Putin Heads to Ukraine to Meet With Kuchma

Friday, November 12, 2004. Page 3.

The Associated Press

President Vladimir Putin will make a two-day visit to Ukraine starting Friday, his second trip to the country during its presidential election campaign. Putin will meet with outgoing President Leonid Kuchma, the Kremlin said. The visit comes just a week before the second round of the hotly contested presidential race between opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. Putin visited Ukraine days before the first round on Oct. 31, a trip that was seen as a gesture of support for Yanukovych. The Kremlin has all but officially endorsed Yanukovych's candidacy. Yushchenko, a reform-minded former prime minister, is seen as likely to push Ukraine closer to the European Union, while Yanukovych is considered pro-Russian. Ukraine remains of critical strategic importance for the Kremlin, which continues to exercise strong political and economic influence over its neighbor. Analysts had suggested that Putin's backing could play a key role in a nation with a millions-strong ethnic Russian community. But Yushchenko narrowly won the Oct. 31 vote with 39.9 percent of the vote, about one-half a percentage point ahead of Yanukovych, election officials said in announcing the much-delayed final results from the first round Wednesday. Since no candidate won the necessary 50 percent of the votes, a second-round vote has been scheduled for Nov. 21. Meanwhile, an international human rights watchdog said Thursday that the Ukrainian government had interfered in all stages of the presidential election campaign. The International Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights said the campaign ahead of the first round was tarnished by "gross violations of fundamental human rights and principle freedoms." It accused authorities of "the persecution of dissenters," using law enforcement bodies as an "instrument of political struggle," media bias in favor of Yanukovych and state interference in "all stages of the process and the vote itself." Earlier this month, observers representing the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Council of Europe, the European Parliament and NATO said Ukraine's presidential election did not meet European standards for democracy, citing state media bias in Yanukovych's favor and state interference including obstruction of opposition activities. On Thursday, Canadian Ambassador Andrew Robinson urged "much greater transparency" in the second round, saying, "Openness and transparency are critical to credibility."