Venäjä - sivustakatsoja? Not.
Viestin lähetti The Original Jags
Juttua USA:n sekaantumisesta Ukrainan sisäisiin asioihin:
Tosin veli venäläistä ei kiinnosta tipan märkää:
Taras Chornovil, MP, Reforms and Congress faction:
I am convinced that the Russian factor will be to the greatest extent represented in these parliamentary elections. Most influence will be exerted through the information cannels because Ukraine is almost completely covered with the Russian network. We have recently witnessed severe attacks on Yuschenko and his wife on Russian TV channels.
In addition to this, Russia may exercise financial influence to support the bloc “For United Ukraine!.” Russia seems to be no longer interested in pro-Russian and communist parties in Ukraine and some other leftwing forces. It is first and foremost interested in the bloc “For United Ukraine!,” which defends Russian business interest in Ukraine. As far as the communists, I think that our Eastern neighbor supports them only with the aim to nip a powerful rightwing-centrist opposition in the bud.
Viktor Yuschenko does not position himself against Moscow. He and his bloc do not have any pro-western or pro-eastern views. They are targeted at protecting the country’s immediate interests.
Kostiantyn Vaschenko, Expert at the International Institute for Comparative Analysis:
Russian TV channels will surely contribute greatly to shaping the Ukrainian audience’s point of view during the election campaign. This is an advantage of the Russian factor compared to the Western factor in Ukraine. The West’s informational influence on Ukraine’s election campaign is very inconsiderable; it is basically exerted through the Internet, which is inaccessible to the overwhelming majority of the electors.
Mikola Tomenko, director of the Institute of Politics:
And any upheaval or political crisis is a good opportunity for the Russians to get involved, I think their basic goal - and this is something they've been proclaiming ever since Putin came to power - is the economic privatization of Ukraine - that is, in Moscow's favor. This will mean the end of our independence.
Russia Cannot Afford to Lose the Ukraine
By Dr. Gary K. Busch 24/11/04
Nov 24, 2004, 11:31
The Ukraine stands on the brink of civil strife. The conflict over the rigged Presidential elections seems likely to provoke a military repression of dissent or a collapse of the corrupt political order along the lines of Saakashvili’s victory in Georgia. The joker in the equation is Russia. Putin has done everything he can to encourage a victory for the pro-Russian forces, despite any election mishaps. He is committed.
Russia is committed to the continued control of the Ukraine for a number of minor reasons and one major reason. Russia’s naval presence in the Black Sea is determined by the willingness of the Ukrainian Government to tolerate the continued Russian occupation of its naval bases at Simferopol and Odessa. If Russia loses control of these the Russian Navy will have no southern ports.
The Russian Black Sea Fleet is based on Ukraine's Crimean peninsula. It is headquartered at Sevastopol', with an additional home port in Odessa. Russian interest in the Black Sea goes back over two hundred years when Catherine the Great annexed the Crimea in 1783, and subsequently established a Russian naval base at Sevastopol.
When the Soviet Union fell apart the Black Sea Fleet became an object of contention between Russia and Ukraine when the Ukraine declared its independence. The Ukraine rents facilities in its port of Sevastopol to the 250-ship Russian Black Sea fleet. Ukrainian naval forces, with about 160 vessels, are based to the south in the port of Donuzlav. Although Ukraine had no use for a blue-water navy and cannot afford to maintain one, it was reluctant to surrender its share of the fleet, both of whose home ports are in Ukraine, to a larger neighbour with a tradition of domination. Ukraine wanted its share of the ships it found in the Ukraine after its declaration of independence.
There was a lot or arguing and threats by nationalist politicians on both sides. Were the Ukrainian sailors on Russian ships in the Ukraine Russians or Ukrainians? Were these vessels Russian or Ukrainian? The presidents of Russia and Ukraine reached agreement in August 1992 under which the fleet and ports would be under joint command of Russia and Ukraine for 3 years. At the Tashkent summit, Russia agreed to cede to Ukraine a certain portion of the former Soviet Union's weapons, units, and sites.
According to Global Security, by 1995, the fleet had approximately 48,000 naval and marine personnel, 14 submarines, 31 surface ships, 43 patrol and coastal ships, 125 combat aircraft, and 85 helicopters. Equipment covered by the CFE Treaty included one coastal defence division with 175 tanks, 450 armoured infantry fighting vehicles, and 72 artillery pieces. The fleet also contained a naval infantry brigade with 50 tanks, 218 ACVs, and 45 artillery pieces. Based in the Odessa Military District in the Crimea, this fleet was manned predominantly by Russian sailors and officers. The fleet's Russian commander and its senior officers resisted any partition and transfer to Ukraine.
On 25 November 1995 Russia and Ukraine reached an agreement on division of the Black Sea Fleet, under which Ukraine would receive 150 naval installations of the fleet. Another agreement in February 1996 fell apart two months later, when Russian Defence Minister Pavel Grachev stopped the division because of controversy over where the Russian fleet would be based.
After nearly five years of controversy, on 28 May 1997 Moscow and Kiev finally settled their dispute over the Black Sea Fleet, when Prime Ministers Chernomyrdin and Lazarenko signed three intergovernmental agreements. The two sides agreed to divide the fleet's assets and to lease port facilities in Sevastopol to the Russian Navy. Under the agreement the two nations split the fleet's ships evenly, though Russia agreed to buy back some of the more modern ships with cash. Thus Russia ultimately received four-fifths of the Black Sea Fleet's warships, while Ukraine received about half of the facilities.
The two leaders agreed that Russia would rent three harbours for warships and two airfields for a twenty-year period, for a payment of about $100 million annually. Sevastopol, which had been partly under Russian control, was given to Ukraine. Russia will keep its portion of the former Soviet fleet for 20 years in several bays at Sevastopol, and the Ukrainian navy will also be stationed at a bay there. Russians leased the Saki shore carrier flight training facility on the Crimean Peninsula prior to the re-deployment of the Kuznetsov to the Northern Fleet. Russia agreed to station no more than 25,000 military personnel at the bases, and that it would place no nuclear weapons at the leased facilities. A result of the division of the Black Sea Fleet between Ukraine and the Russian Federation, armaments and equipment of the Coastal Defence Forces and Naval Infantry assigned to the Russian Federation were subject to withdrawal from the territory of Ukraine.
Russia has substantial commitments in the area with its former headquarters at Sevastopol and major construction yards at Nikolayev which produced four Kiev class carriers and the more recent conventional carrier Admiral Kuznetsov. Moreover, the Black Sea has been a research and development ground for numerous ships, aircraft, hydrofoils, hovercraft, wing-in-ground effect platforms, and weapons systems. The Russian substitute base at Novorossisyk has yet to be developed and is subject to heavy icing.
That means that the Russians are facing the chance that a government in the Ukraine, hostile to the Russians, may ask the Russians to take their ships, men and support groups home; to remove them from the Crimea. That would be a strategic blow to Russia and would dramatically change the power dynamic in the region.
Russia will do everything it can to assure its continued safe harbour for the Black Sea Fleet by supporting its friends in the Ukrainian Government. At the same time Putin cannot just use the mailed fist argument without risking turning the possible victors against the Russians.
This is a matter of vital interest for Russia and the Russian Navy and no babble about human rights, elections, justice or fairness will diminish Russia’s commitment to winning this battle.