Chernomyrdin is no longer an ambassador

It is still unknown who will become the Russian ambassador to Ukraine instead of the resigned of Viktor Chernomyrdin. Earlier, the newspaper Kommersant-Ukraine, citing sources in the Ukrainian and Russian Foreign Affairs, reported that Grigory Karasin, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, who oversees relations with Ukraine will take the vacant post. However, soon Interfax, referring to sources in well -informed circles, said that information about the possible purpose of Karasin is not true. The sources refused to name the possible candidate of the new ambassador.

The candidacy of the future Russian ambassador to Ukraine is of particular interest, since Moscow is now actively defending its interests in this country, where the presidential election will be held in late 2009 - early 2010. Among the possible contender, the media called the St. Petersburg governor Valentin Matvienko, the Governor of the Moscow Region Boris Gromov and the Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation in NATO Dmitry Rogozin.

On Thursday evening, the Kremlin press service said that President Dmitry Medvedev withdrew Viktor Chernomyrdin from the post of ambassador in Ukraine to appoint him special representative of economic cooperation with the CIS countries.

It was reported that the 71-year-old Chernomyrdin himself filed a petition for a resignation, complaining about health problems. He worked for 8 years as an ambassador to Ukraine. According to some reports, Chernomyrdin was resigned in the winter, it was then that the media appeared that he had undergone a complex operation and would be withdrawn from Ukraine due to health reasons, and instead of it, the Governor Boris Gromov will be the ambassador.

However, then the resignation of Chernomyrdin did not take place. There is a version that she was prevented by a scandal with the threat of Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry to declare the Russian ambassador to Persona Non Grad for, as it seemed to Kyiv, the offensive statements of Chernomyrdin against the Ukrainian authorities in an interview with the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda. The resignation of Chernomyrdin at this moment would look like consent with the claims of Kyiv.

In an interview, the ambassador, among other things, stated that “one cannot agree with this Ukrainian leadership. Other people will come - let's see. ” According to him, it is impossible to trust in the Ukrainian leadership, even Viktor Yanukovych. Viktor Yushchenko, who is “dog” with Yulia Tymoshenko, a Russian ambassador, known for his bright aphorisms, gave a rather ill-owned characteristic: “It seems like a normal man. He draws such a warehouse, collects shards (a hint of ear that Yushchenko was collecting antiques. - “Polit.ru”). He can walk around some kind of hemp for three hours, examine him, fantasize. At home he picked up this - mills, millstones, to huge ones! I drove windmills in Kyiv. ”

Chernomyrdin was the Prime Minister of Russia from 1992 to 1998, participated in the work of the CIS structures, and headed the pro-government faction “Our House-Russia” in the State Duma of the third convocation. In 1999, he served as the special representative of the Russian President Yeltsin to resolve the situation in Yugoslavia. The ambassador to Ukraine has been working since 2001, for this period, relations between Moscow and Kiev had to cool, where Viktor Yushchenko oriented to the west came to power in 2004. Since that time, the annual Russian-Ukrainian gas wars followed.

Relations with the CIS countries that Chernomyrdin now have to engage in, recently, are also difficult to develop. This week, Russia announced the intention to negotiate the entry into the World Trade Organization together with Kazakhstan and Belarus, with which Moscow plans to form a single customs union.