Well, thank goodness! So, everything is fine! Everything has had a happy ending. “Don’t be afraid of a coup. It is absolute nonsense,” our President reassured us, who were trembling from the fear of American imperialism. However, for some reason he immediately started trembling himself: It is not impossible that political forces will use the election results for “something obscure, the Yugoslav scenario.” But since the people do not have to be afraid, this obscure something will be without shooting or bombing and its consequences will be important only to the country’s leadership, as it was under the above Yugoslav scenario. Isn’t his trembling because of this as well as his self-assured remark “We are not Yugoslavia”? An up-to-the-minute comment: and we are not Zimbabwe either.

Relics of anti-Western rhetoric, and in particular anti-American rhetoric, are the inevitable component of the Ukrainian left’s repertoire. Especially convincing when delivered by the Progressive Socialist Party leader Nataliya Vitrenko. In a shortage of outstanding speakers, her generally recognized gift to give a sincere tribute could not but be useful in a fight against the opponents of the party in power. However, if her previous job description was the “neutralization” of socialist leader Oleksandr Moroz, during this election campaign her “victims” are also Viktor Yushchenko and Yuliya Tymoshenko. Given such a set of “targets” Ms Vitrenko was certainly ensured prime position in the mass media. One quick glance at a TV screen is enough to register of her constant presence. A two-week monitoring of the three national TV channels, UT-1, STB and ICTV, held February 26 - March 12 to measure the frequency of quotes from Viktor Yushchenko, Yuliya Tymoshenko, Oleksandr Moroz and Nataliya Vitrenko have produced the following results: Yushchenko’s quotes totaled 854 letters, Tymoshenko’s 8,641 letters, Moroz was lucky enough to be quoted with 20,132 letters, while Vitrenko with 27,765 letters. The transcripts of the current political programs on these channels were used as the source.

However, this is not the case when quantitative indices grow into qualitative ones. Constantly played back, the anti-Western and anti-opposition hits become boring and lose their popularity with the public. In the early 1990s, the fear of an American threat, which has been deeply rooted in people’s minds since Soviet times, was somewhat lessened by the fear of a threat to a young independent Ukraine from its northern neighbor. The statehood-minded elite and the people had more than enough evidence of that: Crimea, Sevastopol, the Black Sea Fleet, the language issue, [Ukraine’s] extreme energy dependence [on Russia]. Against such a background, the USA was attributed the feature of a distant but not indifferent observer of the Russian-Ukrainian relations, a kind of watchdog of Ukrainian independence and territorial integrity. At present, when the Russian threat is less real, the political accents have significantly shifted.

Now, a threatening wind is blowing from overseas. It is there where Major Melnichenko, [who tape-recorded the President’s talks in his office] was granted political asylum. It is there, from where the demand to complete the investigation of the two much-talked-about murders is coming. It is there, from where the official pressure upon the Ukrainian leadership is coming accompanied with appeals for fair and transparent elections. Now, if there is a threat in this case, it is aimed at the Ukrainian government.

It is not for the first time that the Peoples Movement of Ukraine (united) leader Bohdan Boiko is providing much needed ideological support to the Ukrainian government. His sensational statement that Melnychenko’s traces were found “at one of NATO’s military bases in the Czech Republic” is not forgotten. People in the know wondered then at the unprofessional work the authors of this “sensational news” made of its wording. There are no NATO military bases in fact, there are the military bases of NATO member states and all of them are under national jurisdiction.

But the accusers do not care about such trifles. Nor about the fact that the biographies of the sociologists of the Ukrainian Rasumkov Economic and Political Research Center, who became the main characters of another Bohadan Boiko thriller, have been available for any Internet user at the Center’s official website for eighteen months. However, Mr. Boiko has other “intelligence sources”, which have informed him that the educational institution of the US Defense Department, where the Rasumkov Center personnel once received their training, is also the producer of “specialists for the US secret service”. Who if not they are to play the key role of coordinating large-scale protest and public unrest aiming to have the election results falsified that the foreign secret services are now planning?

The authors of this theory even don’t care about such minor details as the working of the Rasumkov Center leaders, in the capacity of “US spies”, for the holy of holies of Ukrainian national security, the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine. They left the Council not because Anatoliy Hrytsenko was accused of misuse of secret documents, as the Russian Internet publication, Pravda.ru insists. They left it to remain a team after Oleksandr Rasumkov left. His colleagues, who left it at the same time as him, believe that Rasumkov is the only person who is interested in real change in this country. Apparently, the Rasumkov Center president was repeatedly asked to return to the Council only because the employees of the Presidential Administration were not aware of the American past of Anatoliy Hrytsenko.

On the other hand, one can’t help thinking that Bohdan Boiko is using the same “intelligence sources” as the President, when he spoke about “something obscure, a Yugoslavian scenario.” “A mechanism of destabilizing the political situation in Ukraine not only during the elections but also afterwards is being worked out according to the method tried out in Yugoslavia,” the People’s Movement of Ukraine leader said. According to him, the Rasumkov Center is coordinating the work of all sociological services that “are making public the results of the so-called sociological research thus encouraging public opinion to think that the election results are falsified.”

So, this is public opinion. According to the results of sociological research conducted by that very Rasumkov Center (or by “nobody knows who” as the President calls it), more than 43 % of Ukrainians believe that Ukraine is absolutely not independent in determining its foreign policy, and more than 40% believe it is not really independent. Given this, 36 % of the polled said that most influence is exerted on Ukraine by the USA, 23.7% by Russia, and 14% by the EU countries. As for foreign policy priorities, 31% of Ukrainians believe rapprochement with Russia should be the priority, the same number favors the development of relations with the European countries and only 4% of the polled stand for getting close to the USA. What a base ingratitude the “nobody knows who” is demonstrating to their teacher country by publishing their results.

But this is not the main point. The main point is that the authors of the Boiko spy novel did a masterly job when getting ready for their strike, and the anti-American mood of the electorate must have played a major role in it, according to their calculations. In contrast to the pro-Russian mood. In addition, it has been far from an amateur job to attach the names of the opposition bloc leaders, Viktor Yushchenko, Yuliya Tymoshenko, Oleksandr Moros, to this information of subversive activities. (Though the president would later say something along the lines of “Yushchenko” and “coup” are two incompatible concepts. It is obvious that this could not be done without the help of groups of political PR experts who have mastered their skills in undermining the ideological base of the opposition.

One does not have to necessarily be a spy to figure out where this story comes from. It is enough to follow the track of the information about the alleged conspiracy. The source is the Russian Internet publication Pravda.ru, from where the story moved on to Ukrainian Internet publications: first to Obozrevatel.com, sponsored by the Social Democrat Oleksandr Zinchenko and then to Versii.com, sponsored by one of the Labor Ukraine leaders Andrey Derkach. Later, it was quite natural and quite in line with political PR principles that Bohdan Boiko’s news conference was widely covered by TV channels sponsored by leading pro-presidential parties and blocs.

The talents as a speaker of the Russian Ambassador to Ukraine Viktor Chernomyrdin were used to make the initial picture even more convincing. Strictly in line with this script, which is being filmed, he made a statement about his country’s absolute non-interference in the Ukrainian election process to emphasize the contrast with the behavior of the USA. Referring to the latter he said, “I find it humiliating and insulting.” And he did have reason to say so: “decent people” charge money for their participation in the Ukrainian elections, while these arrogant Yankees contribute their own.

Just imagine, what a scandal there would have been if the electoral headquarters of the Our Ukraine bloc would have contracted a group of political PR experts from the USA! Mr. Yushchenko would have already been hounded to death with accusations of having sold himself to Uncle Sam.

While Viktor Pinchuk, for example, just cannot imagine running for parliament without the coaching of Russian image-makers. All in all, more than 50 deputies running in the majority constituencies have followed the latest fashion and requested the services of Russian political PR experts.

Here is the difference between the Western and Russian approaches to participation in the Ukrainian elections. The efforts of the West are aimed at supporting the state and public institutions, which work to ensure fair elections. While Western influence shows itself through reinforcing the institutions, the Russian factor does not target the established institutions, it is more direct. One example: when visiting one of the Kyiv based newspapers and talking to journalists, Viktor Chernomyrdin was very unhappy about one of the journalists’ questions about the border demarcation and prospects of Ukraine joining NATO. With a diplomatic tact inherent in him as well as in spirit of his recent statement about Russia’s not imposing its opinion on Ukraine, Mr. Chernomyrdin advised the editor to fire journalists, who are so impudent.

While the major share of Western assistance targets the election process, but not the election result, the presence of the Russian strategists and the influence of the Russian media in Ukraine are one of the key factors that determine the end result of the parliamentary elections.

In short, the West exports to Ukraine democratic ideals, the principles of fair and transparent elections and in return is accused of staging a coup. Russia exports to Ukraine dirty PR techniques and a dubious culture, which is far from conforming to European standards, and is paid for it in private with American currency and gratitude for state support in times of trouble.

While the assistance of the West, including financial assistance, goes through legal channels and is accountable to many state, public and international organizations, the major negative specifics of the Russian presence in the Ukrainian election process consists of absolute unaccountability to society and an absence of transparency, according to the February report of the Ukrainian Monitor.

Of course, it is not economically expedient for Russian to encourage Ukraine to follow the civilized way in the election process. Specialists of PR and political techniques would have nothing to gain under those conditions. In this sense, Russia and Ukraine are made for each other: shadowy influence, shadowy funding, shadowy support of the first go well with the shadowy politics and shadowy economy of the latter. Only it is sad to be aware of that after September 11, Ukraine is no longer among the top of the US rapidly changing list of priorities. The USA has almost no interest in us. A little later, and we will not even have to worry if the West will help us (or hurt us). That is why it would be useless to try to play the American card in the next presidential elections: it would probably fail. Nobody will even believe that they have any interest in us. But by then, the Russian political PR experts will have had enough time to think up new moves.