UKRAINE: CRIMEA UPDATE - LESS TENSE THAN IN 2006;

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 KYIV 001418

SIPDIS


SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/07/2017
TAGS: PGOV SOCI KDEM PREL UP
SUBJECT: UKRAINE: CRIMEA UPDATE - LESS TENSE THAN IN 2006;
INTERETHNIC, RUSSIA, LAND FACTORS REMAIN CENTRAL

REF: A. 06 KYIV 4489

B. 06 KYIV 4558

Classified By: Ambassador, reason 1.4 (b,d)


1. (C) Summary: During Ambassador's May 29-30 visit to
Simferopol, Crimea and an earlier poloff visit May 17-18, all
of our interlocutors agreed that the situation in Crimea
appears less tense than it did six months ago (reftels). The
primary issues in play remain control/ownership of land; the
Russian factor in Crimean politics and society; interethnic
relations between Crimean Tatars and Slavs; and a general
lack of interest in and detachment from events going on in
Kyiv and the rest of Ukraine. Both government and NGO
interlocutors downplayed fears of extremism among
traditionally moderate Muslim Crimean Tatars, who are no
longer as politically unified behind the Mejlis as they once
were. When asked about extremism in Crimea, about half of our
contacts mentioned fringe Russian groups rather than Islamic
radicalism. In general, it appears that the new Party of
Regions leadership in Crimea, led by Speaker Grytsenko, has
forged a good working relationship with Crimean Tatar leaders
in the interests of social and economic stability in the
peninsula, even if their comments in private reveal enduring
anti-Tatar biases. This lower level of tension offers the
USG more opportunities to engage with all Crimeans on issues
of importance to the bilateral relationship. End Summary.


2. (SBU) Ambassador met May 29-30 with the Speaker of the
Crimean parliament Anatoliy Grytsenko, generally acknowledged
as the most important political figure in Crimea; the
Chairman of Crimea's Council of Ministers (also known as
Crimean PM) Viktor Plakida; and leading Crimean journalists
and civil activists Liliya Budjurova, Shevket Memedov,
Volodymyr Prytula, Lenur Yunusov, Yan Sinitsky, Alexander
Pylypenko, and Andriy Shchykun. We had previously met the
latter five journalists and activists plus Crimean Tatar
leader Mustafa Jemiliev May 17, as well as attended the May
18 commemoration of the 1944 deportation of Crimean Tatars
and other nationalities into exile in Central Asia.

Crimea calmer in 2007 than 2006
--------------


3. (SBU) All of our interlocutors agreed that after a
tumultuous 2006, marked by the Feodosia SEA BREEZE
controversy, interethnic conflict in Bakhchiserai and Sudak,
and lower tourism levels due to sensationalist Russian media
coverage of the SEA BREEZE standoff which drove many Russians
to avoid Crimea for summer tourism, Crimea seemed much less
tense in 2007. The confidence is reflected in higher booking
rates for Crimea's short three-month summer high season this
year than during a sub-par 2006.


4. (C) National Security and Defense Council (NSDC)'s
Oleksandr Lytyvynenko, who follows Crimea and helped draft
two 2006 Presidential decrees intended to stabilize Crimea,
offered three reasons on the margins of the May 23 EUR DAS
Kramer-NSDC Secretary Plyushch meeting: the clear
consolidation of political power in Crimea in the hands of
the Regions' team; the work of the Security Service of
Ukraine (SBU) to dampen down the activities of the more
radical pro-Russian elements stirring up trouble; and
progress on resolving land issues. Like the journalists,
however, Lytvynenko did not rule out a renewed flare up of
tensions this summer, depending on what happens elsewhere in
politics, both in Ukraine and in Russia.


5. (SBU) Journalist/civic activist Prytula detailed the
individuals within Regions which had consolidated control
over Crimea since the 2006 elections. PM Yanukovych and
Regions' financier Akhmetov had delegated overall "control"
of Crimea to Regions Verkhovna Rada MP and fellow Donetskan
Anton Prykhodsky. Grytsenko was the de facto on-the-ground
manager for Regions; he in turn had hand-picked Plakida.
Crimean Rada MP (and former Crimean gangster from the 1990s)
Oleksandr Melnyk pulled the political strings locally;
economically, Regions' interests are pushed by Crimean
Regions first deputy chair/Yalta city council secretary
Oleksey Boyarchuk, the director of the Chernomorets
Sanatorium owned by Prykhodsky and housing Yanukovych's
Crimean dacha. (see para 17 for the interplay between
politics and the group's business interests).

A place apart? Detachment from events in Kyiv
--------------


6. (SBU) Crimea is the country's least Ukrainian region, an
autonomous republic in what is otherwise a centralized
country. The Russian language dominates in Crimea, whose

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population is majority ethnic Russian thanks to Stalin's 1944
ethnic cleansing and re-population of the peninsula with
people deemed loyal to Moscow. The journalists and civic
activists asserted that there is only limited interest in
political events in Kyiv among ordinary Crimean citizens,
even if intellectuals follow developments. Budjurova and
Memedov attributed this indifference to an ambivalent
attitude towards Ukraine as an independent country as well as
the overwhelming influence of Russian media sources that
provide little and/or biased coverage of events in Ukraine.
They lamented the lack of Ukrainian patriotism in Crimea.
Sinitsky, Pylypenko, and Shchykun told us that Crimean Tatars
remained Crimea's minority bulwark of progressive political
thinking and pro-Ukrainian sentiment.


7. (SBU) That said, the 1994-95 flirtation with separatism
remains in the past. Crimean Rada Speaker Grytsenko
(Regions),widely seen as the most important political actor
in Crimea, started his meeting with Ambassador by emphasizing
that Crimea was an inseparable part of Ukraine. When asked
about extremism in Crimea, Grytsenko cited marginal
pro-Russian groups pushing autonomy, not worries about
extremist Muslim groups finding traction among traditionally
moderate Crimean Tatars. He regretted the lack of a working
relationship with Yushchenko, whom he claimed had shown
little interest in Crimean issues.

Interethnic relations - okay, but old biases remain
-------------- --------------


8. (SBU) One of Crimea's enduring politicized issues is
interethnic relations, particularly between the 250,000
Crimean Tatar returnees from Central Asian exile and Crimea's
Slavic population, 70 percent of whom arrived after the 1944
deportation or were born to the new arrivals, who took over
the homes and fields of the deportees. Grytsenko delivered
very positive, affirming comments in addressing the 15,000
Tatars who attended the annual May 18 commemoration of the
deportation on Simferopol's central, calling the deportation
"Crimea's tragedy" and thanking all Crimean Tatars who worked
constructively for a better Crimea.


9. (C) Grytsenko's private comments to Ambassador a week
later struck a starkly different tone, however, revealing
attitudes which complicate reconciliation efforts. He
claimed interethnic tensions were the result of the Tatars'
"betrayal" in 1945 (sic),and that a majority of Crimea's
inhabitants viewed Tatars as traitors. He claimed research
into identifying the fates of soldiers killed or missing
during WWII revealed two instances of German military units
having almost 25 percent Tatars serving as military police.
He mentioned that unlawful land seizures had fueled
resentment towards the Tatars and concluded that the Tatars
brought many of their problems upon themselves. (note: the
most recent squatter's movement is in fact multi-ethnic;
while Crimean Tatars initiated it in March 2006, thousands of
Slavic Crimeans frustrated by a decade-long wait for housing
joined the movement).


10. (SBU) Budjurova, Crimea's leading journalist as
editor-in-chief of "First Crimea," and Memedov, associated
with Crimean Tatar Radio and TV projects, expressed pessimism
that the interethnic situation would significantly improve as
long as Regions maintained its current dominant support among
80-85 percent of Crimea's inhabitants and the legislative
framework failed to addresses inequities for Tatars.
Prytula worried that 2007 could still turn into another "hot
summer" based on a planned pro-Russian convocation of a
so-called Cossack festival in Feodosia to commemorate the
2006 anti-NATO demonstrations; the Crimean Cossack Union had
already held an event in Bakhchiseray to inflame tensions
with the Tatar community, he noted, trying to reignite the
flames of 2006.

The Russia factor
--------------


11. (SBU) Both government and civil society interlocutors
made clear that Russia figures much larger in Crimean
dynamics than Ukrainian dynamics nationwide, thanks to media
coverage, ethnic and linguistic factors, and heavy Russian
investment in Crimea. Crimea's huge number of "Soviet"
pensioners, particularly those who had retired from the
military and security services, were another important factor.


12. (SBU) Politically, the more extreme pro-Russian forces
represented by the Russian Bloc party (which contested the
2006 Crimean elections with Party of Regions in a joint "For
Yanukovych" bloc) face somewhat of a dilemma, as Regions
itself, now in power, favors stability and development rather

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than pro-Russian agitation and interethnic discord. Prytula
predicted a split between the two forces may be brewing.
Grytsenko himself professed opposition to the Russian Bloc,
its 17 MPs elected under the list he headed, and its more
provocative actions and statements (such as calling the
Mejlis an organized crime ring). In the May 30 session with
Ambassador, Prytula estimated the relative weight in the bloc
between pragmatists interested in stability as opposed to
pro-Russian radicals at 75/25, with the pragmatists taking
direction from Donetsk and Kyiv and the radicals from Moscow;
in the May 17 meeting, he had noted that Regions had given
the Russian Bloc undue political prominence in 2006 by
forming a single Crimean electoral list, providing them with
slots in the Crimean Rada they would not have won on their
own. Shchykin and Pylypenko questioned how much of a
difference there was between the two wings, since the
Regions' pragmatists seemed eager to cut investment deals
with Russian money that undercut Ukrainian interests in
Crimea.


13. (SBU) Prytula and Shchykin maintained that despite the
relative calm of 2007, Russia still viewed Crimea as a
proving ground for political tactics for sowing ethnic
discord that could move quickly from "soft" to "hard," with
the Russian Bloc and its affiliated Crimean Cossack Union
playing a key role. However, over the past year, Moscow had
diversified its support of pro-Russian actors, many of whom
squabbled between each other. The Sevastopol-Crimea-Russian
Front, a fringe organization still advocating
separatism/reunion with Russia, now had its offices in the
building of the official Russian Cultural Center, for
instance.


14. (SBU) After two years of watching central power wane and
respond ineffectively to the crises of 2006, the journalists
saw recent evidence of more effective SBU action. The
radical youth groups Proryv (Breakthrough) and the Eurasian
Youth Union (EYU) had dramatically lower profiles in 2007;
the SBU had gone to court to deregister the particularly
troublesome Bakhchiserai EYU branch. Thanks to an SBU "black
list," Eurasian movement leader and ideologue Aleksandr Dugin
was refused entry at the Simferopol, Crimea airport June 6.
Fellow Russian meddler in Crimean affairs, Duma MP Konstantin
Zatulin, was also denied entry to Ukraine April 16 based on
SBU concerns over his participation in the 2006 SEA BREEZE
protests, SBU Acting Chief Nalyvaichenko told the press that
day. Proryv was suffering its own schisms between the
Tiraspol and Moscow, Crimea, and Abhazia branches, with
mutual accusations of being tools of various intel services,
noted Prytula.

Developing Crimea: The Land Game
--------------


15. (SBU) The major socio-economic factor in play in Crimea
is ownership/control of land, and how best to develop Crimea
in terms of attracting investment and creating jobs. One of
the major Crimean stories of 2006 had been the squatter's
movement, born out of frustration of bureaucratic delays and
corruption which allowed the rich and connected to acquire
land while common Crimeans waited in vain for over a decade
(ref B). Most interlocutors, including Mejlis leader Jemilev
and Crimean PM Plakida, complimented Grytsenko for his
constructive role in trying to resolve the squatter's dilemma
by pushing for tracts of land currently occupied by squatters
to be legalized, first in Alushta, with an 800 hectare area
around Simferopol also in the works. Plakida also noted
Jemilev had spoken out against land seizures in his May 18
deportation commemoration address. Grytsenko nevertheless
complained privately that the Tatars had needlessly
complicated the squatter issue with their actions, and
downplayed the significant non-Tatar element among squatters.


16. (SBU) Both Plakida and Grytsenko formally stressed the
need to invest in infrastructure--the Simferopol airport, the
major Kyiv-Simferopol highway, south coast facilities--that
would be critical to continued development of tourism,
Crimea's primary economic lifeline. But the real action
continues to be allocation of land controlled by the state.


17. (U) The Crimean Cabinet under Plakida quieted allocated
113 hectares of land, worth an estimated $250 million, to the
Antal-Krym company to build a golf course and a condominium
in the Crimean forest reserve near Yalta, for a mere 20 cents
per hectare per year for 49 years, reported Chornomorets TV
May 19; inhabitants of a village in the plot will be forcibly
relocated. Antal-Krym's owner? None other than Regions MP
Pryhodsky. The Crimean prosecutor at the time (and now
Deputy General Prosecutor of Ukraine) Viktor Shemchuk stated
May 19 that the Crimean cabinet had no right to allocate the

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plot, since only the Ukrainian cabinet could allocate nature
reserve lands. Shemchuk estimated that 29,000 trees would be
cut to build the golf course.

Crimean Tatar integration = political fracturing?
-------------- --------------


18. (SBU) Crimean Tatars are currently conducting their own
informal communal elections to its national assembly (the
kurultay),which will then pick the 33 member executive
(mejlis) to serve for five years. While the Mejlis and its
long-time leader Jemilev have long spoken for and commanded
the loyalty of the vast majority of Tatars, that tight
political identity started to break down recently, as Tatars
find increasing success in integrating into life in Crimea
and develop their own political preferences. Some of the
journalists and civic activists expressed some concern about
the political fracturing, since a unified Crimean Tatar
community had proven the strongest bulwark in Crimea in
support of democratic values and the Ukrainian state.
Indeed, for at least one day a year, May 18, a day of
commemoration of the "national tragedy" of the mass
deportation of Crimean Tatars and other ethnic minorities in
1944, Crimea's capital Simferopol seems truly Ukrainian,
awash in the blue and yellow of both Crimean Tatar flags and
Ukrainian flags, with the Russian tricolor and communist red
flags frequently used in street protests out of sight and
mind.


19. (SBU) Since Ukrainian independence, the Mejlis has
affiliated itself with Rukh and therefore with Our Ukraine.
However, in the 2006 parliamentary elections, Tymoshenko's
bloc BYuT made significant inroads among Tatar voters and
other "pro Ukrainian" Crimeans, matching the Mejlis/Rukh
vote. A new Tatar political project called Milly Firka,
started by Soviet-era Tatar intellectuals who accommodated
Soviet authorities while in exile in Uzbekistan rather than
taking Jemilev's dissident route, has made a media splash
with a more pro-Russian, pan Tatar approach, even as it seeks
a political sponsor. Journalists Prytula and Yunusov
speculated BYuT, Regions' Akhmetov (a Volga/Kazan Tatar),
Tatarstan, and Moscow were possibilities. More significant
is the grass-roots threat to Mejlis authority posed by the
squatter movement and its Danyal Ametov, who organized the
biggest non-Mejlis organized convocation of Tatars ever in
January when 5000 gathered to protest the lack of action on
land rights. Subsequent gatherings were much smaller after
Jemilev/Mejlis made pleas against the actions to avoid
provocations, with only 500 rallying behind Ametov.


20. (SBU) Jemilev and his deputy, fellow OU MP Rifat
Chubarov, face a dilemma if Rukh chooses to run in a
nationalist "Pravytsya" (Rightist) bloc separate from OU.
Jemilev told us May 17 that if Pravytsya and OU did not reach
agreement on a joint list, he and Chubarov would run with OU
to ensure Crimean Tatar inclusion in the next Rada.


21. (U) Visit Embassy Kyiv's classified website:
www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/kiev.
Taylor