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Ukraine Government Collapses Over Georgia War
Ukraine plunged into fresh political turmoil today when its pro-Western government collapsed amid recriminations over Russia's war with Georgia.
The pro-Western coalition of Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko and President Yushchenko has formally split. (Konstantin Chernichkin/Reuters) The Speaker of Parliament formally dissolved the coalition between the party of Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko and that of her former Orange revolution ally, President Viktor Yushchenko. The announcement ended hopes that the two sides could patch up their differences after Mr Yushchenko's Our Ukraine party withdrew from the coalition 10 days ago.
The Speaker, Arseny Yatsenyuk, said that parties now had 30 days to try to build a new majority in parliament or face elections, just a year after Ukraine last went to the polls. He said: "I would not call this an apocalypse. It is a challenge for democracy, but I hope we will overcome this challenge together."
The crisis has exposed deep fissures within the pro-Western forces who came to power after the 2004 revolution as the rival leaders jockey for advantage ahead of presidential elections expected late next year. The divisions could open the way for the pro-Russian Party of Regions, led by their bitter rival Viktor Yanukovych, to return to power and tilt Ukraine towards Moscow once again.
Last month's war in Georgia sparked a sharp escalation in tensions after aides to President Yushchenko accused Mrs Tymoshenko of "high treason" for not condemning the Kremlin's actions. Mr Yushchenko openly backed Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili and restricted the movement of Russia's Black Sea Fleet from the port of Sevastopol during the conflict.
Mr Yushchenko then accused Mrs Tymoshenko of a "political and constitutional coup d'etat" after her party sided with the Party of Regions to vote through restrictions on presidential powers. Our Ukraine's parliamentary leader described the alliance as a "pro-Kremlin majority" and said that the new legislation was "just what the Kremlin has been asking certain political forces to do".
Mrs Tymoshenko rejected the allegations and blamed the President for "destroying" the coalition, saying that he was seeking to damage her popularity with voters to weaken her chances of succeeding him.
Their split comes at a time of heightened concern in the European Union and Nato that Ukraine could be the next target of Russian interference as the Kremlin flexes its muscles in its former Soviet neighbours. Tensions are already running high over the future of the Black Sea Fleet in Crimea, a region whose population is strongly pro-Russian.
Mr Yushchenko insists that the fleet must leave when a lease agreement expires in 2017. But Rear-Admiral Andrei Baranov, deputy head of the fleet, said yesterday: "We are not planning to go anyway. There are no options."
Mrs Tymoshenko will continue as Prime Minister while she seeks to build a fresh cabinet, though she has previously ruled out any coalition with the Party of Regions. She will have to resign if a new majority is not in place by the middle of October.
Ukraine would then face its third parliamentary election in two years, extending the political crisis that has paralysed the country's drive to seek membership of Nato and the EU. Nato countries are due to decide whether to offer Ukraine a Membership Action Plan in December, at about the same time as elections would be taking place.
Russia is bitterly opposed to Ukraine's Nato aspirations and has threatened to target nuclear missiles at its neighbour if it joins the alliance. Europe and the United States fear that the Kremlin may seize the opportunity to stir up anti-western sentiment, particularly in Crimea, during the elections.
The US Vice President Dick Cheney met Mr Yushchenko and Mrs Tymoshenko during a visit to Ukraine's capital Kiev this month and urged them to unite in the face of threats to the country's security. He told them that Ukraine's best hope was to be "united with other democracies".
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17 Comments so far
Show AllYet another "victory" resulting from Reagan "winning" the Cold War and Bush marketing "Democracy" worldwide.
This HAS to be the stupidest comment of all time.
Before Reagan won the cold war, the idea of a government falling from power in the Ukraine would have been laughable. Now it is an everyday occurrence.
Welcome to democracy...
Grandpa Caligula did not win the Cold War: he was merely continuing a policy of containment that had begun under Truman and was US policy on a bipartisan basis. The idea was that containment would allow the system to die of its' own weight and internal rot, which it did. In fact, it was under Republicans Nixon & Ford that breather that the Soviet Union was desperate for, Detante, came into being. And when the Soviet Union did collapse, it was a complete surprise to the West to the extent that American intelligence never adjusted for a post-Soviet world... and still have not.
The ludicrous idea that Grandpa Caligula "won" the Cold War is part of the lies put out by the Reagan propaganda mini-industry that is working furiously to preserve, as history has a habit of exposing the man behind the curtain a la the Wizard of Oz.
As per neocons
Reagen/Bush one the cold war
Why is Russia now aserting itsself in the world.....
All these war's "on terror" are actually related to the neocons desire to surround and squeeze the commies out of existance. Luckily- it looks like they're losing this one without anyone dying.
STOP NATO EXPANSION NOW!
Victor Yushenko and Yulia Tymoshenko have long been allies of necessity who loathed each other viscerally. Their debate about Ukraine's reaction to Georgia merely brought their inevitable break-up to a head. Both have wanted the other out of the political picture for a long time, but needed each other to offset the strength of the Russian centric Viktor Yankovych. Tymoshenko figures she has enough political capital that she can oust Yushenko while holding off Yankovych. By being relatively silent in reaction to the Georgia invasion, she wants to maintain her mildly pro-Western image while not pissing off the newly assertive Russia... and she figures this is what the voters of Ukraine want as well. What remains to be seen is if this calculation was correct.
How do you keep the names straight? I lost track, but I got your point.
I am former American expatriate. I was employed by a business where it was bad form not to be able to keep straight and properly pronounce customers names.
The War for Oil and Glory in the Middle East (WOGME) (formerly entitled GWOT, "The Global War on Terror") has gone as belly up as Lehman Bros. George Wanker Bush was to polish off Iraq; McCain was counting on leftovers, like invading Syria or perhaps Lebanon as his share of America's Greater Glory (Iran is too big and too militarily well prepared to invade. We only take on places the Wise Men perceive as pushovers). Where will McCain be able to best Bush, the man who slimed and dishonored him and his family in 2000 and whom McCain, with his thermonuclear temper, must still hate on some level? Why not Russia?, the enemy McCain faced most of his life. The American version of Operation Barbarossa is already being gamed by the Jack D. Rippers and Buck Turgidsons of the Neocon Armchair Wehrmacht, Kriegsmarine und Luftwaffe whom McCain employs as his strategic thinkers. Sounds crazy? So was the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Think they learned anything? If McCain wins, the Neocons will conclude they have madhouse USA surrounded and totally under their control. They can do anything they want. All they'll need is the rebirth of conscription and the Democrats will cooperate with them on that. It really will be Russian Roulette with bullets in all six chambers of the revolver.
Was it Ukraine that snubbed Cheney and didn't feed him?
zaz,
Are you thinking of Azerbaijan?
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/9745
Got me - Thank you - Wishful thinking I guess.
The heart of the Russian nation is in Kiev, as long before Muscovy or Novgorod there was Kievan Rus. The Slavic peoples agricultural heartland includes Ukraine. What can be considered ethnic Ukraine are the lands west of the Dnieper River as this map depicts. The best volume dealing with Ukraine's history from a nationalist perspective is Hrushevsky's History of Ukraine, which was edited and translated into English by the great Russia scholar George Vernadsky in 1941, and should be available in any university library. To understand the dynamics of today's Ukraine, and Russia for that matter, one must read Hrushevsky's book and Vernadsky's excellent overview volume on Russian history (for starters).
As much as US Imperialist planners would love to develop a wedge between Russia and Ukraine, their efforts will be defeated in the longrun because the truth is that the Russian and Ukrainian (and Bylorussian) peoples share far too much in common for any such division to last.
Thank you for an intelligent, well-researched piece. Good perspective on the situation over there.
Fire in the wake of Darth Viper - everywhere.
[Cheney} told them that Ukraine's best hope was to be "united with other democracies". Yeah, look how good that worked for Georgia...lol!
BTW...when did Russia stop being a democracy? Just because some lying crusty old cold warrior IMPLIES it is not a democracy?
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
"mujeriego September 16th, 2008 9:43 pm
[Cheney} told them that Ukraine's best hope was to be "united with other democracies". Yeah, look how good that worked for Georgia...lol!"
BETTER, "look how good that worked for the USA ... LOL", only louder; while the gut's also wrenching. I always prefer looking in the mirror, first.
"BTW...when did Russia stop being a democracy?"
ONLY in Cheney's, Bush's, ... LIES.
===============
"fakedemocracy September 16th, 2008 3:57 pm
All these war's "on terror" are actually related to the neocons desire to surround and squeeze the commies out of existance. Luckily- it looks like they're losing this one without anyone dying."
Without anyone dying, really, are you serious!? I guess you missed what happened in South Ossetia last month. And all the Iraqis and Afghans who've been killed in the GWOT wars were killed for gaining control of these countries, but while it's also related to encrcling Russia and eventually trying to apply the final vice-grip squeeze. The overall GWOT "program" involves all of these wars and military build-up of the US and NATO in Asia. After all, it is considerably obvious that the U.S. and the western ruling elites are aiming for basically all of Asia.
With that said, however, the case of last month in Ossetia is the one in which your "without anyone dying" is most immediately, clearly or obviously, and completely proven to be erroneous.