A Ukrainian maze

npa. The information on the development in the Ukraine is both confusing and worrying. Which suppositions about the real game behind the scenes seem the most plausible? Marek Glogoczowski, a Zeit-Fragen reader from Poland, pointed out three possible interpretations of the events.

While many have interpreted the development in the Ukraine over the past weeks as a conflict between US-American and Russian interests, a German citizen in Israel believes that Germany has been stirring up the crisis. German banks have planned major investments in the Ukraine as well as the takeover of public supply networks. The German Ruhrgas AG is said to have signed contracts to take over the gas network. If they do not succeed in bringing Yushchenko to power, they would strive for a division of the Ukraine. German interests were taking advantage of the United States' total entanglement in Iraq. Since this meant the US could not commit itself in the Ukraine, they are against the plans and current activities of German businesses.

In a commentary by Vladimir Simonov, of the Russian news agency RIA Novosti, Yanukovich is viewed as a pro-Russian candidate and, according to the same primitive pattern, Yushchenko is seen as pro-Western. Simonov criticizes the governments of the USA and of several EU member states for reviving a long dead and buried Cold War stereotype, which makes them see any conflict as a conflict between the "West" and Russia. Vladimir Putin denounced this as counter-productive and wrong in the light of the development of modern international relations. Good and balanced relations with the EU and Russia were of vital significance to the Ukraine.

At a press conference on 10 December Vladimir Putin emphasized that Russia would approve Ukraine's membership in the EU. Russia had always been against NATO's eastern expansion, but had always approved of EU membership of former Soviet Republics. The Russian economy could only benefit because of its close ties to Ukrainian industry.

Michel Chossudovsky and Alfred John Mendes, www.globalresearch.ca, discuss the development in the Ukraine since 1989 when the Soviet regime decided to get rid of its satellite states in Central Europe and to break up the USSR. In 1994, the American-Ukrainian Advisory Committee (AUAC) was formed under Zbigniew Brzezinski. Membership included Henry Kissinger, George Soros and, on the Ukrainian side, President Leonid Kravchuk. The current president Kuchma was also supported by Soros.

Under Kuchma, Victor Yushchenko first became director of the central bank and, in 1999, prime minister. Yushchenko was the man of the International Monetary Fund, which directed his politics in the Ukraine. Also after he had been replaced by Victor Yanukovich after a vote of no confidence, cooperation with the West was good. In 2003 Kuchma sent troops into Iraq. Under Leonid Kuchma, several military agreements were made with NATO and the United States. Yanukovich's Defence Secretary Marchuk was dismissed in September this year and then supported Yushchenko. The policies of Kuchma, Yushchenko and Yanukovich, in cooperation with the IMF, have produced great poverty among the Ukrainian population and amassed a fortune in the hands of few oligarchs.

For the population, Prime Minister Yanukovich would therefore not pose a real alternative. He would also not take a stance against the international institutions and Western economic interests that are destroying and impoverishing the country. At the moment a power struggle is going on among the pro-NATO and pro-Russian factions in the Ukrainian "nomenclature" and in the military. In the final instance, according to Chossudovsky, it is all about the further fragmentation and breaking up of the former Soviet Union.