The Tymoshenko Cabinet: A Hydra in Your Pocket

Serhiy Leshchenko of Ukrayinska Pravda has written a short guide to the wheeling and dealing in the Tymoshenko cabinet.

For a better idea of Ukraine’s cost of government, try asking this question: How many deputies/undersecretaries do Ukrainian cabinet ministers have?

Here’s your answer:

Heorhiy Filipchuk, Minister of Health Care: 10
Yuriy Melnyk, Minister of Agriculture: 10
Yuriy Lutsenko, Minister of Internal Affairs: 9
Mykola Onishchuk, Minister of Justice: 8
Lyudmyla Denysova, Minister of Labor: 8
Yuriy Pavlenko, Minister of Youth Affairs: 8
Vasyl Vovkun, Minister of Culture, 7
Serhiy Buryak, Head of the State Tax Administration: 10
Viktor Ivchenko, Head of the State Innovation and Investment Agency: 6
Serhiy Lytvyn, Head of the State Border Guard Administration: 6
Oleh Dubyna, Chairman of Naftogaz: 8
Oleksandr Medvedko, Prosecutor General: 8
Valeriy Heletey, Head of the State Security Directorate: 7

"The Tymoshenko School of Management. Where every minister counts."

Sources: http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2009/4/15/93272.htm

Tymonatrix: 'I Will Skin Every Minister Alive' (Updated)

She did it to Ohrzyko. Who’s next?

PM Tymoshenko: March is the deadline I set during which I will skin every minister alive, make no mistake. I don’t care what political powers you came from to the government. I don’t care what difficulties you have in connection with the crisis. The first thing I will do, in case of wage delays, is the entire ministry will go without pay. If that doesn’t help, then a letter will be forwarded to the Verkhovna Rada advising that the minister be dismissed.

Strangely, BYuT voted overwhelmingly Friday to confirm Valentyn Nalyvaichenko as SBU director, despite the Naftogaz standoff.

I wonder what tradeoffs the vote involved and whether it had something to do with Tymoshenko allegedly requesting 4.5 bcm of “technological gas” from the EU.


UPDATE
Enjoy the letters:


Didn't she reassure us that the deal she had signed with Russia would supply Ukraine with enough technological gas to facilitate gas transit to the EU?

Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/115177.html
Original source: http://5.ua
Sources:
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2009/3/6/90915.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2009/3/6/90907.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2009/3/17/91497.htm

More Polit Funnies

Durdom (madhouse) does them all.


Dream a dream


Yulenka: Lethal Lessons
Tagline: She doesn't play with dolls. She plays with people.
Based on a promotional poster for the Russian Stephen King-like horror movie Yulenka


The Yushchenko-Chernovetsky team


Thou shalt have none other gods before me


The New Wave


Yanukovych to run the BYuT campaign office in Donbas


Inspired by Tymoshenko, former president Kravchuk pleads with Yushchenko to step down.


The official exchange rate is Yushchenko's crisis-killer sedative


Dovhy, Chernovetsky, Kilchytska
Checking these three into a mental institution would have been better than firing those four hospital administrators for failure to attend the buckwit rally.


The Handout Hippie


"Dear Ukrainians, we're done with democracy. I hereby declare a state of emergency. You can hide but you can't run."


Firtash's Alfa


The Het-man
In Ukrainian, геть (het) means out.


The Unknown Official


Desperate Housewives
Karpachova, Bohoslovska, Tymoshenko, Herman, Semenyuk-Samsonenko, Bohatyryova


A parody on Larry King's interview with President Yushchenko
Larry King: What happened to the ideals of Maidan?
President Yuschenko: They drowned.


Rada fires Ohryzko, matryoshka hatches


A cobra-shaped Bohoslovska on the Eighth of March (International Women's Day)


Kravchuk & Kuchma
The Return of the Musketeers: We Have What We Have (Kravchuk's maxim)



The Clash of Media Biases: Pro-Yushchenko (Inter) v. Pro-Tymoshenko (Kanal Ukrayina)


Che Yushchenko
2011, somewhere in the Carpathians


BYuT gasmen beating the gas out of Firtash


Because of a tight tour schedule, Chernovetsky couldn't attend Yushchenko's meeting with Kyiv municipal authorities.


Welcome to our new office!
RosUkrEnergo occupies the Naftogaz head office


Ukraine's coat of arms


"Put her hands here and her legs there, and she'll be quick to confess where she hid the Gazprom contract."


She who pays Pootie calls the tune


And we should clean the mess


Yulia the Riveter: "Here's your gas, Mr. President!"


The Expulsion from Paradise

Sources:
http://durdom.in.ua

Alfa Storms Naftogaz Office

Now that Putin dumped Firtash and bet on Tymoshenko, Yushchenko apparently can't let go of Firtash.

Here’s an interesting Yushchenko-Firtash v. Tymoshenko-Putin episode, featuring Ukraine’s elite counter-terrorist unit Alfa.

On Wednesday, Alfa stormed the Naftogaz head office in Kyiv to seize Tymoshenko’s gas agreements and to prevent the alleged theft of the so-called “technical gas.”

Background: It was the gas that Firtash had lost to Tymoshenko when he had lost Putin’s support in January. Then-customs chief Valeriy Khoroshkovsky, who has a business relationship with Firtash, refused to finalize the transaction, deeming it illegal. As a result, some 11 bcm of RosUkrEnergo’s gas have changed hands a few times between Naftogaz and Gazprom. Tymoshenko then fired Khoroshkovsky, and Yushchenko appointed him deputy director of the SBU.

Naturally, BYuT MPs came to the rescue of Naftogaz.

Female reporter: Why aren’t you letting MPs in?

MP Serhiy Vlasenko (BYuT): Please let an MP through, dear friend! Keep your hands off me! Please let me though! I’m neither touching you nor the documents, nor am I interfering with the investigation activities. I want to enter the premises of national stock company NAK Naftogaz of Ukraine.

Naftogaz supporters: Let’s go!
Female reporter: They’re gonna squash me!

Naftogaz supporters: An MP is under attack! Calm down! Hands off, bastard! Let go! Let go! Let go! Calm down! I’m an MP! Get your hands off me! Let go! Calm down! Let go! What are you thinking? You think you can...you can get away with this? Is this Firtash’s security service or Ukraine’s security service, huh??? You’ve become the security service of the criminal oligarch Firtash!!! Where’s your honor, officers? Where’s your honor? Take it off and don’t be shy! Take your hood off! Don’t be shy! Take your hood off! You should be defending the Motherland! Let go! Hands off! Take your mask off! Take your mask off! Now! Take your mask off! Do it! Take your mask off!

Alfa officer: He’s on duty. Don’t yell at him.
Naftogaz supporters: You just don’t get it, do you? I’m on duty, too. We’re all on duty here, buddy. Identify yourself, you thug! Identify yourself! Identify yourself!

Alfa officer: Did you see it? He hit me!
Naftogaz supporters: Hit you in your vest?

Alfa officer: What vest? In the legs!
Naftogaz supporters: Cut the circus!

Alfa officer: If a person is an MP, it doesn’t mean they can hit another person.
Naftogaz supporters: Nobody hit you! You’re a provocateur!

Reporter: Why are you letting them go? On what grounds?
Alfa officer: I’m gonna get a certificate of battery.

This footage reminds me of how Yanukovych’s Anticrisis coalition repelled Yushchenko’s and Tymoshenko’s efforts to oust prosecutor general Piskun in May 2007, as part of their campaign for a snap parliamentary election.

It also reminds me of how Yushchenko and his team clashed with members of the Kuchma-Yanukovych regime in the Central Election Commission in October 2004.

Times have changed.

Today, it's Yushchenko and Tymoshenko who are clashing with each other, with special interests on both sides.

On Thursday, Alfa went to Ukrtransgaz, the company that uses “technical gas” to facilitate gas transit to Europe, but failed to seize any documents.

Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/115448.html
Original sources:
http://inter.ua
http://tsn.ua
http://kanalukraina.tv
http://www.1tv.com.ua
http://stb.ua
http://5.ua

Watch More of the Yushchenko-Tymoshenko Duel

Enjoy a few more moments from the Tuesday meeting of the RNBO (Rada natsionalnoyi bezpeky i oborony, or National Security and Defense Council).

President Yushchenko: First, the gas price is raised unjustifiably high, then validol is administered: must be hard on you, eh? We’re giving you a boundless loan so that you can pay for what you can’t cover. Then, this loan must be repaid. The budget will not repay this money. It’s understood. The National Bank of Ukraine will say that it has a reserve limit below which it will not go. There’s only one way to service the debt of national state monopoly NAK Naftogaz: its bankruptcy...a bankruptcy with all the assets to be sold toward the settlement of the loan.

PM Tymoshenko: In fact, an attempt was made today — and it’s in progress now — to break all the direct agreements between NAK Naftogaz and Gazprom and to revert to the corrupt shadowy intermediaries RosUkrEnergo. Just in case, I want to tell you that the 11 billion cubic meters of [technological] gas that state enterprise NAK Naftogaz and the entire Ukraine obtained at a discount price of $159.3 — they now want, via an RNBO resolution, to return it to RosUkrEnergo, a private entity, from which they plan to make a profit of at least 4 billion dollars.

Interestingly, the RNBO website does not offer an English version (not even a crappy one) and yet boasts a highly creative English-language URL: http://www.rainbow.gov.ua.

At least, the penny-wise and dollar-stupid leprechauns in the government drop some hints as to the whereabouts of the proverbial pot of gold.


Video uploaded from:
http://obozrevatel.com/_site/src/test/news_video.aspx?_id=285318
Original source:
http://5.ua

Putin, Tymoshenko Outline Gas Deal

Or 'Gas King' Meets 'Gas Princess'

They’re walking down the aisle of destiny. Tonight’s the night.

Russian PM Vladimir Putin: Good evening! We want to inform you that, in the course of the talks, we’ve managed to reach…an agreement stipulating that, in natural gas trade, Russia and Ukraine are switching to the European pricing formula. In doing so, we agreed that in 2009 the Ukrainian partners will receive a discount of 20 percent, provided that the discount transit rate for transporting Russian gas to European consumers through Ukraine’s territory in 2009 will remain at the 2008 price level. That said, we also agreed that, starting January 2010, we will entirely and completely switch to pricing and transit pricing in full compliance with European standards, without any confiscations and discounts pertaining either to the transit or to the gas prices.

Ukrainian PM Yulia Tymoshenko: Yes, the talks were quite uneasy, but we came to a mutual understanding that makes it possible to sign all the contractual documents. We gave orders to the chairman of NAK Naftogaz, and Vladimir Vladimirovich gave orders to the chairman of Gazprom, to have the entire set of documents prepared by Monday and to have everything framed as it was agreed upon today during the talks. Moreover, immediately after the signing of all the documents on the transit of gas, on the purchase of gas, all flows of gas transit to Europe, all gas supplies to Europe, will be restored. I think today the day has passed, in my opinion, in a rather productive manner, and the summit that was gathered…uh…it has produced its results and all mutual understandings have been reached.

Putin: In the near term — and the Ukrainian side has assured us of that — the transit will be restored. Thank you.

Tymoshenko: Thank you. Goodbye.

Don’t you just love her fighting spirit? She’s the queen of the night!

Video uploaded from: http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/110581.html
Original source: http://www.vesti.ru

Yushchenko, Tymoshenko Talk Gas

Enjoy this battlefield report.

Narrator: Ukraine is not to blame for Europe’s freezing. To get this point across to the European Union, President Yushchenko decided [Wednesday] to raise the gas issue in Poland. In a joint press conference with his Polish counterpart Lech Kaczyński, Yushchenko stated that the gas transit applications that Russia has been sending during the last two days cannot be fulfilled by the Ukrainian gas transit system technologically. Only if Russia provides 55 billion cubic meters of gas [annually] will the transit to Europe be renewed. Ukraine is ready to prove its non-involvement in the illegal siphoning of Russian gas in a court of law.

President Yushchenko: Ukraine has no complicity whatsoever in the non-delivery of Russian gas to European consumers. We do not accept any charges on this account. If our partners from Russia have any proof of this issue, we ask them to go to court, to a court of arbitration, as the existing agreement stipulates. The Ukrainian side did not turn off any technological faucets, did not take any steps whatsoever that would block the supply of Russian gas to Europe.

Narrator: The President of Poland, after a two-hour eye-to-eye conversation with Viktor Yushchenko, said that Poland trusts that Ukraine is not to blame for the gas conflict. Because the Polish side has not suffered in the conflict, Lech Kaczyński said that the country intends to sue neither Ukraine nor Russia.

One can hardly consider Ukraine beyond blame as long as we have middlemen like RosUkrEnergo that lack transparency.

But the brunt of the blame indeed goes to Russia. Ukraine cannot deliver the gas that Russia keeps playing with while dreaming of that pipeline.

Yushchenko called Medvedev Thursday, requesting that Russia supply 330 mcm of “technological” gas to ensure circulation in the pipeline and facilitate transit to Europe. (Putin later denied Ukraine’s request, suggesting that the matter could be resolved by an international consortium that would lease Ukraine’s pipeline or privatize it.)

Medvedev counter-offered that Ukraine supply Europe from its own reserves and swap those supplies for incoming Russian gas later. (Ukraine has not accepted this counteroffer.)

Russia wants Ukraine to pay $450/mcm and calls for a gas summit to be held in Moscow.

Ukraine, in turn, quotes the following price range, which it bases on Gazprom’s contracts with neighboring EU countries:

$192.6/mcm at a transit rate of $2.2/mcm/100 km
$218.8/mcm at a transit rate of $2.47/mcm/100 km
$235/mcm at a transit rate of $3.6/mcm/100 km
$250/mcm at a transit rate of $4.0/mcm/100 km

Ukraine also appeals to Russia to reach an interim agreement that would spell out the quantities of “technological” gas, and the mutually acceptable routes, needed for gas transit to Europe. As a gesture of goodwill, President Yushchenko said this:

President Yushchenko: Ukraine guarantees [the transit of] 300-410 million cubic meters of gas to consumers in Europe — even without a transit contract, even without charging transit fees until the matter is fully resolved — to secure the supply of this gas to European consumers.

Some believe PM Tymoshenko will fly to Moscow Saturday to break the ice and claim credit for the breakthrough — sponsored by Putin — who bet on her in Ukraine’s 2010 presidential election.

So far, Tymoshenko has not broken the patriotic line held together with Yushchenko.

PM Tymoshenko: 18 billion cubic meters of gas [reserves] make it possible for us to hold talks in absolute tranquility today, to hammer out, in absolute tranquility, a set of contracts between Ukraine and Russia that would completely secure the implementation of the [2008] memorandum signed between the governments of Ukraine and Russia. 18 billion cubic meters of gas will be enough for us to hold such talks in a calm state of mind, without undue haste.

I can only add that unless Ukraine speaks with one voice, there will be no win-win.

Videos uploaded from:
http://video.oboz.ua/movie.php?aWQ9MjM4MTUmdnQ9MA
http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/110380.html
http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/110402.html
Original video sources:
http://5.ua/newsline/236/0/56635/
http://inter.ua/
Other sources:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/83b51a08-e242-11dd-b1dd-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2009/1/16/87862.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2009/1/15/87812.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2009/1/15/87818.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2009/1/15/87801.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2009/1/15/87842.htm

More Gas Cartoons

The gas war rages on, spawning yet more cartoons.




The first cubic meters of gas have crossed the Ukrainian border
Border guard: "Hold it! Who goes there?"
Works by Russian cartoonist Sergey Elkin (spelled Yol-kin)












Sources:
http://doseng.org/raznoe/30439-karikatury-na-zlobu-dnja.html

Russia Strikes Ukraine With Surgical Gas Supplies

Russia on Tuesday resumed gas supplies to Europe.

Not exactly.

Russia on Tuesday sent technologically problematic quantities of gas on a route that made their transit to Europe problematic.

Objectives:

• Disrupt the pipeline’s operation
• Isolate eastern regions
• Drain Ukraine’s gas reserves
• Prove the pipeline “doesn’t work”
• Make the pipeline “the problem” in the eyes of the EU
  
• Put pressure on Ukraine to sell the pipeline Belarus-style

It’s that simple.

“From Russia with gas,” as the saying goes.

P.S. DEPA, the Greek energy company, plans to sue Gazprom. Meanwhile, Moscow blames Washington for “pulling the strings” in the gas conflict.

Sources:
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2009/1/14/87715.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2009/1/14/87721.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2009/1/13/87653.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2009/1/13/87665.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2009/1/14/87689.htm
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2009/1/14/87680.htm

Ukrainians Cast the Gas Dispute in Collage

Battle of the Brands: Gazprom gets the finger from Naftogaz

As Russia demands the European rate for gas — while paying half the European rate for transit, cutting off supplies to Europe, and painting Ukraine as unreliable — some Ukrainians fight back.

Or, rather, paint back, as this collection of collage illustrates.


A butt-shaped Gazprom lighter logo


A collage based on a Tymoshenko wallpaper and a verse from Sergei Mikhalkov’s children's poem “А что у вас?” (“And What Have You Got?”):

- А у нас в квартире газ!
А у вас?
- А у нас водопровод!
Вот!

In our apartment we’ve got gas!
And what have you got?
We’ve got plumbing!
Ain’t that something?

Two years ago, the verse became a witty household joke describing the Russia-Ukraine gas war(s):

- А у нас в квартире газ!
А у вас?
- А у нас газопровод!
Вот!

In our dwelling we’ve got gas!
And what have you got?
We’ve got a pipeline!
Doesn't it sound fine?

[translation mine]


La Lupa Cremlina: The Kremlin Wolf breastfeeding the pro-Russian Party of Regions and the Communist Party
A Ukrainian take on the Capitoline Wolf (La lupa capitolina)


Gasmen at Rest: a parody on Vasily Perov’s Hunters at Rest
Alexander Medvedev: “And then I come out with: ‘Pay 450 bucks for a thousand cubic meters!’”
Vladimir Putin: “Once upon a time, the Ukes decided to get rid of RosUkrEnergo…”
Alexei Miller: “Straight from under the pine I whine: ‘Pump that gas to Europe for free! But don’t you take any of it!’


The Vladimir Putin production center presents:
an album by the group Gazprom
“The Gas Oldies”
New bonus track from Alexei Miller: “$450”
(Pictured: Alexei Miller, Sergei Kupriyanov, Alexander Medvedev)


The Lord of the Gass: They're Taking Away Our Precccious


The Gazfather
Sources:
http://durdom.in.ua/site/photo/id/3679.phtml
http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/109334.html
http://censor.net.ua/go/offer/ResourceID/109379.html
http://durdom.in.ua/site/photo/id/3675.phtml
http://durdom.in.ua/site/photo/id/3671.phtml
http://durdom.in.ua/site/photo/id/3669.phtml
http://durdom.in.ua/site/photo/id/3677.phtml