CSM - Facing a reported $1.2 billion budget deficit, accusations of corruption, and a parliamentary commission investigation, Leonid Chernovetsky, mayor of Kyiv (Kiev), knew he needed to give the performance of his life.

He didn’t disappoint. After jogging and doing 15 chin-ups, he stripped down to a Speedo and swam 15 meters. “I want to demonstrate to the whole world that I am absolutely fit physically and mentally,” he announced.

A millionaire businessman and evangelical Christian, Mr. Chernovetsky has gained a reputation for wacky ideas. With Kyiv facing an economic crisis, Chernovetsky proposed charging fees to enter cemeteries, selling his kisses in a raffle, and selling burial plots for frogs.

Infighting among opposition members has prevented them from mounting a consolidated challenge. After the parliamentary commission ordered him to have a mental-health check, Chernovetsky took a few weeks off on sick leave.

Shaun Walker | Riga | Jan 11

The Independent - In Russia it is not only the future that is unpredictable; often the past is equally in doubt. One minute Leon Trotsky was a hero of the Revolution, the father of the Red Army and a strong contender to succeed Lenin; the next minute he never existed. Until the late 1980s, the 1917 Revolution was the pinnacle of human achievement; suddenly in the 1990s it was seen as an utter failure.

And today again history in the region is turning into an ideological battlefield. When the Red Army poured into the Baltic states at the end of the Second World War, it liberated them from Nazi tyranny – but from the perspective of the subsequent decades of Soviet domination, was it liberation or merely another invasion?

The Russians, of course, have no doubt on the matter: for them it was an heroic national achievement. But for the states which less than two decades ago managed to crawl out from under the Soviet boot, things are not so simple. The Museum of the Occupation of Latvia, an imposing black box of a building in the heart of Riga, tells the story of Latvia's time inside the Soviet Union. The Soviet soldiers, glorified as heroes in Moscow, are portrayed as criminals and occupiers, no better than the Germans they defeated.

But now, slamming shut a stable door through which its former subject states long ago bolted, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered the creation of a body with the Orwellian title of the Commission to Counteract the Falsification of History to the Detriment of Russian Interests. A linked law is also likely to be passed that will outlaw the "rehabilitation of Nazism" on the territory of former Soviet republics.

It's just not good for a defensive military alliance when two of its newest members decide not to take part in exercises. Especially when they say the reason is not financial. That would have been an easy excuse.

Of course, the exercises are being held in Georgia, at a time when the Russians are really squeezing Saakashvilli. The near abroad is taking Russia's sphere of influence much more seriously these days. I wonder if the strategic mandarins in DC can read the tea leaves as clearly as the Balts?

Do you remember when there was an odd sound in telephone in Soviet Union, and a voice apologized that they are changing the tape?

My firewall has logged intrusion attack from a server of my ISP. I complained that their server is trying to break into my computer. They replied that it is not. The attack continues :)

I have been earlier shortly interrogated by a local spy, who was interested in what I think about terrorism.

Clifford J Levy | Kiev | Mar 16

IHT -

A quarter century ago, a Ukrainian historian named Stanislav Kulchytsky was told by his Soviet overlords to concoct an insidious cover-up. His orders: to depict the famine that killed millions of Ukrainians in the early 1930s as unavoidable, like a natural disaster. Absolve the Communist Party of blame. Uphold the legacy of Stalin.

Professor Kulchytsky, though, would not go along.

The other day, as he stood before a new memorial to the victims of the famine, he recalled his decision as one turning point in a movement lasting decades to unearth the truth about that period. And the memorial itself, shaped like a towering candle with a golden eternal flame, seemed to him in some sense a culmination of this effort.

"It is a sign of our respect for the past," Professor Kulchytsky said. "Because everyone was silent about the famine for many years. And when it became possible to talk about it, nothing was said. Three generations on."

The concrete memorial was dedicated last November, the 75th anniversary of the famine, in a park in Kiev, on a hillside overlooking the Dnieper River in the shadow of the onion domes of a revered Orthodox Christian monastery. More than 100 feet tall, the memorial will eventually house a small museum that will offer testimony from survivors, as well as information about the Ukrainian villages that suffered.

In the Soviet Union, the authorities all but banned discussion of the famine, but by the 1980s the United States and other countries were pressing their own inquiries, often at the urging of Ukrainian immigrants.

In response, Communist officials embarked on a propaganda drive to play down the famine and show that the deaths were caused by unforeseen food shortages or drought. Professor Kulchytsky said he had been given the task of gathering research but concluded that the famine had been man-made.

Russian geopolitical moves over the last year have been wide-ranging, ominous, and seemingly unconnected. They are often interpreted as evidence of the resurgence of Great Russian chauvinism, which had been dormant since the decline and fall of communism. Many analysts see Russia as bent on reacquiring its empire, and at least suspect a new Cold War is in the offing. But an alternate, less malevolent interpretation might be considered, especially when Russia’s numerous cooperative measures are taken into account, as they often aren’t. Russia likely has a more limited goal: countering the spread of NATO into Eastern Europe.

Chris Schuler | The Independent Minds Blogs

KALININGRAD, RUSSIA: It must have been the music in the little Ukrainian retaurant that made my dinner companion wax a little nostalgic. "I love these Ukrainian songs," she said. "I love the Ukrainian language. It's such a shame they had to make that Orange Revolution. They sold themselves to the Americans. These fucking Americans, they try to come between Slavonic peoples and drive them apart. At least it won't happen in Belarus. The President there is strong."

Now I have to say that came as a bit of an eye opener. To anyone in the West who takes an interest in such matters, Viktor Yuschenko, leader of Ukraine's Orange Revolution, is a democratic hero, while Aleksandr Lukaschenko, the President of Belarus, is "the last dictator in Europe". yet my friend is not some glassy-eyed fanatic, but a likeable, well educated middle-aged lady. And her views, if not exactly those of the majority here, scarcely put her on the lunatic fringe either.

This is a really interesting article in the Times about Georgia, the Ukraine and NATO. Well reported and worth a read.

The real meat comes at the end of the article. It really is about the Germans and the Americans getting pissed off at each other about NATO membership for both countries. The Germans have dug in their heels and pretty much said, no way. But the Bush Administration, being petulant to the very end, is looking for a back door. Typical.

I don't have much to add, as everyone knows where I stand: having both countries in NATO is a bad idea. I'm glad the Germans are doing their best to prevent it from happening, but it does show that their is a growing rift between the US and Germany. And that I don't like to see. Alas, it's probably a part of an inevitable shift away from American hegemony. It'll still take a few decades to play out, but it's started.

I arrived in Dnepropetrovsk without a hitch, except my checked bag is still in AMS. My first wife, a Dutch girl, obviously put a hex on me. Seriously, she was great. I have clothes, not much, but I have a coat and some thermals.

So, first stop after my arrival in Dnepropetrovsk's airport is a meeting with a beer. I am not a drunk, but this type of travel requires some assistance. Bad freaking move. My first, I think, on this trip. Across the hall is the rental car place, and they will not rent me a car, because they say me drinking a beer. FM, my mistake. Certainly, my first one, but probably a good one. All the others were out of my control, so I venture outside. This is not the normal gauntlet a traveler would meet coming through the gateway to Borispol in Kiev or any airport in Moscow. Really, there was nothing there. A couple of cabbies, but not the pressing hoard.

On a dark and stormy night . . . okay . . . that was later . . .

Okay, so it was really a sunny afternoon - about 1:30 - when I was leaving San Antonio on the 20th with a destination of Kharkov. Then, it started. My dear friend and beloved dog bit my beautiful mother. While I was loading my stuff in her truck, he was having some separation anxiety or something, and she, unwisely, tried to grab him. He chomped her arm pretty good. This is a big dog - a mix of Akita, Siberian Husky, Chow and Wolf. And Blonde to top it off, not that there is anything wrong with that . . . . we all have to go to the circus sometime, and I find that Blonde circus enjoyable. In any event, The Mom went to the doctor and will be fine. The Dog lives too. Not sure where the Cat was at, but I suspect he was killing something in the woods. My little assassins.

KIEV | Oct 16

Reuters - The IMF may lend Ukraine a sum ranging from $3-14 billion to shore up its financial system but has made any credit contingent on calling off a snap election, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said on Thursday.

The IMF office in Kiev declined to comment. But the Fund, while setting financial conditions for credits, almost never takes a position on internal political issues in a country with which it negotiates an assistance programme.

Political woes in Ukraine, which faces its third parliamentary poll in as many years, have been compounded by fears that government and banks may not be able to refinance debt as its currency weakens and global lending dries up.

KIEV | October 14

RIA Novosti - Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has abolished a Kiev court that had earlier suspended his decree to dissolve parliament and call early parliamentary elections, his press service said.

Yushchenko signed a decree late Monday abolishing the Kiev District Court, replacing it with two administrative courts, after the court ruled in favor of a lawsuit filed by the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc Saturday against the president and the Central Election Commission (CEC) and overturned the presidential decree to dissolve parliament.

The secretariat of President Yushchenko filed an appeal later Saturday against the ruling.

KIEV | October 14

RIA Novosti - Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has refused to allocate some 420 million hryvnias ($80 million) to finance early parliamentary elections, Ukraine's UNIAN news agency reported on Tuesday.

Ukraine's top security body, the National Security and Defense Council, demanded that the government transfer the money to election officials on Monday. However, no cabinet session was held and no money has been transferred.

A top official from Ukraine's Central Election Committee was cited by the agency as saying that the country's top election body "cannot carry out the elections" if the money is not provided.

Valery Konovaliuk | Ukraine

ZIK - Ukraine supplied weapons to Georgia even after the war with Russia had broken out, Valery Konovaliuk (Regions), head of VR ad hoc investigation commission said during his briefing Oct. 8, Regions press service report runs.

The commission is in posssession of documents that testify that Ukraine went on with its supplies of arms to Georgia even after the conflict with Russia started. Certain documents indicate, the lawmaker continued, that ammunition and artillery guns, disguised as humanitarian aid, were shipped to Batumi Sept. 22.

Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent

Telegraph - Russia's offensive in Georgia in August exposed the dangers of the Western alliance's lack of contingency plans against an invasion on its eastern flanks.

Political leaders from the Baltics and Eastern Europe have subsequently demanded that Nato fulfil the requirements implied by its "Chapter 5" commitment to defend the territorial integrity of all its members.

General James Craddock, Nato's Supreme Commander, has asked for the political authority to draw up contingency defence plans at a Nato meeting in Budapest later this week.

France and Germany have signalled opposition to the move but Gen Craddock has the strong backing of American and Britain.

It wouldn't surprise me if the US, via a Saudi cutout, were behind this:

Russia thought it had tamed the Muslim regions on its southern flank when it quelled a rebellion in Chechnya, but trouble is brewing again.

Barely noticed by the outside world, increasing violence and clashes between federal forces and rebels in Ingushetia, just west of Chechnya, threaten to destabilise the north Caucasus.

Ninety-three people were killed in clashes in the year to the end of August, the local branch of human rights group Memorial says -- a big death toll for a region with a population of only 470,000

If you think we are averse to to using militant Islamists for our own aims you just haven't been paying attention the last 30 years.

As Stratfor noted in its latest weekly Intelligence Guidance:

A civil war in Chechnya is building up between the Kadyrov and Yamadayev factions. We need to see if the Kremlin can clamp down on this quickly enough to prevent another full-blown Chechen war and to prevent outside powers from jumping into the fray. If a war does erupt, what's the potential for it to spread to Dagestan, Ingushetia and Georgia in the northern Caucasus? Most importantly, will the United States see instability in Chechnya as an opportunity to tie Russia's hands? We need to look for signs of U.S., as well as Saudi, involvement in Chechnya. The Kremlin will be moving quickly to try to lock the situation down.

Two can play the game the Russians are playing, and the US by 'possibly' bringing Dagestan and Ingushetia into the 'Kavkaz mix' makes life miserable for Putin and Medvedev in Moscow, believe me.

Someone in Washington actually is paying attention and knows what the game is about. That man is Chuck Hagel and this letter is exhibit A that should Obama win in November and should he wish to have a bi-partisan, unity-porn, government of national unity he could do no better than to nominate Chuck Hagel as Secretary of State.

You may not like his domestic positions, but his foreign policy ones are tempered by a serene and sober sense of realism and an understanding of what our capabilities are versus our desires. Hagel is no neo-con. He's a pragmatist and realist in the best senses of those words. It's time for prudence and thoughtful policy-making.

A nomination of Richard Holbrooke would be just one more neo-con in Democratic drag.

The Editors maintain a listserve as a way of communicating with each other. Most of the time the conversations are mundane, pedestrian site-administration stuff. But every now and then someone posts a news article and an interesting discussion ensues. This evening is a case in point. Tina posted this article about Russia, the Black Sea Fleet and the Ukraine. Ian quickly chimed in with this:

I wouldn't give Sevastopol back in 2017 if I were the Russians. The Ukrainians can sign another deal, or they can lose the Crimea. Their choice.

And then I replied: "I'm with Ian. The Ukrainians f**k with Russia at their own peril."

And then Ian shot back:

More after the jump

Now, I have a great deal of respect for Steve Clemons. I also like him. He's been very available and helpful several times. But I really, really have to take issue with something in this post, although I agree with the general thrust of it. Here's what caught my eye and what bothers me in the extreme:

The fact that Palin seems not to want to admit or is not aware of is that no matter our bluster, Georgia's irresponsibility in this encounter will delay both Ukraine's and Georgia's NATO entry.

That's the key word there for me. Delay? Are you kidding? Did Russia not just invade a sovereign nation as a clear warning that it will not tolerate any more NATO expansion in its backyard?

Seriously, the folks in Washington just don't have a clue on this. So, I'll make it as clear as I can: the Ukraine and Georgia do not belong in NATO. Understand? It's a defensive military alliance, not a political club, a la the Concert of Europe. And it is simply insane to think the US or our NATO allies have the capability to defend either country (much less the Baltics) from the Russians.

Sure, what Palin said was the height of irresponsible stupidity, making George W. Bush's 2000 quiz on foreign policy look like a doctoral dissertation. But the assumption that this just "delays" their entry is pretty not too bright either. Perhaps it was a poor choice of words, on Steve's part. I certainly hope so. But from what I've seen, most of the foreign policy establishment doesn't get Russia, never has and never will.

Jonathan Steele | Sochi | September 12

Guardian Online -Russia only sent troops and tanks to drive Georgian forces out of South Ossetia after President George Bush failed to put pressure on Georgia's president to stop his attacks on the breakaway territory, Vladimir Putin said yesterday. The Russian prime minister told a group of western journalists and experts on Russia that he held two meetings with the US leader during the Beijing Olympics as the crisis began to unfold, but received insufficient assurances from him.

"They [Georgian military forces] launched their attacks at 23:30 [on August 7]. I learned about it the following morning. I spoke to Bush. He said 'No one wants war.' We expected something would happen," Putin said, suggesting that he expected the US to rein in its regional ally in Tbilisi.

"I met him again at the stadium. I can't tell you in detail the content of the conversation, but I had the feeling that his administration wouldn't do anything about stopping the conflict," Putin said. Russian tanks were then ordered to move on the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali.   much more at Guardian link
 
_{(Photo: Alexey Nikolsky/AFP/Getty Images)}

Sochi | Sept 11

Reuters - Abkhazia will sign an agreement with Moscow establishing Russian military bases in the province following its decision to break away from Georgia, its leader said on Thursday.

President Sergei Bagapsh criticised Georgia's efforts to join NATO, saying this would threaten the whole northern Caucasus region, and said Abkhazia might join the loose Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

"We will enter into a military agreement with the Russian Federation to protect ourselves against aggression," Bagapsh told reporters in Sochi, a Black Sea resort in Russia.

"It will be an agreement about the deployment of military bases on the territory of Abkhazia. After a political agreement we will sign a military agreement about bases, also in our sea ports."

as the screw turns..

Sochi | Sept 11

Reuters - Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia plans to become part of the Russian Federation, its leader said on Thursday, but Moscow's top diplomat said he was not aware of any such request.

"Yes, we will be part of the Russian Federation," South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity told reporters in the Russian resort of Sochi on the Black Sea. "We will do it according to the norms of international law."

"Now we are an independent state and we look forward to uniting with North Ossetia and joining the Russia Federation," Kokoity said.

Kokoity was reiterating his longstanding position following Russia's recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another rebellious Georgian province, as independent states.

Asked about Kokoity's remarks at a news conference in Poland later on Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters: "I don't know where you get this information from. I never heard that South Ossetia wants to join Russia.

South Ossetian leader backtracks on Russia unity claims

Tony Barber | Paris | September 10

FT - The European Union yesterday declined to offer Ukraine a clear path to EU membership, frustrating Ukrainian officials who said the bloc had thrown away a golden opportunity to stabilise its eastern frontier and encourage political and economic reform in Kiev.

A communiqué issued at an EU-Ukrainian summit set out a framework for closer ties between Kiev and the 27-nation bloc, but omitted the crucial words "membership perspective" to describe Ukraine's future relationship with the EU.

Jim Lobe | WASHINGTON | September 9

Asian Times - As if the outgoing administration of US President George W Bush didn't already have enough on its plate, the question of whether and how to re-arm Georgia in the aftermath of its thrashing last month by Russia is moving steadily up an increasingly crowded foreign policy agenda.

Moscow has already signaled that any move to supply the government of President Mikheil Saakashvili with the advanced weapons that he has long sought - including the powerful hand-held anti-tank rockets and Stinger surface-to-air missiles which contributed heavily to Russia's defeat in Afghanistan - will significantly increase tensions with Washington, which soared to a post-Cold War high in the wake of the Russian intervention.

As the Russian presence in Georgia continues, the countries of Eastern Europe should be deeply concerned over their security situation vis-à-vis their former occupier and imperial ruler. They should not only be alarmed by a resurgent Russia flush with oil wealth and restored military prestige, but also by the less than reassuring response from the United States, Western Europe, and NATO, which many Eastern European countries (though not yet Georgia) now belong to. A cautious assessment of their strategic situation will conclude that they cannot rely on NATO and so must look to themselves to form their own collective security arrangement.