| Russians are being forced out of the peninsula After Leonid Kuchma leaves the political arena, a redistribution of property in Crimea is inevitable. The struggle for power in the autonomous republic has also intensified: Yushchenko’s people are now vying for the highest positions. Recently, rallies were held in Simferopol, the participants of which demanded the resignation of the head of the government of the autonomy, Sergei Kunitsyn. The organizer of the action is the regional association “For Ukraine, for Yushchenko” and its leader Viktor Nevirko. And on January 29, under the chairmanship of the head of the local Yushchenko election headquarters, Valery Probey-Golova, the Forum of Democratic Forces of Crimea was held scandalously. Chairman of the Supreme Council Boris Deitch, invited to the forum, was immediately booed by representatives of the organization “It’s Time.” Local politicians such as Ilmi Umerov and Mustafa Dzhemilev are also vying for positions.
The last time there was a major division of property in Crimea was in 2003, when the Prosecutor General's Office opened a dozen criminal cases against high-ranking officials, including the mayor of Alushta and the chief architect of Yalta. The escalating war against corruption was then considered a consequence of the struggle between “influence groups”: the Donetsk one, which intensified with the arrival of Donetsk governor Viktor Yanukovych to the post of prime minister in 2002; Crimean, led by Kuchma’s former son-in-law Igor Franchuk; as well as the united Social Democrats under the leadership of the then head of the presidential administration Viktor Medvedchuk.
Valentina Semenyuk, the most likely contender for the head of the State Property Fund of Ukraine, has already announced her intention to challenge a number of Kuchma’s “privatization” decrees, which were issued under the heading “not for publication.” “We are mainly talking about sanatoriums and boarding houses,” said Semenyuk. Without a doubt, we are also talking about sanatoriums with mineral springs on the lands of the southern coast of Crimea - a three-kilometer strip of land near the Black Sea coast. Land that can only be bought there “in addition » to a sanatorium, housing or industrial facility, is sold for fabulous money: 1 hectare costs from 1 million dollars.
It is possible that this will also affect Russian investors developing Crimean lands. Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov asked for the allocation of large plots of land for the construction of Russian sanatoriums. Moscow also approached the Crimean authorities with a proposal to privatize sanatoriums, which in Soviet times belonged to the USSR Council of Ministers. However, the former speaker of the Supreme Council of Crimea, Leonid Grach, in an interview with Vremya Novostey, suggested that even under Kuchma, Russian business in Crimea “felt uncomfortable for the last three years,” since in fact, “Kuchma pursued a “shadow” anti-Russian policy. A number of Russian companies did not receive the land they were promised. The same Luzhkov has not visited Crimea since 2002. A number of Ukrainian-Russian projects were “inundated” - for example, the joint automotive industry conceived by Mr. Deripaska with Krymavtogaz.”
But in Kyiv they are confident that the fact of ousting Russian companies from the peninsula will be unprovable. Russian companies with property in Crimea have Ukrainian legal addresses, so the Ukrainian government will claim that this property is not Russian property.
YOUR OPINION Svetlana STEPANENKO, Kyiv, Ivan GORBUNOV |
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