Thaindian News

April 28, 2010 (Pen Men at Work): The speaker of the Ukrainian parliament on Tuesday huddled underneath umbrellas as there was a torrential downpour of eggs on him and also as smoke bombs had filled up the chamber with a choking cloud. Then, the Ukrainian legislators of the governing party and the opposition assaulted each other, walloping and clashing in the passageways.

As parliament speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn commenced Tuesday’s legislative sitting, opposition members chucked eggs at him. This compelled him to take the chair behind two black umbrellas that were held by the assistants.

Opposition legislators wrapped an enormous Ukrainian flag over their seats. This was a signal that they would refrain from voting.

Lytvyn, however, boldly came to the fore in the middle of the falling eggs. He advised the legislators to stand up to reveal their opinion on the Black Sea Fleet deal.

The pandemonium blew up on Tuesday as the Ukrainian parliament endorsed a pact that permits Russia to lengthen the lease, until 2042, on a naval base in a Ukrainian port on the Black Sea. This is a step that has been acrimoniously vilified by the pro-Western opposition. Ukraine would receive low-priced natural gas from Russia in return.

Russia’s authority in Ukraine has increased subsequent to the electoral triumph in February of the pro-Russian President, Viktor Yanukovych. This enraged those Ukrainians, who have consistently railed against Moscow’s sway. The electoral victory of Yanukovych only ignited the aggressive fervor that has cursed the politics of Ukraine, since it broke away from the erstwhile Soviet Union.

The hullabaloo over the Ukrainian port for the Russian Black Sea Fleet has been one of the most expressively charged repercussions of the disintegration of the Soviet Union. After the Soviet dismantlement, Russia discovered one of its foremost armadas or fleets anchored in a foreign nation’s port. The port was Sevastopol located in the Crimean peninsula that stretched from mainland Ukraine into the Black Sea.

Fervent Ukrainian nationalists, who have taken exception to Moscow’s lengthy domination of their territory, have interpreted the Russian armada’s existence as synonymous to military occupation. Former Ukrainian President, Viktor Yushchenko, who was inclined towards the West, had sworn that the armada’s lease of the port would not be revitalized when it wound up in 2017.

Yanukovych and the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev concurred last week that the lease would be stretched for 25 years after that cessation in 2017. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin conversed about the matter recently in Kiev with Yanukovych.