US-Ukraine Business Council

"THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT - AUR"
An International Newsletter
In-Depth Ukrainian News, Analysis, and Commentary

"The Art of Ukrainian History, Culture, Arts, Business, Religion,
Sports, Government, and Politics, in Ukraine and Around the World"

TIME FOR A NEW YALTA CONFERENCE
Powerful words from the President of Georgia, Makheil Saakashvili

TBILISI, Georgia -- For 60 years the word "Yalta" has meant betrayal and
abandonment. The diplomatic accord reached between Britain, the Soviet
Union and the United States in that sleepy Black Sea resort relegated
millions of people to a ruthless tyranny...........

Now it is our turn to contribute to the completion of a Europe that is
whole, free and at peace. After recent discussions with presidents Traian
Basescu of Romania and Viktor Yushchenko of Ukraine, I believe that it is
time for a new Yalta Conference, a voluntary association of new European
democracies with three central goals. [Mikheil Saakashvili, President of the
Republic of Georgia, article one]

"THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT - AUR" - Number 482
E. Morgan Williams, Publisher and Editor
morganw@patriot.net, ArtUkraine.com@starpower.net
Washington, D.C. and Kyiv, Ukraine, WEDNESDAY, May 11, 2005

THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT (AUR) DISTRIBUTION LIST

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to sign up for the free AUR service. Ukraine is where the action is,
do not miss the action during 2005. EDITOR

------INDEX OF ARTICLES------
"Major International News Headlines and Articles"

1. "TIME FOR A RETURN TO YALTA"
OP-ED: By Mikheil Saakashvili
The writer is president of the Republic of Georgia
The Washington Post, Washington, D.C., Tuesday, May 10, 2005

2. GEORGIAN PRESIDENT SAAKASHVILI ADDRESSES HUGE CROWD
IN TBILISI'S FREEDOM SQUARE - FULL TEXT
We stood beside the people of Ukraine, we will stand beside others.
Rustavi-2 TV, Tbilisi, in Georgian 0915 gmt 10 May 05
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Tue, May 10, 2005

3. SAAKASHVILI: GEORGIA, ROMANIA, UKRAINE TO OVERTHROW
BELARUS DICTATOR ALEKSANDR LUKASHENKO
Pro TV, Bucharest, in Romanian 1600 gmt 10 May 05
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Tue, May 10, 2005

4. GEORGIAN PRESIDENT INSISTS POPULAR WILL POWERED
RECENT REVOLUTIONS IN GEORGIA, UKRAINE AND KYRGYZSTAN
Associated Press (AP), Paris, France, Mon, May 9, 2005

5. BUSH URGES SPREAD OF FREEDOM ACROSS FORMER COMMUNIST
WORLD AND BEYOND, SPOKE IN FREEDOM SQUARE
The first U.S. president to visit Georgia
Associated Press (AP), Tbilisi, Georgia, Tue, May 10, 2005 1:37 p.m.

6. BUSH: GEORGIA, UKRAINE NEED TO ACHIEVE SPECIFIC RESULTS
AND FOLLOW EXAMPLE OF THOSE WHO WERE ADMITTED TO NATO
Dow Jones Newswires, New York, NY, Sun, May 8, 2005

7. "THE THORNS IN GEORGIA'S ROSE"
WORLD BRIEFING: Simon Tisdall
The Guardian, London, United Kingdom, Tue, May 10, 2005

8. BUSH AND GEORGIA'S FADED 'ROSE'
OP-ED By Irakly Areshidze, Christian Science Monitor
Boston, Massachusetts, Monday, May 9, 2005

9. "NOW LIBERATE MOSCOW"
OUTLOOK: The Wall Street Journal
New York, New York, Monday, May 9, 2005

10. "VICTORY IN EUROPE"
REVIEW & OUTLOOK: The Wall Street Journal
New York, New York, Tuesday, May 10, 2005; Page A16

11. COOLING OF POLISH-RUSSIAN RELATIONS DUE TO POLAND'S
MAJOR INVOLVEMENT IN LAST FALL'S POLITICAL CRISIS IN UKRAINE
PAP news agency, Warsaw, Poland, Tue, 10 May 05

12. "ONCE AGAIN, THE BIG YALTA LIE"
EDITORIAL: By Jacob Heilbrunn, Times editorial writer
Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, CA, Tue, May 10, 2005

13. RE: ARTICLE ABOUT SOVIET MARSHAL GEORGIY ZHUKOV
Zhukov was one of the cruelest murderers of Ukrainians in history.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
From Kyrylo Bulkin, Kyiv, Ukraine
Published in The Action Ukraine Report #482, Article 13
Washington, D.C., Wednesday, May 11, 2005

14. MAY 8 VS. MAY 9: FRUM GOT IT ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
From Peter Lewycky, plewycky@ica.net
Published in The Action Ukraine Report #482, Article 14
Washington, D.C., Wednesday, May 11, 2005

15. ECONOMIC UNCERTAINTY BREWS IN UKRAINE
By Tom Warner in Kiev, Financial Times
London, UK, Tuesday, May 10, 2005

16. PRIME MINISTER TIMOSHCHENKO TACKLES MEAT PRICES
Meat is the only regular luxury item in a family's budget
New Europe, Athens, Greece, Monday, May 9, 2005

17. 'KYIV CHAMBER CHOIR' LIVE CONCERT CD RELEASED
First live concert CD by the world-renowned Kyiv Chamber Choir
"The Sounds of Kyiv"
Andrew Witer, President, Dotcom Recordings Inc.
Toronto, Ontario, Canada, May, 2005
===============================================================
1. "TIME FOR A RETURN TO YALTA"

OP-ED: By Mikheil Saakashvili
The writer is president of the Republic of Georgia
The Washington Post, Washington, D.C., Tuesday, May 10, 2005

As President Bush said last week in Latvia: "The agreement at Yalta
followed in the unjust tradition of Munich and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
Once again, when powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small
nations was somehow expendable."

Thankfully, the division of Europe created at Yalta, and the Iron Curtain
that marked its boundary, are ghosts in our past. The generation of 1989
succeeded in the streets of Gdansk, Prague and Riga, and much of the
territory Yalta allotted to a dictator is now part of the community of
democratic nations.

FIRST, we must work together to support the consolidation of democracy in
our own countries. Georgia regained its freedom in the Rose Revolution only
18 months ago. Though we have made great strides, much remains to be
done in building a lasting democracy. Two significant portions of our
territory -- South Ossetia and Abkhazia -- remain untouched by the freedom
the rest of Georgia enjoys. We can and must peacefully resolve these
disputes to better the lives of Georgians.

Ukraine's Orange Revolution succeeded only five months ago. My friend
Viktor Yushchenko faces real challenges in rebuilding his country's economy
and in ending the corruption and criminality that are the legacy of decades
of repression and misrule.

SECOND, we must extend the reach of liberty in the Black Sea region and
throughout wider Europe. Moldova, like Georgia, faces a separatist region
that maintains itself with cast-off Soviet weaponry and the profits from an
illicit economy based on trafficking in weapons, drugs and women. These
are the last razor-sharp splinters of the Soviet empire.

In Belarus, 10 million people remain in a more regimented captivity. The
regime of Aleksander Lukashenko rules by fear, yet fears its own people.
The world can do much more to aid the Belarusan people in the quest for
freedom. The new Yalta Conference will press for liberty in Belarus through
increased travel restrictions on government officials, expanded financial
and material support to the opposition, and enhanced training for civic
society in the methods of peaceful protest that helped free the people of
Georgia and Ukraine.

THIRD, we seek to expand the frontiers of freedom far beyond the Black
Sea. Our message to the oppressors and their subjects is unequivocal:
Free peoples cannot rest while tyranny thrives. Just as we benefit from the
blessings of liberty, we have a duty to those who remain beyond its reach.
In Zimbabwe, Cuba, Burma and elsewhere, millions live under cruel tyrants.

Too many governments and international organizations appear willing to
sacrifice freedom for what they mistakenly believe will be stability. We
know that only the consent of the governed brings stability. And we know
that if the world's democracies make liberty the priority of their policy,
the days of the dictators are numbered.

Those on the wrong side of history in Tbilisi, Kiev and Bishkek -- like
those before them in Warsaw, Bratislava and Belgrade -- lost touch with
their people and did not see democratic change coming. Invariably they
saw peaceful, popular protests as a "conspiracy" driven by mysterious
forces. But the only mystery is why corrupt and despotic leaders thought
they could retain power forever in defiance of their own people's will.

Historically the Black Sea has stood at the confluence of the Russian,
Ottoman and Persian empires. Now the Black Sea is a new frontier -- a
frontier of freedom, with vibrant new democracies. The values that drove
our peaceful revolutions -- accountable government, open society, the
rule of law -- are not exclusively European values; they are universal. The
winds of freedom that swept across the Black Sea to Ukraine now rush
across the central Asian steppes and stir the cedars of Lebanon.

It is time to return to Yalta. This time we will not engage in a secret
diplomacy in which our values are compromised and innocent peoples
are enslaved. In this new association of democracies, our diplomacy
will be open and our focus will be the possibilities of our future. And, we
will begin to make Yalta a symbol of hope. -30-
===============================================================
2. GEORGIAN PRESIDENT SAAKASHVILI ADDRESSES HUGE CROWD
IN TBILISI'S FREEDOM SQUARE - FULL TEXT
We stood beside the people of Ukraine, we will stand beside others.

Rustavi-2 TV, Tbilisi, in Georgian 0915 gmt 10 May 05
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Tue, May 10, 2005

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili thanked US President George Bush
for his support, but said further American help is needed on the way to
democratic reform. In an address to a large crowd gathered in Tbilisi's
Freedom Square on 10 May, Saakashvili said that Bush, who was with him on
the podium, had "openly supported" Georgia's bid for NATO membership.

Saakashvili told Georgians that they had a responsibility for spreading
democracy throughout the world, "starting with Belarus".

The following is the text of the address carried live by Georgian TV station
Rustavi-2 on 10 May; subheadings inserted editorially:

[Saakashvili] My dear people, my fellow citizens, today we are writing the
history of Georgia together. This city's walls, our city's walls, remember
many things. Our pride, our boundlessly beautiful homeland, for centuries
was the victim of many invaders. There is not one empire in the world that
has not brought bloodshed, destruction and an attempt to destroy the
Georgian language here.

These walls remember the Romans, the Byzantines, the Turks, the Persians,
the Mongols and the Russians. No-one could destroy us. We still stand here
today, we stand proudly and we stand free. [Applause]

Throughout our history many great world leaders have come here, but as
invaders, enslavers, to further destroy, belittle and humiliate our nation.
Their visits here only brought blood and destruction.

Today, for the first time in the history of our country, beside us, before
us now, stands the leader of the state which is the most powerful in the
world and he stands as a friend, as a partner, as an ally, as a
brother-in-arms, as a person whose visit delights each of us. I greet him
proudly as the president of this country. Welcome, Mr President.
[Applause, cheering]

GEORGIA'S CONTRIBUTION DURING WWII

Mr President, you were in Holland a few days ago to see the graves of
American servicemen. Two days before you I was in Texel [island], also in
Holland. Many people in the world do not know that the last battle of World
War II in Europe was fought by Georgians. Six hundred and twenty of them
died heroically for the freedom of Europe and the whole world, and they
were victorious.

Our people have done more than is possible for the freedom of Europe. Our
philosopher, thinker and spiritual leader Grigol Peradze fled from the
Bolsheviks to Poland and was imprisoned in Auschwitz because he defended
Jewish children against capture. Instead of them, he volunteered to be sent
to the gas chambers and died heroically for the freedom of these children
and the whole of Europe.

Finally, it is possible that in the past few days many people have not
remembered this elsewhere, but on the German Reichstag, Hitler's Reichstag,
it was our fellow countryman, Georgian Meliton Kantaria, who raised the
[Soviet] flag. All my fellow citizens are very proud of that. [Applause]

Georgians have fought everywhere for freedom, but Georgia, as a result of
these battles, did not win freedom. However, we are not here to talk about
the past.

ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE NEW GOVERNMENT

Today, George Bush's presence here is confirmation of what unity can
achieve, our common quest for freedom, our unity of spirit, our like-minded
government.

For the first time Georgia has a government that listens to the people
rather than imposes its own will on the people. This is a government that
respects your views. This is a government that serves the people rather
than robbing and impoverishing them. Most importantly, this is a govern-
ment which is accountable to each of you, which is fully aware of its
responsibility for the future of our children.

Over the past 18 months, the time when young people left Georgia
because of a lack of opportunity has come to an end. Last year was the
first in which more Georgians returned to Georgia than left. Our successful
children, successful Georgians, are returning to help their country, to help
their homeland rebuild.

Corrupt thieving hands are no longer bleeding our people dry. No longer
is there tyranny in Ajaria. The violation of human rights is now a thing of
the past. We no longer live in a state which cannot defend itself, its
borders or its people.

GEORGIA TO SPREAD DEMOCRACY, "STARTING WITH BELARUS"
We stood beside the people of Ukraine

I want to tell you one thing - we all take responsibility together for our
country. All of us have responsibility for spreading democracy throughout
the world, starting with Belarus, whose people deserve freedom.

We stood beside the people of Ukraine, we will stand beside others, starting
with North Korea, Cuba. This is support for democracy. Georgia will be
America's main partner in spreading democracy in the former Soviet Union
and the Middle East. That is our offer to you, Mr President. [Applause,
cheering]

Mr President, we agree with your belief that the shoots of democratic change
will appear in the Middle East. As a sign that there will also be democracy
in Iraq - [changes thought] The sight of people with ink on their hands in
Iraq is as moving as the people who where holding roses here.

I want to greet those Georgians who are side by side with Americans serving
in Iraq. They are represented here and I would like to greet them with my
fellow citizens. We are very proud of them. [Applause, cheering]

I want to tell you Americans with pride that we will forever be beside you
in support of freedom, democracy and security.

"WE DO NOT WANT WAR"

The defence of freedom - [changes thought] Georgia's multiethnic culture
is one of our greatest strengths. Today, we, in front of the whole world,
extend a hand of fraternity, friendship to our Abkhaz and Ossetian brothers
and sisters. We do not want war. We want peace. We want a united
Georgia - [Applause, cheering, chants of "Misha, Misha!"] - in which their
values, their identity are defended, and we will fight together for our
country.

I want to tell America and the whole world - the whole world is watching
today - that at the beginning of the 1990s when Georgia found its new
independence, when people were starving, it was America that gave us grain
for free, it was American wheat we used to bake bread, for which I want to
thank you, Mr President.

When three years ago Georgia's territory was bombed and our civilians were
killed, America was one of the countries which raised its voice in defence
of Georgia and told all our neighbours that the red line passes along the
Caucasus range, no-one is allowed to overstep it and this is an independent,
free country.

I would like to thank you, Mr President, and the Americans for this.
[Applause] When we all gathered in this square to defend our freedom and
dignity, America was the first country to stand with Georgia in its fight
for freedom, and we would like to thank you for that, Mr President.
American help still required

However, America's assistance remains very important for Georgia. Despite
the success of the Rose Revolution, there are parts of Georgia where people
have no freedom. We should put an end to the isolation of our citizens in
Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region [South Ossetia]. We should give them
equal opportunity to develop in conditions of freedom, democracy and unity.
[Applause]

Today, the American president, like no other world leader, has said clearly
for the whole world to hear that Georgia will be united and America will
defend Georgia's unity and freedom. [Applause]

BUSH SUPPORTS GEORGIA'S NATO BID - SAAKASHVILI

I said earlier that we need extra security guarantees in order to defend our
democracy and freedom. That is why Georgia has said unequivocally, the
entire Georgian nation has said unequivocally, that Georgia should become
a member of NATO. Today President Bush has again openly supported
Georgia's bid to join NATO. [Applause]

Naturally, we still have a long way to go on the path of democratic reform.
We still have a lot to do. However, Mr President, last winter was the first
winter since our democratic revolution [changes thought] - I had the
opportunity to listen to your second inaugural speech. I remember your
words:

All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United
States will not ignore your oppression or excuse your oppressors.
When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you. [end of
quote]

That evening my feeling was that you were addressing me personally and
our people, you were talking about our freedom and success, were defending
our democracy as well as the democracy of the people in all our neighbouring
countries. Today you kept your promise.

Today, the whole world can see that America, which stood with us during the
revolution, now stands in front of so many residents of Tbilisi, so many
Georgians. There are more than 150,000 people here today. You are
standing with us here today as a man who has kept his word and as our
friend.

SAAKASHVILI GIVES BUSH AWARD FOR SERVICE TO GEORGIA
First person to receive new award, Order of St George

Standing in Freedom Square, I would like, on behalf of the whole nation, to
welcome the world leader who has done more than anyone else in the fight for
freedom. I would like to welcome him as our great supporter and our great
friend, as a fighter for freedom. [switches to English] Welcome to Georgia,
Mr President. [Applause]

[Switches back to Georgian] Last September the parliament of Georgia
established a new award, the Order of St George, for special services to
Georgia. We have not yet awarded this order to anyone. Naturally, when it
was introduced last year we did not know that President Bush was coming
here.

I would like to award the Order of St George to the US president, Mr George
Bush, for his special contribution to the promotion of freedom and democracy
in Georgia and the fight for democracy across all of the former Soviet Union
and the Middle East. He will be the first person to receive this award. I am
passing it to him now on your behalf. [Applause] -30-
===============================================================
3. SAAKASHVILI: GEORGIA, ROMANIA, UKRAINE TO OVERTHROW
BELARUS DICTATOR ALEKSANDR LUKASHENKO

Pro TV, Bucharest, in Romanian 1600 gmt 10 May 05
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Tue, May 10, 2005

BUCHAREST - [Announcer] Romania, Ukraine and Georgia are preparing a
new Yalta. This shocking information belongs to Georgian President Mikheil
Saakashvili in an interview given to American Washington Post daily.

Saakashvili says that Romania, Ukraine and Georgia are to organize a
conference having the purpose of overthrowing Belarus dictator Aleksandr
Lukashenko from power. The Georgian president says he has already talked
this matter over with Romanian President Traian Basescu and the head of
the Ukrainian state Viktor Yuschenko.

It is high time for a new Yalta. A voluntary association of the new European
democracies, added Saakashvili. The conference should have three goals:
consolidation of the democracies in the member states, exporting freedom
in the Black Sea Region, and pushing the democracy borders further. -30-
===============================================================
4. GEORGIAN PRESIDENT INSISTS POPULAR WILL POWERED
RECENT REVOLUTIONS IN GEORGIA, UKRAINE AND KYRGYZSTAN

Associated Press (AP), Paris, France, Mon, May 9, 2005

PARIS - Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili insists popular will powered
recent revolutions in his country and two other former Soviet republics, not
plots by the CIA or a U.S. billionaire.

Saakashvili, in an interview in Tuesday's edition of French newspaper Le
Monde, said the ouster of regimes in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan were
part of "a second wave of revolutions, after those in 1989." "They emerged
out of a will of the people, and not - as some might allege - a plot by the
CIA or (U.S. financier George) Soros," Saakashvili told the newspaper.

Soros' Open Society Institute has been under pressure in some former
Soviet republics after allegations that it funded protests in Georgia that
led to the ouster of a Soviet-era leader there. U.S. President George W.
Bush arrived in Georgia on Monday - the first ever visit by a U.S. president
to the country.

With the "Rose Revolution" in 2003, Georgia became the first of the three
countries to break from Soviet-era leaders, and Saakashvili claimed at least
a partial role in those in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. "I always say I'm not an
exporter of revolutions, but you have to admit the revolutions in Kiev,
Tbilisi and Bishkek took place in three very different countries,"
Saakashvili said, referring to the three countries' capitals.

Saakashvili said he speaks by phone with Bush at least once a month, and
he expected Bush would use his visit to show support for reforms in
Georgia and affirm the three countries' sovereignty. -30-
===============================================================
5. BUSH URGES SPREAD OF FREEDOM ACROSS FORMER COMMUNIST
WORLD AND BEYOND, SPOKE IN FREEDOM SQUARE
The first U.S. president to visit Georgia

Associated Press (AP), Tbilisi, Georgia, Tue, May 10, 2005 1:37 p.m.

TBILISI, Georgia - Before a cheering crowd of tens of thousands, U.S.
President George W. Bush urged the spread of democracy Tuesday across
the former communist world and beyond, declaring that oppressed people
"are demanding their freedom, and they shall have it."

Bush said Georgia, a former Soviet republic where the peaceful Rose
Revolution in 2003 sparked a domino effect of governmental change in the
region, was inspiring democratic reformers around the world. "Freedom will
be the future of every nation and every people on Earth," he declared.

"We are living in historic times when freedom is advancing, from the Black
Sea to the Caspian, and to the Persian Gulf and beyond," Bush said,
according to a New York Times report. "As you watch free people gathering
in squares like this across the world, waving their nations' flags and
demanding their God-given rights, you can take pride in this fact: They have
been inspired by your example and they take hope in your success."

The president's words were likely to irritate Moscow, which already
complains the U.S. is meddling in Russia's backyard. Russia had objected
to Bush's stop here and in Latvia, another former Soviet republic. The two
countries boycotted Monday's V-E celebration over disputes with the
Kremlin.

Bush expressed sympathy for Georgia's refusal to grant independence to
two separatist regions aligned with Moscow. "The sovereignty and territorial
integrity of Georgia must be respected...by all nations," he said.

On a warm, spring day, Bush received a tumultuous welcome in Freedom
Square, where Soviet forces violently broke up large protests in 1989. It's
also where demonstrators gathered in 1991 as the Soviet Union fell and
again in 2003 for protests that ousted then-President Eduard Shevardnadze
after fraud-infected elections.

Estimates of the crowd for Bush in the square and surrounding streets
varied wildly, from fewer than 100,000 to more than 300,000. Georgian
President Mikhail Saakashvili said it was by far the largest gathering ever
in the country, and it was one of the largest Bush has addressed.

"We welcome you as a freedom fighter," Saakashvili told Bush, the first
U.S. president to visit Georgia.

Nino Gabriashvili, a mother of four daughters, said she was inspired by
Bush's speech, particularly his call for all nations to respect Georgia's
territorial integrity and sovereignty. "That means something coming from
the American president -the Russians will have to listen," she said.

Konstantin Barbigadze, 44, brought his parents, his in-laws, his wife and
four children to watch what he called "a historic moment." "Simply the name
Bush brings forth respect worldwide, and here he is in our country, speaking
to us," said Barbigadze, who waved small Georgian and American flags. "I
can't tell you how important this is for Georgians."

It was Bush's last stop on a four-country trip, and he delighted Georgians
with his hip-wiggling, head-nodding reaction to native dancers after his
arrival Monday from Moscow. "The cultural dancing and singing was
spectacular," he said at a news conference with Saakashvili.

Bush used the opportunity to express support for Georgia's aspirations to
join NATO, a move that would bring Western security guarantees. "You've
got a solid friend in America," the president said.

His unvarnished promotion of democracy marked a sharp turn from the
image Monday in Moscow, where Bush sat on a reviewing stand in Red
Square watching goose-stepping soldiers and flags emblazoned with the
Soviet hammer and sickle that recalled the days of communist rule.

Bush said the world was marveling at hopeful changes from Iraq to Lebanon
to Kyrgyzstan. "But before there was a Purple Revolution in Iraq or an
Orange Revolution in Ukraine or a Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, there
was the Rose Revolution in Georgia," he declared.

"Now across the Caucuses, in central Asia and the broader Middle East we
see this same desire of liberty burning in the hearts of young people," Bush
said. "They are demanding their freedom, and they will have it."

Bush and Saakashvili talked with about a dozen representatives of Georgia's
many ethnic populations, an event aimed at bolstering Bush's argument that
strong democracies must respect minority groups in their midst.

"One of the most important things about democracy is the need to honor
minority rights," Bush said. "As you move forward, I know you will honor
your country but at the same time the heritage of those who live here."

"Our diversity is our strength," said Saakashvili, who is trying to keep the
separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia from splitting away.
Bush spoke approvingly of Saakashvili's proposal to grant autonomy and
self-government but to keep the two regions as part of Georgia.

Bush said he had talked with Russian President Vladimir Putin about
Georgia's demand for the closure of two Russian bases here.

"He (Putin) reminded me that there is an agreement in place - a 1999
agreement," Bush said. "He said that the Russians want to work with the
government to fulfill their obligations in terms of that agreement. I think
that's a commitment that's important for the people of Georgia to hear. It
shows there's grounds to work to get this issue resolved." -30-
===============================================================
6. BUSH: GEORGIA, UKRAINE NEED TO ACHIEVE SPECIFIC RESULTS
AND FOLLOW EXAMPLE OF THOSE WHO WERE ADMITTED TO NATO

Dow Jones Newswires, New York, NY, Sun, May 8, 2005

NEW YORK -- President George W. Bush said that Georgia, Ukraine and
other nations wishing to enter into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
should first achieve specific results in various spheres, the Itar-Tass news
agency reported Sunday.

Bush said in an interview with the Tbilisi, Georgia-based Rustavi 2
television channel on Sunday that he would tell Georgian President Mikhail
Saakashvili on May 9-10 that his nation must follow the example of other
countries which had made progress and were admitted to NATO in recent
years, the report said.

Bush said he would tell the same to the president of Ukraine and the leaders
of other countries wishing to enter into NATO, the report said.

Georgia has a chance to become a NATO member country, but it will have
to work much and achieve progress in various spheres, Bush said, according
to Itar-Tass. -30- [The Action Ukraine Report Monitoring Service]
===============================================================
7. "THE THORNS IN GEORGIA'S ROSE"

WORLD BRIEFING: Simon Tisdall
The Guardian, London, United Kingdom, Tue, May 10, 2005

President George Bush will publicly congratulate the people of Georgia on
their peaceful "rose revolution" in November 2003 when he addresses a
crowd of up to 100,000 in Freedom Square, Tbilisi, today.

But his private message to President Mikhail Saakashvili is likely to be
more nuanced. He will remind the Georgian leader that democracy means
more than elections, and further reforms are essential if the former Soviet
republic is to fulfil its EU and Nato membership ambitions.

Stephen Hadley, the US national security adviser, highlighted Washington's
concerns about simmering disputes in the separatist regions of Abkhazia
and South Ossetia prior to Mr Bush's arrival. Georgia's attitude to its
Russophile, Azeri and Armenian minorities and the rule of law were also
seen as key tests of future progress, he suggested.

The US is anxious that an argument with Russia over the timetable for
closing two Soviet-era military bases in Georgia should not rekindle broader
tensions with the Kremlin. Despite ongoing talks, Mr Saakashvili cited the
problem as his reason for boycotting yesterday's VE Day celebrations in
Moscow.

Mr Bush has been quick to respond to a recent statement by the Russian
president, Vladimir Putin, that the collapse of the Soviet Union was "the
greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century".

He said at the weekend that post-1945 Soviet domination in eastern Europe
and central Asia was "one of the greatest wrongs of history". He warned Mr
Putin to eschew further interference in neighbouring countries while
reserving that right for the US. His next target is Belarus.

But the US needs Mr Putin's cooperation on issues ranging from Iran to oil.
It shares Moscow's concern about the use of Georgian territory by Islamist
extremists attempting to destabilise Chechnya and the northern Caucasus.

The US recently instituted a $50m (pounds 27m) military training programme
in Georgia but has renounced any intention of replacing the Russian bases
with Nato installations.

In other words, Washington will support Mr Saakashvili with words, advice
and financial assistance - as long as he does not upset more important
apple carts.

"There is still some optimism about the rose revolution but it is tempered
by greater realism," said Professor Charles King, an expert on US-Georgia
relations at Georgetown University in Washington. "Democratic assistance
is all very well - but you have to have a functioning country first."

Continually blaming "the nefarious designs of the Russian Federation" for
Georgia's ills was counterproductive, Prof King said. "In time even
Georgia's friends may come to wonder whether a country with fictitious
borders and no plan for making them real is a country worth helping." This
increased sense of caution, teetering on disillusionment, is reflected in
opinion polls indicating a 25% fall in Mr Saakashvili's approval ratings.

Street protests over electricity and water shortages, controversial anti-
corruption measures, and mutterings about Mr Saakashvili's "arrogance"
have prompted speculation that Georgia's rose is beginning to wilt.

"This is the very same wave of social discontent that propelled the rose
revolution and brought down [former president] Eduard Shevardnadze," said
Jaba Devdariani, writing in Transitions On Line. "The government should
worry lest the unrest turn into an explosion." This was unlikely at present,
Mr Devdariani admitted. Georgia's leader retained 38% support in the face
of a fragmented political opposition.

Prof King said Mr Saakashvili had made progress in some areas, notably in
Adjaria and in improved tax collection. But if Mr Saakashvili did not put
his weight fully behind systemic reforms, popular counter-revolution was not
entirely out of the question, Prof King said. "Saakashvili needs to listen
to what is called 'the shout from the streets' or he could go the way of
Shevardnadze. After all, he created the template." -30-
===============================================================
8. BUSH AND GEORGIA'S FADED 'ROSE'

OP-ED By Irakly Areshidze, Christian Science Monitor
Boston, Massachusetts, Monday, May 9, 2005

Unlike Iraq, Afghanistan, and Ukraine, where President Bush's morally clear
leadership has been instrumental in expanding freedom, following the 2003
Rose Revolution, Georgia has seen a dramatic downward spiral.
Unfortunately, some US officials - who need democratic "success stories" to
prove that the president's foreign policy is working - conveniently ignore
key political developments in Georgia. When President Bush travels there
Tuesday, he should press leaders toward real democratic change.

For much of the 1990s, former Georgian leader Eduard Shevardnadze was
lionized as a democrat, even though he was clearly failing at reforms.
Today, some US officials are repeating this mistake by tying US policy to
the new President Mikhael Saakashvili rather than to the country's
political process. The irony is that Georgian leaders, who view Bush as a
great friend, are bound to listen to constructive criticism from Washington.

In 1995, with US assistance, Georgia established the most balanced
constitutional system of any former Soviet republic. While the Constitution
granted extensive powers to the president, it also empowered the
legislative and judiciary branches with the independence to check
presidential dominance. Mr. Saakashvili's first move in office was to amend
the Constitution to create a "superpresidential" system, eliminating checks
and balances and concentrating powers in the executive. Bush should urge
him to begin an open dialogue with all political elements about restoring
the constitutional balance of power and implementing these changes by the
end of the year.

An independent press was one factor that made the Rose Revolution
possible, but since then this freedom has steadily eroded. When Giga
Bokeria, Saakashvili's closest parliamentary ally, was asked whether the
cancellation of shows critical of the government on three channels violated
press freedoms, he declared that if a station owner "wants a good
relationship with the government, that is his choice, and freedom of speech
has nothing to do with this, because freedom of speech means that he can
have the kind of television that he wants."

Since the revolution, only four of the original six private TV networks
still operate in the capital, Tbilisi. Of the four remaining, one was
"sold" to the brother of the president's national security adviser; another
was "sold" to the defense minister's best friend. A new network was refused
a transmission license. Government pressure on political journalists is
common, while investigative reporting is nonexistent.

It is vital for Bush to address the problems faced by the Georgian media.
He should publicly ask the government to rethink its approach to freedom of
expression and he should speak to journalists candidly about the censorship
they face. Bush should direct the US Embassy and USAID to help reporters
set up a trade union to defend their rights.

Georgia's democratic experiment requires stable political parties competing
in free and fair elections. Last month, Parliament approved legislation to
fill the central and district election commissions with presidential
appointees, without any representation for opposition groups.
Understandably, elections conducted by such commissions will never pass
democratic muster.

It's not even clear that the Georgian president wants opposition groups to
exist. During his State of the Nation address in February, Saakashvili
declared that parties that disagree with him on issues such as the presence
of foreign troops in Georgia, which he opposes, or membership in the
European Union, which he supports, should be "outlawed."

Bush should meet opposition leaders to demonstrate his commitment to a
multiparty democracy and speak publicly about the need to respect political
pluralism.

Finally, Bush should enlist the support of the Georgian Orthodox Church,
a powerful potential ally often ignored by democracy activists, including
American ones. Georgians are extremely faithful; a majority regularly
attend services. America's standing with the Georgian people would be
well served if Bush met with Ilia II, the beloved moderate patriarch of the
church, to encourage him to maintain support for the democratic process.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Irakly Areshidze was chief strategist for the November 2003 and March
2004 parliamentary election campaigns of Georgia's opposition New
Conservative Party and is completing a book on democracy in Georgia
in the aftermath of the Rose Revolution.
===============================================================
9. "NOW LIBERATE MOSCOW"

OUTLOOK: The Wall Street Journal
New York, New York, Monday, May 9, 2005

Vladimir Putin today hosts George Bush, Gerhard Schröder and dozens
of other world leaders to view a parade in Red Square in celebration of...
exactly what?

The foreign dignitaries believe they're in Moscow to mark the 60th
anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Yet for many of Russia's
neighbors, V-E Day exchanged Nazi for Soviet tyranny. Eight countries
formerly imprisoned inside the Soviet bloc until the Berlin Wall's fall
enabled them to join NATO and the EU have forced the issue. Two Baltic
presidents are boycotting the Moscow "celebrations." Awkwardly for the
visitors, the hosts only like to talk about their version of history. Asked
about the Soviet brutal annexation of the three Baltic states, Mr. Putin
said that Russia had nothing more to apologize for to the Baltic countries.

The reluctance to question Stalin's behavior up to and after the war against
Germany didn't begin with Mr. Putin. But he has tried harder than his recent
predecessors at the Kremlin, going back to the 1980s, to protect and revive
Soviet-era myths and symbols, evoking the nation's past as a superpower --
with no mention of the penury, drudgery and sheer terror that characterized
life under the Soviets. Mr. Putin last month called the Soviet Union's
collapse "the greatest geo-political catastrophe" of the 20th century.

Few Soviet myths were as powerful, and arguably none a stronger legitimizing
force for the regime, than the "Great Patriotic War of 1941-45" and the
Soviet triumph, with a mere nod to the Allies, over Hitler. Tellingly,
Russia to this day uses a different name and starting date, 1941, than the
rest of the world, conveniently ignoring that Stalin was Hitler's ally at
the beginning of the war. A week before the German blitzkrieg into Poland
on Sept. 1, 1939 -- which began what everyone else calls World War II -- the
secret Ribbetrop-Molotov Pact divided Eastern Europe between Hitler and
Stalin, who savored his spoils, which included the Baltics and today's
western Ukraine and Belarus. Stalin went into shock when Nazi Germany
attacked in 1941. It was imprudent to speak of this past publicly in the
ex-U.S.S.R., and today's Russian leaders continue to lie about it.

For decades, the Kremlin claimed the moral high ground won by the death
of 27 million Soviet citizens in the war, more than all the Allied
casualties combined. The sacrifice of these ordinary people was real and
unquestionable. Yet most, including the Red Army, starved or froze to
death, the victims of Soviet incompetence rather than the Nazis, and a
disproportionate number were Ukrainians and Belarusians, not Russians.
Millions more were imprisoned in captive nations, or worse. That's a
legacy of V-E Day, too.

An honest discussion of this past in no way minimizes the bravery of
countless Soviet soldiers in defeating, along with the wartime allies, Nazi
Germany. History is a mixed bag. Russia can be greatly proud of dissidents
like Andrei Sakharov and yes, the soldiers at Stalingrad and Leningrad,
while recognizing the suffering caused at the hands of the Red Army.

Why does Mr. Putin protect Stalin and the sanitized Soviet version of this
history? A cynic might say that the Russian president wants to nurture
nostalgia about a Soviet Union that Stalin made a world power after the war
to gain popular support for his heavy-handed rule and efforts to revive
Russian great-power ambitions. Another possibility: Mr. Putin believes
these myths.

For their own sake, the Russians should be challenged on this past because
it shapes their present. In his speech in the Latvian capital Riga, Mr. Bush
noted the mixed message of today. "For much of Eastern and Central
Europe, victory brought the iron rule of another empire," he said. "V-E Day
marked the end of fascism, but not the end of oppression." That didn't go
down well in the Kremlin. Good. As Freud might have said, the only way to
forget the past, much less not to repeat it, is to remember it. -30-
===============================================================
10. "VICTORY IN EUROPE"

REVIEW & OUTLOOK: The Wall Street Journal
New York, New York, Tue, May 10, 2005; Page A16

President Bush's visit to Europe for the 60th anniversary celebrations of
the Allied victory over Nazi Germany was bound to have its share of awkward
moments, what with an American President standing watch over Red Square
as goose-stepping Russian soldiers marched below in a scene reminiscent
of the days of Leonid Brezhnev. But we think two other moments from the trip
better capture its real import.

The FIRST was the sight of Mr. Bush standing alongside the presidents of
the Baltic states at a press conference in Riga, Latvia. Asked by a reporter
what he had to say to those who argue the U.S. is "inappropriately meddling
in the neighborhood," Mr. Bush replied: "The idea of countries helping
others become free, I would hope that would be viewed as not revolutionary,
but rational foreign policy, as decent foreign policy, as humane foreign
policy."

The SECOND moment came Monday upon Mr. Bush's arrival in Tbilisi,
Georgia. The President was met at the airport by his Georgian counterpart,
Mikhail Saakashvili, with a bouquet of roses, a reminder of the Rose
Revolution that peacefully toppled Eduard Sheverdnadze's post-Soviet
regime. His motorcade was then cheered by thousands of onlookers as
it made its way into the city; some 100,000 Georgians were expected to
hear Mr. Bush speak today in the city's Freedom Square.

Mr. Bush has been criticized in some quarters for not speaking more
assertively in public about Vladimir Putin's suppression of press, political
and economic freedoms. But whatever Mr. Bush told his Russian counterpart
in private, we cannot think of a more pointed message to Mr. Putin -- and to
both the Russian people and neighboring states -- than these two very public
visits. They are vivid reminders that while Russia remains all too mired in
the problems (and, increasingly, the attitudes) of its Soviet past, its
former "republics" are racing ahead, politically and economically.

The Baltic states are members of both the European Union and NATO;
per-capita GDP in flat-tax Estonia is nearly twice what it is in Russia.
Georgia is still beset by a complex of ethnic and economic problems, as
well as lingering disputes with Russia over the basing of soldiers. But in
the matter of political freedom, Tbilisi is now leagues ahead of Moscow.

It should also be noted that Mr. Bush's visit to the Baltics and Georgia
underscores the rightness of the Clinton Administration's decision to move
forward with NATO's eastward expansion to Poland, Hungary and the Czech
Republic. We supported that move, despite the dire predictions of many
(including some of our conservative friends) that it would wreck U.S.
relations with Russia. In fact, what NATO enlargement did was set a
precedent for its later expansion into the Baltics, consolidate the Western
alliance, and prevent Russian meddling in their "near abroad" of the sort
which nearly destroyed democracy in the Ukraine .

But perhaps the most important aspect of Mr. Bush's trip is that it
underscores the coherence of his broader foreign-policy objectives.
"Freedom is on the march," the President likes to remind his audiences,
and that message is as apt in Riga or Tbilisi as it is in Baghdad or
Beirut.

It also serves as a reminder that the achievement celebrated on May 9
was an incomplete one, and that the project Mr. Bush is embarked on now
is nothing if not an extension of that achievement. As Mr. Bush said in his
extemporaneous remarks in Riga:

"We now have the same opportunity -- this generation has the same
opportunity -- to leave behind lasting peace for the next generation, by
working on the spread of freedom and democracy. And the United States
has got great partners in doing what I think is our duty to spread democracy
and freedom with the three nations represented here."

Just so. -30-
===============================================================
11. COOLING OF POLISH-RUSSIAN RELATIONS DUE TO POLAND'S
MAJOR INVOLVEMENT IN LAST FALL'S POLITICAL CRISIS IN UKRAINE

PAP news agency, Warsaw, Poland, Tue, 10 May 05

WARSAW - The cooling down of Polish-Russian relations is not an effect of
controversies over ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of the end of
WWII but a result of Poland's involvement in the recent developments in
Ukraine, President Aleksander Kwasniewski told Polish Radio Three on
Tuesday [10 May]. The president explained that the political crisis in
Ukraine was a situation in which threatened were Russia's "serious,
strategic interests."

Kwasniewski said that during his Moscow talks with leaders of some of the
independent Asian republics he has heard that "there is talk in the lobbies
that Poland is implementing a strategy - an American-European strategy, a
strategy with which Russia cannot agree."

According to the president once Poland has "efficiently joined a certain
strategic game with a different than Russia opinion, one has to expect
consequences, cooling down of relations." Kwasniewski stressed that
everything possible has to be done so that the cooling down of relations
does not turn into a permanent state.

"Russia's best possible relations with the European Union and with NATO,
no preferment for Poland nor indignities" should be a norm in relations with
Russia, said Kwasniewski, adding that Ukraine should "implement its
European, Euroatlantic, NATO choice on which it has decided." "Such
scenario is the best from the Ukrainian, European and Polish perspective,"
the president assessed. -30-
===============================================================
12. "ONCE AGAIN, THE BIG YALTA LIE"

EDITORIAL: By Jacob Heilbrunn, Times editorial writer
Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, CA, Tue, May 10, 2005

During his visit to the Baltics over the weekend, President Bush infuriated
Russian leader Vladimir V. Putin by declaring the obvious: that the Soviet
domination of Eastern Europe was "one of the greatest wrongs of history."
But it was what he said next comparing the Yalta accord among Franklin D.
Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin in 1945 to the Hitler-Stalin
pact that should cause outrage here at home.

The claim that Roosevelt betrayed Eastern Europe at Yalta, and that he set
the stage for 40 years of Soviet domination, is an old right-wing canard.
By repeating it, and by publicly charging that the Yalta agreement was in
the "unjust tradition" of Hitler's deal with Stalin, Bush was simply
engaging in cheap historical revisionism. His glib comments belong to the
Ann Coulter school of history.

The slander against Roosevelt that Bush has taken up dates back to the
early 1950s, after Harry Truman and Dean Acheson had supposedly "lost"
China to communism. That's when the American right first decried what it
viewed as a consistent pattern of "appeasement" in the Democratic Party.
The right contended that Roosevelt "sold out" Eastern Europe at the Yalta
conference by promising the Soviets an unchallenged sphere of influence in
the region.

One element of the right-wing mythology developed in those years was that
Alger Hiss, who served during the war as an assistant to Secretary of State
Edward Stettinius Jr. and who was charged in the years that followed with
being a Soviet spy and was convicted of perjury was instrumental in
getting Roosevelt to collude with Stalin against Churchill. It was none
other than Joseph McCarthy who declared in February 1950 that "if time
permitted, it might be well to go into detail about the fact that Hiss was
Roosevelt's chief advisor at Yalta when Roosevelt was admittedly in ill
health and tired physically and mentally." In later decades, conservatives
such as Ronald Reagan would denounce any negotiations with the Soviet
Union as portending a new "Yalta."

But what actually happened at Yalta? Let's review the facts. The conference
itself took place in the seaside Crimean city in February 1945, during the
final months of the war. A delegation of more than 600 British and U.S.
officials, including FDR and Churchill, met with Stalin. They discussed
postwar borders and issued a "Declaration on Liberated Europe" calling for
free elections in Poland and elsewhere.

The truth is that Yalta did not hand Eastern Europe to the Soviets. That
territory was already in their possession. Stalin had made clear his plan
to take over as much territory as possible back in the Molotov-Ribbentrop
pact of 1939, which carved Poland in half and gave the Soviets the Baltic
states. The discovery in 1943 of the massacre of Polish officers by the
Soviet army in the Katyn forest was further evidence of Stalin's malign
intention to exterminate the leadership of Poland. Then, in 1944, during
the Warsaw uprising by the Polish Home Army, Stalin halted the advance
of his army on the banks of the Vistula River and allowed Nazi SS units to
return to slaughter the Poles. By the time of Yalta, the Red Army occupied
all of Poland and much of Eastern Europe.

Theoretically, Churchill and Roosevelt could have refused to cut any deal
with Stalin at Yalta. But that could have started the Cold War on the spot.
It would have seriously jeopardized the common battle against Germany (at a
moment when Roosevelt was concerned with winning Soviet assent to help
fight the Japanese, which he received).

Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower was happy to let the Soviets
bear the brunt of the fighting as they marched toward Berlin, and he was
unwilling to expend American troops on storming the German capital. The
only one who was eager to do that was Gen. George Patton, who hoped to
take on the Russians as well. Given the domestic pressure to "bring the boys
back home," Roosevelt would have been taking a politically suicidal course
had he broken with our allies, the Soviets.

Roosevelt was hardly perfect at Yalta. He was naive about Stalin's
intentions and believed he could cajole the dictator into following more
moderate policies. But FDR's approach was not particularly different
from that of Churchill (who had declared that he would "sup with the devil"
to win the war, which is what he and Roosevelt, in effect, did).

As for the charges about Hiss' influence, they've been overblown by
the right for political purposes; in fact, Hiss was a minor player at Yalta.

What's more, it was the isolationist right that never wanted to fight the
war in the first place, which it conveniently forgot once it began
attacking Democrats as being soft on communism. Nothing of course
could be further from the truth. Roosevelt went on to recognize Stalin's
perfidy shortly before he died, and it fell to Truman to fight the Cold War.

Roosevelt's record is no cause for shame, but Bush's comments are.
===============================================================
13. RE: ARTICLE ABOUT SOVIET MARSHAL GEORGIY ZHUKOV
Zhukov was one of the cruelest murderers of Ukrainians in history.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR
From Kyrylo Bulkin, Kyiv, Ukraine
The Action Ukraine Report #482, Article 13
Washington, D.C., Wednesday, May 11, 2005

RE: "THE MAN WHO REALLY DEFEATED HITLER"
Sixty years on, it's time to reinstate Georgi Zhukov and remember
his role in defending Russia from the Nazis, writes Shane Kenny.
By Shane Kenny, Irish Times, Dublin, Ireland, Sat, April 30, 2005
Published in The Action Ukraine Report #481, Article 15
Washington, D.C., Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Dear Morgan,

I was disappointed with the article about Zhukov in the last issue of
"Ukraine Report". Maybe you did not know that Zhukov was one of the
cruelest murderers of Ukrainians in all of history. Particularly, he issued
the decree on exiling ALL Ukrainians to Siberia. Soviet executives started
to exercise that decree but some time later Stalin stopped it for unknown
reasons (some historians think that Ukrainian leaders persuaded Stalin to
stop it).

1944 June 22. Stalin's Secret document No. 078/42, over the signatures of
NKVD chief Beria, Marshal Zhukov and Federov proposes exile to Siberia
of "all Ukrainians who had lived under the German occupation". Since all
Ukraine was under German occupation this effectively meant every Ukrainian
could be exiled except those who had escaped to Russia in 1941.
Khrushchev in his Secret Speech condemned Stalin for this decree.
(http://www.infoukes.com/history/ww2/page-28.html)

The whole decree was published in the book of Russian writer Felix Chuev
"Soldaty Imperii (Soldiers of Empire)". - Moscow, "Kovcheg", 1998.

Here are some more quotations about Zhukov (I took them from the book
"Marshal Zhukov and Ukrainians in the WWII" by Levko Lukjanenko. - Kyiv,
"Kozaky", 2002) - sorry for imperfect translation, maybe you could edit it.

"At the beginning of 1939 G. Zhukov went to the Far East to defend the
Mongol border from the Japanese army. The group of Military Academy
listeners (the officers' reserve) have arrived from Moscow with him. Zhukov
fired those whom he considered not relevant to their positions and shot
them. On their positions he placed people from reserve and if the last made
the smallest fault, they, like their predecessors, got bullet in the back of
the head". (Encyclopedia of the Military Art. - Minsk: "Literatura", 1997,
p. 199)

"In the spring of 1944 during the Korsun'-Shevchenkovsky operation Zhukov
ordered the troops, which were recently made up of the men from 15 to 55
y.o., mostly from the surrounding Ukrainian villages, to take the well
trained German defense by storm. "Zagradotryady" (the barrage troops)
drove those Ukrainians on one attack after another, shooting in their backs.
During 24 days of that criminal blood-letting 770 thousands people were
killed, most of them Ukrainians".

"Most often troops, according to Zhukov's order, attacked enemy's
fortifications frontally, as it was, for example, during the capture of
Zeelov Hill.

Zhukov sent infantry through the mined fields, saving time instead of mine
clearing. And he was not ashamed of his own cruelty - moreover, he was
proud of it in the talk with allies; Eisenhower was shocked with it.

Even many years after it American general wrote in his memories with
indignation: "I can hardly imagine what could happen in our army with a
general who would dare to give such order". But we know exactly what
happened with Georgiy Zhukov: he got his third gold medal of Hero".
(Encyclopedia of the Military Art. - Minsk: "Literatura", 1997, pp. 208-209)

"Maybe in some years Marshal Zhukov overcame even Stalin considering
the amount of blood that he shed and death punishment that he exercised
himself. He is one of the most terrible persons in Russian history".
(Bushkov A. "Russia, that did not exist". -Moscow, 1997, p. 559)

Best regards,

Kyrylo Bulkin, Journalist, Kyiv, Ukraine, kbulkin@yahoo.com
===============================================================
14. MAY 8 VS. MAY 9: FRUM GOT IT ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!

LETTER TO THE EDITOR
By Peter Lewycky, plewycky@ica.net
The Action Ukraine Report, #482, Article 14
Washington, D.C., Wednesday, May 11, 2005

RE: "BLOGS & MEMORY"
May 9 is not the end of the last world war; beginning of the Cold War.
By David Frum, The Huffington Post, The Blog
Delivering News & Opinion Since May 9, 2005
On the Web, 05.09.2005
Published in The Action Ukraine Report, #481, Article 8
Washington, D.C., Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Frum got it absolutely right! Finally, some one of note was able to
articulate the May 8 vs May 9 distinction. I was getting very annoyed by
the constant reference to May 9 as being the end of the war in Europe.

The Big 3 had agreed at Yalta that their respective fronts would meet at
Berlin, crushing the Nazis between them. In the spring of 1945,
Eisenhower issued an order to the western allies, that because there had
been a policy change and that Berlin was no longer the main objective,
that the western allies should slow down their drive toward Berlin and
move on a broad front.

This was a ruse by Stalin, he wanted the glory of conquering Berlin all to
himself. So while the western allies poked along Stalin unleashed an all
out drive to get to Berlin and vicious assault on Berlin.

The land immediately to the east of Berlin is the largest unmarked grave-
yard in the world. Estimates of dead are difficult to obtain. Some think
that 30,000 Germans and two to three time that number of Soviets died.
There are no markers.

The allies realized within a couple of weeks, that the Stalin was hammering
on the gates of Berlin and they re-doubled their drive to get to Berlin. The
western allies arrived too late to share in the glory of having taken
Berlin.

The Soviets had taken the city; had forced the suicide of Hitler, but were
unable to compel Germany to surrender May 8 to the allies. Stalin was so
bummed out that he demanded a special ceremony for himself sans the
allies on May 9. -30- [The Action Ukraine Report Monitoring Service]
===============================================================
15. ECONOMIC UNCERTAINTY BREWS IN UKRAINE

By Tom Warner in Kiev, Financial Times
London, UK, Tuesday, May 10, 2005

When Ukraine's Orange Revolution leaders swept to power with plans to
reopen the defeated regime's recent privatisations, they may not have
realised what a can of worms it would be. In February, in the first weeks of
his presidency, Viktor Yushchenko assured an investment conference in
Kiev that the review would be quick and orderly.

In "the near weeks" his government would publish a list of 30 to 40
privatisation deals that it planned to challenge on the grounds that legal
violations were committed during the sell-off. The government would
promise never to expand the list, so that investors could feel safe making
deals with current owners.

Three months later, the list is still anxiously awaited. The latest news
about its fate came from the deputy prime minister in charge of the review,
Anatoly Kinakh, who said last week it would be finished in "the near days".
A 10-day deadline announced by Mr Yushchenko in late April seems to
have been forgotten.

In the meantime, some officials and businessmen are trying to take things
into their own hands. Last week, a bitter power struggle burst into the open
at one of the enterprises widely expected to be on the list the Nikopol
Ferroalloy Plant, sold in 2003 to Viktor Pinchuk, son-in-law of the former
president, Leonid Kuchma.

The sale was bitterly opposed at the time by another Ukrainian business
group, led by oligarch Igor Kolomoysky, whose holdings include two
magnesium mines that supply the Nikopol plant and a 26 per cent stake
in the plant itself.

Last week Mr Kolomoysky tried to sack Mr Pinchuk's management by
organising his own shareholders' meeting and inviting the State Property
Fund to come and vote as rightful owner of the majority stake sold to
Mr Pinchuk.

The fund, which has confirmed plans to reprivatise the company, turned
down the offer, saying it did not own the stake yet. By then, Mr Pinchuk had
rallied the plant's employees and private guards against what he claimed
were plans by Mr Kolomoysky's Privat group to storm the plant with its own
guards and workers.

The Nikopol affair is just one of a number of dramas that have cropped up as
the government prepares to launch its review. Meanwhile, an understandable
reluctance among oligarchs to invest has contributed to a slowdown in GDP
growth, to 5.4 per cent in January-March from last year's 12 per cent.

Most of the Orange Revolution's leaders, especially Mr Yushchenko, are
liberals committed to reducing the state's role in business, but they are
even more determined to clip the oligarchs' wings.

A crucial turning point came when Mr Kuchma used the sale of the giant
Kryvorizhstal steel mill in June to cement an alliance between Mr Pinchuk
and Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine's richest industrialist.

Mr Yushchenko saw the deal as a political maneuver to entice the oligarchs
to unite behind Viktor Yanukovich, his rival in last winter's presidential
elections. Coming out strongly against such privatisation deals helped him
draw support from businessmen that were left out. It also underpinned a
coalition with centrist and liberal politicians who wanted to challenge
privatisation more broadly, such as Yulia Tymoshenko, now prime minister,
Mr Lutsenko, the interior minister, and Valentina Semenyuk, who chairs the
State Property Fund.

Mr Lutsenko has made the most dramatic moves against the oligarchs. Last
month he arranged for Boris Kolesnikov, a business partner of Mr Akhmetov
in Kryvorizhstal, to be taken into custody and charged with racketeering in
the 2002 acquisition of a department store in Donetsk.

Mr Akhmetov, whose brother was involved in the department store acquisition,
insists it was "100 per cent honest". Last week Mr Lutsenko also launched a
bid to reverse the privatisation of the Dynamo football team, which was spun
off from a state-controlled sports association in 1994.

Since the spinoff, the association's initial 51 per cent stake in the Uefa
team has been diluted to 1 per cent, while a group of businessmen led by
Grigory Surkis, one of the most powerful oligarchs in the Kuchma era,
boosted its stake to more than 90 per cent.

President Yushchenko meanwhile is struggling to rein in members of his
government including Ms Tymoshenko who have spoken in favour of using
the privatisation review to strengthen the state's role in the economy. Mr
Yushchenko told a recent cabinet meeting there would be no nationalisations,
only new auctions at which current owners could be given the option of
matching the highest bid.

Mr Yushchenko is most keen to re-sell Kryvorizhstal, which he believes could
fetch up to four times more than the $800m Mr Pinchuk, Mr Akhmetov and Mr
Kolesnikov paid last June. Even before the new government came to power,
the steel mill's original privatisation became the subject of a legal
challenge, which will be decided by Ukraine's supreme court.

Likewise, Mr Yushchenko wants the overall privatisation review to be handled
by the courts, and thus avoid the heavy-handed Yukos-style tactics that have
frightened investors in Russia. However, the power struggle at Nikopol gives
a hint of how tortured, and potentially damaging for Ukraine's image, the
process could be.

Mr Pinchuk and Mr Kolomoysky enjoy the support of a different array of local
courts and officials. If the government does manage to re-auction the plant,
it will then face another, equally daunting task: convincing someone other
than Mr Pinchuk and Mr Kolomoysky to bid. -30-
===============================================================
16. PRIME MINISTER TIMOSHCHENKO TACKLES MEAT PRICES
Meat is the only regular luxury item in a family's budget

New Europe, Athens, Greece, Monday, May 9, 2005

KYIV - Tough-as-nails Prime Minister Julia Timoshenko led Ukraine's
Orange Revolution, but she has met her match in meat. Poultry or pork,
lean or marbled, wholesale or retail, Ukrainian meat prices are going
through the roof, Deutsche-Presse-Agentur (dpa) reported recently. A
Ukrainian housewife able to steel herself to face her butcher these days
pays 30 percent more for meat than she did last December.

An exchange between a price-shocked shopper and a jaded seller at
Kiev's Volodymyrsky food market last weekend went like this: Well-
dressed matron: "Thirty-five hryvnias (USD 7) for a kilogramme of pork
loin, that's a joke, right?"

Saleswoman: "Look, I just sell the stuff. You want to complain, talk to
Julia (Timoshenko), she's the meat-empress in this country, not me." Meat
prices are a big deal in Ukraine. Meat is the only regular luxury item in an
average Ukrainian family's budget, most of which goes on state-supported
foods like bread, grains, and vegetables.

Timoshenko's government is working hard to stay on the good side of
Ukrainian consumers, in no small part because parliamentary elections are
due next March. Just two weeks ago, for instance, Timoshenko cut a deal
with Russian oil exporters freezing the price of petrol at Ukrainian filling
stations at levels roughly half those seen in Europe.

Easter is a big holiday in Ukraine, and though Ukrainians don't eat as much
meat as Europeans, an Easter table loaded with cutlets, chops, and the
national food - raw sliced pork fat - is inevitable in most Ukrainian
families. Rocketing meat prices stand to make holiday tables this year
visibly poorer and so Timoshenko, well aware of voter reaction, has
declared war on the high cost of meat.

"Meat prices will be under my personal control," Timoshenko announced at
a televised cabinet meeting in early April. "I am quite sure prices will go
down by Easter." Timoshenko scored an early success on the chicken front,
summoning to the capital in good Soviet fashion the country's main poultry
factory directors.

After an afternoon locked behind closed doors with the prime minister, the
managers dutifully trooped out to a press conference where their spokesman
announced the price of Ukrainian chicken would be frozen. "We cooperated
with the government," said a somewhat sour-looking Maksin Pisarev, top
manager of the Dnipropetrovsk Poultry Factory, as Timoshenko beamed in
the background.

April has unsurprisingly seen a nationwide run on chicken, with markets
frequently selling out the day's poultry allotment before noon, and
sometimes refusing to place chicken on sale. Pisarev told he is better off
exporting his chickens to Russia than selling to Ukrainians.

Red meat is more complicated, mostly because in Ukraine the retail product
usually comes via a small farmer selling a pig or a steer to market traders,
rather than from slaughterhouses supplying chains of grocery stores.

Timoshenko, blaming middlemen, last month put the state into the meat
wholesaling business by declaring her government would buy 40,000 tonnes
of red meat which, she promised, would retail at cost across the country.

The government of course wants Ukraine to join the European Union and says
it supports free markets, but red meat is an exception, she argued. "We must
do what it takes to combat the speculators (middlemen)," Timoshenko said.
"The government must make sure Ukrainians pay a fair price."

The retailers accused of price-gouging by Timoshenko, however, say the
prime minister is a woman who just doesn't know the real price of meat. "My
cost is USD 3.40, I sell at 3.60," fumed Tatiana Bevz, a saleswoman at the
Odessa Privoz market. "You tell me if that's excessive."

That may all be academic, pointed out Ivan Silko, a government spokesman.
"The government is offering 12 hryvnias for meat on the hoof, and the usual
market price is 15," Silko said. "Not a kilogramme (of government-bought
meat) has made it to the markets."

Timoshenko also ordered special sections set up in markets across the
country for animal owners to sell meat directly to consumers, and so
supposedly cut out middlemen. Consumer relief has been minimal. "Sure
the farmers come in (to urban markets), they are glad to sell directly to
the consumer," said Vitaly Kurko, a trader at Kiev's Yunost market. "And
they sell at one-two hryvnias less than the traders ... it just makes their
pigs more profitable."

"No-one can dictate to an open market like meat, not even the prime
minister," said MP Liudmila Suprum, chairwoman of the parliament's food
subcommittee. "Lower meat prices any time soon, never mind by Easter,
are a fairy tale." -30- [The Action Ukraine Report Monitoring Service]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOOTNOTE: The way the prime minister has dealt with economic
problems the past three months seems to many observers to be more
of the old Soviet, government planned way than the free enterprise and
private market way. There is considerable grumbling in the business
community about the heavy handed actions of the prime minister.
===============================================================
17. 'KYIV CHAMBER CHOIR' LIVE CONCERT CD RELEASED
First live concert CD by the world-renowned Kyiv Chamber Choir
"The Sounds of Kyiv"

Andrew Witer, President, Dotcom Recordings Inc.
Toronto, Ontario, Canada, May, 2005

TORONTO - Dotcom Recordings Inc.is pleased to announce the release of
"The Sounds of Kyiv" - the first live concert CD by the world-renowned Kyiv
Chamber Choir. Recorded live for broadcast by the CBC Radio Network at the
November 5, 2004 concert in the George Weston Recital Hall in Toronto this
CD was produced by Dotcom Recordings, in association with CBC Records.

This performance was part of the first concert tour of Canada by the Kyiv
Chamber Choir, a tour that featured 17 performances in 14 cities during
November 2004. Every concert was a remarkable event featuring great
Ukrainian choral music (both classical and contemporary), superb singing
and a unique, entertaining presentation.

All of the Ukrainian folk music and selections from the sacred choral music
performed by the Choir at concert cities from Montreal to Edmonton are
included. As they sang, Choir members also played the instruments heard
on this recording and were engaged in some compelling and ever-changing
choreography.

The entertaining performances of the Kyiv Chamber Choir are unique in
choral music- and rare in the world of classical music. They never failed to
bring Canadian audiences to their feet for sustained ovations. As people
listen to this CD, they will sense the spirit of each concert, the reaction
of every audience and the joy and talent of these outstanding performers.
"You will have a chance to hear what the critics and audiences were raving
about" CBC Radio Network "Choral Concerts" Broadcast January 9, 2005

For Information: contact Dotcom Recordings Inc. Toll free: 1-877-232-9835.
Toronto, Canada: (416) 242-5025; or e-mail: info@cdbynet.net.
===============================================================
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EXCITING ORANGE REVOLUTION CD AVAILABLE
The CD is available for $18.95 US. For more information or to order
the CD contact Tamara Koszarny at tkoszarny@hotmail.com.
===============================================================
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