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Yushchenko calls snap poll

— PHOTO: AFP

Squabbles: Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in Kiev in this December 27, 2007 file photo.

MOSCOW: Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko dissolved Parliament on Wednesday and called a snap election amid charges of trying to suppress a parliamentary probe into arms supplies to Georgia that were used in the attack against South Ossetia.

Announcing his decision late on Wednesday, Mr. Yushchenko accused his Orange Revolution partner Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko of ruining their coalition in Parliament for the sake of acquiring power.

However, Ukrainian parliamentarians said Mr. Yushchenko dissolved Parliament to stop an investigation into illegal arms sales that could give Parliament ample reach to impeach him.

A parliamentary investigative commission set up by Ukraine’s Rada has found that Mr. Yushchenko sanctioned massive deliveries of weapons to Georgia in the run-up to its armed attempt to retake the breakaway territory of South Ossetia on August 8. The supplies, which continued even after Georgia launched its offensive, included tanks and multiple rocket launchers the Georgians used to raze the South Ossetian capital Tskhinval to the ground. Ukraine also sold Georgia Buk anti-aircraft missile systems that shot down four Russian warplanes. Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Ukraine not only supplied the weapons, but also provided personnel to operate them. He called it a “crime” against the Ukrainian and Russian peoples. Russian intelligence sources said Ukrainian weapons for Georgia had been selected by American military experts.

The Ukrainian parliamentary commission also accused Mr. Yushchenko of dealing a crippling blow to his own country’s defences, as the Buk missiles were taken away from a Ukrainian air defence regiment which was effectively rendered useless.

Moreover, the commission could not find any trace of most arms export money over the past three years that Mr. Yushchenko has headed Ukraine. A shipment of Ukrainian tanks and other weapons bound for Kenya and seized by Somali pirates two weeks ago added more fuel to the Georgia arms sales scandal. The Ukrainian freight manifest obtained by Western media suggests the Ukrainian hardware was bought by South Sudan, which is under a U.N. arms embargo.

According to parliamentary commission head Valery Konovalyuk, the schedule of arms deliveries to Georgia suggested that Mr. Yushchenko knew the date of Georgia’s attack on South Ossetia.

“The banning of the Parliament is aimed at thwarting the parliamentary probe,” Mr. Konovalyuk told Russian television. The new election to the Rada, set for December 7, will be the third parliamentary election in Ukraine in less than three years.

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