THE WINDOW TO EUROPE: ANOTHER POLITICAL REFUGEE: AN EXCLUSIVE WILL UKRAINE IS YANUKOVYCH CLOSING INTERVIEW WITH EX-DEFENCE MINISTER SURRENDER ITS GAS IT FOR UKRAINE? VALERIY IVASHCHENKO TRANSIT SYSTEM TO RUSSIA? № 4 (46) FEBRUARY 2013 PRESUMPTION OF GUILT The new trial againstT ymoshenko shows that if necessary, those in power will prove anyone guilty of anything WWW.UKRAINIANWEEK.COM Featuring selected content from The Economist FOR FREE DISTRIBUTION |CONTENTS BRIEFING FOCUS Game of Endurance: Phantoms From the Ex-Defence Minister Valeriy Ivashchenko The opposition may soon 90s: Details of the talks about renewed pressure from the unblock parliament, but new trial against Ukrainian prosecution and what pushed resistance is likely to escalate Tymoshenko and tricks him to seek political asylum in Denmark in the near future to prove her guilt in an exclusive interview for The Ukrainian Week 4 6 11 POLITICS NEIGHBOURS The Battle for the Capital: As the Andrew Wilson: European Taking a Break as a mayoral and city council elections politicians feel that Ukrainian Strategy: Yanukovych draw closer, the government is authorities are mucking them is trying to provoke the searching for political tactics about EU into not signing the to offset its poor ratings in Kyiv Association Agreement 14 16 18 SECURITY James Sherr talks about A Pipe of Discord: While having a chance the personal, political and to end Ukraine’s dependence on Russian clan interests of those in gas, the Yanukovych regime seems ready to power and Ukraine’s energy surrender its gas transit system in exchange security and prospects for a small short-lived discount 20 22 Over ECONOMICS 60% SOCIETY of the domeic market (prior Unfair banking to Aerosvit’s bankruptcy)y) fees and the manipulation of loan intere rates which make Colossi With Feet of Clay: Phony Currency Wars: clients involuntary slaves to credits. In Filmmaker and photographer Blocking some cases, forcing services on clients such foreign airlines, including as when PrivatBank only accepts payments The world should low-co airlines, from entering for utilities from its own bank cards holders. Scandals around AeroSvit Mimi Chakarova talks Ukraine’s market. Low-quality services. Maintaining a low quality Ihor Kolomoisky A fight over the group’s bank assets or of services and Hennadiy a financial turmoil in PrivatBank could welcome the monetary and unjuifiably high Boholiubov trigger a bank run which and PrivatBank as signals of about her film on human prices for airline in turn could cause the entire tickets. market to collapse Airlines Banking how oligarchs can jeopardize trafficking, the difficult assertiveness of Japan (AeroSvit, Privat services Dniproavia Group and (PrivatBank) 13% Donbasaero) of Ukraine’s Ukraine’s economy if their and America banking syem return of victims to normal Media outlets TV network 25% (1+1 group, covering of total Ukrainian deposits interests clash with those of UNIAN, etc.) life and corrupt NGOs 95% Manipulation 30% of bank cards 26 of the country of public 25 and over The bigge 30 opinion the Family network of offices 25% and ATMs among of a conant audience privately owned banks One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: Suppressing Political Madness: Dutch voices in their heads, focusing on real sounds Sovietologist Robert van Voren and adjusting the dosage of medicine – why speaks about Soviet repressive Ukrainians with bipolar disorder would do psychiatry and its surviving anything just to stay out of a psychiatric hospital offshoots 34 37 HISTORY The Right to Criticise: The The Press as a Mirror of National press’ social mission and a long Consciousness: The Ukrainian press evolutionary path to freedom of of the early 20th century survived expression thanks to a handful of subscribers and funding from selfless donors 40 44 CULTURE & ARTS NAVIGATOR Singing Through Tears: Film Beautiful and Treacherous director Tom Hooper talks Borzhava: The untold secrets about Les Misérables as a of the gorges dividing the breakthrough in the musical largest highland pastures of the genre Ukrainian Carpathians 48 50 Natalia Romanec, Shaun Williams, Editors; Anna Korbut, Translator Mailing address: PO Box 2, Kyiv, 03067 The Ukrainian Week № 4 (46) February 2013 Publisher address: vul. Mashynobudivna 37, Kyiv 03067 Ukraine Founder: ECEM Media Ukraine LLC Publisher: The Ukrainian Week LLC E-mail: [email protected], Tel.: (044) 351-1300 First published in January 2010 www.ukrainianweek.com State registration certificate Print: The Novy Druk, LLC, 1 Mahnitohorska Str. Series KB No18352-7152ПР of October 24, 2011 Ordering number: 13-5466. Print run: 15,000 Bohdan Andriytsev, Director, ECEM Media Ukraine LLC Sent to print on 21 Feubruary 2013 Serhiy Lytvynenko, Editor-in-Chief, The Ukrainian Week Free distribution № 4 (46) FEBRUARY 2013|THE UKRAINIAN WEEK|3 BRIEFING| 7-21 February The Interna- The Prosecutor’s Office The police search tional Intellectual launches a case on the the counseling office Property Alliance kidnapping of Russian of Batkivshchyna’s recommends listing opposition activistL eonid Arsen Avakov and the Ukraine as a priority Razvozzhayev in October Batkivshchyna office in copyright pirate 2012 Kharkiv Game of Endurance The Party of Regions’ attempts to intimidate the opposition with early elections or responsibility for the breakdown of European integration have not given the desired result so far, so an escalation of resistance can be expected in the near future Authors: ne way or another, the it’s doubtful that Batkivshchyna has it can improve its results, or even Milan Lelich, blocking of the Verkhovna the financial resources to cover an repeat existing ones. The very fact Oleksandr Rada by opposition forces, expensive election campaign. Also, that a re-election is being held be- Mykhelson Odemanding that MPs vote the prospects of changing the elec- cause of the government’s inability exclusively in person, is drawing to tion law in its favour is no greater to control parliament would be a an end. Representatives of Bat- than for the PR. It is also obvious signal for politicians and society kivshchyna and Svoboda have that the main addressee of Yatseni- that the political process, which, joined UDAR, which has blocked uk’s radical declarations is the op- since Yanukovych’s coming to the rostrum since 5 February, in ex- position voter, after all, until now power, has consistently led to him pectation of its forceful unblocking. TV channels have only shown strengthening his own power, is Moreover, the leader of the United UDAR MPs, blocking the rostrum. now beginning to move in the op- Opposition, Arseniy Yatseniuk, has However, facts are facts: the op- posite direction. Ultimately, this decided to attack and in response to position’s recent behaviour style could end with the removal of the the threat made by PR representa- signals that it has completely taken current regime. In such a situation, tives of early elections using only the initiative in parliament into its even with a mixed election system, the first-past-the-post system, own hands, and the loss of control but under conditions of a coordi- stated that Batkivshchyna will also in parliament by the Presidential nated approach by the opposition demand a new parliamentary elec- Administration. The opposition is at first-past-the-post constituen- tion, but under an exclusively pro- now also forcing the PR to back- cies, they could win a majority in portional system, with open lists as track on the issue of an early elec- the future parliament. Large-scale well as a simultaneous presidential tion. After the PR publicly threat- falsifications during a possible early election, in order to get out of the ened an early election, its inability election could provoke social mobi- political situation, using the 1994 to bring the situation to an electoral lization, which until now was not election as an example. Yatseniuk’s race has only once more confirmed expected until the presidential elec- words can be seen as a bluff, since that the government is not sure that tion in 2015. Instead, the Family The month in history 15 February 1919 16 February 1813 19 February 1954 The Ukrainian National Council Semen Hulak-Artemovsky, singer The USSR Verkhovna of ZUNR, the WestU krainian and composer of Zaporozhets za Rada passes an act People’s Republic, passes a law Dunayem, The Zaporozhian (Cos- to transfer Crimean to use the Ukrainian language sack) Beyond the Danube, the first Oblast to theU krai- in public institutions Ukrainian opera, is born nian SSR 4|THE UKRAINIAN WEEK|№ 4 (46) FEBRUARY 2013 |BRIEFING A wall of the Hearings on the The Chernihiv Court of Berkut violently Chornobyl nuclear Shcherban Case Appeal rejects Yuriy disrupts and arrests power plant near kick off inK yiv. Lutsenko’s petition activists andM Ps pro- Reactor 4 col- There are clashes for release due to ill tectingH ostynnyiD vir, lapses after heavy between MPs and health a historical building in snowfall special police units the Podil district of Kyiv will have significantly less prepara- the PR faction and pass them on to for the change in this position was tion time. the top. the arrival in parliament of Andriy In this context, the passivity of In any case, PR MPs who have Klyuev, who began “intrigues, di- rank-and-file PR MPs is notewor- long insisted that they would not al- rected towards dividing the opposi- thy. The desire of PR leaders to effi- low themselves to be spoken to in tion camp”. The negotiations ciently collect all available bayonets the language of ultimatums, have reached a dead-end: for the first in parliament, initially for the forc- been forced to sit down at the nego- time since the beginning of the po- ible unblocking of the rostrum, and tiation table, which has resulted in litical crisis, the faction’s leaders then – as an ace in trading with the the preparation of a “draft unblock- did not coordinate even the time opposition, has come across a lack ing law”.