FROM EXTREME TO EXTREME

A clever tongue will take you to a rebellion

There are political tensions in Ukraine again. This time emotions are running high around the bill on the basics of the state language policy, which aims to expand the rights of minority languages and promote the use of Russian as a regional means of dialogue in 13 of the country's 27 administrative units. The parliamentary majority passed the bill. However, Speaker Lytvyn refused to sign the document, citing the lack of coordination, and wrote a letter of resignation. Without accepting his resignation, the parliament went on summer vacation, and the unfortunate bill is left hanging in the air. The parliamentary opposition first tried to prevent the adoption of the document, and then staged a brawl, which is no longer a rarity in the Ukrainian parliament. On seeing that the law has almost been adopted, opposition leaders announced their readiness to start "an open-ended campaign to overthrow Yanukovych's regime". Hundreds of opposition members started an unsanctioned rally around the Ukrainian House in the Kiev city centre, and resisted as the police tried to disperse them, using tear gas. According to analysts, the political crisis is the start of the election campaign in Ukraine.

Parliamentary elections are scheduled in Ukraine for 28 October. Although some analysts do not rule out early elections, the likelihood of which was mentioned by President Viktor Yanukovych himself while commenting on the recent parliamentary crisis, there are no reasons for the dissolution of the parliament and early elections.

Recently, polls conducted by the Razumkov Centre and the Democratic Initiatives Fund indicated that the situation surrounding the Russian language was of interest to less than 4 per cent of Ukrainian citizens. They are more worried about unemployment and overcoming the economic crisis, raising the general level of wages, lowering prices for food and essential goods, etc. Nevertheless, the parliamentary crisis is associated precisely with this question.

Speaking about the bill, we should note that it will not be valid throughout the country, but only in the regions inhabited by the Russian-speaking population. The status of Ukrainian as the official language will not be infringed.

In addition, the country's parliament passed very important laws on land and the redistribution of budget flows "on the quiet", which might cause controversy in society, many Ukrainian media say.

Thus, according to experts, this political tension is man-made in nature rather than spontaneous, and the country's political forces are trying to extract maximum benefit from it.

Who goes to the polls and with what?

The ruling party, whose electoral base is normally comprised of voters in the predominantly Russian-speaking eastern and southeastern regions, is trying to get their support with the help of this bill. The law was part of the election platform of the ruling Party of Regions, which is trying to prove its loyalty to pre-election promises in this way. In addition, the adoption of the law would somehow soften the position of Russia, which is not going to make concessions in the gas issue, which remains vital for the Ukrainian economy. But analysts are sceptical about the likelihood of the Kremlin softening its position on this issue. So the adoption of the law plays the role of a domestic political lever for the government.

At the same time, the "language" political crisis plays into the hands of the opposition, which is trying to consolidate its forces which split before the election.

Today the opposition in Ukraine suffers from a lack of unity and a recognized leader. For example, after the arrest of the "gas princess" Tymoshenko, her Fatherland party began to decompose and had to forge an alliance with the Front of Change headed by the former parliament speaker, Arseniy Yatsenyuk. But even after that, according to exit polls, Fatherland can count on a maximum of 26 per cent of the vote.

Among the opposition, we should be note the relatively new party UDAR led by the world boxing champion Vitaliy Klitschko. His reputation for being relatively "squeaky clean" speaks in his favour, and his active participation in the recent actions shows Klitschko's determination to overcome the 5-per-cent barrier on his way to parliament.

Another opposition force - the radical right-wing party Freedom - does not have much of a chance to make it into the legislature. No matter what odious statements the party leader Oleg Tyagnibok and his party colleagues are making, extremist sentiments among the Ukrainian population are so low that this political party, which demands that candidates for membership provide a certificate about their parents' nationality, can be considered a rather marginal force in the "parliamentary battle".

Recently, Ukraine's former president, Viktor Yushchenko, announced "his return to politics". After the previous presidential election, when Yushchenko scored a little over 5 per cent of the vote, he announced his retirement from politics and now his return is explained by analysts in different ways. Experts believe that in the run-up to the parliamentary elections, the authorities themselves are interested in his return, because he criticizes the current opposition no less than the government. Yushchenko's recent statement that Tymoshenko committed an act of "economic genocide" only reinforces these assumptions.

On the Ukrainian political scene, or rather behind its scenes, there is a "grey cardinal" - Viktor Medvedchuk, the former head of the Ukrainian presidential administration under President Kuchma. Although Medvedchuk has not been actively involved in politics and has been almost out of the political arena since the "Orange Revolution" of 2004, experts see him as a person whose position has repeatedly played a crucial role in the modern political history of Ukraine. Many experts believe that with the active support of the Kremlin, we can witness the return of Viktor Medvedchuk to the political arena of Ukraine by autumn, and as a consequence, he might be appointed to one of the key posts in the country.

Threats from abroad

It seems that neither the future parliamentary elections nor further elections will be able to solve the main problems of Ukraine, which took root several centuries before the current events and do not promise the best prospects. The situation is aggravated by the fact that, according to Ukrainian political analysts themselves, 70 per cent of the country's policy is determined externally and only the remaining thirty per cent - inside the country. With a powerful military, strategic, economic and scientific potential, Ukraine cannot turn out of an object of geopolitics into its subject. Currently, the main players influencing the external and internal policy of the country are the EU and Russia.

Analyzing the past and current policies of Russia and the West in relation to Ukraine, analysts come to the conclusion that the Kremlin and Brussels are more interested in strengthening the centrifugal tendencies and to some extent even in splitting the country. The EU has not yet developed a specific strategy of proposals and demands on Ukraine. Constant promises of integration into the European Union resulted only in the fact that at the end of last year, Ukraine was denied even associate membership. Experts believe that this is due to the lack of political will in member countries. Statements about difficulties with democracy in the country and the Ukrainian judicial system are not the genuine reasons for the refusal, for the issue of Ukraine's readiness for full membership of the community is not on the agenda. On the contrary, judging by the level of loyalty shown by the EU in the process of concluding association agreements with other countries in Central and Eastern Europe, it would be correct to say that European officials are not ready to sign the same document in favour of Ukraine.

The same can be said about the hype surrounding the arrest and imprisonment of Tymoshenko. Making her a "martyr", for some reason, European human rights activists are silent about the arrest of her companion P. Lazarenko, who will serve his sentence in a US prison until at least 2015. The former trustee of Mrs Tymoshenko is serving time for stealing an amount several times smaller than the one that the state treasury lost as a result of the gas agreements signed by Tymoshenko as prime minister of Ukraine. Apparently, the European human rights activists do not care that the people of Ukraine whom Tymoshenko called nothing other than "biomass" are paying for these losses. Half a year until 2013, when Ukraine will chair the OSCE, a resolution was adopted in the summer session of the organization's Parliamentary Assembly on the initiative of Italian MP Matteo Mecacci, mentioning once again concerns about the persecution of citizens for their political beliefs. It is clear that it is about the arrest of Tymoshenko. We should note that Mecacci, one of Berlusconi's opponents, who calls for a criminal case against the former prime minister of Italy, is a close friend of Tymoshenko's daughter. As they say, no comment.

Analysts believe that Tymoshenko is currently the EU's main lever of pressure on Ukraine and the main destabilizing factor in the country. Because of her arrest, many European politicians tried to boycott the European Football Championship of 2012 held in Ukraine and Poland. Ahead of Euro 2012, the Western press continued to hype up the outbreak of Nazism in Ukraine, the failure of the championship because the country is not ready to host the event, etc. But, according to the famous British sports writer Oliver Holt, "despite the warning, not a single English fan returned home in a coffin and none of them was caught by a gang of neo-Nazi hooligans". All of the most scandalous stories of racial violence, ironically, occurred not in Ukraine, but in Poland. The Ukrainians were not involved in this.

Political analysts believe that Europe is more interested in uninterrupted supplies of Russian gas through Ukraine. At one time, prioritizing his country's integration into the EU in the foreign policy of Ukraine, Yanukovych risked facing an inadequate response from Moscow to his public statements about it. Given the ambiguous attitude of President Yanukovych's electorate to relations with Russia, the decision to make such a political move was not taken immediately. As always, following its tradition, the European Union did what was expected: it placed a lot of unresolved issues concerning relations with Russia on the shoulders of Ukraine.

Russia's policy here is more transparent and clearer. No matter how much the Russian political establishment declares from high tribunes that Moscow is interested in developing bilateral relations with Kiev on a parity basis, the very idea of an independent Ukraine often meets with open jealousy in Russia. There are several explanations for that.

Modern Russia dates back to Kievan Rus, and for followers of the Russian national idea, Russia without Ukraine is not a whole through the historical or spiritual prism of relations. In the geopolitical aspect, Ukraine is a key element in shaping the foreign policy of the Russian Federation in respect of the "near abroad countries", which is very important in recent times when the Eurasian Union is being actively talked about. Zbigniew Brzezinski once stated: "Russia without Ukraine is not an empire." Due to its extremely favourable geographical location, the country provides important transit routes for Russian energy supplies to Western Europe.

However, instead of taking a pragmatic approach, Russia is openly irritated about the independent policy of Ukraine. In response to the absence of Ukraine in the CSTO and the Customs Union and restrained statements about the prospects of membership in the Eurasian Union, Russia often takes a clearly hostile position on its Slavic brother. For the same reason, Russia provides Ukraine with gas at a much higher price than the developed countries of Europe. "Paradoxical as it may seem, Ukraine will buy Russian gas from a German company, which is cheaper than directly from Russia," Ukraine's Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said. In return for concessions on the gas price, Russia demands a stake in the energy system of Ukraine, which, according to experts, is an open threat to the country's sovereignty.

Immediately after independence, Ukraine positioned itself as a supporter of a multi-vector foreign policy. An example is that Ukraine voluntarily gave up the world's third most powerful nuclear arsenal in favour of nuclear disarmament, which is considered highly controversial in the light of the current external threats.

Geographically, Ukraine is located in the heart of Europe and is the largest state in the continent (excluding Russia, whose main part is in Asia).

Ukraine represents a so-called "buffer zone" that separates the West from the East, the North from the South and Europe from Eurasia. However, it seems that major countries both in the West and in the East are not very interested in having a powerful, advanced and integral country with rich resources and an efficient army in between.