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Russia warns Kiev over Nato plans

Anti-US protests in Crimea
Anti-US sentiment has been running high among protesters
Russia has warned Ukraine that relations between the two countries will be harmed if it joins Nato.

MPs in the State Duma voted 435 to 0, with one abstention, for a resolution expressing "serious concern" over Ukrainian plans to join the alliance.

The message was sent as the parliament in Kiev was due to vote on whether to allow foreign troops on its soil ahead of joint manoeuvres with the US.

But the vote was put off as parliament adjourned until 14 June.

The joint exercises involving a number of Nato countries are due to start on 12 June and 200 US marines have already arrived to help prepare facilities.

Delay

Pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko, who has made joining Nato a top priority, had asked parliament to urgently grant permission for foreign troops to be on Ukrainian soil.

The acceptance into Nato of Ukraine and Georgia will mean a colossal geopolitical shift
Sergei Lavrov
Russian Foreign Minister

But co-operation has been difficult since MPs have been unable to form a coalition following a parliamentary election in March.

The BBC's Helen Fawkes, in Kiev, says that if the military exercises have to be cancelled because of the delay it will be seen as a humiliating blow to the pro-Western authorities.

Mr Yushchenko's enthusiasm for joining Nato has angered many in the mainly Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine, like Crimea, who are opposed to the former Soviet republic joining the alliance.

For almost two weeks there have been anti-Nato protests in the region, which is home to the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and hostility towards the Nato alliance is especially strong.

On Tuesday, the regional parliament declared Crimea a Nato-free zone. This was dismissed as meaningless by Ukraine's president.

Georgia warning

Pro-Russian political parties have backed the protests.

And Russia's State Duma seemed clear in its message to Ukraine's parliament on Wednesday.

"Ukraine's membership in the military bloc would have negative consequences for the entire range of relations between our two fraternal peoples," the Russian deputies said.

They expressed similar concern about Georgia joining the alliance.

"We have said more than once that every country has the right to take sovereign decisions on who will be its partner in the international arena," Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the State Duma before the vote.

"At the same time, the acceptance into Nato of Ukraine and Georgia will mean a colossal geopolitical shift and we assess such steps from the point of view of our interests."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5054506.stm

Regions Party demands that US mil cargoes be removed from Crimea

08.06.2006, 17.11

FEODOSIYA, Crimea, June 8 (Itar-Tass) - Parliamentary group representing Ukraine’s Regions Party, the largest political force in the national parliament, has demanded that U.S. military containers, which a U.S. transport naval ship delivered to the port of Feodosiya last month, be removed from the region, a senior party official said here Thursday.

Yevgeny Kushnaryov, the chairman of the Regions Party’s political council, who came to the Crimea at the head of a group of members of parliament, said one of the goals of the visit was to expose once again “the full measure of deception on the part of Ukrainian authorities.”

Since May 27, Feodosiya has been swept by mass protests following the arrival of the ship with cargoes, ostensibly needed for the Sea Breeze 2006 military exercise.

It was the controversy around the contents of containers that triggered tensions between the central government in Kiev and the Crimean population, which is largely opposed to the government’s drive towards NATO membership.

“For almost two weeks, the authorities have been trying to convince the global public opinion that peaceful construction workers with civilian cargoes had arrived here,” Kushnaryov said before his team of MPs began an inspection of the content of controversial containers.

Kushnaryov recalled that the U.S. embassy in Kiev had made public a list of military equipment and technologies delivered in the containers.

“These range from pistols to antiaircraft weapons,” he said.
http://www.tass.ru/eng/level2.html?NewsID=9736264&PageNum=0

Crimea Digs In Against Ukraine's Western Drift

Usually a balmy holiday destination, the mostly pro-Russia region is seeing protests against a U.S. troop presence and efforts to join NATO.
By Kim Murphy, Times Staff Writer
June 8, 2006

FEODOSIYA, Ukraine — Ordinarily, June is the month when the tourists flock here from chillier points north, when families move into their storage rooms and stand at the train station holding "for rent" signs to let their apartments. The rocky sand beach becomes dotted with jumbo bottles of Russian beer and plump, sunburned babushkas in swimsuits.

This spring, though, Ukraine's balmy Crimean Peninsula has seen more protest flags than beach umbrellas. Arguments over preservation of the Russian language, protests by Tatars over land rights and reparations that blocked a highway, anti-NATO demonstrations at the port, and a tense showdown between Muslims and Christians over a statue of St. Andrew have cast a shadow over the debut of the tourist season, which has barely begun.

ADVERTISEMENTThis week, the Crimean legislature voted against the continuing presence of President Viktor Yushchenko's representative in the autonomous region, terming it "inadmissible." The move was a further sign, if any more were needed, of the monumental job Ukraine's leader faces in uniting a nation that in many ways remains as divided as it was when the Orange Revolution propelled him to power in early 2005.

As lawmakers in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, announced Wednesday that they would need another week to try to build a coalition capable of naming a prime minister, speaker and Cabinet, more than 200 protesters marched through this historic old town on the Black Sea, vowing to oppose Yushchenko's plans to steer Ukraine toward NATO and the West and away from Russia.

"The truth is that an overwhelming majority of people residing in Crimea sympathize more with Russia than with Ukraine," said Sergei Tsekov, deputy speaker of the Crimean parliament. "I can tell you that the situation here is heated. The protests are not subsiding."

Few doubt that the anti-NATO demonstrations touched off by the arrival last month of 227 U.S. Marine reservists in preparation for a joint military exercise are motivated only in part by this region's deep-seated affinity with Russia. More important, many analysts say, is the desire of several pro-Russia parties in Ukraine to influence the outcome of the coalition talks in Kiev. Yushchenko hopes to muster a majority among his Orange Revolution allies and others to form a government.

"I think our friends in Russia are using every tool they have to take a stand against the Euro-Atlantic priorities and strategy for Ukraine, but the arm of Russia is not the main thing in this situation," said Valery Chaly, an analyst with the Alexander Razumkov Center in Kiev. "More important is that the political elite in Ukraine itself is trying to agree on the main direction of our foreign and internal policies."

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Russia Warns Against NATO Taking in Former Soviet Ukraine and Georgia
Created: 08.06.2006 10:27 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 12:21 MSK, 6 hours 29 minutes ago

MosNews

Russia warned against NATO taking in the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia, saying such a colossal geopolitical shift would threaten relations, the AFP news agency reported.

“Membership in NATO for countries like Ukraine or Georgia would mean a colossal geopolitical shift,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said during questioning in the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament.

“We evaluate all possible consequences first and foremost from the point of view of the national interest of Russia, interests in the area of security, our economic interests and interests in relations with countries which relate to Russia in one way or another,” Lavrov said.

The Russian parliament, often a mouthpiece for the Kremlin, passed a resolution Wednesday which stated: “Ukraine’s accession to the military bloc will lead to very negative consequences for relations between our fraternal peoples.”

The statements came as 200 U.S. troops, who are in the predominantly Russian-speaking southern Ukrainian region of Crimea to prepare for NATO exercises due to start next Wednesday, remained stuck in their barracks, The Guardian reported. Protesters greeted their arrival last week with barricades and slogans reading “occupiers go home!”, and reportedly harass them if they step outside the military base.

The marine reservists are in the region to prepare for the Sea Breeze 2006 NATO maneuvers in the Black Sea, intended as a key sign of the West’s slow embrace of Ukraine. The Crimean parliament declared the region a “NATO-free zone” on Tuesday, a move it said was intended to support the anti-NATO protests.

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