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RFE/RL (Un)Civil Societies
Vol. 5, No. 11, 17 April 2004
"RFE/RL (Un)Civil Societies" is prepared by Catherine Fitzpatrick on the basis of reports by RFE/RL broadcast services and other sources.
Copyright (c) 2004. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org

ANTIWAR SENTIMENT MUTED, BUT STILL PRESENT, IN EASTERN EUROPE AND EURASIA. With casualties and kidnappings mounting in Iraq among nationals from coalition and noncoalition states, some early supporters of the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq in Eastern Europe appear to have wavered in the face of parliamentary or public opposition to the war....

RUSSIA. Marches in Moscow to oppose the war in Iraq are more frequent than in Eastern Europe, and have tended to be staged by older communists who have preserved their distrust of U.S. policy from the Soviet era. There is also a new generation of pacifists, guided by veteran draft resisters. These younger human rights activists regularly picket to draw attention to the war in Chechnya.

Most Russians appear to believe the occupation of Iraq is a "crime against the Iraqi people," UPI reported on 18 March, citing RosBusinessConsulting and a February poll by the All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM). Some 62 percent of Russians characterized the war as a "crime," while 23 percent said it was necessary and 4 percent supported it. Duma Foreign Affairs Committee head Konstantin Kazachkov and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov issued statements in the past week stressing humanitarian concerns about the war, such as the suffering of women and children in Al-Fallujah during fighting between U.S. soldiers and presumed Shi'a rebels. They have indicated that Russia might be willing to send troops to Iraq only if authorization is first obtained from the United Nations, RTR reported on 10 April.

When eight Russian and Ukrainian civilians employed by Interenergoservis were kidnapped in early April, Russia did not talk about sending troops to help release them -- as did Japan -- and left it up to the enterprises that have 500-1,000 employees in Iraq to decide whether they want to remove them, "The Moscow Times" reported on 14 April, before the release of the captives. By the next day, however, the Kremlin had decided to help evacuate hundreds of Ukrainian, Russian, and other workers from CIS countries. The hostages were soon released, reportedly with the intervention of the Iraqi Communist Party, and one hostage commented to RTR on 13 April that it was because Iraqis believe that "Russia is our friend." "As far as I can tell, they were released after they said they were Russians," Interenergoservis Executive Director Aleksandr Rybinskii said on NTV on 13 April.

UKRAINE. In Kyiv, the peace march synchronized with the worldwide antiwar protest of 20 March was also sparsely attended, with just a few hundred supporters of the Ukrainian Antiwar Movement, the Russian Movement in Ukraine, the Russian Bloc Party, the Aleksandr Nevskii Orthodox Brotherhood, and the Ukrainian Orthodox Brotherhood meeting in Independence Square. Placards reportedly read "Stop the War and Occupation in Iraq" and "Ukrainian Soldiers, Come Back from the Infamous War!."

Ukraine sent 1,634 troops to Iraq, in part to repair relations with the United States, which has been critical of Ukraine's deteriorating human rights situation and made allegations of past sales of arms to Iraq. Four Ukrainian troops have died in Iraq to date -- three in accidents, including one incident of mishandled weapons. The fourth, Ruslan Androshuk, was killed in his tank in Al-Kut on 9 April while his unit was evacuating during a fight for a bridge over the Tigris River. He was the first combat death for Ukraine and received wide coverage on local television. Five other Ukrainians in Androshuk's unit were wounded. Russia's RTR featured his hometown and friends, who said Androshuk had gone to Iraq because he could make money quickly, far more than in regular army service, which they said he needed to get married and have a proper wedding feast. "Politicians are getting rich from the war, and from young men dying," one of Androshuk's friends was reported to have commented by Russia's "Vesti" of 12 April.

Ukrainian military spokesmen repeatedly explained that their troops were unprepared for combat and had expected to serve as peacekeepers, not warriors. In discussions of the Ukrainian presence in Iraq, the word "peacekeeper" rather than "soldier" is always used, presumably to invoke associations with the United Nations even though the UN has not sanctioned a peacekeeping force from Ukraine or any other partner or ally of the U.S.-led coalition.

Parliamentarians who have opposed the war have been quick to pick up on the lack of UN authorization and the sense that the United States appears to be alone in making decisions about troop deployment. "We have not been invited by Iraqis themselves, but the Americans have invited foreigners into someone else's home, and that's wrong," a Ukrainian legislator was shown complaining on RTR on 12 April.

Communists in the Ukrainian parliament raised the issue of the continuing deployment of Ukrainian troops on 7 April. The opposition Our Ukraine requested that Defense Minister Yevhen Marchuk report on the peacekeepers' situation and noted that -- before agreeing to the deployment in August -- the parliament had stipulated that they would not be engaged in fighting, the Ukrainian News Agency and other wire services reported on 7 April. The Ukraine Defense Ministry said the troops would be kept in Iraq but expressed concern about their mission. "Peacekeepers are not meant to get involved in battle," Interfax quoted Deputy Chief of Staff Oleg Sibeshenko as saying on 9 April.