Published in Financial Times
By: Alan Beattie in London and Roman Olearchyk

The European Union yesterday paved the way for Ukraine to join the World Trade Organisation, a move which will admit a highly productive agricultural and steel economy and give Kiev power to delay Russia’s entry to the global club.

Peter Mandelson, EU trade commissioner, said he had reached agreement with Ukraine on the capping of export duties on a number of products including metals, animal hides, live cattle and other agricultural goods. Under WTO rules each existing member can block new members from joining unless they make trade reforms.

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Published in Business Week

The European Union said Thursday it has cleared the final hurdles in talks about Ukraine's accession to the World Trade Organization adding it will soon open talks for a comprehensive free trade accord with Kiev.

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Published in DPA

The election of Yulia Tymoshenko as prime minister of Ukraine is "an important first step on the road to a stable government," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Tuesday. Welcoming the vote in the Ukraine parliament, Steinmeier said the coalition led by the reformist politician faced "numerous tasks and reforms that needed to be approached with courage."

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Published in International Herald Tribune / Reuters
By Yuri Kulikov

Ukraine's parliament on Tuesday restored Yulia Tymoshenko as prime minister, sealing a political comeback for a leading figure from the former Soviet country's 2004 "Orange Revolution".

Tymoshenko, who confronted a powerful coalition led by outgoing prime minister Viktor Yanukovich, won 226 votes in the chamber, the exact number required to take office.

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Published in Reuters
By: Yuri Kulikov

Parties associated with the 2004 pro-Western "Orange Revolution" formed a wafer-thin majority coalition in Ukraine's parliament on Thursday, the first step towards forming a government.

The coalition, with only a single vote to spare, is expected to be headed by former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, a leader of the protests that swept President Viktor Yushchenko to power.

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Published in Kyiv Post
By Barbara Felitti

The Central Election Commission (CEC) will shortly certify the parliamentary election results, but the data are already clear – Yulia Tymoshenko’s message of reform resonated with voters. The opportunity to form a coalition and address the serious issue of state capture in Ukraine cannot be wasted.

“State capture” is an economics term used to describe the ability of special interests to use the influence of government to seize benefits for their own gain, at the expense of society at-large. The term gained usage in the late 80s by economist Joel Hellman to describe economic transition in post-communist countries. State capture is, in Hellman’s words, a “grand form of corruption.”

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Published in The Wall Street Journal
By: Taras Kuzio

Not since the heady days of the Orange Revolution has the atmosphere in Kiev been so electric. At the newly completed Hyatt, this city's only five-star hotel, the gathered journalists, international observers and Western political consultants awaited the arrival on Sunday evening of the woman who has changed the rules of Ukraine's political game.

Yulia Tymoshenko strode into her election headquarters surrounded by a throng of bodyguards to a receptive welcome. Her bloc has become the pivotal political force in Ukraine. Kiev is ripe with expectation that Ms. Tymoshenko is set to return as prime minister of a rejuvenated Orange coalition with President Viktor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine-People's Self-Defense party. If so, she will have saved the Orange Revolution and Mr. Yushchenko. He would have become a lame-duck president had the governing Party of Regions won. Now he can even dream of a second term.

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Published in Le Monde
Translation: BYuT

The victory of the pro-western political forces in Ukraine is good news, for several reasons. It should allow the formation of a government with a solid majority founded on the coalition of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, the incarnation of the Orange revolution and the friends of President Viktor Yushchenko. It could facilitate the rapprochement of Ukraine and the European Union.

The Kremlins recent statement stating that Russia would respect the elections results, no matter what they are, is an encouraging sign. During the last presidential campaign where Mr. Yushchenko won against his pro-Russian rival Viktor Yanukovich, Vladimir Putin had not hesitated to intervene directly and openly in the campaign. He seems to have understood this time that these interventions were rather counter-productive.

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Published in Reuters
By Ron Popeski

Ukraine leader embraces ex-PM, urges "orange" vote

President Viktor Yushchenko, newly reconciled with "Orange Revolution" heroine Yulia Tymoshenko, embraced her on Thursday and urged liberals to set aside past quarrels and unite to win a weekend parliamentary election.

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Published in CBN News
By: George Thomas

Over the past few years, Russian President Vladimir Putin has tried to reestablish Russia's dominance over other countries in the former Soviet empire.

In a few days, one of those countries, Ukraine, will hold parliamentary elections. The outcome is crucial to Russia's plans for a comeback.

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Published in Frankfurther Allgemeine Sunday Edition, September 23, 2007, no. 38, p. 12.
By Konrad Schuller

Yulia Tymoshenko has reached out to the middle-right with her political platform. With it, her chances in the Ukrainian parliamentary elections are good.

Bila Tserkva. The fact that her voice has become raw over the past few days only enhances its impact. It is election season once again in Ukraine, and Yulia Tymoshenko, who two years ago was the Joan of Arc of the “Orange Revolution,” is doing what she does best: she is fighting. Under her gold-blonde wreath of hair, half crown, half halo, her ivory white, fitted dress shines against the steel gray of the housing complexes. Nobody can understand how someone can look so immaculate after an eighteen-hour day on the campaign trail. But this is Yulia Tymoshenko: part blushing bride of the fatherland, part queenly Morgan le Fay.

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Published in Business Ukraine
By: Oksana Bondarchuk

The Tymoshenko Bloc has gone on the offensive prior to the September 30 parliamentary vote and focused its election campaign on the core Yanukovych-supporting regions of eastern and southern Ukraine. But can this assault on the Party of Regions’ stronghold bridge the great Ukrainian divide?

Throughout the current election campaign, analysts have consistently stated that the results of the September 30 vote are unlikely to be substantially different from those of the March 2006 parliamentary elections, leaving the country facing yet more political stalemate and uncertainty. This has not deterred the Tymoshenko Bloc (BYUT) from launching an ambitious promotional campaign throughout the southern and eastern regions of the country long considered the heartlands of Yanukovych support in what is being portrayed as an ambitious bid to break through the partisan regionalism dividing the Ukrainian electorate.

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