Get fracking - corporate plans for Ukraine's future

An independent, modern, prosperous Ukraine was the vision of the young people that took to the streets to get rid of the Yanukovych regime and many think there is a better chance of that in partnership with the European Union than under Russian influence. But the fact is that the EU, US and their transnational corporate partners (and the home-grown oligarchs) have very different plans

And these do not hinge upon the prosperity and wellbeing of Ukrainian citizens and their environment. Fracking on a massive scale will be a prime focus for EU and IMF "loans", and Shell and Chevron, who signed deals with ousted president Yanukovych in 2013, will be joined by all the usual suspects.

Ukraine has an estimated 42 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable shale gas reserves, the fourth largest deposits in Europe behind Poland, France and Norway. Since France is so far not in the market, Ukraine's deposits are even more attractive. The US Energy Administration  suggests Ukraine could be exporting shale gas by 2020. With almost every Russian gas pipeline running through Ukraine, it would be possible to create parallel infrastructure exporting shale gas.

The Russian government says it objects to fracking in Eastern Ukraine because of fears about water pollution when its actual fear is competition. That is not to say water pollution won't happen, but it isn't stopping Russia's own fracking plans for large areas of Siberia.

The corporations are moving into other areas of Ukraine’s economy too. Ukraine's former collective farms were seized by oligarchs like Oleg Bakhmatyuk and grown to the point where his agricultural business UkrLandFarming is the worlds second biggest egg producer, and the eighth largest grain exporter.

UkrLandFarming recently sold a 5% share to multinational agri-chemical giant Cargill for £200m. Cargill already have a big operation in Ukraine, with feed mills, oil production and grain silos.

Ukraine is poised to become the world's third biggest grain exporter in 2014 overtaking Russia and Argentina, another blow to Russian hegemony. But all this wealth will not be produced to benefit ordinary Ukrainians. It will enrich the oligarchs and their global partners whilst it further destroys Ukraine's land and ecology.

There is terrible air pollution throughout Ukraine, because of the coal-burning industries of eastern Ukraine and poor regulation of transport. The rich dark soil of the steppes is already suffering from erosion and land slips due to over farming. Grain production is being sustained by the application of huge quantities of chemicals and recent low rainfall has led to a need for more irrigation.

The great rivers  – the Dnieper, Dniester, and Donets – are seriously polluted with chemical runoff. The diversion of fresh water has made the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea more saline, damaging marine wildlife and reducing fish stocks.

Ukraine must also go on coping with the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant explosion. Vast areas of farmland and forest are contaminated with radioactivity including Strontium 90, but small farmers are still working it.

Ukrainians just have to look across the border to Poland to see that EU membership is not necessarily a route to modernity. Poland is still a focus for dirty industries with low levels of regulation that EU giants France and Germany would never permit on their own soil.

And the Polish government has put thousands of hectares of prime agricultural land on the market in recent years – multinational purchasers are accused of planning to exploit a legal loophole to start growing GM crops. Polish farmers have been blockading the land sales agency with tractors continuously for a year.

Millions of Ukrainians are now set to join the economic and environmental struggles facing all of us on the planet - they are more than welcome!

Penny Cole

Environment editor

Ukraine insurrection against brutality and state corruption

As the anti-government movement in Maidan Square hunkers down for its tenth week of occupation in sub-zero temperatures, the battle-lines have changed. Starting as a largely pro-European Union movement last November, the remarkable courage and determination of Kiev’s people has changed the stakes.

The massive reaction of the authorities produced a defiant opposition to the brutality of the notorious security forces and to widespread state corruption. That’s why what is effectively an insurrection has spread to the eastern parts of Ukraine, despite the area’s historic ties to neighbouring Russia.

The centre of Kiev has become a charred and frozen war-zone with some of the thousands of occupiers sheltering in occupied buildings and others behind barricades made of ice. They are sustained by well-organised support from both locals and those further away.

Hundreds of women ferry food, hot drinks, blankets and medication, braving not only freezing temperatures, smoke from burning tyres, but also live bullets from plainclothes snipers, not to mention batons, tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets.

At least two of the movement’s leaders have had to flee Ukraine and take refuge in neighbouring countries. There is evidence of death squads and that snipers surrounding Maidan Square are deliberately targeting protesters’ eyes.

Over 40 journalists are reported injured and there is video evidence of police beating and stripping a Cossack protester in a freezing street.

Dmytro Bulatov, the founder of Auto Maidan – which organises car owners in support of the occupation – disappeared on January 22. Two days before, Bulatov had urged opposition leaders to settle on a single protest leadership. He was only found eight days later, having been tortured by the police. Only the vigilance of his supporters prevented further beatings while he was in hospital. He has apparently now left the country.

Oleksandre Danylyuk, leader of the anti-government group Spilna Sprava which organised the occupation of three strategic buildings, fled to London last week after the police issued a warrant for his arrest. He is wanted on suspicion of !organising riots that caused the death of people or serious harm to them," according to the Interior Ministry's database of wanted people. The offense carries up to 15 years behind bars, says the Kyiv Post.

Danylyuk and Bulatov have been luckier than 50-year-old Yuri Verbizky, who was beaten and left to die of the cold in a forest near Kiev. His colleague, Ihor Lutsenko managed to escape with a concussion and missing teeth. He was rescued by a passing motorist.

Meanwhile, the website for Berkut, the state’s special police force, has been flooded with anti-Semitic materials alleging that the Jews are to blame for organising at Maidan. Berkut proudly publishes photos of its brutality to protesters.

As poet Yuri Andrukhovych has written, the state repression and collusion with autocrats like Putin has hardened the resolve of the movement. They are fired up, he says  “by an exceptionally hot mix of despair, hope, self-sacrifice and hatred”. He adds: “”Yes, hatred. Morality does not forbid hating murderers. Especially if the murderers are in power or in direct service of those in power.”

Ukraine became an independent state in 1991 for the first time in its long history, apart from a brief moment around 1918-1919. For most of the 20^th century it was part of the Soviet Union. During the Stalinist period, Ukraine experienced famine during which millions died as a result of forced collectivisation.

Political independence following the break-up of the USSR did not mean economic independence from the greedy tentacles of Putin’s state in Russia, nor from their Ukraine’s own oligarchs. The transition to a full-blown capitalist economy meant poverty for the majority of Ukraine’s workers and its women in particular. After the 2008 global crash, Ukraine’s economy staggered deeper and deeper into debt.

Ukraine’s embattled president Viktor Yanukovych, who has just returned from a few days’ “rest” signed an economic pact with Russia in December rather than the EU. But the anti-government protesters are wise to the fact that there are sinister strings attached to any deal with Putin even if they don’t yet appreciate that the EU sees Ukraine as another pool of cheap labour to exploit.

There is a wide spectrum of forces at work in the Ukrainian movement, including the “Right Sector”. This has been seized up by Putin’s propaganda machine to discredit the movement. But there are also others, amongst them Narodniy Nabat (People’s Bell) and  Avtonomniy Opir (Autonomous Resistance) and Volna Zemlya (Free Land). They recognise the state as their enemy even if there is no clear view yet about what to replace it with.

Corinna Lotz

A World to Win secretary