Ukraine's politicians split on Medvedev charges

The administration of President Viktor Yushchenko, through Yushchenko's political party, issued the most forceful response to a Tuesday video in which Russian President Dmitry Medvedev accused Ukraine's government of undermining relations between the two countries.

"Russia's new leaders unfortunately are becoming hostage to the old imperial complex, which obliges them constantly to create external enemies and to treat their neighbours in the language of threats and intimidation," said Vera Ulyanchenko, chairman of Yushchenko's Our Ukraine party.

Ukraine's voters are scheduled to go to the polls on January 17 to elect a new president. Declared candidates include Yushchenko, Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko and Viktor Yanukovych.

In his statement Tuesday, Medvedev offered a long list of grievances against Kiev, ranging from alleged Ukrainian interference in the operations of Russia's Black Sea Fleet to Ukrainian weapons sales to Georgia.

He said that Russia's next ambassador to Ukraine would remain in Moscow "until real changes are shown by the Ukrainian side."

Yushchenko's strongest rival in the race for the Ukrainian presidency, former prime minister Yanukovych, offered a more benign interpretation of Medvedev's speech, placing the blame for bad relations on Yushchenko rather than the Kremlin.

"More than anything else, this (Medvedev's criticism of the state of Ukraine-Russia relations) is the result of steps taken by the current administration," Yanukovych said in comments to the Interfax news agency.

"When I am elected, one of my first orders of business will be to place relations between the Kremlin and Kiev on a mutually profitable basis and put an end to confrontation," Yanukovych added.

Yanukovych hails from Ukraine's Donbas region, which has a big ethnic Russian population. Yushchenko defeated him in the highly contentious 2004 presidential election.

Yanukovych, leader of the anti-Nato Party of Regions, is well ahead of all rivals, according to recent voter surveys. A SOCIS poll made public Tuesday found that 28 per cent of decided voters would choose Yanukovych, while 3 per cent would choose Yushchenko.

Tymoshenko initially ducked Medvedev's complaints, issuing a statement identical to her campaign slogan: "While others talk, she takes action."

A spokeswoman later said that Tymoshenko was too busy dealing with Ukraine's worsening economy and rocketing balance of payments deficit to respond to Medvedev's comments.

Such comments, the spokeswoman said, "are in any case not the responsibility of the prime minister...but the president."

Despite Tymoshenko's argument that she has nothing to do with Ukrainian foreign policy, the prime minister has not kept completely out of international relations.

For example, she, rather than Yushchenko, negotiated directly with Russian officials to end the last major crisis between the two countries, a January blockade of Russian natural gas shipments to and through Ukraine.

Valery Pisarenko, a senior member of Tymoshenko's political party, in Wednesday comments to Korrespondent magazine, took a middle road between the Yanukovych and Yushchenko positions.

He said he saw Medvedev's complaints "in good part without grounds," but the Russian leader's characterization of Russo- Ukrainian relations as poor was "an obvious fact no one can contradict."

Like Yanukovych, he blamed the Yushchenko administration for Medvedev's criticism.

"That Viktor Yushchenko has openly conducted anti-Russian policies, most likely, is something no one would doubt or try to contradict," Pisarenko said.

Tymoshenko is currently in second place in Ukraine's presidential polls, on track to obtain 16 per cent support and go into a second- round run-off against Yanukovych, according to the SOCIS survey.