Mr. Melnychenko also said he could cooperate with the chief of the Security Service of Ukraine, Oleksander Turchynov, on the Gongadze case. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Yanukovych seeks referendum on NATO

ZAPORIZHIA - Viktor Yanukovych, former prime minister and presidential candidate, said in Zaporizhia on February 24 that the question of whether Ukraine should be a member of NATO must be decided in a referendum, Interfax reported. The same day in Dnipropetrovsk, Mr. Yanukovych declared that he is ready to vie for a parliamentary seat in a by-election. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Search is on for lost launcher, missiles

KYIV - Ukraine's Defense Ministry has been looking for a Strela-3M portable air-defense launcher and two missiles that disappeared from a Ukrainian Navy depot in Crimea, Ukrainian media reported on February 24. "It's an emergency situation for the Armed Forces," Interfax quoted Defense Minister Anatolii Hrytsenko as saying. The Strela-3M launcher can be manned by one person. Its missile is reportedly capable of hitting flying targets within a range of 4.5 kilometers and at an altitude of up to 30 kilometers. (RFE/RL Newsline)

President pardons 50 convicts

KYIV - President Viktor Yushchenko has signed a decree pardoning 50 convicts sentenced to prison terms and other punitive measures, Interfax reported on February 24. It was Mr. Yushchenko's first clemency decree. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Kyiv lukewarm on Neighborhood Policy

STRASBOURG - Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko told the European Parliament in Strasbourg on February 23 that Kyiv does not consider the EU's European Neighborhood Policy to be "an adequate basis for further Ukraine-EU relations," Channel 5 reported. "The format of our ties should proceed from the recognition of Ukraine as an inalienable part of united Europe," Mr. Yushchenko stressed. He added that the Ukrainian government views the implementation of the recently signed three-year EU-Ukraine Action Plan "beyond the context" of the EU New Neighborhood Policy. (RFE/RL Newsline)

EU membership declared as goal ...

STRASBOURG - President Viktor Yushchenko told European lawmakers in Strasbourg on February 23 that Ukraine's entry into the European Union is his primary objective, Channel 5 reported. According to Mr. Yushchenko, entry talks should begin when the Action Plan is fulfilled in 2007. "The final result of the implementation of the Action Plan, which we are ready to speed up, has to be the signing of a new, reinforced accord in the form of a European associate membership accord," Mr. Yushchenko said. "Ukraine is ready to walk the distance to meet the Copenhagen criteria for EU membership. I would like to state in clear terms that we realize that the bulk of the work to integrate Ukraine into the EU has to be done by Ukrainians themselves." (RFE/RL Newsline)

... as are close relations with Russia

STRASBOURG - President Viktor Yushchenko also said in the European Parliament on February 23 that Ukraine's European aspirations are compatible with the development of closer cooperation with Russia, Channel 5 reported. "The development of multi-faceted, mutually beneficial cooperation with the Russian Federation will be complemented by Ukraine's new active regional policy," Mr. Yushchenko said, promising that Kyiv will take a more active stance in settling the Transdniester problem. "A stable, democratic and reformed Russia, integrated into European economic and political ties, is a key interest for Ukraine and a guarantee of a stable, secure and prosperous Europe," he added. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, March 6, 2005, No. 10, Vol. LXXIII

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