RUSSIA WILL REACT TO ANTI-MOSCOW POLICIES BY KIEV

Crimean Newspaper The Krymskaya Pravda interviews two opposition politicians from the Ukraine and Russia. Both of them have recently visited the Crimea.

A Ukrainian and a Russian opposition politicians maintain that the Crimea may be used as a springboard for an invasion of the Ukraine and Russia by the West. Leader of the Progressive Socialist Party of the Ukraine Natalia Vitrenko said to the Crimean newspaper the Krymskaya Pravda (April, 22 2005) that the ruling regime in the Ukraine is nurturing plans to provoke a crisis involving the Russian Black Sea Navy in Sevastopol. Using this crisis as a pretext Kiev will appeal to NATO for help. That could be a way to crash the gate to NATO against the will of the Ukrainian population. “Our people do not want to join NATO, - Mrs. Vitrenko said. The referendum on December 1, 1991 had confirmed it. Voters had adopted a declaration of state sovereignty proclaiming the Ukraine a bloc-free nation”. According to Vitrenko, president of the Ukraine Victor Yushchenko has no other way to fulfill the assignment given to him by George Bush (to turn the Ukraine into a spring-board for a US-lead invasion) as to use the above-mentioned scenario.
Speaking of the Crimean Tatars, Mrs. Vitrenko pointed out that the regime is playing up their hardships for political purposes. “Do other Crimeans have more chances to improve their living standards?” – asked the leader of the Progressive Socialist Party. Mrs. Vitrenko thinks that the existence of the medjlis, unconstitutional Crimean Tatar parliament, spinning out its activities is not accidental.
The actual situation in the Ukraine reminds Mrs. Vitrenko of the 1930s in Nazi Germany. “When Adolf Hitler took over, - said Natalia Vitrenko, he put his people on all key positions in local administrations”. President Yushchenko is doing the same. He is nominating for regions his own “orange” governors. Dissidents in local administrations are being purged. “It is on his orders, I think, that mayors are being pressured into submitting letters of resignation”. Mrs. Vitrenko does not rule out that the resignation of Crimean Prime-Minister Sergey Kunitsyn on April, 25 was obtained through threats and blackmail as in the cases of several other local officials.
Another politician interviewed by the Krymskaya Pravda was deputy of the Russian Duma (lower chamber of Parliament) Victor Alksnis. Member of the Rodina (Fatherland) fraction, Mr. Alksnis, who is of Latvian descent, said that the Crimea is not just a piece of land. Russians and Ukrainians shed blood here. “That’s why it is our common territory, – he said. We should do all our best to prevent it form becoming a springboard for a possible aggression against Russia”. Mr. Alksnis regrets the anti-Russian undercurrents emerging in the foreign policy of today’s Ukrainian leadership. “The Crimea becoming a base for an invasion of Russia is a hard-to-imagine nightmare scenario, - the Deputy of the State Duma pointed out. Unfortunately, there is an impression in Russia that some political forces in the Ukraine have embarked on such course. And those forces are being actively supported by Western circles”. Answering a question on a possible revolution in Russia, Mr. Alksnis responded that a popular uprising is approaching. However, a revolution will not be an “orange” one at all. “It will be anti-Western and anti-liberal, - Victor Alksnis said. And opinion polls reveal such popular feelings. We are witnessing today the only positive phenomenon of the latest 15 years: most Russians have developed allergy to liberal values and Western ideas”. Mr. Alksnis has predicted changes in Russian policy towards the Ukraine if its anti-Russian line would persist. World prices for energy could be charged if Kiev does not stop its present foreign policy against Moscow. The Ukraine depends on Russia for natural gas supplies. Kiev receives gas at $50.00 for 1000 cubic metres whereas the world price is $130.00.
Mr. Alksnis said that the Russian Duma is monitoring the situation in the Crimea. Lawyers and other experts are working on a document on the Crimea that will be produced in case of a crisis over the peninsula sparked by the Ukrainian side. “If the Ukrainian leadership wants to have brotherly and good-neighbour relations with Russia and that the Crimea stays under Ukrainian rule it should remember that Russia has huge interests in the region. One should not forget that the Crimea is a Russian land and that it got under Ukrainian jurisdiction owing to the force of circumstances. We may raise this question at a very high level. Everything will depend on the attitude of the Ukrainian government”.

(Based on Krymskaya Pravda, 22 April 2005)