Crimea District

Yuri Luzhkov does not want to “lose Sevastopol”

Foreign policy ambitions do not allow Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov to calmly look at events in Russia's neighbors. The capital's mayor, who has already been declared persona non grata in Ukraine and whom official Tbilisi clearly does not want to see even near the Georgian borders, yesterday again distinguished himself in the field of public diplomacy. During a discussion of the city program to support compatriots abroad, Mr. Luzhkov once again burst out with harsh criticism of the Ukrainian authorities, who are implementing a policy in their country of “squeezing out the Russian factor.” And the mayor’s speech clearly differed in tone from the restrained negotiations recently held in Moscow between the Prime Ministers of Russia and Ukraine Vladimir Putin and Yulia Tymoshenko , which also touched upon the fate of the Black Sea Fleet.

According to Mr. Luzhkov, the situation of Russian-speaking citizens in Ukraine is nothing less than a “moral blow” to Russians. “At least I personally experience this when I see what is being done there in relation to the Russian language and culture,” explained the capital’s mayor. - After all, it comes to the point that Russian teachers are paid much less than other subject teachers teaching lessons in Ukrainian. And this is where the entire left bank thinks and speaks Russian!”

At the same time, apparently, Yuri Luzhkov is not at all worried about Kyiv’s reaction to these speeches. “I could be made ineligible twice!” - he demonstrated his attitude to the decisions of the Ukrainian authorities and stated that such diplomatic sanctions do not frighten him. The speech of the mayor, who is one of the leaders of United Russia, was addressed not to Ukrainian leaders, but to the Kremlin and the White House. “I can hardly imagine the prospects if we lose Crimea and Sevastopol, although we will try to prevent this, and I think the country’s leadership understands this. But what is being done in Ukraine is absolutely inconsistent with the 1998 Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership. I believe that our country needs to make a decision to end, not extend, this treaty. This is a matter of principle,” Mr. Luzhkov made recommendations to the country’s leadership. Accusations of the national elite of Ukraine of using “Russophobia as the basis of policy” and “squeezing out the Russian language from all spheres of life - from government agencies to kindergartens” were also supported by the chairman of the Russian community of Crimea, deputy chairman of the Supreme Council of the autonomous republic, Sergei Tsekhov, who was invited to the capital’s mayor’s office. He stated the need for “consolidation of Russian compatriots” in Crimea as the only support for strengthening Russian positions in the region. Mr. Tsekhov asked that when distributing the budget of the city program to support all Russian-speaking foreign countries, first of all, pay attention to the closest neighbors. “Financing of Russian diasporas in Ukraine, this cradle of Russian Orthodoxy, is not increasing as much as we would like, but we would like more,” complained the representative of Crimea. “Priority should be given to Ukraine and Crimea in order to make it an integral part of Russia and the eternal base of the Black Sea Fleet.”

The three-year budget of the Moscow program for supporting Russian diasporas in 2009-2011 will amount to 804 million rubles. And the fact that, along with the Baltic states, whose Russian-speaking residents Moscow paid special attention to, Ukraine will be represented in the foreign policy of the capital’s authorities in a “special way,” Yuri Luzhkov guaranteed yesterday. Actually, it is the strengthening of the “Ukrainian vector” of the mayor’s office’s foreign policy, as well as the fact that now the city’s department of foreign economic and international relations will pay more attention not only to former compatriots who left Russia at a conscious age, but also to their descendants, and are the main innovations of the third according to the program for the assistance of compatriots adopted by the mayor's office.

As the developer of the program, head of the department Georgy Muradov, admitted in a conversation with a Vremya Novostey correspondent, if its funding has increased compared to previous years, it has only taken into account the inflation index. And expenditure items have not changed significantly: 42% of the program budget will go to promoting the Russian language and culture, 23% to supporting national associations and church parishes, the remaining funds will be divided into providing complex medical care (14%), information policy (8% ), etc. Mr. Muradov estimated the funds allocated by Moscow at 15% of the necessary financial injections to feed the Russian diaspora as one of the tools of “public diplomacy” and the creation of “a powerful tool for realizing Russian interests.” However, the mayor's office also admits that money invested in the diaspora is not a guarantee of the success of Russian foreign policy, even in combination with loud statements by Yuri Luzhkov. “In this case, politics cannot be measured by numbers; everything depends on global world principles of influence,” says Georgy Muradov.

Yulia KHOMCHENKO