Daily Journal:

There is now a virtual stalemate in Ukraine. A constitutional majority within the Party of Regions and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, the creation of which could stabilize the system of power itself, help with constitutional reforms and, in principle, reduce the degree of tension in Ukrainian society for some time, cannot be created for a number of reasons, including, in particular, the political alliance of President Yushchenko and his inner circle with businessman Rinat Akhmetov and the allies of this Ukrainian businessman in the Party of Regions. On the other hand, it is clear that the coalition of “Our Ukraine” and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, even if it is created, firstly, does not have a majority in the Ukrainian parliament, and secondly, even if it receives this majority by joining this union Litvin's bloc, it is clear that this will not reduce the degree of tension between Viktor Yushchenko himself and Yulia Tymoshenko - only another participant in this confrontation will be Vladimir Litvin, who, in the conditions of his bloc joining the new coalition, will have to give the post of speaker, which, of course, will create for him additional levers of political influence on ongoing processes. Therefore, it is clear that this kind of coalition, unlike the coalition of the Party of Regions and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, will only mean a new round of tension in relations between the president and the prime minister. Although I would not idealize the coalition of BYuT and the Party of Regions, because it is clear that their union is a confrontation, only on the line Tymoshenko-Yanukovych, Tymoshenko-Akhmetov and so on - these people can find a common language with each other, only for now they are fighting with Viktor Yushchenko, but then their interests, naturally, diverge.

In this sense, the most logical way out of the situation is early elections of the Ukrainian parliament, which in themselves, naturally, will not give anything, but, nevertheless, may allow us to hope for some kind of reformatting of power. The population obviously does not want these elections, and most voters are already beginning to guess what has been known since the victory of Viktor Yushchenko in the 2004 presidential elections: that a victory achieved at such a high price opens a period of total instability in Ukrainian society, and Ultimately, this political instability will lead to a global economic crisis, a deterioration in the standard of living of the population and will put an end to not only Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic ambitions for a long time, but also the desire of its population to live in dignity. Naturally, therefore, the population demands stability from the authorities, but the authorities cannot provide them with this stability. So Tymoshenko’s current actions are, if you like, just preparation for these early elections. She wants to show her electorate that she, like all other citizens of Ukraine, does not want elections. It wants to demonstrate that it is not a destroyer of the coalition with Our Ukraine, despite the vote it took together with the Party of Regions, which was intended to significantly limit the powers and political activity of Mr. Yushchenko and his secretariat. But at the same time, her opinion does not in any way influence the further course of events, because hardly anyone today in Kyiv seriously believes in the possibility of forming a capable government after the severe conflict that occurred between President Yushchenko and Prime Minister Tymoshenko. So it seems to me that for now we are present exclusively in tactical actions.

There is another very important point that must also be taken into account: Mrs. Tymoshenko always explains her reluctance to condemn Russia for aggression against Georgia not so much with political motives (that is, agreement with the Russian point of view that Moscow’s actions were just a response to the aggressive actions of Tbilisi and to Mikheil Saakashvili’s attempt to carry out ethnic cleansing of Ossetians in South Ossetia), but by negotiations on gas. This is a rather vulnerable position. Mrs. Tymoshenko argues that if the Verkhovna Rada adopts a resolution that condemns Moscow, then in this situation it is no longer possible to count on any preferential gas prices. But we know very well that, in principle, a certain price formula has already been determined, that there is no need to expect any significant concessions from Moscow, because this price formula is related to the price set by the Central Asian states from which Ukraine buys gas, and that rather Just from January, the Ukrainian economy will experience a shock, which will lead to a shock for the Ukrainian population in the form of higher prices, including the price of energy consumed by the population itself, and so on. Mrs. Tymoshenko understands this perfectly. But she needs to give the Ukrainian population the impression with these motivations that she tried her best to achieve preferential prices for Ukraine, and as a result of the irresponsible actions of Viktor Yushchenko, his entourage and his political bloc, the Ukrainian population received the price that leads to the collapse of the Ukrainian economy , at least in some of its industries. In fact, this is not entirely true, because no matter what Yulia Tymoshenko does and no matter what resolutions the Ukrainian parliament adopts, the fate of these sectors of the Ukrainian economy and the population of Ukraine has already been decided. This is due to global economic trends and what is happening in the energy sector.