#2
Ukraine Today
http://uatoday.tv
December 11, 2015
Yanukovych tells about assassination attempt, announces launch of website

Former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych has said that there were attempts on his life in February 2014. He stated this in an interview with Russian news agency RIA Novosti.

Deprived of the title of Ukraine's President, Yanukovych said he will not travel to Ukraine because his life is in serious danger.

"The Ukrainian government, and law enforcement agencies, cannot guarantee my personal safety in Ukraine. On the contrary, the current government publicly states that I should be shot! These outspoken appeals were not suppressed. Moreover, the case on the assassination attempt against me in February 2014, which was opened by the prosecutor's office only in July 2015, is not being investigated," said Yanukovych.

Watch also Yanukovych ordered 'dictatorship laws' to end Maidan protest

He also commented on the case initiated against him regarding the Euromaidan (anti-government and pro-European protests that took place in central Kyiv, in winter 2013-2014).

The office of the Ukrainian Prosecutor General (GPU) recently announced that Yanukovych personally ordered the crackdown on Euromaidan activists in Kyiv on November 30, 2013. "The investigation has established that the decision to forcefully break up the student Maidan on November 30, 2013 was made directly by the country's then-president," the Head of the Prosecutor General's Office special investigations department Serhiy Horbatyuk said at a press briefing in Kyiv. Investigators said that former Interior Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko and former National Security and Defense Council Secretary Andriy Kliuyev were instructed to follow Yanukovych's order.

However, the ex-politician said that the case was suspended.

"The so-called 'Maidan case' against me is indeed suspended. To prove the falsehood of the General Prosecutor's Office (GPU) statement, I am ready to show an official document of the GPU, which states that the case against me is suspended. Since 2014, investigations have not been conducted", said Yanukovych.

Yanukovych expressed his opinion that the GPU has no evidence of his guilt, and says his innocence is proved by the fact that Interpol refused to put him on the wanted list on charges of shooting Maidan activists.

At the same time, the fugitive politician said he wants to launch his own website that will publish documents on criminal cases against him.

"Unlike the government, I am interested in establishing the truth, in establishing justice. For this purpose, I will soon launch my own web site, which will be publishing legal documents regarding criminal cases against me," he said.

On December 8, Viktor Yanukovych announced his intention to return to politics. People's Deputy and Advisor to Interior Minister Anton Herashchenko said that some political forces are taking steps that could make Yanukovych's return to Ukraine real.

Yanukovych fled his opulent mansion outside Kyiv in February 2014 after mass protests against his decision to reject an EU Association Agreement and move the country towards Russia. The former Ukrainian president is currently believed to be resident in Russia, where he fled in early 2014. The new Ukrainian government says Yanukovych and his associates stole tens of billions of dollars during his tenure.

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 #3
Sputnik
December 10, 2015
Incumbent Ukraine Top Officials Behind Maidan Civilian Deaths

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - In 2013, Kiev's main square, Maidan, witnessed pro-European protests sparked by Yanukovych's rejection of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement. Later, the square became the focus of confrontations between the protesters and security forces. Before the protests ended in early 2014, in what Yanukovych describes as a coup, dozens of people were killed during the Maidan protests. The current Ukrainian authorities blame Yanukovych and the Berkut special forces for the deaths on Maidan.

"I firmly believe that some of the current high-ranking Ukrainian officials, who have tried to cover their tracks carefully, were behind the [Maidan] killings. But if the situation changes, and the country finally starts an objective investigation, there is still time to find and prove the guilt of the perpetrators. And I'm very interested in this," Yanukovych said in an interview with RIA Novosti.

The ousted Ukrainian leader refutes claims that the Berkut special police forces were behind the sniper shootings of protesters on Maidan.

"The Berkut troops are being used as the fall guys, as it is convenient to blame them for the crimes of others," he said.

According to the former president, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Oleksandr Turchynov, Deputy Speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament Andriy Parubiy and the head of the parliamentary committee on national security, Serhii Pashynskyi, were behind the Maidan shootings.

Following the Maidan protests, Yanukovych was ousted in February 2014 by the Ukrainian parliament, when he fled Ukraine for Russia in fear for his life.

In May, a special group was created by the Council of Europe (CoE) to investigate the tragic events at Kiev's Maidan, as well as atrocities in Ukraine's southern port city of Odesa in the run-up and soon after the regime change.

Earlier this year, the Ukrainian authorities also accused Yanukovych of embezzling public funds, following which he was placed on Interpol's wanted list. He was later removed from the list as the evidence presented by the Ukrainian security services was deemed to be unsound, according to Interpol.

On Tuesday, Yanukovych said he would like to return to politics and is in contact with current Ukrainian political figures.

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 #4
Sputnik
December 9, 2015
Ousted Ukrainian President Yanukovych Denies Moscow's $15 Bln Loan 'Bribe'

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Currently Ukraine is being ruled by a totalitarian government that controls everyone and everything in the country, ousted former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych said.

Earlier this week, Yanukovych said he would like to return to politics and to this end, was in contact with current Ukrainian political figures.

"This is a pure and simple totalitarian system that controls everything and everyone in Ukraine," Yanukovych told RIA Novosti.

He said that today any person that was criticizing the Ukrainian authorities was immediately becoming "a public enemy" or "a Kremlin's spy." Yanukovych added that the state authorities were freely using methods of political retaliation by opening criminal cases against their political opponents.

"With the help of, so to say, 'law enforcement bulldozer' and extremists [they] threatened people, journalists and politicians, disagreeing with a viewpoint of authorities. Today in Ukraine opposition is being killed in a broad daylight or being forced to commit suicide," he said.

Ukraine Should Undergo Federalization to Solve Donbas Conflict

The issue of the special status of Ukraine's southeast Donbas region and the ongoing conflict there can be solved if Ukraine undergoes federalization, along the lines of the United States, Germany or Switzerland, former President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych said.

Earlier this week, Yanukovych said he would like to return to politics and to this end, was in contact with current Ukrainian political figures.

"In order to resolve the current tragedy in Donbas, one should look at the history. Look at the examples of solving similar crises in the past. I know that the subject of, for example, federalism irritates the Ukrainian current government, and has become synonymous with separatism and terrorism [for them]. Why would not we ask the United States, Germany, Switzerland to share their experience in federalization?" Yanukovych said in an interview with RIA Novosti.

Yanukovych believes that the issue of federalization will not disappear from the political agenda in the near future, although the issue is unlikely to be solved swiftly.

Yanukovych served as Ukraine's president from 2010 until his ouster in February 2014 by the Ukrainian parliament, when he was forced to flee the country in fear for his life. The coup was preceded by months of protests in Ukraine's capital, sparked by Yanukovych's rejection to sign the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement.

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#5
Reuters
December 11, 2015
Ukraine Lawmaker Manhandles PM Yatseniuk in Rowdy Parliament Scenes
[Video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gDF7ib66yY&feature=youtu.be]

KIEV - Fighting broke out among members of Ukraine's ruling coalition in parliament on Friday after a member of President Petro Poroshenko's bloc physically picked up Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk and pulled him from the podium.

Yatseniuk was defending his embattled government's record when lawmaker Oleh Barna walked over to him, presenting him sarcastically with a bunch of red roses. Barna then grabbed him around the waist and groin, lifting him off his feet and dragging him from the rostrum.

Members from Yatseniuk's People Front party waded in, pushing Barna and throwing punches. Lawmakers from Poroshenko's bloc joined the fray and an angry brawl ensued for several minutes before deputies returned to their seats.

The incident exposed deep divisions in the pro-Europe coalition that have fueled speculation the government could fall even as Ukraine's Western backers warn that time is running out for Kiev to make good on its promises to root out endemic corruption and cronyism.

Yatseniuk is, like Poroshenko, a pivotal player in the pro-Western leadership that emerged after the downfall of the Moscow-backed Viktor Yanukovich in February 2014. But support for him has fallen dramatically in the past year.

"The atmosphere in the room provoked mentally unbalanced people. Oleh Barna served on the frontline and is therefore too impulsive, but that does not excuse his actions," the head of Poroshenko's bloc Yuriy Lutsenko told journalists.

The brawl interrupted a question-and-answer session with Yatseniuk, 41, after he delivered a summary of the performance of his government, which after exactly one year in power is now no longer immune from being dismissed by parliament.

"I told you a year ago that nobody is going to promise the moon," Yatseniuk said, appearing to defend his cabinet from accusations they have not made good on their reform promises.

"You have full constitutional right to vote on the question of dismissing Ukraine's cabinet. Put it to the vote. I'll accept the decision of the Ukrainian parliament. I'm not clinging to this chair," he said.

Opposition parties are calling for a no-confidence motion to be tabled and commentators say enough votes could be gathered to dismiss the government, but a vote is not yet likely due to the lack of a candidate to replace Yatseniuk.

In an impassioned speech on Tuesday, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden urged parliament to put their differences aside to approve reforms, including critical tax and budget bills and judicial changes, without which he said Ukraine would fail to rebuild itself on transparent, democratic lines.

"The President, the Prime Minister, the members of this august body -- all of you must put aside parochial differences ...If you fail, the experiment fails," he told parliament.

A disagreement over proposed tax amendments and the draft 2016 budget has delayed the disbursement of up to $4 billion in international loans which Ukraine had hoped to secure to boost its war-torn finances before the end of the year.

Yatseniuk said the government had submitted a "compromise" tax reform bill and urged lawmakers to approve the amendments before the turn of the year.

Yatseniuk's People's Front party triumphed in parliamentary elections in 2014, but the approval rating for the party is now around 1 percent.

 #6
Kyiv Post
December 11, 2015
Accusations build against Yatsenyuk's team as critics mount drive to get him fired
By Oleg Sukhov

Corruption accusations swirling around Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and his allies have been steadily gaining momentum ahead of Dec. 11, the anniversary date of his government. From now on, Yatsenyuk can be fired by parliament's 423 members.

Some of the strongest accusations come from Mikheil Saakashvili, governor of Odesa Oblast and ex-Georgian president, and his ally Davit Sakvarelidze, chief prosecutor of the oblast and a deputy prosecutor general.

Saakashvili, however, is seen as angling for Yatsenyuk's job, casting doubt on the veracity of some of his claims. He has denied intentions to become prime minister.

Yatsenyuk says he's a victim of a political smear campaign.

"This is a coordinated information campaign against the prime minister whose aim is to destabilize the situation in Ukraine," Yatsenyuk's spokeswoman Olga Lappo told the Kyiv Post. "There is no evidence or documents whatsoever."

Saakashvili and investigative journalists say they have amassed evidence implicating Yatsenyuk allies in corruption.

At the Dec. 6 Odesa Anti-Corruption Initiative forum, Saakashvili unveiled accusations against Yatsenyuk and his allies, complete with flow chart.

He said the Ukrainian government was losing $5 billion per year as a result of corruption schemes and accused Yatsenyuk of being responsible for that.

One of the accusations includes alleged links among Yatsenyuk, Mykola Martynenko, a lawmaker of the prime minister's People Front party, and the Odesa Port Plant.

Martynenko asked the Verkhovna Rada to strip him of his mandate amid the corruption scandal last month, but he has denied any wrongdoing.

In an interview with journalist Max Tucker published by the Times of London on Dec. 8, Sakvarelidze said Odesa Oblast prosecutors' criminal case against the Odesa Port Plant was linked to Yatsenyuk. But Sakvarelidze later denied saying that Yatsenyuk was a suspect.

In a recording of the interview provided by Tucker to the Kyiv Post, Sakvarelidze does not explicitly say Yatsenyuk is a suspect but talks about links to the prime minister.

"The first links that we found are to the prime minister's office and to the government because the (documents) were signed by the prime minister, the appointments were made by the prime minister and (the plant's) first deputy was directly appointed by the team of prime minister," he said.

The case involves a contract concluded in October between the Odesa Port Plant and Antra, a little-known Austrian company.

Under the deal, Antra supplies natural gas to the plant in exchange for ammonia and other fertilizers that are produced from the gas. Investigators say that the plant effectively supplies fertilizers to Antra at below-market prices, which deprives it of revenues.

Antra was founded by Ukrainian citizen Leonid Marchuk. He is linked to Martynenko, according to a Nov. 10 investigation by Ukrainska Pravda.

Marchuk is a business partner of Mikhail Vergeles, who used to run KSK TA KO, a firm controlled by Martynenko and his business partner David Zhvania, Ukrainska Pravda reported, citing registers.

Zhvania told Ukrainska Pravda that Serhiy Pereloma, chairman of the Odesa Port Plant's board of directors, had been running their joint business with Martynenko before they parted ways.

Saakashvili also accused Martynenko of taking advantage of state-owned nuclear power firm Energoatom.

Swiss and Czech prosecutors are investigating Martynenko on suspicion of accepting 30 million Swiss francs from Czech engineering firm Skoda for giving it a contract to supply equipment to Energoatom.

Last month Serhiy Leshchenko, a lawmaker from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, published a letter from Swiss prosecutors detailing corruption accusations against Martynenko and bank documents showing that Bradcrest Investment, a company that received a commission fee from Energoatom, is controlled by the lawmaker.

Ukrainska Pravda reported last month that Martynenko was also allegedly linked to a uranium supply scheme at Energoatom.

The newspaper said it had obtained documents according to which Austria's Steuermann Investitions was selling Kazakh uranium ore at a huge profit to the state-owned Eastern Ore Dressing Plant, which sells uranium to Energoatom. The Eastern Ore Dressing Plant denies the contract's existence.

Ukrainska Pravda published documents showing that Steuermann's owner Wolfgang Eiberger was a shareholder of Diamant Bank, which is co-owned by Martynenko's business partner Zhvania. The documents also demonstrate other links between Steuermann and the Martynenko-Zhvania business.

Zhvania confirmed in a Dec. 7 interview with Ukrainska Pravda that Steuermann was de facto controlled by Martynenko.

Martynenko also stands behind state oil and gas monopoly Naftogaz and United Mining and Chemical Company, Saakashvili claimed.

The government loses about $700 million per year at state firms allegedly linked to Martynenko, Saakashvili said.

Saakashvili also alleged that Yatsenyuk's Cabinet was enabling several tycoons to profiteer at the expense of Ukraine's budget.

Saakashvili and Sakvarelidze have been accused of having a selective approach when emphasizing the alleged corruption of Yatsenyuk allies while paying little attention to Poroshenko associates.

Specifically, Saakashvili did not name Ihor Kononenko, a Petro Poroshenko Bloc heavyweight, and Konstantin Grigorishin, Poroshenko's business partner.

However, Saakashvili has previously accused Petro Poroshenko Bloc lawmakers, including Dmytro Holubov, of corruption and clashed with Oleksiy Honcharenko, a Poroshenko ally.

The Poroshenko allies deny the accusations.

Sasha Borovik, an acting deputy of Saakashvili, argued that their team had no documents on the alleged corruption of Kononenko and Grigoshin but said journalists were welcome to present evidence against them at an upcoming forum in Odesa.

"It's a dragon that has seven heads," Borovik told the Kyiv Post. "We demonstrated one of them and will show each of them... We don't have any taboos."

He admitted that Poroshenko sometimes had "poor judgment" while appointing people with bad reputation but said Saakashvili's team still treated him as an ally and "guarantor of reforms."

Borovik said that, unlike Poroshenko, Yatsenyuk had been sabotaging Saakashvili's reform efforts in Odesa.

"We're fighting for the survival of our ideas," he said. "If Yatsenyuk remains prime minister, I don't know what we'll do here. When I think of this, I just want to buy a Lufthansa ticket and fly away."

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#7
Ukraine's PM says he won't resign on his own

KIEV, December 11. /TASS/. Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told the country's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, on Friday he will not resign on his own initiative.

"I will accept any decision of the Ukrainian parliament. I am not holding on to the premier's seat," Yatsenyuk said, answering a question of an MP of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc if he wished to step down.

Yatsenyuk, who assumed office in late February last year, said he "took the responsibility for the unpopular reforms in the country." "I knew my rating would be affected but I came to office not because of the rating," he stressed.

Trade unions and a number of political parties are demanding resignation of the Ukrainian government headed by Yatsenyuk. More than 1,000 of their representatives are holding a rally outside the parliament building where the premier will review the government's annual performance later in the day
.
The Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) faction of former PM Yulia Tymoshenko earlier unanimously signed a draft resolution of the parliament on dismissing the cabinet of ministers. MPs of the Opposition Bloc and all the deputy groups, a number of non-affiliated deputies and even the representatives of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction have signed the document. According to Ukraine's sociological group Rating, in September 2014 some 48% of respondents backed the cabinet of ministers and another 42% did not support its policies. This September, the figure stood at 13% and 83%, respectively. Since Yatsenyuk assumed office in late February last year, the rating of his People's Front party has fallen from 22% to 2.7%.


 

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 #8
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
December 10, 2015
Comment by the Information and Press Department on the recent report of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine

The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has released its 12th report. It covers the period between August 16 and November 15, 2015.

Compared to this past summer, the civilian death toll has declined considerably. However, despite the relatively stable situation in the southeast of the country, monitors note a number of violations of the ceasefire regime.

In this connection, the UN Monitoring Mission has reiterated that the implementation of the Minsk Agreements is the only solution to the conflict in Donbass and to the stabilisation of the human rights situation in the country as a whole. For our part, we support this conclusion and urge Ukraine to open a direct dialogue with Donetsk and Lugansk, which Kiev still refuses to do under far-fetched pretexts.

Nevertheless, we cannot agree with the monitors' assessment of the measures taken by the Donetsk and Lugansk authorities to protect the local population's rights, which do not in the least violate the Minsk Agreements.

The humanitarian situation in Donbass has seriously complicated with the onset of winter. The people who live there cannot count on quality medical care and have no access to drinking water and basic services. Despite the numerous recommendations by international organisations and a Ukrainian court ruling, Kiev has not given up the idea of an economic blockade of the region. The restrictions imposed by the Kiev authorities on the movement of people in the conflict zone still compel people to risk their lives in crossing the line of contact. The termination of pensions and monetary benefits for Donbass residents and the restrictions on the supply of food and basic necessities there show Kiev's real intention to hurt the people in the region. In this connection, we reiterate the Monitoring Mission's recommendations for Kiev to ensure unhindered access and guarantee the safety of the humanitarian agencies.

The numerous human rights violations by Ukrainian security and law enforcement services, especially the Ukraine Security Service, and mercenary battalions - torture, mistreatment of people, abductions, arbitrary detentions and extrajudicial executions - are not being investigated. Wrongdoers get away with impunity.

The Ukrainian authorities continue to harass civil opposition activists. Human rights advocates justly condemn the restrictions Kiev has imposed on the operation of media outlets, especially from Russia, and the pressure and violence with regard to journalists.

The situation with the administration of justice in Ukraine also remains complicated. There are problems with the investigation of crimes committed on Maidan Square. Those guilty of the terrible deaths on May 2, 2014, in Odessa have never been prosecuted. International observers point to the ineffectiveness and non-objectivity of the investigation and the attempts to delay it and conceal the results. Judges are reportedly coming under increased pressure. We urge the monitors to continue prioritising the investigation of the tragic events in Odessa.

Even though Kiev has carried out a number of recommendations contained in the mission's previous reports, most of them, including those regarding the investigation of international humanitarian law and human rights violations by Ukrainian security and law enforcement agencies, freedom of expression and the fight against extremism, are not being followed.

We also note that observers point to the numerous human rights violations and unlawful actions by radical forces that have set up a transport blockade of Crimea, and urge Kiev to restore law and order in the Kherson region. In the future, we expect more objective assessments from the UN monitoring mission regarding the actions of Ukrainian extremists, including the organisation of the so-called energy blockade aimed at destroying human rights in Crimea.

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#9
Centre for International Policy Studies (Canada)
www.cips-cepi.ca
December 10, 2015
West Politicizes IMF to Support Ukraine
By Paul Robinson
Associate Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa

Power is shifting worldwide. As previously less developed economies grow at a faster rate than those of the West, Western states are becoming relatively less powerful. It is in the West's interest, therefore, to use the years of financial, political, and military dominance which remain to it, to embed other rising powers into the system of multilateral institutions which it created in previous decades. This will only be possible if other states believe that those institutions can serve their interests too. That requires the West to foster rules which treat every state equally.

Western states should...not be arbitrarily re-writing rules to work in their favour.
Unfortunately, the West is not proving very good at this. On Monday, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) voted to change its rules so as to permit it to continue lending to countries that are in default of their debts to other states. Further lending was already permitted in cases when states failed to repay commercial lenders, but it was prohibited when they failed to repay state-to-state loans (so-called 'sovereign debt'). Now both are permitted. According to prominent Swedish economist, Anders Aslund:

"The IMF staff started contemplating a rule change in the spring of 2013 because non-traditional creditors, such as China, had started providing developing countries with large loans. One issue was that these loans were issued on conditions out of line with IMF practice. China wasn't a member of the Paris Club, where loan restructuring is usually discussed, so it was time to update the rules. The IMF intended to adopt a new policy in the spring of 2016, but the dispute over Russia's $3 billion loan to Ukraine has accelerated an otherwise slow decision-making process."

This is a rather alarming explanation. In effect, what it says is that the Western states, which have a majority of votes in the Executive Board of the IMF, were only happy with an IMF rule requiring that sovereign debt be repaid as long as they were the ones doing the lending. But once other countries ('non-traditional creditors') acquired financial power and made loans, such a rule became inconvenient. 'Our' debt has to be protected. Theirs does not.

The timing of the IMF's decision was no coincidence. Ukraine is about to default on repaying $3 billion borrowed from the Russian Federation two years ago. Under the previous rules, this would have meant that the IMF would have to stop providing funds to Ukraine. Western nations don't want that to happen. So they changed the rules. Moreover, they did so in order to achieve a very specific political objective - propping up the regime in Kiev and punishing Russia. This is not a suitable way to use what is meant to be an international financial institution supposedly serving the interests of all members of the international community. It makes the IMF a partisan tool of geopolitics. It also could deter 'non-traditional creditors' from lending money to needy states in the future. As Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov complained:

"Rules worked out over years have been broken - rules for financing the fund's programs have existed for years and remained unchanged. Sovereign creditors always had priority over commercial ones. The rules underlined the special role of the official creditor, which is extremely important in crisis periods, when commercial creditors abandon countries and deprive them of access to resources. I remind you that only Russia gave economic support to Ukraine and gave it credit, when it had no access to external markets two years ago."

As financial power shifts away from the United States, new financial institutions are springing up, most notably China's Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Other regional political and security institutions are also emerging in which the West plays no role. To preserve influence in a changing world, Western states should be looking to strengthen existing multilateral institutions. That requires fairness, not arbitrarily re-writing rules to work in their favour.

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 #10
The Economist
December 12, 2015
Corruption in Ukraine
Making Joe Biden mad as hell
Ukraine is not punishing its criminals. The West is getting tired of nagging it

JOSEPH BIDEN, America's folksy vice-president, is not known as an enforcer-except in Ukraine, where he has become the spearhead of American policy. This week Mr Biden made his fourth visit to Kiev since Ukraine's Maidan revolution and delivered a fiery speech in parliament, imploring the country's leaders to eradicate "the cancer of corruption". He invoked the "Heavenly Hundred", the protesters slain on Kiev's icy streets in 2014. "Their sacrifice, to put it bluntly, is now your obligation," Mr Biden roared.

Even as Mr Biden was speaking, Roman Baidovsky faced a panel of expressionless judges in a cramped courtroom halfway across town. Mr Baidovsky's 23-year-old son, Sergey, was one of the Heavenly Hundred. Sergey's killers and their superiors have yet to be punished. Incompetence has hampered the investigation, and the old guard in the security services have undermined it. Most crucially, says Taras Hatalyak of OPORA, a human rights group, "there's no political will" among the country's leaders to pursue the cases, an assessment echoed by senior Ukrainian lawenforcement officials.

When Sergey left for the protests, he told his father that "I want my kids to live in a normal country." So far, the promises of the revolution have not been fulfilled: Ukraine remains far from normal. Since the Maidan, it has run through three chief prosecutors, none of whom has closed a single case against high-level officials from former president Viktor Yanukovych's regime. Only two men have been convicted of crimes connected with the murder of protesters, both low-level foot soldiers. Key suspects have been allowed to escape. So little has been done to prosecute economic crimes that the European Union may have to lift its sanctions on ex-Ukrainian officials.

The latest prosecutor-general, Viktor Shokin, a close ally of President Petro Poroshenko, has ignored high-level corruption among the new authorities. Talk of Mr Shokin's fate dominated Mr Biden's meetings in Kiev this week. Ukrainian activists have been calling for Mr Shokin to be fired, but Mr Poroshenko has refused. An independent prosecutor would deprive him of a powerful political instrument and might expose his associates to investigation.

Attempts to create new anti-corruption institutions have encountered enormous resistance. "If they let big fish get caught, those people will start to speak," says a Western diplomat. Selecting a special anti-corruption prosecutor, needed for the new National Anti-Corruption Bureau to start, dragged on till the last possible day, endangering Ukraine's hopes of visa-free access to the European Union. Last week a seemingly independent candidate was picked, but only under the dual press of civil society and the West. "Many of us are feeling tired of patronising these guys and watching them all the time," the diplomat adds.

Yet removing Mr Shokin alone would amount to little. An ongoing project to select new prosecutors will likely result in some 80% of the old guard being rehired, says Vitaly Kasko, a deputy prosecutor-general who has been at odds with Mr Shokin. "Herpes is not on the lips, it's in the blood," says Yulia Mostovaya, editor of Zerkalo Nedeli, a weekly. "We have to fight the virus, not just its symptoms." As justice fails to materialise, many in Kiev have come to blame not just Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, whose authority eroded earlier this year, but Mr Poroshenko as well. "The guys who came to power weren't the ones who should have," says Volodymyr Bondarchuk, whose father Sergiy, a high-school physics teacher, was also killed last year. "Their goals are far from the ideals of the Maidan."

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 #11
The International New York Times
December 12, 2015
Editorial
Joe Biden Lectures Ukraine

The only applause Vice President Joseph Biden Jr. got while he addressed the Ukrainian Parliament on Tuesday was when he berated Russia. That's not hard: Russia's venality - the seizure of Crimea and the support for separatists in eastern Ukraine - is a strong unifying force in Ukrainian politics. By contrast, Mr. Biden's ardent talk of the need to put an end to Ukraine's ubiquitous corruption and the power of its oligarchs was met with stony silence.

Mr. Biden was right to upbraid Russia and to pledge an extra $190 million in aid to Ukraine. And as a Western leader who has made Ukraine his special project, he was also right to warn Ukrainian legislators to waste no more time in rooting out corruption. Though the European Union is likely to renew sanctions against Russia again in January, its patience with Ukraine is being tested by the lack of critical reforms. In his address, Mr. Biden specifically called for an overhaul of the office of the prosecutor general, changes in the energy sector, transparency about official sources of income and other reforms.

Russia's actions are no excuse for the failure of democratically elected Ukrainian leaders to crack down on corruption. About 50 magnates currently own about 85 percent of Ukraine's gross domestic product, according to the Jamestown Foundation's Eurasia Daily Monitor. Many politicians and judges are holdovers from previous governments, mouthing a new line but living by old rules and blocking serious reform measures.

Taking on so well-entrenched a system is a huge challenge. A measure of President Petro Poroshenko's weakness against these forces was his having to import foreigners for key jobs, including Mikheil Saakashvili, the former president of Georgia, to be governor of Odessa and David Sakvarelidze, a former Georgian prosecutor, to be Ukraine's deputy prosecutor general.

Sadly, the credibility of Mr. Biden's message may be undermined by the association of his son with a Ukrainian natural-gas company, Burisma Holdings, which is owned by a former government official suspected of corrupt practices. A spokesman for the son, Hunter Biden, argues that he joined the board of Burisma to strengthen its corporate governance. That may be so. But Burisma's owner, Mykola Zlochevsky, has been under investigation in Britain and in Ukraine. It should be plain to Hunter Biden that any connection with a Ukrainian oligarch damages his father's efforts to help Ukraine. This is not a board he should be sitting on.

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 #12
Kyiv Post
December 10, 2015
Editorial
Biden time

Great speech, Joe Biden. We agree completely and every Ukrainian and supporter of Ukraine should applaud the American vice president's willingness to study, come, meet and say publicly what needs to be done. Assuming that his talks were even harder in private with Ukraine's leaders, especially President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, then something may yet be accomplished.

But we are skeptical that Biden's fifth trip to Ukraine as vice president (we almost forget about the 2009 visit with then-President Viktor Yushchenko), will lead to a moral awakening and action against corruption.

First of all, Poroshenko has effectively told his American allies to forget about persuading him to fire Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, the justice obstructor-in-chief. But let's not overly personalize it.

What Poroshenko doesn't want is to let go of political control of the prosecutors or judges. Hence, Ukraine has not delivered any justice against big financial crimes or murders during Poroshenko's presidency. Yatsenyuk is not much better, with his political ally and Interior Minister Arsen Avakov not delivering the criminal investigations needed. The prime minister remains tainted by the alleged corrupt schemes of his other allies.

They have calculated that they don't need to do much because American officials have already made it clear that they don't see a better alternative to the Poroshenko-Yatsenyuk team.

The moral and financial toll for Ukrainians, meanwhile, continues to rise. Next year's proposed budget counts on recovering $1.4 billion in assets stolen allegedly by ex-President Viktor Yanukovych. Shokin has taken no action, insisting he needs a special confiscation law passed by parliament whose lawmakers have not acted. Do such excuses and inaction sound familiar?

Some also think that Biden's moral high ground is undercut by his son Hunter Biden's involvement with Burisma, an energy company owned by ex-Ukrainian Ecology Minister Mykola Zlochesky. British authorities froze $23 million in Burisma accounts on suspicion of money laundering, but unblocked the assets earlier this year after Ukrainian authorities told Zlochevskyh's lawyers that they have nothing incriminating on him.

It looks bad, but it does not undercut Biden's message to Ukraine's leaders. The truth is that the U.S. has severe limits on its ability to prod Ukraine's leaders to do the right thing. This anti-corruption fight is one in which Ukrainians will have to take the lead. Foreigners are left biding time.

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 #13
Donetsk republic announces resuming coal supplies to Ukraine

MOSCOW, December 10. /TASS/. Authorities of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) have resumed supplies of coal to Kiev, with up to 15,000 tons expected to be sent per day, an official at the local administration said on Thursday.

"After Ukraine partially lifted Crimea's energy blockade, the DPR authorities decided to resume coal supplies to Ukraine," Eduard Polyakov, the acting head of the industrial development strategy department of the DPR's administration, told the Donetsk news agency.

The official said the coal will be first of all shipped to the thermal power plants in Ukraine's central regions. "This is done to decrease the burden of Ukraine's electric power plants supplying energy to Crimea."

The DPR authorities imposed an embargo on coal deliveries to Ukraine on November 27. The measure was expected to be in force for at least two weeks. DPR leader Alexander Zakharchenko said Donbas could resume coal deliveries to Ukraine if it restored electric power supplies to Crimea.

Ukraine recently partially resumed electricity supplies to Crimea via the Kakhovskaya-Titan power line on December 8.

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#14
Interfax
December 9, 2015
Putin orders resumption of coal supplies to Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered that the government resume coal supplies to Ukraine in response to Kiev resuming electricity flow to Crimea.

"They [Ukraine] might only have gotten only one line up and running, but it's still one line [of power transmission]. It is necessary to resume coal supplies," Putin said at a meeting with government members.

"We can't have a situation where, while we are fully energizing [Crimea], we have on-going contracts for electricity supply from Ukraine," Putin said.

"As far as I know, we don't have such contracts, but we need to look and make sure nobody is put in an awkward situation and warn everybody in advance that from such and such a time we won't be needing electricity at all," he said. "By and large we don't even need it now if we are using use mobile generators," he said.

"But since our Ukrainian partners have resumed [electricity supplies], then very well, we'll take it, and in reply we'll resume coal supplies to Ukraine," Putn said.

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 #15
Wall Street Journal
December 10, 2015
Kiev Remains an Economic Lifeline for Separatist-Held East
Even after separatists fought to carve out their own quasi-state, the mining region still needs Ukraine to buy its coal
By JAMES MARSON

MAKIYIVKA, Ukraine-Fighting may have ebbed in eastern Ukraine, but one thing is becoming clear in this separatist-controlled mining town: The economic ties with Kiev still bind.

Eighteen miners at one of the main coal enterprises here died fighting for Russian-backed forces who carved out a tiny quasi-state last year. But it still needs Ukraine to buy its product, provide head lamps and safety equipment, and process wages through its banking system.

"We are not going to shout 'Glory to Ukraine,'" said Yury Popovkin, the 55-year-old director at the Shcheglovskaya-Glubokaya mine, quoting a popular patriotic rallying cry. "But we are in a gray zone and need more certainty."

Mining is at the heart of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, where slag heaps tower over fields and houses, and workers scraped by even before the conflict. The separatists are claiming some form of autonomy, even though a February peace deal says the areas they hold should rejoin Ukraine.

The dividing line between territories controlled by Kiev and the separatists bisects supply lines for the country's industrial plants. Russia has shown no intention of annexing the territory, leaving the region to rely mostly on frayed links with factories and ports in Ukraine to sell and ship its goods.

Kiev is blocking some cargo, saying it doesn't want to fund separatists. But it has allowed through coal shipments it needs to fuel its power plants and steel furnaces that generate a large chunk of its foreign-currency earnings.

Kiev's own dependence on the east for coal supplies has come into focus in recent days after the separatists, claiming untimely payments, halted shipments-a move that puts pressure on both the mines and the Ukrainian government.

Ukraine has lost control of 85 coal mines, more than half its total, according to Ukraine's energy ministry. After the separatists halted shipments, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Ukraine didn't have enough coal to get through the winter, though the energy minister played down talks of brownouts or energy rationing on Friday , saying it was working to diversify supplies.

At the mine, the complications caused by the divide are keenly felt. Miners queue for head lamps and portable oxygen packs, which are in short supply and are more expensive in Russia, Mr. Popovkin said.

The company that runs the mine is registered in Ukraine, which allows it to receive payments for coal shipments and transfer wages. Salary payments were delayed in October after a court froze its accounts because of debts to a power company, Mr. Popovkin said.

Ukrainian banks aren't operating in the separatist regions, so when the money is transferred, miners have to travel to government-controlled territory to withdraw cash from an ATM or use a cashing service for a fee.

"It would be better if there were no border," Mr. Popovkin said.

But that doesn't mean he and his workers are necessarily hankering for a return to Ukraine. At work more than three quarters of a mile underground, miners don't want to talk politics.

"We just want stability and wages," said shift leader Dmitry Komarov, a sturdy man in his 30s.

He said he hadn't heard about the potential reintegration into Ukraine foreseen by the peace deal. However things shake out, Mr. Komarov said, "it won't be like it was before."

Miners have for years relied on bosses to make political decisions while providing steady, if low-paid, work. The region was a coal-and-metals powerhouse of the Soviet Union, but became a battleground in the 1990s as criminal gangs fought for control of lucrative coal sales.

Kiev pumped billions in subsidies to loss-making mines, in part to prevent social unrest, but much of that ended up being embezzled, officials say, and safety standards remained lamentable.

Few miners joined the pro-Russian uprising until the fighting came closer in summer 2014, destroying some buildings-including the sauna they use to clean up after shifts-and forcing a one-month shutdown. Many fled to Russia, but around 200 of the 5,000 workforce joined the separatist forces, according to Mr. Popovkin.

Now, around 4,000 are working again, and production is approaching pre-conflict levels, he said.

Work is tough. After plunging 900 meters (3,000 feet) in an elevator, miners walk for 30 minutes or more down narrow slopes. On the way back, they ride on conveyor belts that transport coal to the surface. In the dark and humid shaft, miners swing axes and drive pneumatic drills into the coal, their faces and torsos black and glistening with sweat and coal dust.

The coal they mine is sold by Dmitri Avtonomov, the 29-year-old scion of a mining dynasty who cruises around town in a Mercedes SUV with two armed guards.

From an office overlooking Donetsk's main square and its enormous statue of Lenin, he coordinates sales to Ukraine, as well as Belarus, Poland and Turkey.

The coal is documented as Ukrainian, sidestepping legal hurdles, so it isn't such a problem that the separatist-held zone is unrecognized, he said. The separatists can't sell it on their own because of sanctions imposed by the U.S. and the European Union.

Mr. Avtonomov, who once worked in a mine for a month to get to know his business better, said his companies pay taxes in Ukraine and to separatists. Some of the money received for sales in Ukraine is transported to Donetsk in cash by car.

On a social media page, miners' wives discuss delays to wages and what they can do about it. Some suggest writing to the separatist leadership or going on strike, while others caution that their husbands could be fired as there are plenty of jobless people ready to take their places.

"We are putting up with it for now," wrote one of them. "We still have porridge and patience."

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 #16
Kyiv Post
December 10, 2015
Power supply to Crimea partly restored, but blackout threats still loom
By Johannes Wamberg Andersen

Power supplies to Russia-annexed Crimea were partially restored on Dec. 8 when one out of four main power lines leading into the peninsula began transmitting electricity from mainland Ukraine.

But the instigators of the energy blockage of the peninsula, Crimean Tatar civil activists, say they'll shut off the power again if their political demands to Russia aren't met.

The Crimea blackout started on Nov. 21, when mainline electricity pylons connecting Ukraine to Crimea were blown up. Activists then prevented repair crews from accessing the downed lines.

Pressure from President Petro Poroshenko and Western countries, including the United States, has since forced the Crimean Tatars to agree to ease the power blockade, according to Mustafa Dzhemilev, the head of the Crimean Tatar national assembly, the Mejlis.

The West was concerned that residents in Crimea were suffering because of the blackout, Dzhemilev told the Gordon.ua news site. However, he said the easing of the power blockade wouldn't last into 2016 if certain Crimean Tatar demands weren't met.

The power outage came on top of a transport blockade in effect since Sept. 20. Civic activists from volunteer battalions and the nationalist Right Sector group had been instrumental in enforcing the blockades, but they have since stopped guarding the damaged power lines and roadblocks.

"The Crimean Tatar activists were few in number, so we assisted them," Right Sector spokesperson Artem Skoropadsky told the Kyiv Post. "But they compromised with anti-Ukrainian forces without our consent, and we can only support a full blockade of Crimea, so we left."

Having lost its key ally on the ground, the Crimean Tatar leadership is now counting on backing from the government instead. Dzhemilev said that he had received assurances that Ukraine would not sign new contract to supply power to Crimea if Russia doesn't release "political prisoners" and the murders and kidnappings of Crimean Tatars aren't investigated. The current electricity supply contract is due to expire at the end of the month.

A United Nations report released on Dec. 9 confirmed cases of disappearances and criticized the lack of fair trials for Crimean residents. It also reported cases of torture and ill-treatment against defendants and witnesses in the case against Ukrainian filmmaker Oleh Sentsov, who was sentenced to 20 years in jail for "setting up a terrorist group." The verdict handed down to Sentsov was confirmed by the Supreme Court of Russia on Nov. 24.

Furthermore the UN report voiced concerns over the lack of freedom of expression in Crimea, where residents are "pressured, intimidated and sanctioned for expressing views that challenge Crimea's status as part of the Russian Federation."

Recently, the homes of relatives of the coordinator of the commercial blockade of Crimea, Lenur Islyamov, have been searched by the occupying authorities.

In addition, the leader of the Mejlis, Ukrainian lawmaker Refat Chubarov, has been charged by the Russian-installed Simferopol government for "calling for the violation of the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation." The Simferopol government said Chubarov would be arrested should he appear on the peninsula. He has also been informed that a five-year ban on his entering Crimea, in force since July 2014, has been revoked.

Chubarov on Dec. 9 tabled a draft law in parliament that would, if adopted, prohibit any supply of power to the occupied territories. Speaking in parliament, he warned that the easing of the power blockade only was temporary.

Energy Minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn, who is working on a new contract for power supplies to Crimea, said he had agreed to one of Chubarov's demands - that the contract should refer to Crimea as Ukrainian, at least in brackets.

Energy expert Mykhailo Honchar, president of the Kyiv-based Strategy XXI Center, said that there was no guarantee that the government would continue to enforce the energy blockade, which civic activists started without any formal legitimacy.

"The power supply might even be resumed in full," he said, but the blackout will have been a warning to the Kremlin of what could happen if Russia resumes its military offensive in Ukraine's east. The blackout was "Crimean electroshock therapy for Moscow," Honchar said.

Moreover, Honchar saw the interests of oligarchs trump humanitarian concerns behind the resumption of power supplies to Crimea via a single power line. The line leads to a titanium-processing plant in northern Crimea that is majority-owned by the Russian-connected tycoon Dmytro Firtash.

Firtash's Group DF had leased the Crimea Titan plant to Russia's Titan Investment LLC. Raw materials for the plant are supplied from mainland Ukraine.

Honchar saw the resuming of the power supply to the plant as an expression of gratitude to Firtash for not re-entering the Ukrainian political scene. A return of Firtash "would have destabilized a fragile political situation further, and the government thanked him for staying away by supplying his enterprise with power," Honchar told the Kyiv Post.

A former key backer of the ex-President Viktor Yanukovych, Firtash, faced with a threat of arrest, recently abandoned his plans to return to Ukraine from Austria, where he successfully fought extradition to the United States on charges of bribery.

Firtash denies the charges and dismisses them as politically motivated.

Dzhemilev justified the reconnection of that particular power line by saying there were risks of hazardous spills from the titanium plant. Honchar, however, said there was no danger and suggested that the Crimean Tatar leaders might have been misled.

Dzhemilev said he doubts Russia would restore civil liberties in Crimea.

"That's what we have said all along, the blockade should be enforced by the authorities, not by us. Polls show that 80 percent of the citizens of Ukraine support the blockade," the exiled veteran Crimean Tatar leader said.

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 #17
Russian-Ukrainian carrier rocket orbits weather satellite

MOSCOW, December 11. /TASS/. A Zenit-2SB Russian-Ukrainian carrier rocket with a Fregat-SB booster has successfully delivered the Elektro-L No. 2 weather satellite into orbit, Russia's Federal Space Agency Roscosmos told TASS on Friday.

"The upper stage comprising the booster and the spacecraft separated from the carrier rocket's second stage," a Roscosmos spokesman said.

This launch may be the last in the history of the Zenit carrier rockets if Russia and Ukraine fail to reach an agreement on a new one.

The last Zenit rocker made by the moment is currently at the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan and is set to be launched in 2017. But the assistance of Ukrainian specialists is needed to prepare for the launch.

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 #18
Ukraine Today
http://uatoday.tv
December 11, 2015
Progress after Euromaidan: 'Values have changed even if we haven't seen concrete reforms'

Trust in institutions is low and rule of law is missing - so is the country really moving forward?

Some two years after Ukraine's Euromaidan revolution, the jury is out on whether or not its aims have been achieved. Has the sudden break from Russia's orbit and the sharp turn toward the West been worth the bloodshed and the upheaval? US President Joe Biden recently told Ukrainian MPs that whilst they do have America support, the White House needs to see more progress on reforming Ukraine and setting it on a democratic path. Others have a more positive outlook.

Sociologist Viktoriya Bryndza joined UT in the Viewpoint studio to tell us why even if the Ukrainian people haven't seen as many concrete reforms as they would have liked, the transformation in society's values has been profound.

"We see our government still as a threat. Institutional trust is very low. But I see changes. And those are more qualitative than quantitative. We cannot count them in big numbers yet. But what I see, especially in Lviv, is that there are some groups of young people who are not living in this mode of survival. They really believe that democracy is worth fighting for.

Watch also UT's Viewpoint with Alya Shandra, the managing editor at Euromaidan Press: "Our aim is to interest people and get them care about Ukraine"

"We saw during the Maidan people were reflecting on what we are fighting for. And this is the change. Because we are growing up as a nation. As a political nation. And we want to know not only what we're fighting with, but what we are fighting for. And this agenda is just emerging now.

"We don't need our own Ukrainian path. We need to re-think the path out of a totalitarian regime and to democracy. We need to re-think what democracy is. And when we have threats to liberalism and we have euro-skepticism in Europe, we also need to develop our strong arguments why liberalism is worth fighting for."

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