[Aaus-community-list] Eurasia Daily Monitor -- Volume 6, Issue 158 [excerpt]

[Jamestown Foundation]

<http://app.bronto.com/public/?q=ulink&fn=Link&ssid=500&id=k774w1988y4v573rmrc5f8o0oxo5i&id2=5njpsdko6em8zg7str7am6vmxw5rj>August 
17, 2009-Volume 6, Issue 158

IN THIS ISSUE
*Merkel raises human rights issues with Medvedev
*Moscow tightens native language teaching in North West Caucasus, 
while easing quotas on Circassian repatriation
*Ukraine expels Russian "diplomats" as bilateral tension escalates
*Turks perceive U.S. policies as the major threat

**New in the Jamestown blog on Russia and Eurasia 
(<http://app.bronto.com/public/?q=ulink&fn=Link&ssid=500&id=k774w1988y4v573rmrc5f8o0oxo5i&id2=3pzrlrp1pussydcxgaktbl1vvdeuw>http://www.jamestown.org/blog):
- Abkhaz and South Ossetians Hire U.S. PR Firm


[...]

Ukrainian-Russian Diplomatic War Intensifies

On August 10 President Dmitry Medvedev accused President Viktor 
Yushchenko of taking Ukraine on an "anti-Russian course" 
(www.blog.kremlin.ru, August 10). Moscow also recently engaged in 
tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions (EDM, July 31). The two Ukrainian 
diplomats expelled were Ukraine's General-Consul in St.Petersburg 
Natalia Prokopovych and Oleh Voloshyn a senior adviser to the 
Ukrainian Ambassador in Moscow. Russia claimed that this was in 
response to the "unfriendly actions of the Ukrainian authorities" 
towards two Russian diplomats. It regarded Kyiv's actions as an 
"openly anti-Russian step which harms the development of relations 
between Russia and Ukraine" (www.mid.ru, July 29).

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry (MZS) and National Security and Defense 
Council (NRBO) both expressed their surprise over the Russian 
response. "We are very surprised at such a severe and unfortunate 
reaction by the Russian side," the MZS stated (www.mfa.gov.ua, July 
29). The MZS had provided to its Russian counterparts a dossier of 
documents outlining the undiplomatic activities of the two expelled 
Russian diplomats. "On the question of the Russian ambassador's 
adviser it was tied to his openly anti-Ukrainian statements as well 
as the Odessa General-Consul and his de facto support for radical 
political forces" (www.mfa.gov.ua, July 29).

The two expelled Ukrainian diplomats had never been involved in 
undiplomatic activities and were not warned at any stage by Moscow. 
The MZS claimed that the two expelled Russian diplomats breached the 
1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and had intervened in 
Ukraine's internal affairs. First Deputy Head of the NRBO and former 
Foreign Minister Volodymyr Ohryzko described the Russian response as 
a return to "the tried and tested reactionary Soviet mentality of the 
Homo Sovieticus (sovkova) in responding to absolutely lawful actions 
by (the Ukrainian) state," Ohryzko commented (Ukrayinska Pravda, July 
30).

On July 31 Ukrayinska Pravda was told by unofficial sources that the 
two "so-called diplomats," as Ohryzko described them, were involved 
in espionage and subversive activities. Odessa General-Consul 
Oleksandr Grachov financed and sought to cooperate with local 
political leaders by drawing on funds generated by illegal hard 
currency operations undertaken through shadow economic structures. 
This "illegal espionage activity in support of Russia's political 
steps," sought to recruit "agents of influence" to advance Russian 
interests in Ukraine.

One of these controlled political groups was the Odessa-based Rodina 
Party, whose members were accused of the murder of a Ukrainian 
nationalist in Odessa in April (EDM, June 16). Grachov was directly 
subordinated to the Federal Security Service (FSB) leadership who 
passed his reports directly to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin 
(Ukrayinska Pravda, July 31). Grachov's apartment, purchased with 
these illegally earned funds, was located in the same building in 
Odessa as Rodina Party leader Igor Markov's office.

Expelled Senior Adviser Vladimir Lysenko undertook "active espionage 
and subversive activities in Ukraine," the same sources told 
Ukrayinska Pravda (July 31). "Lysenko established unofficial contacts 
with representatives of local organs of power with the aim of 
obtaining confidential information on Ukraine's position in 
negotiations over the Black Sea Fleet" (Ukrayinska Pravda, July 31).

Lysenko also sought to recruit agents of influence among the Crimean 
Tatar community with the aim of replacing the leadership of the 
Medzhilis (Tatar unofficial parliament) with individuals of a more 
pro-Russian orientation. The Crimean Tatars have long been 
pro-Ukrainian in their orientation and Medzhilis leaders were elected 
to the national parliament within Rukh (1998) and the Our Ukraine 
bloc (2002, 2006, 2007).

A third area - long suspected of Russian diplomats - was their 
subversive activities with the FSB based in the Black Sea Fleet to 
sponsor "public protest actions," when for example, NATO vessels 
arrived in Sevastopol they organized protests in support of the 
Russian navy. Anti-NATO and anti-American protests began in earnest 
in the Crimea in summer 2005, immediately after Viktor Yushchenko was 
elected president. They were organized against Ukraine's joint 
exercises within the framework of NATO's Partnership for Peace (PfP). 
Moscow had not mobilized similar protests in the Crimea against these 
exercises in 1995-2004 under President Leonid Kuchma.

Russian leaders, Crimean communists and Crimean Russian nationalists 
have repeatedly warned that if Ukraine moved towards NATO membership 
that it would do so without the Crimea. This threat of using 
separatism to undermine a country's Trans-Atlantic integration was 
implemented in Georgia in August 2008. Crimea has never been 
regarded, unlike Abkhazia or South Ossetia, as a frozen conflict. 
Nevertheless, the Ukrainian authorities are preparing for future 
conflict scenarios and, not coincidentally after the expulsion of 
Russian diplomats, a large-scale "anti-terrorist" exercise was held 
in the Crimea on August 3-7 organized by the Ukrainian Security 
Service (SBU)'s Anti-Terrorist Center.

The SBU "Alpha" unit, units from the ministry of emergency 
situations, interior ministry special forces and the Ukrainian navy's 
marines worked together with the authorities during the planned 
exercises. The two-fold aim of the exercises was to ascertain the 
level of cooperation between the Ukrainian security forces and the 
authorities in the event of a "state of emergency" or "undertaking 
anti-terrorist operations" (www.sbu.gov.ua, July 28). Both scenarios 
involved countering hypothetical threats from "terrorists" (in this 
case, a euphemism for separatists).

Leaked information about Lysenko's work with the FSB explains why the 
SBU last month demanded the withdrawal of the FSB from the Black Sea 
Fleet by December (EDM, July 14). The ostensible reason for the FSB 
being in Sevastopol is to provide security for the Black Sea Fleet. 
Judging from Ukrainian sources, this should be secondary to working 
with Russian diplomats in the fields of espionage or subversion. 
However, it remains unclear if Ukraine's tougher line towards Russian 
espionage and subversion is a product of the election campaign to 
increase Yushchenko's nationalistic credentials in Western Ukraine or 
growing Russian intelligence activities against Ukraine, or a 
combination of both.

--Taras Kuzio

  [...]

The Eurasia Daily Monitor is a publication of the Jamestown 
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