Ukraine: Ternopil Regional Council Election

Global Voices Online
Sunday, March 22, 2009

Regional council election in the western Ukrainian region of Ternopil took place on March 15, following much political drama.

Ukrainian parliament set the date for the snap election on Dec. 18, 2008 (UKR). On March 3, 2009, 141 MPs from Yulia Tymoshenko's Bloc (BYuT) and 147 MPs from Victor Yanukovych's Party of Regions voted to cancel the election. One of the parties running in the election - Oleh Tyahnybok's All-Ukrainian Union Svoboda (Freedom) - appealed the parliament's decision in court, and won the appeal on March 11. The next day, BYuT appealed the pro-election ruling, but lost on March 14, and, later that day, announced that it would not take part in the election. The Ternopil regional election commission, however, refused to take BYuT off the ballots.

Tyahnybok's Svoboda won the election (34.69%, 153,038 votes, 50 seats out of 120), presidential chief of staff Victor Baloha’s United Center Party came in second (14.2%, 63,143 votes, 20 seats), followed by Yanukovych's Party of Regions (9.8%, 41,303 votes, 14 seats) - and BYuT finished fourth (8.12%, 36,056 votes, 12 seats).

In the previous Ternopil Regional Council election (UKR), held in March 2006, BYuT won 34.49% of the votes, taking 54 seats, pro-presidential People's Union "Our Ukraine" had 31.27% of the votes and 48 seats, while neither the Party of Regions, nor Svoboda were represented in the Ternopil regional council then.

In a March 16 interview (UKR) with Ukrainska Pravda, Tyahnybok announced his plans to run for president of Ukraine in 2010.

Vakhtang Kipiani - LJ user vaxo, a Ukrainian journalist of Georgian descent, who ran (UKR) unsuccessfully for Ukrainian parliament in 2006 on Vitali Klitschko's Pora-PRP ticket - wrote this (UKR) about the results of the Ternopil regional council election:

I'm not going to congratulate anyone - because 34 percent for xenophobes and ultra-patriots isn't an event that fills one with joy. Inefficiency of corrupt and dishonest politicians who call themselves democrats always produces various dragons - from the red ones to brown.

I don't see anything dangerous about it, it's nothing but the symptoms of an illness, not the illness itself. A regional council, fortunately, isn't a place where the ["Protection of Ukrainians Program" - UKR] or whatever it's called can be carried out.

If the democratic, liberal right is missing in Ternopil region - this is when Tyahnybok's guys come to that spot. This was going to happen. And it has happened.

P.S. Ten percent of the [Party of Regions people] in the [fine Ternopil region] - that's [sick], too.

Below are a few comments (UKR) to Kipiani's post:

mykolap:

They've voted for those who are visible locally - it's all logical.

sunshine_ok:

That's true that this time local personalities have got the votes, not Yulia, or Vitya, or someone else. [...]

And here is a similar observation (UKR) from LJ user ollko:

[...] In Ternopil region, Svoboda and United Center have basically done open list voting. There were no "outsiders" who [had paid to be included on the party lists]. Their people are known in districts and villages. This is one more explanation of the result they got. People are tired of brands and want specific individuals. [...]

Russia, U.S.: Peregruzka Perezagruzka

Global Voices Online
Friday, March 13, 2009

On March 6, in Geneva, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov a small box containing a red "reset" button with the Russian word peregruzka printed on it, which was meant as a symbol of better relations between the United States and Russia. But the Russian word for 'reset' is perezagruzka, while peregruzka means 'overcharged' - and Lavrov didn't hesitate to point out the language error.

Below is a selection of bloggers' thoughts on language and politics.

Sean Guillory of Sean's Russia Blog wrote this in a post titled "Overcharged Buttons":

[...] We all now know that the Obama Administration is making some effort to repair relations with Russia. The first sign came with Joe Biden’s “press the reset button” statement in February. [...]

Well the Reset Button Doctrine appears to be going ahead though the first problem doesn’t appear to be resetting relations as it is finding the correct Russia word for “reset”. [...]

[...] Are you telling me that Clinton’s staff had to “work hard” to find the right word for reset and they still messed it up? Maybe Clinton should be pressing the reset button on her staff. [...]

Below are two comments from a 50-comment discussion of this post.

Lyndon of Scraps of Moscow:

The thing is, perezagruzka or perezagruzit’ has been used in the Russian press (in “analytical” pieces) for at least a few years with the meaning of “reset” a relationship or (to use a dead-tree media metaphor) turn over a new page. I have never seen “sbros” or any other word used in this context. So there was one right word - perezagruzka - and they f*ed it up. Very disappointing, and there’s really no excuse or explanation for it but rank incompetence. There are enough people around the world who (having never interacted with actual Americans) believe in the stereotype of “tupye amerikantsy” without giving them additional ammo like this.

Buster of Moscow Through Brown Eyes:

Lyndon, I shared your reaction to the language gaffe at first. But there is, I think, a deeper problem.

How do you seem like a serious diplomat trying to enter into an important renegotiation of binational relations when you start the process by bringing in a TOY?!

I can only imagine what the Russians there thought of this gimmick. The translation issues just distracts one from how goofy and ridiculous this whole moment was. You say stereotype, they say generalization.

In a follow-up post, Sean wrote this, among other things:

[...] If anything Americans can add peregruzka and perezagruzka to their Russian lexicon of tovarishch, borscht, vodka, glasnost, perestroika, da, and nyet. [...]

Leopolis wrote this about the U.S. "gag gift diplomacy":

The Washington Times today finally asks, "What was State thinking?!" about their cripplingly embarrassing negligence to accurately translate "restart" for the gag-button that Clinton presented to Lavrov in Geneva on Friday. The article didn't mention the more important question of whether the U.S. has finally resorted to using gag gifts in our diplomacy with the other most-powerful nuclear state on the planet (what's next -- rubber "turkeys" with Erdoğan?). The "reset button" in question isn't even a button, but a rubber twist knob -- but I digress. Now that this incident proved to the Russians that the Clinton team needs to brush up on their Russian language skills, Lavrov is busy calculating in Moscow whether State is filled with a bunch of amateurs (not a single native Russian speaker to consult?) [...]

Transatlantic Politics wrote this:

[...] And hopefully this embarrassment will put an end to such gimmick-diplomacy. What exactly was that button supposed to mean? A fresh start with Russia, based on what? Down at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, Hillary did not sound so much different than Condi. Hell, she even called Poland and the Czech Republic "visionary" for signing up for missile defense, a plan that really pisses off Russia.

Of course, her hawkish talk may have been just a way to soothe fears in Europe after that Obama letter offering to scrap missile defence in return for real Russian help against Iran. But one can hardly say what’s more naive: to think that such trade-off would really work or to believe that the Kremlin would buy this "fresh start" thing based on a gimmick which wasn’t even spelled correctly.

But the reset-button episode was not the only gaffe. While in Brussels, Hillary also managed to misspell two of her counterparts names during a press conference - she called the EU top diplomat Javier Solana a cream candy - ‘Solano’ - and the EU commissioner for external relations ‘Benina’ - when her real name is Benita. Both were standing right next to her and rolled their eyes thinking "oh boy, why can’t the Americans learn the names of the people they talk to?" [...]

Eternal Remont wrote this in a post titled "The Diplomacy of Cheese":

[...] Apparently this is what we can expect from our new Sec. of State, who must now renegotiate a milestone arms treaty with Lavrov, bring him around to eliminating Iran’s Israel-erasing nuclear weapons program, while simultaneously restoring confidence in allies who are nervously waiting for Washington to sell them down the river.

How do you do this? With rubber chickens and hand buzzers, apparently. What about the whoopee cushions? That will really earn you respect at the negotiating table. [...]

Russia, Ukraine, the Balkans: Eurovision News

Global Voices Online
Thursday, March 12, 2009

The controversy caused by Georgia's Eurovision Song Contest entry seems to be over (or, depending on one's perspective, has reached its climax), now that Georgia has decided not to take part in this year's event in Moscow, following the European Broadcasting Union's demand that the lyrics of the 'We Don't Wanna Put In' song are either changed or a different song entered.

Russia's own entry is causing controversy now as well, however. Andy of Siberian Light explains:

In a move sure to delight conspiracy theorists and bloggers everywhere, Mam[o] by Anastasia Prikhodko was picked to represent Russia at this year’s Eurovision.

The controversy? Well, Prikhodko is Ukrainian, and Mamo is sung partly in Russian and partly in - gasp - Ukrainian. Oh yes, and Prikhodko only entered the Russian qualification contest after she’d been kicked out of the Ukrainian qualification contest. [...]

Here are Andy's thoughts on the geopolitical dimension of Russia's entry - and a forecast of sorts:

[...] Anyways, personally I think it’s a bit of a coup for Russia. They not only get to put one over arch enemies Georgia, who have entered a grumpy song about how they don’t like Putin - they get to claim that in Russia, music is all about peace and goodwill between neighbours. Oh, and that they like Ukrainians, really.

And, actually, I think the song’s ok - it’s not great, but Russia certainly won’t be disgraced in May. [...]

Vasyl of uaMuzik wrote this about Russia's entry - as well as the Ukrainian one:

[...] Now let's go down to ringside here at the WMSC (World Mudslinging Song Contest) to hear he announcer's opening words. "In the right corner representing the host country of Russia, last year's Eurovision winner, we have from Ukraine, Anastasia Prykhodko singing Mamo. Her opponent in the left corner, formerly of Via Gra, Russia's T&A project for the 21st century, we have Svitlana Loboda!"

In all honesty folks, this is really what this whole thing has come down to, for all it's worth. In fact some Russians are fuming that a Ukrainian, would be representing them at this year's ESC and sing not in solely Russian or English for that matter, but heaven forbid, the chorus of her song in Ukrainian using the vocative case, which doesn't exist in the Russian language... [...]

While there is talk of suspected vote-rigging in Anastasia Prykhodko's case, this isn't a uniquely Russian problem. Belgraded - in a review of "Balkan Eurosong losers of 2009" - writes this about the winning entries:

[...] Connections with the people counting the votes are always important for Balkanian qualification finals, and this year’s local competitions were no exception. To see who had the best connections and/or managed to offer most money to the jury, go to Balkan File. [...]

Balkan File, it should be noted, isn't too optimistic about "Eurovision Hopefuls" from "the former Yugoslavia, plus Albania":

[...] Will Eurovision return to the region next year after a short break in Russia? Probably not. [...]

Back to the actual "losers," here is what Belgraded writes about the Serbian ones:

[...] Best Serbian losers we’ve had in years – they have it all: opera, gay love between the Matrix priest and the high ranking army official, communist babes, and opera. Yes, I know I already said opera. Some people claim to hear ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and ‘You’ll never walk alone’ tunes in there somewhere but I just can’t concentrate enough to spot them. [...]

And here's a video of the performers described above:



In the comments section to this post, Sajkaca wrote:

Let’s be honest, if there would be just some good songs with traditional performance, nobody would watch Eurovision Contest. It’s a magnet because you know it can get embarassing! [...]

Russia: "Unsent Letter" on Health Care

Global Voices Online
Monday, March 9, 2009

Below is a partial translation of a post (RUS) on health care in Russia - a caustic "unsent letter" to the Russian president, written by LJ user sobe-panek on Feb. 22. The post has made it into the Top 30 at Yandex Blogs portal and was picked up by some Russian media.

[...] There is a town called Yelets in Lipetsk region. And there is the City Hospital #1 in the town of Yelets. There is a department of hemodialysis and gravitational blood surgery in this hospital. The only one in the whole town, by the way. Up until recently the department had its own room for its patients and was open 24 hours a day. Because of this, doctors and nurses were paid some extra money, in addition to their primary salaries: for working night shifts, holidays and weekends. Imagine how much the total bill ended up being. Too much money, horrible. [...]

And so in summer (before any official news of the crisis, by the way), Lipetsk Regional Health Care Department found a way to save the Motherland some money. First, they took away the hemodialysis department's room, then canceled night shifts as well as Sunday and holiday shifts.

Of course, those irresponsible sick people started complaining right away. Like, they are having attacks of acute kidney failure not only on workdays from 8 AM to 5 PM, but at night, too, and even on holidays. And they started screaming that a person with kidney problems, who is having an attack on a Saturday evening, is unlikely to survive until Monday morning without hemodialysis. And they cited the recent death of a 20-year-old woman as an example. To make everyone feel sorry for them, of course...

Okay, so the woman died - failed to survive till Monday. And so what? The world has turned upside down?

Even if all the chronic patients of this department of the Yelets City Hospital die, the world isn't going to care. Because, truth be told, these patients are taking up space under the sun in vain. Judge for yourself, who needs those disabled people who are spending years waiting for kidney transplantation surgeries (which they'll never get) - no one needs them. Or those other patients of this department - drug addicts after an overdose. These are the scum of the earth, who needs them? And all those different poisoning patients? Mushroom poisoning or whatever. What do they need treatment for - it's all their fault: don't eat and drink indiscriminately.

And I'm not even talking about patients with chronic kidney failure, dear president. If these people led a healthy way of life, voted for United Russia, didn't attend the dissenters' rallies, didn't read all kinds of oppositional nonsense, didn't sign all kinds of letters (in defense and in protest) - would their kidneys fail? Of course, not.

So yes, in summer the medical staff of this department were relieved of their night shifts and of work on weekends and holidays. What would any normal person do in such a situation? Rejoice! And they - the medical staff - what are they doing? They are outraged. And are hiding behind their patients' interests.

Actually, what really got the medical professionals outraged were the salary cuts. What kind of cuts - ah, not a big deal at all.

Take my younger sister Anna, for example, who works as a nurse at this department, has 20 years of experience [...] - before the crisis [...] began, she was making about 5,000 rubles [approximately $200 a month at that time]. And now she is making 3,380 rubles [approximately $100]. What's the difference, right? No difference at all! She doesn't care whether she's making 3,400 or even 4,300, when the housing fee she has to pay is 4,200 [a month]. Even if she were making slightly over 5,000, she'd only have enough left to buy cat food.

If I were Lipetsk Regional Health Care Department, I'd be paying medical professionals no more than 1,000 rubles a month. Why would they need more? To survive till it's time for them to retire?

Look, dear president, how much money can be saved if we apply this nationwide. First, all medical professionals will die off, then all their patients will follow them. The state will at once get unbelievable profit on [...]: a) money saved from salaries; b) money saved from unpaid disability payments; c) pensions; d) free medications... (Yes, yes, free - and what did you think? I don't know about other departments of this hospital, but in this hemodialysis department chronic patients are treated for free!)

Let's keep on counting: equipment, different kinds of medical devices, gloves and syringes, square meters of buildings occupied by some unneeded departments or even whole hospitals.

Why does the country need oncology clinics if cancer is incurable?

Why should our double-headed bear - sorry, slip of the tongue again - our eagle - take care of all those chronically disabled people, if they are no longer of any use to the state? And why do we need sick children? Better to give birth to new ones. Healthy ones...

Dear president, [...], listen carefully to the opinion of the common folks. And pay attention to the progressive undertaking of Lipetsk Regional Health Care Department. And maybe we'll not just be able to overcome this damn crisis, but will come out of it with some profit.

[...]

UPD. I wrote this letter and was about to send it off (not in LJ, of course, but much further), but decided at the last moment to let my sister know.

So I called her. Warned her.

She says: "Are you crazy? They'll fire me!"

So what, I tell her, let them fire you. What are you losing? Three thousand rubles? It's not a salary, it's a humiliation. I'm ready to pay you 5,000, just to keep them from wiping their feet on you.

And my sister replies: You don't understand anything. I LOVE MY JOB VERY MUCH. I can't live without it. It has nothing to do with my salary...

Daaaaaamn!

The only thing left to do is [shrug]. It's also possible to be happy. For the country. For its president. And, separately, for Lipetsk Regional Health Care Department. And for Yelets medical professionals. And, of course, for Yelets chronic kidney disease patients...

P.S. Dear president, please, I'm begging you: cancel salaries for medical professionals all together. And please force some nurses (my sister, for example) to pay from their own pockets for the right to go to work. Because otherwise nothing will change in our country. Never.

Ukraine: Foreign Minister Fired, Naftogaz Office Stormed

Global Voices Online
Saturday, March 7, 2009

This has been a pretty turbulent week in Ukraine: on Tuesday, the parliament fired Volodymyr Ohryzko, Ukraine’s foreign affairs minister, and on Wednesday, riot police stormed the Kyiv headquarters of Naftogaz, the Ukrainian national energy company.

Ukrainiana wrote this about the foreign affairs minister situation:

The Verkhovna Rada Tuesday fired Volodymyr Ohryzko, Ukraine’s foreign affairs minister, who had recently reprimanded Russian ambassador Viktor Chernomyrdin for meddling in Ukraine’s internal affairs.

The move gathered 250 votes: 174 from the Party of Regions, 27 from the Communist Party, and 49 from the increasingly pro-Russian BYuT.

[...]

Tymoshenko resented Ohryzko’s direct reporting relationship with President Yushchenko. “As Minister, Ohryzko radically did not suit me. It's a person that is not professional, a person who systemically engaged in provocations against the government.”

To hell with political correctness! It's about time Tymoshenko appointed Сhernomyrdin Ukraine's foreign affairs minister!

LEvko of Foreign Notes had this explanation for the Naftogas office siege situation:

[...] It is not unreasonable to conclude yesterday's SBU raid was pay-back for BYuT's assistance in ousting the president's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Volodymyr Ohryzko, in parliament earlier this week, and just a further round in the war of attrition between the president and PM. [...]

Ukrainiana provided some background, calling what happened "an interesting Yushchenko-Firtash v. Tymoshenko-Putin episode, featuring Ukraine’s elite counter-terrorist unit Alfa":

[...] On Wednesday, Alfa stormed the Naftogaz head office in Kyiv to seize Tymoshenko’s gas agreements and to prevent the alleged theft of the so-called “technical gas.”

Background: It was the gas that Firtash had lost to Tymoshenko when he had lost Putin’s support in January. Then-customs chief Valeriy Khoroshkovsky, who has a business relationship with Firtash, refused to finalize the transaction, deeming it illegal. As a result, some 11 bcm of RosUkrEnergo’s gas have changed hands a few times between Naftogaz and Gazprom. Tymoshenko then fired Khoroshkovsky, and Yushchenko appointed him deputy director of the SBU.

[...]

It also reminds me of how Yushchenko and his team clashed with members of the Kuchma-Yanukovych regime in the Central Election Commission in October 2004.

Times have changed.

Today, it's Yushchenko and Tymoshenko who are clashing with each other, with special interests on both sides. [...]

More background and analysis can be found at Tetyana Vysotska's What's Up, Ukraine? blog:

[...] Anyway, the most interesting thing is not a scary picture, but the reasons of the scandal. As every contemporary problem in Ukraine, it has origins in the struggle for power between the President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko and the Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko. [...]

James of Robert Amsterdam's Blog began his post about the Naftogaz siege this way:

The disintegration of Ukraine continues. [...]

Eternal Remont also had a Naftogaz siege post and seemed to be of the same opinion on the state of things in Ukraine:

[...] Given: Ukraine is falling apart. [...]

Kyiv-based Abdymok, who appears to have been near the Naftogaz building at the time of the siege, chose to post a tranquil photo from "around the corner":

right around the corner from naftohaz, where riot police touting automatic assault rifles were being pushed around by parliament deputies belonging to prime minister yuliya tymoshenko’s eponymous bloc, workers lined up flower boxes to be hoisted up to the window sills of kyiv’s city administration headquarters on the capital’s main thoroughfare khreshchatyk. (kyiv, march 4)

In another post, Abdymok posted this comment about the conflict:

[...] property rights are not enforced in russia and ukraine, countries with disfunctional systems of jurisprudence. what matters here is size, strength, gall, ruthlessness, cunning, desire, hatred, etc.

While the foreign affairs minister and the Naftogaz crises dominated the media and the blogosphere this past week, the financial crisis received its share of coverage, too.

Adrian Blomfield, the Daily Telegraph's Moscow correspondent, posted this Twitter note from his trip to Ukraine:

Bankers I've met in Kiev have been surprisingly upbeat about the sector and the economy in general. Do they believe their own rhetoric?

Petro of Petro's Jotter traveled by car from Kyiv to Kharkiv and from Kharkiv to Donetsk, and posted his observations on the life, business and politics in Ukraine. Here's an excerpt from Petro's first post:

[...] The general topic of conversation is how everyone has stopped spending money and is waiting for something to change. There is no credit money. Banks are failing. Then on to a conversation about the Tax inspectors, corrupt local politicians and so on. I felt like I had traveled back in time to 1995 Ukraine. [...]

And another excerpt, from the second post:

[...] At the edge of Kramatorsk, I stop at the “Art Nirvana Café” for a cup of coffee. It’s an empty, formal restaurant with table cloths and all manner of fancy napkin folding in the glasses on the tables. Intimidated by the pristine table tops I sit on one of four bars stools by the small bar in the back. Anton appears happy to have a task to do as the Saeco coffee maker loudly grinds the exact portion of coffee beans required.


“Have you felt the impact of the global economic crisis?” I ask.
“Not really, business at the restaurant is the same,” replies Anton.
“What about the plant? How many people work there anyway?”
“About 45,000. I haven’t heard of any layoffs. There are several other plants in Kramatorsk as well.”


I sip the 14 Hryvnia coffee and ponder its value. Last August $2.80, last month $2.00, and now judging from the rates I saw at an Obmin leaving Kharkiv, less than than $1.40.


“So I imagine you are a Yanukovych, Party of Regions fan?” I ask. [...]
“Sure am. Kramatorsk voted 99% for Yanukovych,” says Anton proudly.


I recall the allegations during the O.R. that factory workers were instructed to vote a certain way – or the factory may shut down.


“Who knows, maybe he’ll become president while Yushchenko and Timoshenko fight each other,” I speculate.
“That would be great.” [...]

Europe: Obama's Upcoming Visit and Quotes

Global Voices Online
Saturday, March 7, 2009

U.S. president Barack Obama is planning to visit Great Britain, France, Germany and the Czech Republic next month, during his first trip to Europe since taking office.

In a post titled "They all want to meet him," P O Neill of A Fistful of Euros writes this about the upcoming visit:

An interesting wrinkle for those who care about summitry: Barack Obama’s visit to Europe in April will include Prague for what is being billed as the annual EU-USA summit.

[...]

Thus it’s going to be a big show, but presumably at the expense of getting much done with 28 heads of state/government and the Commission in attendance. It will get in a lot of “grip and grin” handshake photos for Barack Obama. Is this the format that the Obama team wanted to make worthwhile a visit to a “small” state?

Obama's words about Poland and the Czech Republic have caught attention of Taras of Ukrainiana:

[...] I also remember Obama referring to the Poles and the Czechs as “fledgling democracies.”

But this quote knocked me off my feet:

Russia needs to understand our unflagging commitment to the independence and security of countries like a Poland or a Czech Republic. On the other hand, we have areas of common concern.

[...]

Because I’m a smalltime Ukrainian who lives in a smalltime country that gave up the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal for chicken feed, I view Obama's remarks as a Bittergate. [...]

Obama's mention of Hungary has also ruffled some feathers.

Pestiside.hu wrote:

OMG! OMG! Barack Obama mentioned Hungary - by name. If you don't believe the front page of Index.hu, just go to this transcript of the O-mighty's news conference yesterday and keyword search for, well, duh. Yes, his first public reference to Hungary while in office didn't go exactly the way we might have planned (he basically said we're a bunch of psycho losers who need serious help before we hurt someone). Still, he's knows who we are!

And here's a more serious - as well as economy-focused - take on it by Eva Balogh of Hungarian Spectrum:

[...] Others also blame Barack Obama who after meeting with Gordon Brown, prime minister of the Great Britain, said the following: "One of the things that Prime Minister Brown and I talked about is how can we coordinate so that all the G20 countries, all the major countries around the world, in a coordinated fashion, are stimulating their economies; how can we make sure that there are a common set of principles, in terms of how we're approaching banking, so that problems that exist in emerging markets like Hungary or the Ukraine don't have these enormous ripple effects that wash back onto our shores, and we're providing them with some help in a coordinated international fashion, as well."

Well, that did it in Hungary. How does Obama dare to compare Hungary to Ukraine! No wonder that the forint started to fall even more rapidly after that speech. Moreover, it takes gall, these people say, to talk about problems that "will wash back to our shores." After all, where did this whole mess start? Not in Hungary. Hungary is the victim of irresponsibility in the American banking system. [...]

Russia, Ukraine: History and Denial

Global Voices Online
Monday, March 2, 2009

Paul Goble of Window on Eurasia reported on Feb. 24 that Russia’s emergency situations minister Sergei Shoigu said the Russian parliament should "make the denial of the Soviet Union’s victory in World War II a crime in order to ensure that 'the presidents of certain countries who deny this won’t be able to visit our country without punishment'.”

Goble wrote:

[...] Shoigu’s idea appears to be modeled on laws in more than a dozen countries which make the denial of the Holocaust a crime and reflects at least in part a Russian response to Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko’s proposal to make the public denial of the terror famine in Ukraine a crime there. [...]

A day later, according to James of Robert Amsterdam's Blog, it was Russia's prosecutor general Yuri Chaika who was talking of declaring "denial of the Soviet people's 'achievements' in the victory in the Great Patriotic War a criminal offense":

[...] Russia wants a Holocaust denial law, "just like the other kids". But it doesn't really want that, so it's had to come up with a surrogate. Let's see... The Holocaust is treated with great solemnity as a horrible human tragedy that happened, as the Russians say, "during the time of the Second world war". What have the Russians got that's similar? Yes! The Great Patriotic War (1941-1945). Most of our readers are probably aware that while the rest of Europe was busy fighting World War II "during the time of the Second world war", the Soviet Union was engaged in a separate war of its own against Germano-fascist invaders. And the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) is absolutely sacred in all of the former Soviet Union. So, it fits the bill perfectly: solemn, horrible human tragedy, right time in history - but uniquely Russian, unlike the Holocaust. [...]

Also on Feb. 25, there appeared a news item about a statement made by the head of Russia’s Federal Archives Agency on "the famine in the USSR." Window on Eurasia wrote:

[...] Yesterday, Vladimir Kozlov, the head of Russia’s Federal Archives Agency, told a Moscow press conference that the famine in Ukraine and elsewhere in the USSR was “the result of [Stalin’s] criminal policy” but that “of course, no one planned any famine” or singled out any ethnic group as its victim (rian.ru/society/20090225/163170651.html).

Instead, he said, “the famine was the result of the errors and miscalculations of the political course of the leadership of the country in the course of the realization of collectivization.” And he insisted that he and his researchers had not found “a single document” showing that Stalin planned “a terror famine” in Ukraine.
Instead, Kozlov said, “absolutely all documents testify that the chief enemy of Soviet power at that time was an enemy defined not on the basis of ethnicity but on the basis of class,” in this case the peasantry which Stalin wanted to force to join collective farms throughout whatever means he could.

Kozlov’s comments came as he presented a new collective of documents, entitled “The Famine in the USSR,” and a DVD which contained a selection of those documents and others, which he said will total some 6,000 items, to be published in three volumes that are to be published this year.

The Russian archivist and others in Moscow said they were convinced of two things, first, that these documents undercut all Ukrainian claims to the contrary and, second, that the evidence these documents provide about the much broader but class rather than ethnic based crimes of the Soviet regime are not a problem for the contemporary regime. [...]

Streetwise Professor posted this comment on his blog:

[...] I’m sure all of the millions who starved, or were shot, or were brutalized, would feel so much better to know that they were not singled out for their ethnicity, but instead for their class. Or to learn that they died because of “errors and miscalculations.” Whoops! Uncle Joe’s bad! No hard feelings! I guess it could have been worse: head archivist Kozlov could have said that the leadership just became “dizzy with success,” thereby committing mistakes that led to the deaths of millions. Or he could have said “well, to make an omelette you need to break some eggs.”

Several comments.

First, why is it so hard for modern Russians, who bear no personal responsibility for the deaths of millions in the early-1930s, to pay some deference to Ukrainian (and, Cossack and Kazakh) pain and sensitivities? The steadfast rationalization, minimization, and deprecation of the calamity is widespread among Russians, suggesting that they feel they would incur a substantial psychological cost to acknowledge the exceptional suffering inflicted on Ukraine, Kazakhstan and the Cossack/Tatar regions. Why? What does this say? I don’t know exactly, but it can’t be good.

[...]

The obvious official desire of the modern Russian government to absolve the Soviet Union, and Stalin, of any culpability for genocide speaks volumes about that government, and about the popular attitudes which give that government broad support in these efforts. The lengths to which the Russian government, and too many individual Russians go to defend the indefensible suggests that proprietary, possessive, and imperial attitudes towards Ukraine run strong and deep in Russia today. That does not bode well for a peaceful reconciliation in the years to come.

Finally, on Feb. 28, according to Window on Eurasia, Russia's Yabloko Party called "for making the denial of Soviet crimes against the people a criminal offense as part of a broader effort to help Russians overcome the communist past and build a political and economic system capable of sustaining itself in the 21st century":

[...] Beyond any question, yesterday’s YABLOKO statement represents a liberal response to the proposal by Sergey Shoigu on February 24th to make those who deny the Soviet victory over Hitler in World War II, something he would extend to those, especially in Eastern Europe, who say that Stalin simply imposed one form of totalitarianism in place of another.

But it would be a mistake to treat this statement as only that. In fact, it represents a broader effort, albeit one with few immediate chances for success, to escape the Soviet past by denouncing its crimes rather than opening the way to its restoration -- as some like Vladimir Putin have done -- by celebrating its achievements regardless of how they were obtained.