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Ukraine in No Hurry to Borrow as Key Pension, Land Overhauls Loom Wall Street Journal (subscription) Ukraine Finance Minister Oleksandr Danylyuk said in an interview Thursday that his government might wait until the fall to seek around $1 billion in the international bond market, following the enactment of long-delayed pension and land overhauls he ...

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Ukraine in No Hurry to Borrow as Key Pension, Land Overhauls Loom - Wall Street Journal (subscription)

In a cramped warehouse on the banks of the flooded River Neris in a tranquil part of the Lithuanian capital, Jonas Ohman and his crew are loading unmarked boxes and bags onto a truck destined for the front in eastern Ukraine, more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) away.

The Swedish volunteer heads the so-called Blue-Yellow Movement, which helps Ukrainian government forces in their struggle against pro-Russian rebels by supplying non-lethal military aid, such as night-vision goggles, helmets, bullet-proof vests and telescopic sniper sights. They even pack colorful teddy bears for children to help ease everyday life in the devastated region.

"If we don't help stop the Russians in Ukraine, they will eventually come to get us too," he says, while trying to answer one of the calls for aid from the front and check whether previous supplies had arrived.

Recent heavy fighting in eastern Ukraine has again reminded the world of the bleeding conflict, but many in the Baltic states are only too aware of the clashes that are causing death, suffering and devastation.

According to U.N. figures, the conflict has cost almost 10,000 lives, including civilians, Ukrainian soldiers and rebels, and more than 22,000 have been injured.

Since the conflict began, millions of euros have been pumped into Ukraine by Lithuania and smaller amounts from other Baltic states, with regular fund raising events and government aid. Hundreds of wounded soldiers are treated at Lithuanian hospitals, and children from the war zone are brought to schools in the Baltic country.

Lithuania has no border with Ukraine, but like its Baltic neighbors it shares a frontier with Russia in this case, the exclave of Kaliningrad, which Moscow uses as a major Baltic military base. Although this border is less than 300 kilometers long, Lithuania like Latvia and Estonia has bitter memories of five decades of Soviet occupation and holds a deep distrust of Moscow despite its 13-year membership in NATO since regaining independence in the wake of the 1991 Soviet collapse. Lithuanians fear the conflict could prefigure Russian ambitions to forcefully retake them.

Meanwhile Ohman, who has visited the front several times, ensures the aid keeps flowing "directly to the soldiers and units, who need it badly."

"We have worked in Ukraine for several years now. We know the needs, who needs it and how to provide it," Ohman told The Associated Press before leaving on another trip there. "Ukrainian people are very happy when we come. Even though we may not have much stuff, they are thankful not just for aid but also for the attention."

The Lithuanian government is aware of the group's activities none of which is thought to be illegal.

Though rules governing exports are complicated and vary from country to country, there is technically no international embargo that prevents these items from being distributed in Ukraine, especially as they are donations. The respected Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI, which researches global arms issues, said what the volunteers are doing is probably legal.

Another volunteer, Kotryna Stasinskaite, said she's noticed that people in other parts of Ukraine are not showing much interest in the struggle.

"I saw lots of happy, rich people in the streets of Kiev and they were obviously not concerned about all the violence and the tragedy happening in their own country," she said.

However, studies seem to indicate that the Blue-Yellow volunteers are not alone in their mission.

A survey by pollster Rait in December indicated that 63 percent of Lithuanians support efforts in helping Ukraine, and a recent charity concert raised more than 110,000 euros. The government has helped, too, with more than 8.5 million euros aid to Ukraine, according to Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius.

"A common historical past bonds the people of Lithuania and Ukraine very closely. We are united by a common struggle for independence and the same challenges," he said.

"We will continue to help Ukraine to become a thriving European country it is the aim of the whole of the Western world."

Lithuanian officials and specialists constantly travel between Vilnius and eastern Ukraine.

Defense Minister Raimundas Karoblis, who visited in January, assured Ukrainians that Lithuania would continue supporting its resistance against Russian separatist aggression and provide practical support for defense reforms.

"I was met with the warmest gratitude for all the support their country has received during the war against Russia," Karoblis told the AP. "It was also important to hear reassurances that they would provide the same assistance if Lithuania was in need."

He said a major reason for his nation's support to Ukraine is that Lithuania has a long history of fighting for its own freedom. "We take it as our concern and duty to help other nations in their struggle," he said.

Ukrainian Army Lt. Oleksander Valevich was severely concussed during heavy shelling and later was sent to Lithuania. He and other Ukrainian soldiers are being treated in Druskininkai, a luxurious resort amid pines and pristine lakes in southern Lithuania.

He now feels like he's the luckiest man on Earth.

"We used to be one state a long time ago. Later, we were separated, but I feel that Lithuania is still our soul brother," he said. "It took our pain and cares just like brothers," he said, with tears welling in his eyes.

Vitnija Saldava contributed to this report from Vilnius.

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Lithuanian volunteers help soldiers in eastern Ukraine - ABC News

The last two months have not been easy for Andrey Artemenko.

On Feb. 19, the right-wing Ukrainian member of parliament was sucked into the scandal surrounding President Donald Trump and his alleged ties to Russia when the New York Times reported that Artemenko had served as a back channel between Moscow and Trump associates.

In the aftermath of the report, Artemenko was forced out of his political faction in Ukraine, the far-right Radical Party, and the Prosecutor Generals Office of Ukraine has opened an investigation into whether his diplomatic outreach, which was done without Kievs approval, constitutes treason.

Despite the political firestorm, Artemenko is still shopping his proposal in Washington and insists that now is the time to find a resolution to the nearly three-year war in eastern Ukraine that has claimed more than 10,000 lives. In an interview with Foreign Policy, Artemenko denied any connections between him and the Kremlin, praised the early stages of the Trump presidency, and rebuffed elements of the Times report, saying he was unfairly caught up in a fight between the U.S. president and the liberal media. The lawmaker also accused Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko of not being interested in ending the war in the Donbass and said he was using Russia as an excuse to scapegoat his critics.

Anyone who has a personal opinion in Ukraine is automatically named a Russian spy, Artemenko said. But I dont have any connections to Russia. Thats why Im trying to involve the Trump administration on this issue and not the Kremlin.

Artemenkos peace plan episode is just one small part of a rapidly mushrooming investigation in Washington over possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence to tilt the 2016 U.S. presidential election in Trumps favor. But its also emblematic of another political fight unfolding against the backdrop of U.S. politics: the power struggle for the future of Ukraine.

Since the 2014 Maidan revolution that ousted pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, Washington has played an outsized role in Ukrainian domestic politics, where recognition and support from influential U.S. figures can make or break a politicians career back home. The importance of these ties has taken on a new but uncertain dimension since the election of Trump in November 2016; a lack of clarity about the administrations policies toward Kiev has been both a source of anxiety and opportunity for Ukraines political class.

With key policy positions still unfilled at the State Department, many high-profile Ukrainians have sought back channels to the Trump administration to push for a solution to the war in Ukraine.

Thats what Artemenko apparently did to pitch his loosely defined plan, which calls for Russian separatists to return eastern territory to Kiev, and the holding of a national referendum on leasing Crimea to Russia for an undetermined amount of time.

Maybe its dual management of Crimea, or maybe its a lease like the Panama Canal and Hong Kong, said Artemenko, who prefers to call his proposal a road map for peace rather than a set plan. It should be obvious that there is no military solution, only a diplomatic one.

Tall and brawny, Artemenko is a populist politician with ties to the far-right Ukrainian military-political group Right Sector and a member of the pro-Western opposition parliamentary coalition led by former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenkos party. In Kiev, hes known for being outspoken and politically ambitious.

The lawmaker also professes an affinity for Trump, saying he wants to make Ukraine great again and has been trying to make inroads with the real estate mogul since he was a presidential candidate. In July 2016, Artemenko traveled to Cleveland for the Republican National Convention and later attended Trumps inauguration in January.

Artemenko used these connections in late January to arrange a meeting with Michael Cohen, Trumps longtime personal lawyer who currently works at the Republican National Committee, to pass his peace plan to Mike Flynn, who served about three weeks as Trumps national security advisor. Flynn was forced to resign in early February over a separate Russia-related controversy, but the Times reported that Cohen said he had hand-delivered the plan in a sealed envelope to the now former national security advisor.

Artemenko confirmed to FP that Trump associate Felix Sater had arranged a meeting with Cohen and that he was told details of the plan were relayed to Flynn, although he says no physical documents were passed at the sit-down in Manhattan.

The Kremlin denied any knowledge of the plan, and Cohen walked backhis initial comments, saying he hadnt delivered the plan to Flynn or discussed it with anyone in the White House. The Times has stood by its reporting.

The Times also reported that Artemenko said he received encouragement for his plans from top aides to Mr. Putin and that he emerged from the opposition nurtured in Ukraine by Paul Manafort, Trumps former campaign manager who previously worked as political operative in Ukraine.

Artemenko told FP that he had no contacts with any Russian officials and has never met or dealt with Manafort. Trumps former campaign manager made millions of dollarsin assisting the rise of Yanukovych and lobbied for several pro-Kremlin causes in Washington.

Artemenko insists that his intentions in pushing a peace plan for Ukraine are in the countrys best interests. But political observers see his freelance diplomacy as part of a rising groundswell in Kiev against Poroshenko by opposition forces ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled for 2019.

Alliances are shifting in Ukraine right now against Poroshenko, said Balazs Jarabik, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. All this diplomatic maneuvering in Washington needs to be viewed through this lens.

Artemenko has emerged as a vocal critic of Poroshenko and says he has evidence showing corruption by the Ukrainian president. Moreover, Artemenko claims to have offered to organize a meeting between Trump and Valeriy Chaly, Ukraines ambassador to Washington, during the campaign. Chaly refused, Artemenko told FP, saying the Ukrainian government was backing Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton at the time.

They said they didnt want to meet Mr. Trump, Artemenko said.

The Ukrainian Embassy has denied the charges and said it did not support any candidate in the U.S. election.

Frustration at the slow pace of change in Ukraine has seen Poroshenkos approval ratings plummet, allowing rivals to try to fill the void. Artemenko, who is a staunch ally of Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, a former head of Ukraines security service with lofty political ambitions, has aligned himself with other West-leaning populists like Tymoshenko. While its not saying much, shes currently Ukraines most popular politician, with polls showing about 18 percent support for her party.

Tymoshenko carried out some freelance diplomacy of her own on Feb. 2 when the former prime minister metTrump in Washington, before ever meeting Poroshenko or speaking with him on the phone. The conversation, which took place at the National Prayer Breakfast, was reportedly short and consisted of her seeking assurances that the Trump administration would not abandon Ukraine or lift sanctions on Russia. But the meetings worked to send a message back home that Tymoshenko was ascendant.

Despite the backlash he has faced, Artemenko is still optimistic about his proposal, saying he has discussed it with the office of Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who has sponsored a resolution reaffirming support for Ukraine and outlining measures to stop the conflict. Artemenko says elements of his plan influenced the Portman measure. A spokesperson from Portmans office confirmed meeting Artemenko but told FP that his peace plan is not part of the resolution.

Back in Kiev, Artemenko has his sights on the upcoming elections, saying he will continue to push for a resolution to the war in the Donbass and that he plans to start his own political party.

I am clear and sure that I am going the right way, Artemenko said.

Photo credit:Drew Angerer/Getty Images

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Ukraine's Back-Channel Diplomat Still Shopping Peace Plan to ... - Foreign Policy (blog)

Moldovas first African Swine Fever (ASF) outbreak in 2017 was reported recently in a backyard farm in Rublenitsa village, Soroca district, in northern Moldova. The country points to Ukraine as the source of the virus.

The outbreak, discovered in mid-March, affected seven pigs, according to the countrys National Agency for Food Security.

Vsevolod Stomaty, the head of the National Agency for Food Security, told the regional media Sputnik that presumably the new outbreak is related to infected products, delivered from Ukraine. The situation was very similar to what happened last year, when the first outbreaks of the disease in the country could be explained by the human factor and problems with ASF in Ukraine.

The National Agency for Food Security said that some Moldova citizens consumed infected pig meat in Ukraine, and had subsequently travelled into Moldova, bringing in the virus on their hands and clothes. Stomaty did not disclose exact details as to how he thought the virus had been imported into the country.

Officially, pig and pork imports from Ukraine into Moldova are forbidden. Nevertheless, there is quite a lot of illegal cross-border traffic. There are known cases of customs staff discovering trucks trying to bring in pig-derived produce into Moldova from time to time.

Stomaty feared that the spread of the virus in the country might bring enormous problems for pig producers. He said that his service set up a quarantine area in Rublenitsa village, where 17 pig farms with 3,000 pigs are located. The restrictive measures, associated with a quarantine, could impact the regional trade, because the village supplies pork to all over the region, including to the city of Soroca.

Photo: Vincent ter Beek

At the same time, the situation regarding the spread of ASF in the country is under personal supervision of the Moldova prime minister Pavel Filip, Stomaty indicated - as this is a real threat for the countrys pig farmers. He stated that Moldova now accounts for nearly 500,000 pigs in total and the consequences of the virus spreading across the country could be very serious.

Speaking at a press conference in Chisinau a month before, Stomaty stressed that the first outbreaks of ASF were reported in the country in 2016, and which had withdrawn any export potential for Moldovas pig industry. He expressed hopes that in the future the country would be able to restore exports, saying that this would require the absence of new outbreaks until the end of 2017.

Stomaty emphasised that Moldova faces a huge ASF threat further penetrating into the country through its neighbour Ukraine. He recalled that since the beginning of the year there were nearly 162 outbreaks of the disease on the east border, claiming that in fact almost every day new outbreaks could be registered, including in the bordering Vinnitsa region.

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Moldova complains about ASF threat from Ukraine - Pig Progress (registration) (blog)

"Why should US taxpayers be interested in Ukraine?" That was the question that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was heard to ask at a meeting of the Group of Seven foreign ministers, America's closest allies, a day before his visit to Moscow last week. We don't know what he meant by that question, or in what context it was asked. When queried, the State Department replied that it was a "rhetorical device", seeking neither to defend nor retract it.

If Mr Tillerson were a different person and this were a different historical moment, we could forget about this odd dropped comment and move on. But Mr Tillerson has an unusual background for a secretary of state. Unlike everyone who has held the job for at least the past century, he has no experience in diplomacy, politics or the military; instead he has spent his life extracting oil and selling it for profit. At that he was successful. But no one knows whether he can change his value system to focus instead on the very different task of selling something intangible - American values - to maximise something even more intangible: American influence.

The switch is harder than it seems: Values and influence cannot be measured like money. They cannot be achieved through cost-cutting or efficiency; they cannot be promoted using the tactics of corporate PR. On his first trip to Asia, for example, Mr Tillerson refused to take the usual contingent of journalists (who have always paid their own way) on the grounds that if he took fewer people he could use a smaller plane and return faster. If he were still a chief executive, that might have been a great decision. For the secretary of state it was an embarrassing mistake. Authoritarians around the world saw further evidence that the Trump administration intends to undermine journalism; Americans learnt less than they should have about a visit that was covered mainly by foreigners.

Mr Tillerson's question, rhetorical or otherwise, therefore deserves a response. For the answer is yes: US taxpayers should be interested in Ukraine. But not necessarily for reasons that would make sense to an oil company's CEO.

Why? It's an explanation that cannot be boiled down to bullet points or a chart, or even reflected in numbers at all. I'm not even sure it can be done in a few paragraphs, but here goes. The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea in 2014 were an open attack on the principle of border security in Europe. The principle of border security, in turn, is what turned Europe, once a continent wracked by bloody conflicts, into a safe and peaceful trading alliance in the second half of the 20th century. Europe's collective decision to abandon aggressive nationalism, open its internal borders and drop its territorial ambitions made Europe rich, as well as peaceful.

It also made the United States rich, as well as powerful. US companies do billions of dollars of business in Europe; US leaders have long been able to count on European support all over the world, in matters economic, political, scientific and more. It's not a perfect alliance but it is an unusual alliance, one that is held together by shared values as well as common interests. If Ukraine, a country of about 43 million people, were permanently affiliated with Europe, it too might become part of this zone of peace, trade and commerce.

Mr Rex Tillerson has an unusual background for the job of US secretary of state. PHOTO: REUTERS

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, an aggressive, emboldened Russia increasingly threatens European security and prosperity, as well as Europe's alliance with the US. Russia supports anti-American, anti-Nato and indeed anti-democratic political candidates all across the continent; Russia seeks business and political allies who will help promote its companies and turn a blind eye to its corrupt practices. Over the long term, these policies threaten US business interests and US political interests all across the continent and around the world.

Mr Tillerson's question, rhetorical or otherwise, therefore deserves a response. For the answer is yes: US taxpayers should be interested in Ukraine. But not necessarily for reasons that would make sense to an oil company's CEO.

But I must concede: There is no calculation, no balance sheet that can prove any of this. There is nothing that would appeal to a CEO or his shareholders. Whatever we have "invested" in Ukraine - loans, via the International Monetary Fund, or aid - will not show an immediate profit. To see the value of a secure, pro-Western Ukraine, you have to see the value of an alliance going back 70 years. And to preserve this alliance, you have to advocate it, work on it, invest time and maybe even money in it, too.

Mr Tillerson's boss isn't going to be an advocate for America's alliances. Will he? It would help if he could start by understanding that their stability, not their value for money, are the most important measure of success in his job.

WASHINGTON POST

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Why US taxpayers should care about Ukraine - The Straits Times