Ukrainian Weekly, March 27

Putin threatens Kyiv over EU
KYIV – If Ukraine sets up a free trade
area with the European Union and enters
the Russian market with its products,
Russia will have to “build a border” in trade
with Ukraine, Russian Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin said, according to March 16
news reports. It would be much more bene-
ficial to both Russia and Ukraine to negoti-
ate with the EU as Customs Union mem-
bers, Mr. Putin said at a press conference
following a meeting of the Eurasian
Economic Community (EurAsEC) inter-
state council in Minsk, Belarus. “If Ukraine
sets up a free trade area with the EU and
has to give in on many positions sensitive to
the Ukrainian economy, it will certainly
expect these products to go to the Russian
market. But we won’t be able to afford
this,” Mr. Putin said. “We will have to start
building a border, for otherwise they will
dump their goods on us,” he added.
“Holding negotiations with the EU in the
format of a common economic area or the
Customs Union is quite a different thing.
And the positions are much more advanta-geous,” said the Russian prime minister.
(Interfax-Ukraine

Lviv City Council OKs UCU’s exemption from rental fees

LVIV – The Lviv City Council, led by
the Svoboda nationalist party, voted at its
March 10 session to grant the Ukrainian
Catholic University (UCU) its long-
awaited exemption from rental payments,
after refusing to do so in previous ses-
sions.

Tax code hurts entrepreneurs
KYIV – Following the adoption of the
new Tax Code of Ukraine, the number of
those wishing to register as entrepreneurs
declined by 50 to 60 percent. This was
reported by a senior lawyer of MTS-
Consulting, Oleksandr Minin, in early
February. The number of applicants for
registration of businesses has also
decreased.

Ukrainian Weekly, April 3

Melnychenko tapes arouse questions
KYIV – Alan Dershowitz, a professor
of the Harvard Law School who has
become a special legal advisor to former
Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, has
started examining the details of the crim-
inal case opened in relation to the murder
of journalist Heorhii Gongadze, it was
reported on March 30. The website of
Mr. Kuchma’s charitable fund Ukraina
says that the professor, who is studying
the details of the case, has the greatest
doubts about the use as evidence from
what is known as the Melnychenko
recordings because for 10 years their
authenticity has been either denied or
doubted.