Mr Yushchenko said he expects Russia to stir up separatist sentiment on Ukraine’s Russian-leaning Crimean peninsula. But he ruled out escalation into a military conflict of the kind seen last summer in Georgia, another pro-western ally on post-Soviet turf. Moscow continues to firmly back the independence aspirations of two Georgian breakaway enclaves, one of which, South Ossetia, was at the centre of the war. Many in Kiev fear a similar scenario in Crimea.
Referring to last January’s natural gas stand-off between Kiev and Moscow, which disrupted European supplies, and relentless Russian warnings that recession-battered Ukraine was unable to pay its gas bill, Mr Yushchenko said: “There are a lot of hidden and cynical schemes being played through information airwaves, aimed at discrediting Ukraine” in the eyes of Europe and the world.
RA has a post on President Yushchenko's comments in the Financial Times, the source of the above quotes. Its no surprise that things are "looking pretty bad" for the president, his popularity has remained in the low digits for some time now. He couldn't force new elections last year and he hasn't managed to change the Tymoshenko-Putin gas deal. His politically irrelevant. There are other polls, but they all point to low approval ratings for the president. Perhaps he'll do what Leonid Kravchuk did after he lost to Kuchma and run for a seat in the Rada?
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