UKRAINE: TALES OF SEVASTOPOL, A HERO CITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KIEV 000738

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/23/2016
TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM RS UP
SUBJECT: UKRAINE: TALES OF SEVASTOPOL, A HERO CITY

Classified By: Political Counselor Aubrey A. Carlson for reasons 1.4(b,
d)


1. (C) Summary: The presence of the Russian Black Sea Fleet
pervades the historic Crimean city of Sevastopol, which is
one of two municipalities in Ukraine directly administered by
the central government. Relations between President
Yushchenko-appointed city administrator Serhiy Ivanov and the
locally elected Party of Regions-dominated city assembly are
tense. The assembly has passed resolutions of no-confidence
against Ivanov at least twice. On the national level,
Yushchenko has twice vetoed laws that would give Ukrainian
citizen resident in Sevastopol the right to directly elect
their mayor, a result that would be certain to cede political
control of Sevastopol (which voted overwhelmingly for then-PM
Yanukovych in the 2004 presidential race) entirely to
pro-Russia, pro-Yanukovych political forces. Most of our
local contacts regarded agitation to make Russian a second
state language (in addition to Ukrainian) to be an artificial
issue of no particular relevance to residents. They
highlighted potential problems with the conduct of the March
parliamentary elections arising not from fraud but from poor
organization and confusing new procedures. End summary.


2. (U) During a February 16 visit to Sevastopol, we met with
Timofei Nikityuk of the independent, pro-democracy NGO
Committee of Voters of Ukraine, Yuri Prokhorenko of
pro-Presidential People's Union Our Ukraine's (PUOU) Leninsky
municipal district party branch, Vadim Kolesnichenko of the
opposition Party of Regions local headquarters, Arkady
Filimonov of the Socialist Party local headquarters, Serhiy
Kulik of the local Tymoshenko Bloc office (BYuT),and BBC
stringer Alby Shudrya.

Sevastopol -- A Place Apart
--------------


3. (U) Tsarina Catherine II founded Sevastopol after the
Russian annexation of Crimea, but the city is located on the
site of the earlier Tatar city of Akhtiar while, even
earlier, the Greek colony of Kherson, founded in 421 BC,
utilized the deep natural harbor. Sevastopol's year-round
access to the Black Sea led to its use as a naval base,
beginning with the Russian Black Sea fleet in 1804. In the
Crimean War in the mid-1800s, Sevastopol was subjected to a
British siege and eventually was the site of the notorious
(for the British ) Charge of the Light Brigade. Sevastopol
was designated a "hero city" of the Soviet Union for its
resistance to a German invasion from 1941-42 during World War
II. In 1954, Soviet leader Khrushchev transferred
administrative control over Sevastopol, along with the rest
of the Crimean Peninsula, from the Russian Soviet Socialist
Republic to the Ukrainian SSR.


4. (C) When we told Nikityuk that we were in Sevastopol to
obtain a reading of the political climate on the Crimean
Peninsula, he rejoined that Sevastopol was as different from
Crimea as Crimea was from the rest of Ukraine. His point was
that the presence of the Black Sea Fleet has been a unique
burden and asset for Sevastopol. Until late in the Soviet
period, Sevastopol was a closed city, requiring Sevastopol
residents to obtain special permits to receive out-of-town
visitors. Sevastopol's symbiotic relationship with the
Russian Black Sea Fleet meant the city has strong ties to
Russia. The head of PUOU's local chapter revealed, for
example, that his brother was an officer in Russia's Black
Sea Fleet; both were born in Sevastopol. Several contacts
estimated that 20-30,000 of Sevastopol's 330,000 residents
(2004 data) relied economically on the Black Sea Fleet's
presence. The Socialist Party representative claimed 70
percent of Sevastopol's population wished that Crimea would
return to Russian rule. He asserted that 10-15 percent of
Sevastopol's population possessed both Ukrainian and Russian
passports, with many retired military using their Russian
passports to return annually to Russia to collect higher
Russian pensions.


5. (U) While located in Ukraine's sole autonomous republic
(of Crimea),Sevastopol is a "directly governed" city of
Ukraine with its "mayor" (head of city administration)
appointed by the central government. (Note: The city of
Kiev also enjoys special status under Ukraine's
constitution.) On June 23, 2005, the Ukrainian parliament
(Verkhovna Rada) passed a bill sponsored by Sevastopol deputy
Viktor Zayichko that, inter alia, would empower Sevastopol's
Ukrainian citizen residents to elect their mayor directly.
After President Yushchenko vetoed the law, the Rada passed a
law on Sevastopol a second time December 22, 2005. In
addition to direct election of the mayor, the law would
authorize the city administration to retain all tax and other
revenues that it collects, rather than transferring any share
to the central government. Yushchenko again vetoed the law
and returned it to the Rada with two proposed modifications
that would make it easier for the central government to
dismiss the elected mayor. At the heart of the current
political tussle is the fact that Sevastopol is a stronghold
of opposition to Yushchenko, with 80 percent of votes
recorded in favor of Viktor Yanukovych in the 2004
presidential election. This presidential prerogative also
provides Kiev useful counterbalance to Moscow's influence via
its Black Sea Fleet. (Note: The Rada passed the law, with
Yushchenko's modifications, February 23, but it is not known
whether Yushchenko will sign it or not.)

Local Politics
--------------


6. (C) Despite his minority status as an Orange
representative in a solidly Blue city, Sevastopol city
administration head Serhiy Ivanov has earned high marks for
political leadership since his appointment by Yushchenko on
February 4, 2005. Several contacts credited him with selling
off city property ("land privatization") in a transparent
manner that resulted in additional income for city coffers,
rather than private pockets. As a result, he has a
relatively high approval rating with the public. This
popularity, however, has not been a bulwark against attacks
from the opposition-dominated City Assembly, which has voted
twice to remove him from office (to no avail, since only
President Yushchenko has the power to do so under current
legislation). In a sign of PUOU's weakness in the city,
Ivanov abandoned his party in January to run his own
eponymous bloc for the City Assembly races, allying with
ex-PM Pustovoitenko's National Democratic Party and National
Security and Defense Council Secretary Kinakh's Party of
Industrialists and Entrepreneurs. The Ivanov bloc would
support PUOU in the national parliamentary elections. Our
contacts noted that Ivanov hoped to get better cooperation
from the City Assembly if he controlled some of his own seats.

The Power of Incumbency
--------------


7. (C) The power of incumbency seemed evident in the contrast
between the Our Ukraine and Party of Regions offices. Our
Ukraine's office was located near the harbor in a spanking
new and gleaming white office building. The Party of
Regions, in contrast, was ensconced in a shabby building that
perhaps doubled as Kolesnichenko's law office. When we
arrived, Kolesnichenko urged us to keep our coats on, since
he had no heat, and, upon our departure, he pressed his Party
of Regions desk calendar on us when he noticed that we were
carrying an Our Ukraine gift bag (with orange flag, scarf,
and knit cap).

The Artificial Russian Language Issue
--------------


8. (C) In addition to arguing strongly in favor of direct
election of Sevastopol's mayor, Kolesnichenko highlighted
Party of Regions' championing of the Russian language. He
alleged the central government was aggressively promoting the
use of the Ukrainian language in Sevastopol, even though the
Constitution required the authorities to respect the language
spoken by the majority of residents in any area. Television
and radio stations were being forced to up the hours of
Ukrainian language programming and, Kolesnichenko claimed,
the Gagarin district council had decreed that all official
documents had to be in the Ukrainian language. This had
required a local psychiatric hospital to reregister, as its
original documentation had been in Russian. In another
example, the central budget authorized 9 million hryvnyas for
the establishment of special kindergartens in which the
Ukrainian language would be used exclusively. This,
Kolesnichenko charged, contravened a Constitutional
requirement to maintain balance in the support of language
use.


9. (C) Our other local party leader contacts, however,
downplayed the impact of the language issue. They claimed
pro-Russian parties periodically sought to exploit the issue
and fan fears to increase their support, but averred that
Sevastopol residents in fact were not particularly exercised
about the issue. Our observations during our short visit
seemed to confirm that the Russian language was holding its
own. Although our contacts noted the gradual spread of
Ukrainian -- especially among a younger generation adapting
to current realities -- signage, billboards, and advertising
were invariably in Russian. The Socialist Party's Filimonov
said that national television broadcasting should allow
greater use of Russian. In Sevastopol, he said, Russian
language speakers immediately changed the channel if they
heard Ukrainian, forcing them to rely on television
broadcasting originating from Russia and strengthening their
ties to the country. (Perhaps in one sign of how Sevastopol
exists in a unique informational space, BYuT's Kulik claimed
that, in a 2005 street survey, 42 percent of respondents did
not recognize Tymoshenko when shown her picture.)


10. (U) Activism over the Russian language does continue,
however. After the Party of Regions Crimean branch collected
300,000 signatures in favor of a referendum on the status of
the Russian language, the Crimean Autonomous Republic's
parliament passed a resolution February 22 scheduling a March
26 non-binding referendum asking Crimeans whether they
favored making Russian a second official language. Back in
Kiev, Presidential Secretariat Deputy Head Anatoliy
Matviyenko urged the Autonomous Republic not to hold what he
termed "an unconstitutional and unlawful initiative," and
Crimean Prosecutor Shemchuk urged the referendum's
cancellation on the same grounds. The media also reported
that the For Union, "Soyuz," party gathered about 1,000
people in Simferopol February 21 demonstrating in favor of
giving official status to the Russian language.

Sevastopol's National Vote
--------------


11. (C) As for how parties will fare with Sevastopol's votes
in the March 26 Rada election, BYuT's Kulik cited a February
3 poll that showed Regions getting 47.3 percent; radical
leftist Nataliya Vitrenko's bloc getting 8 percent; the
Communists, 6.5 percent; Speaker Lytvyn's bloc, 4.7 percent;
BYuT, 4.3 percent; and President Yushchenko's PUOU, 2.7
percent. IRI's poll watcher, however, extrapolated a
different outcome for us based on past results, with "blue"
parties obtaining a commanding majority. He predicted
Regions would get 65 percent; the For Union ("Soyuz"),12
percent; Communists, 10 percent; the SDPU(o)-led Ne Tak bloc
perhaps 3 percent; PUOU in the 2-3 percent range; and Lytvyn
close to zero. (Note: Both forecasts predict the
pro-presidential PUOU will have difficulty in Sevastopol
getting over the three-percent threshold into the local
legislature.)

Likely Electoral Problems
--------------


12. (SBU) Various contacts highlighted likely electoral
problems largely originating not in fraudulent intent but
unfamiliarity with new procedures and requirements.
Political parties seemed to be aggressively double-checking
voter lists and finding numerous discrepancies. The
Socialist Party's Filimonov, for example, said 20-25 percent
of the list was inaccurate with respect to Socialist Party
members; his party would urge its members to verify their
registrations once the lists became publicly available.
Regions' Kolesnichenko said 6,000 voters were missing from
newly generated lists. He also said computer translations of
Russian surnames into their Ukrainian equivalents were
creating a problem. He gave an example of the name,
"Pushkin," which derives from the Russian word for "cannon,"
and becomes entirely different when employing the equivalent
Ukrainian word, "harmata." Kolesnichenko alleged that the
problems originated from a government conspiracy to reduce
voter turn-out in eastern and southern Ukraine. His
accusation that the city administration was manipulating the
Territorial Electoral Commissions (TECs) appeared to be
canceled out by CVU rep Nikityuk's claim that current and
previous Regions members were, in fact, in charge of
Sevastopol's TECs.


13. (U) Visit Embassy Kiev's classified website:
www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/kiev.
HERBST