November 15 (RIA Novosti)
Kommersant
Ukraine May Be Forced to Seek Russia’s Help
Two weeks after the parliamentary election, bread prices are rising in Ukraine and gas and electricity prices and housing and utility fees will soon follow suit. The Ukrainian currency, the hryvnia, has fallen against the U.S. dollar, but officials claim the situation is no worse than in Greece.
Ukraine’s biggest bread supplier Kievhleb has raised the prices of two of the most popular bread brands by 17 percent and 9.7 percent because prices for gas rose by 52.4 percent, for electricity by 25.2 percent and for transportation by 32.5 percent. Bread in the provinces costs even more than in Kiev.
Both ordinary people and opposition politicians think that Kiev residents are being punished for supporting opposition candidates.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Communal Services announced that utility rates will be gradually raised to match the level of costs (that means by 40 percent-50 percent). The government has promised compensation payments for socially disadvantaged groups, but this has not allayed public concerns.
The minimum wage in Ukraine is 1,118 hryvnias ($140). Teachers and doctors receive slightly more than the minimum wage, and there have recently been instances of wage arrears in Kiev.
In early October, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov promised to increase teachers’ salaries to 3,000 hryvnias ($375), but the delays in payment are leading to a depreciation of the promised money.
Experts say the reasons for the price rises are economic rather than political. Chairman of the State Treasury Service Serhiy Kharchenko said “the situation is difficult but no more so than in 2008 or the current situation in Greece, Romania or Spain.”
The main reason is that the Ukrainian economy is not growing and capital inflow has dried up. The negative balance of foreign trade increased by 19.7 percent in January-September 2012, to $11.47 billion. Azarov admitted last week that it is becoming increasingly difficult to sell Ukrainian goods on foreign markets and that Russian gas prices are a heavy burden.
Experts say the situation has become critical, especially because a large proportion of the country’s international reserves have been squandered on elections. The National Bank’s reserves have decreased by 15.7 percent to $27 billion this year. Production in the steel and construction industries has fallen, and the budget deficit is above the target figure. Ukraine’s economic growth forecast has been reviewed from 2.3 percent to barely 1 percent. Former Economics Minister Viktor Suslov has predicted price rises and a gradual depreciation of the national currency.
Ukraine is holding out hopes that the IMF will come to its rescue and seems ready to follow the IMF’s recommendations on raising tariffs and cutting social spending. The National Bank is considering a floating exchange rate for the hryvnia, and the ministries are planning to raise the price of utilities to 100 percent of their cost.
Political analysts predict riots and say that if the West denies assistance to Ukraine, the government could turn to Russia for help.
Moskovskiye Novosti
Civil Activists Work Out Social Agenda, Test Democratic Tools
Russian civil activists have matured over the past year, say analysts: they have worked out a social agenda, chosen political leaders and tested out some democratic procedures.
Analysts have different views of the reasons behind the recent civil protests. Denis Volkov from the Levada Center said the rallies were sparked both from a conviction that “this political system can’t change but is impossible to tolerate,” and general discontent caused by the economic downturn.
Sociologist Alexander Bikbov from an independent think tank studying civil protest disagrees, arguing that people rallied for “a new stability based on fairness.”
Street protests were a product of two decades of almost unlimited personal freedoms, where the people agreed to stay away from politics in exchange for the government’s non-interference in their lives, said Maria Lipman from the Carnegie Moscow Center.
This pact was first broken by “modernized citizens.” The government retaliated by allowing the church to interfere in schools, attempting to impose specific values, restrict the arts and introduce bans. Lipman termed the government’s response “countermodernization,” pointing out that the term modernization is now absent from Putin’s speeches.
However, political decisions that split society, dividing people into “loyal patriots” and “unpatriotic enemies” were a mistake, she said.
She also believes that Russian society had learned some civil skills before the political protests were launched. They practiced “project thinking” while fighting the wildfires in 2010 – a civil initiative unrelated to politics.
“We have a very specific task – to support wildfire victims, or save a historical monument; we know what to do and we will do it,” is how she explains project thinking. People have seen that it works; now they can see a political cause that is worth applying themselves to.
Bikbov, however, doubts that project thinking can be applied in politics. He believes that most protesters showed a lack of understanding of politics or even consistency in their actions.
He quoted one February 4 protester: “I’m going to vote for Prokhorov. But I also insist that independent candidates should be registered, such as Alexei Navalny. As to what I can do – I will work as an observer at the presidential election, possibly from Yabloko.” This protester seemed to be simultaneously supporting three very different candidates, Bikbov said.
Whatever the case, sociologists believe the protests have helped formulate a very useful model of controlling political leaders, protest leaders at least, Volkov said. People have tried other democratic tools too, such as roundtables and accommodating diverse interests, and have seen that they work, he added.
Surveys show increased confidence in independent politicians. While in December 2011 civil activists who are not politicians topped the popularity ratings, in September politicians overtook them. The same trend can be seen in the election results for the Opposition Coordination Council, Volkov said.
Bikbov agrees that people have given up the earlier euphoria for the sake of informed political action. “What journalists describe as ‘rally fatigue’ is in reality a growing awareness that political changes cannot happen overnight,” he said.
Moskovsky Komsomolets
Electrician Survives 40-Meter Fall
Ivan Sobolev, 24, fell about 40 meters at a construction site and survived after landing in a pile of sand.
The accident occurred at about 1:30 a.m. last night at a construction site in the village of Povarovo, in Moscow Region’s Solnechnogorsk district. The electrician slipped and fell some 40 meters to land in a pile of sand. Half an hour later, the young man was rushed to the ICU at a district hospital.
Sobolev has a broken and dislocated arm and is currently being treated in intensive care. The doctors say his condition is stable.
“It’s unbelievable,” a police source told MK. “It was raining yesterday, and the sand was wet so it could only have softened the fall a little. It’s a miracle.”
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