Kommersant: “Russia finds a strategic ally”
Presenting Yulia Tymoshenko
Talks between Prime Ministers Vladimir Putin of Russia and Yulia Tymoshenko of Ukraine took place at Novo-Ogaryovo yesterday. ANDREI KOLESNIKOV, a special Kommersant correspondent, after listening to the Prime Ministers discuss events that preceded their negotiations, understood that Moscow had found its key Ukrainian partner.
Ms Tymoshenko climbed out of her car at Novo-Ogaryovo looking neat and fresh, and to say that she had any misadventures on her way would be a frank exaggeration. One would think that she had stepped out of her home only a second before, though after going to great lengths to decide on her outfit. Its tones were autumnal, like fallen leaves, the dress, the belt with an eye-catching buckle, the shoes on modest 10- to 12-cm heels ... and even her hair, which also appeared to have yellowed, as ears of corn do before they are harvested.
Ms Tymoshenko looked fresh indeed. Political trials work wonders for her appearance (it is hard to say what happens on the inside), and the more drab others become, the more radiant she grows.
It was in the fireplace room of Novo-Ogaryovo that she had her one-to-one meeting with Mr Putin. Ms Tymoshenko entered, paused, and made a slight motion of courtesy towards Mr Putin. Perhaps she failed to notice her movement, but it was there. In a sense, she behaved like a maid of honour who had walked straight into the presence of royalty and seemed a bit taken aback, though some elementary coquetry could not be ruled out. They started their negotiations before saying anything to each other.
For the first three minutes, Mr Putin spoke without lifting his eyes on Ms Tymoshenko, as if fearing that if he looked at her, he would be struck like so many Greek heroes were when they looked upon certain characters of Greek mythology.
Mr Putin quickly overcame the seeming embarrassment, however, and a few minutes later was calmly gazing at the Ukrainian Prime Minister; it helped since he was saying things that came as surprise to her.
Mr Putin said that, now being a WTO member, Ukraine faced at least one real problem.
"You, as a professional dealing with economic matters for a long time, surely understand (Mr Putin agrees that Ms Tymoshenko is a professional, but is not sure she has the grasp of the problems - A.K.) that certain problems sometimes occur. Our experts say that, once a country joins the WTO, customs tariffs become more liberal, and we have considered that cheap imports would replace many commodities on Ukraine's domestic market and might spill over into Russia ... Our estimates put their volume at $5 billion."
It did not look, though, that Mr Putin had frightened the Ukrainian Prime Minister by telling her the Ukrainian commodity producers would suffer a good deal by entering the WTO.
"I understand," Mr Putin said, "that agreements being reached today (when a presidential election is looming ahead in Ukraine - A.K.) have an uncertain future. We presume, however, that vital agreements will not be reviewed."
Mr Putin had planned his speech well. It consisted of proposals, warnings and regrets. He knew his ultimate objective and was now indicating the direction his argument was to take.
"It is a pity that Ukraine has supplied weapons to the South Ossetian conflict zone," he said. "This is a special case, and one in which states should tread lightly. But I do not want to go into these issues today ... I suggest we take up economic matters ... now that winter is approaching (Mr Putin set up another indicator) and we need to find the final answer to the issue of energy supplies to Ukraine, considering our difficult dialogue with Central Asian partners."
Ms Tymoshenko said Russia was an "absolutely strategic partner".
"I think," she added, "that we will be wise and responsible enough to deal with the very complicated issues that occasionally arise between our countries." (Mr Putin nodded twice in acknowledgement - A.K.) "I know the situation surrounding Georgia is not simple, but we want to achieve a peaceful settlement and see that calm spread everywhere."
Ms Tymoshenko was speaking neither as a technical prime minister, nor as a prime minister in general. She was already fighting an election campaign (and she was not alone: ahead of her visit, the newspaper Izvestia came out with sensational disclosures showing that Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko was arming Georgia and at the same time disarming Ukraine).
Ms Tymoshenko then transitioned to gas prices. She said, "there is every ground and every possibility for strategic agreement on market prices."
She said that she in effect agreed with the Russian proposals to raise the price for gas supplied to Ukraine (it is common knowledge that Gazprom supplies gas to Europe at a market price, which as a rule is no less than $500 per thousand cu m). But the impression proved wrong, for Ms Tymoshenko immediately corrected herself:
"I mean a gradual switchover to market prices, to create a basis that will be lasting and immune to impacts ... Europe needs this, too."
She told Mr Putin that only a gradual process would suit Ukraine, and Europe for that matter, and that it would do no good to introduce market prices immediately. This was a bargaining position that she planned to uphold at extended talks.
"Our energy people," Mr Putin said, "worked energetically before negotiations. "They also worked corporatively" (that is to say, in a corporative spirit).
It now remained for the Prime Ministers to act as their titles suggest.
The one-on-one talks went on and on: one hour, two hours, three hours ... Meanwhile, Ukrainian delegation members not involved in negotiations were recovering from a nervy flight from Kiev to Moscow. The flight was nothing if not dramatic.
According to one of the members of the Ukrainian delegation, the Ukrainian President's Tu-134 had already taken off and headed for Lvov when Ms Tymoshenko was only just entering the airfield tarmac in a car. Also on board the presidential plane were journalists and one of the ministers. It was well on its way when passengers of the Prime Minister's aircraft began preparing to board, sitting according to cards that were lying on the seats.
All of a sudden, the President's aircraft reappeared, having been absent for barely half an hour. The first explanation was that it had developed engine trouble, then was later changed to trouble with flaps, and then ailerons ... After a few minutes, it appeared the plane had virtually no functioning parts left.
The Ukrainian President could have flown on a reserve Il-62, but it had already been made available to the visiting king of Sweden, who flew to Nikolayev on it. A few minutes later, the Prime Minister's delegation was told that the Ukrainian President was commandeering their Il-62.
Right away, they began to think that there had been some underlying motive. The President could have used, for example, an An-74, which was parked nearby and was not even on a stand-by, though it was known well before the King's visit to Ukraine that he would fly to Nikolayev.
Ms Tymoshenko eventually flew on the An-74, which is in effect a cargo plane that has been converted for flying VIPs. The Prime Minister's delegation arrived safely, while journalists from the Prime Minister's pool went to Moscow aboard a government Yak-40.
"Unfortunately, no board rations were loaded," sighed one of the delegation's members. "But, no matter - we'll compensate on the way back."
According to eyewitnesses, Viktor Yushchenko did not invite the journalists or the Education Minister back to his Il-62 and left for Lvov practically alone.
Meanwhile, the one-on-one negotiations had already lasted unusually long.
I spied Gazprom chief Alexei Miller getting some air together with his Ukrainian counterparts. Asked if the meeting could produce some specific agreements, he said there was a memorandum drafted, but whether or not it would be published depended on many factors. The main one was if and whether Ms Tymoshenko would detail how the Ukrainian Government intended to pay its gas arrears.
In Mr Miller's view, a concrete price might not reach the discussion stage at these negotiations.
"The first thing," Mr Miller said, "is to agree on a way of repaying Ukraine's gas debt of almost $2 billion, and only then to discuss the closure of Rosukrenergo and direct gas supplies to Ukraine. How they intend to wipe out these arrears is, for the moment, beyond us."
However, some effort in this direction was made, according to another negotiator from Russia. Gazprom tried to persuade Deutsche Bank to issue Ukraine's Naftogaz a $2-billion loan. The German bank agreed to discuss the issue only if they got guarantees from Gazprom, whereas Gazprom could not understand why it should guarantee the loan. The company seemed to suggest that Ukraine could fall back on its daily growing economy.
However, my source said that Deutsche Bank would not give the loan, for love or money.
"It's the crisis," he sighed. "It reaches everywhere. It makes money scarce."
By 9 p.m. it came out that a gas cooperation memorandum would be signed, after all. That is to say, the debt issue had been discussed and the Ukrainian Prime Minister had made some suggestions that interested Mr Putin. Meanwhile, the text of the memorandum made no mention of them. Ms Tymoshenko only said that a working group had been set up to look for ways to "protect the domestic markets in Ukraine and Russia" (against the WTO, evidently - A.K.), and then focused on the main points of the memorandum: a switch to market prices for gas that would be staggered and take three years, and a rise in transit prices for Russian gas across Ukraine ("Our countries do not need a shock therapy," Ms Tymoshenko said).
The memorandum lost some of its luster, however, after a Ukrainian female reporter asked Ms Tymoshenko how she responded, while signing the memorandum, to a high treason accusation from Ukrainian law enforcement bodies concerning her talks in Moscow.
Ms Tymoshenko took the news, it seemed, light-mindedly - she is used to unorthodox and expansive forms of political struggle in Ukraine.
Mr Putin, meanwhile, appeared to be hugely amused whenever the subject of an aircraft commandeered from the Prime Minister surfaced at the news conference.
"What a rogue, snatching away a plane," he would laugh.
But then he turned serious. Asked if Russia was counting on Ms Tymoshenko in a presidential campaign and no longer looking up to Mr Yushchenko, Mr Putin at first said he would accept any choice made by the Ukrainian people, but then began speaking more freely.
Judging by their past history, the Russian Prime Minister would never forgive Mr Yushchenko if he really sold arms to Georgia and if, moreover, Ukrainian specialists handled these arms. To Mr Putin, this is too personal a matter; at least one had that impression when listening to him. This is something one never forgives, in his mind, and he seemed to have drawn up his final conclusions and passed his ultimate verdict:
"A few months ago it could never occur to anyone that Russians and Ukrainians could fight each other," he said. "But this happened. And the person who made it happen blundered appallingly ... "
Later, a member of the Ukrainian delegation told me that immediately after the news conference, Ms Tymoshenko was driven to the Ukrainian residence on the Vorobyovy Hills to wait for President Dmitry Medvedev to arrive from St Petersburg.
Ms Tymoshenko, Mr Medvedev and Mr Putin met, according to Kommersant, far into the night, at one of the residences outside Moscow.
