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[Second Issue of the Day]
#10
West or East? -- Ukraine stuck at crossroads
By Elizabeth Piper
ODESSA, Ukraine, March 25 (Reuters) - Ivan has lived under Germans, Romanians and Russians and it's clear in his mind who was the worst -- the "thieving Russian Communists" who stole his country.
An 82-year-old Ukrainian farmer-turned-builder, Ivan Onishko knows about living in an occupied land, and says he fears that Russia will again force Ukraine away from what he calls its European roots and back towards the hated old empire.
Many elderly voters in Ukraine will back the Communists in a parliamentary election on March 31, but Ivan says he supports reformist ex-prime minister Viktor Yushchenko in the hope that Ukraine will shed its Soviet past and become truly independent.
"We've woken up now. Let's not go back to sleep again," says Ivan, making the walls of a tiny train compartment vibrate as he shouts of his pure Ukrainian blood -- apart from a tiny bit of him, "maybe an ear," which belongs to neighbouring Poland.
"The bloody Russians, they are nothing more than thieves. I never thought the Soviet Union would break up, but it did happen, thank God. Now our politicians have to make sure they never come again."
Both Russia and the West are wooing Ukrainians ahead of the election. Russians warn of the dangers of the West exploiting an economic weakling, while European and U.S. officials have urged Kiev to turn West and provide them with a stable buffer zone.
For Ivan, the debate is yet another invasion into his country, whose history is one of occupation by a series of countries, including Poland, Germany, Romania and Russia.
"Just leave us be. I'm sorry but you all have had your fun with us, now it's our turn," he says, sighing as he remembers the days he lived under Nazi forces and then Communists in his agricultural village near the Black Sea port of Odessa.
BATTLE OVER THE BORDERLAND
After a few horilkas -- Ukraine's vodka -- Ivan cannot make up his mind whether Ukraine can be independent, or needs Russia or the West. His effusive but indecisive monologue sums up Kiev's wavering position over which way to go.
More than 10 years after winning independence from the Soviet Union, Ukraine -- the country's name means "borderland" -- is still stuck at a crossroads not sure of which way to turn.
And rather than leaving Ukraine to it, Western and Russian officials have decided to wade in, using the parliamentary election as a stage for their own war of words.
A string of U.S. and European officials have either been to Kiev or spoken on television to urge the almost 50 million population to turn West and shed its Soviet skin.
Russian officials have also visited, with President Vladimir Putin travelling to Odessa to meet Ukrainian leader Leonid Kuchma just two weeks before the poll.
"The West is primarily interested in preventing Ukraine from falling back into Russia's orbit," analysts at Commerzbank said in a recent report. "The West appears concerned about maintaining a buffer zone between the expanding NATO and European Union on one side and Russia on the other side."
Russia, a former superpower anxious about the shape of the post-Soviet world, wants to keep Ukraine firmly in its fold.
"Russia is interested in preventing the West from increasing its influence over Ukraine," Commerzbank said. "Russia may also be interested in gaining favourable access for Russian capital into Ukraine."
RUSSIA OUTBIDS EUROPE
Europe has wooed Ukraine with promises that the country could play a larger role in European organisations, appealing to its European roots.
"We have to work with you as members of the same family, as brothers in the same family," Adrian Severin, head of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, told Ukrainian politicians.
"Ukraine has a European history, European life and European civilisation...We have to develop democracy here," he told a slightly bewildered parliamentary speaker, Ivan Plyushch.
But the Russian argument seems to be winning as Plyushch made clear that European aspirations were well in the future.
"We respect our Russian neighbour very much and consider it as a major strategic partner," he said.
"We do not want to act as a buffer zone. We want to be equal partners with the European Union and Russia...but to become an equal partner, we have to know how to dance."
Under Kuchma, who hails from Ukraine's mainly Russian-speaking east, Russia looks set to be the focus.
"Weakness is not liked by Europe, but strength is," Kuchma told reporters after meeting Putin. "We can only become strong by ourselves, no one else is going to do that for us."
Few political parties are willing to discuss foreign policy, and Yushchenko's bloc is the only major group pledging to steer West. They lead opinion polls with about 20 percent support, but a handful of pro-Kuchma parties are also expected to do well.
Although Ukrainians generally bemoan Russian influence, many see it as unavoidable.
"What's going to change? We cannot get away from Russia. Gas pipelines and trade are like the veins that join Russia and Ukraine as one body," said Volodymyr, an unemployed engineer, who now picks up fares on the street in his beaten-up Lada.
"And the heart? I don't know if either of us have a heart."
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