New Ukrainian president will have to find a compromise with Russia / Russian president trying to drive Karabakh conflict out of deadlock / Putin calls for new military telecommunications systems / Government gives go-ahead for dumping waste into Lake Baikal

Gazeta

New Ukrainian president will have to find a compromise with Russia

Those who expect the new Ukrainian president to dramatically change relations with Russia will be disappointed.

Any Ukrainian president, whatever promises he or she makes during the election campaign, wants to strengthen the country, which means that he or she will try to use Russia while keeping a distance from it. This is not because of likes or dislikes, but because of Russia's powerful gravitation for cultural, historical and economic reasons.

The departure of Viktor Yushchenko will most likely signify the end of an ideologically laden presidency and transition to a more pragmatic policy. For Yushchenko, confrontation with Russia was the end goal, and final liberation from it a guarantee of Ukraine's future.

To attain his goals, Yushchenko was prepared not only to use objective differences, but also to provoke and aggravate conflicts.

The next Ukrainian president will have first of all to think about his country's socio-economic survival and development. Taking into account Ukraine's economic dependence on Russia, he or she will have to search for compromise solutions for the issues of concern to Russia.

It would be useless to try to determine who would be better for Russia, Yulia Tymoshenko or Viktor Yanukovych. The Russian leadership hopes that the political forces represented by Yanukovych would seek to develop closer relations with Russia. Tymoshenko, who is a populist politician, is freely fluctuating between moderately pro-Russian and openly anti-Russian actions and statements, depending on the situation.

However, the experience of relations between the Russian and Ukrainian premiers in 2009 showed that they can resolve complicated problems without excessive emotion or ideological preferences. Tymoshenko is a hard-line pragmatic politician seeking above all benefits for her country, and so it would be easier for the Russian leadership, first of all Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, to deal with such a partner because the sides understand each other well.

Relations with Yanukovych could be complicated exactly because he is considered a friend and an ally. The leader of the Party of Regions said more than once during the election campaign that he planned to review gas contracts with Russia. He most likely hopes to resume relations the two countries had during the presidency of Leonid Kuchma, "economic preferences in return for political loyalty."

However, Russia has abandoned this formula, as exemplified by growing problems in its relations with Belarus.

Russia should not expect Yanukovych to consider joining the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan in order to create economically favorable conditions for Ukraine. Ukraine is consistently implementing a policy of European integration, and the most important steps toward it were made when Yanukovych was prime minister, during the presidencies of both Kuchma and Yushchenko.

Kommersant

Russian president trying to drive Karabakh conflict out of deadlock

One of the key issues Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his Armenian counterpart, Serzh Sargsyan, focused on during their Monday meeting was three-party talks on the Nagorny Karabakh conflict planned for late January.

The leaders of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan will meet later this month for another round of peace talks on the disputed Nagorny Karabakh region, dragging on since the 1990s. Moscow seems to be keen to achieve at least a semblance of a breakthrough in the peace process it is trying to mediate, as it would help Russia strengthen its strategic partnership with Armenia, on the one hand, and implement large joint projects with Turkey and Azerbaijan, on the other.

A breakthrough in the Karabakh peace process, whether fact or illusion, would help Moscow carry out its strategic projects in the region. Although both Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov a few days ago spoke out against linking recent steps to normalize Turkish-Armenian relations with the Karabakh conflict, the two processes are obviously interrelated. Turkey simply cannot ignore the opinion of its ally Azerbaijan, which is strongly against a Turkish-Armenian rapprochement leading to real advances in the Karabakh conflict resolution.

Azerbaijan suspects that the Kremlin might try to use certain tools to pressure Armenia for concessions. Rasim Musabekov, a well-known political analyst of Azerbaijan, said: "One should keep in mind Armenia's tight economic situation at the moment. The country's government expects Russia to provide security guarantees and economic support in addition to preliminary conditions concerning Karabakh. Depending on how Armenia behaves in this situation and what it asks for, Russia is likely to provide the required support and not let down its ally."

Moscow has recently made a major step in supporting Armenia: It has agreed to cut the price of natural gas supplies to Armenia to $180 from $200 for 1,000 cubic meters for the period between April 1, 2010 and April 1, 2011.

According to Russian government sources, Armenia is also lobbying for the renewal of a $250 million VTB credit line opened 18 months ago and suspended then due to the economic downturn.

Vedomosti, Kommersant

Putin calls for new military telecommunications systems

The August 2008 Russian-Georgian conflict over the breakaway province of South Ossetia highlighted an untenable lag in telecommunications and troop control.

On Monday, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said in Voronezh that the Armed Forces' telecommunications, reconnaissance and troop control systems had become obsolete and must be replaced as soon as possible. Putin also called for their complete modernization.

Vasily Borisov, deputy general director of Concern Sozvezdiye, which consolidates developers of telecommunications and automated control systems, said the company had received a severe reprimand after the South Ossetian conflict.

Tests of products manufactured by U.S.-based Harris Corporation, an international telecommunications equipment company, which were seized in Georgia, show that they make it possible to hold encrypted conversations and transmit data, including coordinates. This is very important for calling in artillery strikes and informing various headquarters about the situation.

A Sozvezdiye manager said similar systems for the Russian Army were currently being tested and would be adopted soon.

Borisov said one automated control and telecommunications system for each of the 40 new brigades would cost 8 billion rubles ($274 million). He added that such systems were unavailable but that a proposal had been made at the meeting to launch their production next year.

He said the concern could manufacture these systems for three or four brigades in 2011 and to reequip five or six brigades annually after that.

Viktor Murakhovsky, an expert on automated control systems, said only one strategic-level automated control system was currently operational, but that it was already obsolete.

He said the Russian Army had fallen behind the West at tactical battalion and brigade level in the past 20 years. Armed services, branches, military districts and fleets operate local automated control systems which are not part of an integrated network.

Mikhail Barabanov, editor-in-chief of Moscow Defense Brief, a bimonthly English-language defense magazine, said licenses and technology would have to be imported and purchased in some cases in order to overcome the current lag, and that some systems would have to be developed together with foreign partners.

He said such programs must also receive additional funding in terms of R&D projects and batch purchases, and that the Defense Ministry's overall procurement allocations had to be increased.

Kommersant, Vedomosti

Government gives go-ahead for dumping waste into Lake Baikal

The Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill, one of the most environmentally harmful plants in Russia, may resume work. A government decision has excluded pulp, paper and cardboard production from a list of activities banned in the central ecological zone of Baikal's nature territory. Environmentalists are outraged and plan to appeal to President Dmitry Medvedev to rescind Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's directive.

Currently, the mill (200,000 metric tons of chemical pulp and 12,000 tons of wrapping paper a year), which belongs to Oleg Deripaska's Basic Element (BasEl) holding, is at a standstill and producing no output. Moreover, it is on the verge of bankruptcy and there were plans to close it down for good.

The mill is giving Deripaska a headache of the worst kind. Facing a closure threat by Russia's Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resources (Rosprirodnadzor), their owner was forced to spend 80 million rubles on a closed water re-circulation system and a further 50 million rubles on treatment facilities for Baikalsk. But the expenses have made the plant unprofitable. Bleached pulp was bringing it the highest earnings. It was an exclusive product and was used by the defense industry in the manufacture of Topol and Bulava strategic missiles. But the closed-water recirculation system is an obstacle, while unbleached pulp brings in practically peanuts.

The mills are Deripaska's second plant to start functioning thanks to the prime minister's intervention. In June the same approach saved his Pikalyovo alumina factory. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin toured the Baikal plant at the end of July and said that he was not ruling out a re-start of the mills, because "Lake Baikal was in fine condition, with practically no pollution in evidence."

Officials no longer consider the closure necessary. Lyudmila Plushch, chief of environmental monitoring at Rosprirodnadzor, says a total closure would not solve existing problems. She added that if storage ponds of effluents stop functioning, the effects could be more disastrous than a resumption of operation.

Environmentalists, who have been fighting the Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill for the past 25 years, have a different point of view. "We are shocked by this decision," said Ivan Blokov, director of Greenpeace Russia programs. "It means waste production will resume. We are going to lobby President Dmitry Medvedev to rescind the prime minister's ruling. He has the power to do that."

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MOSCOW, January 19 (RIA Novosti)