In a bit of a shock result, the joint bid from Ukraine and Poland has beaten hot favourites Italy to the right to host the Euro 2012 football tournament.

There had been fears that the current political crisis in Ukraine, combined with a recent Polish match fixing scandal would hurt the two countries’ bid. But, instead, it seems that Italy’s problems with referee corruption, and the recent crowd trouble which resulted in the death of a policeman and forced the suspension of the Italian domestic season, was enough to see the Poland/Ukraine bid through.

As well as that, presentations by the Presidents of Poland and Ukraine undoubtedly helped to turn the tide against Italy:

“We thought the political situation could hamper our bid. There were such speculations circulating in UEFA’s corridors,” Volodymyr Lashkul, the vice president of the Ukrainian Football Federation, told Reuters. “But that didn’t happen. The two presidents who came to the presentation yesterday — Viktor Yushchenko and [Polish President] Lech Kaczynski — made a breakthrough in the situation.”

Just over half of the matches in the tournament will be played in Poland but, to compensate, Ukraine will host the final of Euro 2012 in the Kiev Olympic Stadium.

Neither country has hosted a European or World cup before (although Ukraine did host the 1980 Olympics’ football tournament), so there is a lot of work to be done. In Ukraine alone, six stadiums will need to be either renovated, or rebuilt from scratch in just four and a half years. A tall order, but one that I think Ukraine and Poland will meet.

The wording of this Mosnews article seems a trifle odd to me:

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko on Thursday threatened to prosecute his prime minister if he refused to take part in a new election, escalating a standoff paralyzing the ex-Soviet state, the Reuters news agency reported on April 5.

Presumably, it isn’t obligatory in Ukraine for Viktor Yanukovich to personally stand for election?

Other news outlets (in this case, the Guardian) are reporting the story slightly differently:

President Viktor Yushchenko threatened his rival Thursday with criminal charges if he refuses to prepare for early parliamentary elections next month

But still, it’s not entirely clear exactly what Yanukovich has to do to stay out of the courtroom.

Anyone got any ideas?

Well, pretty much as expected, Ukraine’s parliament was dissolved this evening, and early elections were called for 27 May.

After more than 70,000 protesters turned out in Kiev over the weekend, demanding that he do exactly that, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. In truth, given that level of pressure, I can’t think of much else he could do.

Although, as I said previously, I’m not certain its an election he can actually win.

If it even gets to an election, that is… the speaker of Parliament has already called Yushchenko’s move unconstitutional so, in tandem with the election preparations, expect a big legal fight in the coming weeks.

Oh, and one other piece of news. Yushchenko had to telephone Russian President Putin to tell him of the news. Apparently, Yushchenko was due to visit Moscow on Tuesday, but had to send his apologies. What I wouldn’t give to have been able to eavesdrop on that conversation…

Earlier this week, a Russian Navy warship fired a shell in the direction of Ukraine:

A sailor aboard the Russian warship Tsesar Kunikov, an assault landing ship, fired a 57 millimetre artillery round in the direction of the town, for unknown reasons.

The shell landed near the village Sakharna, a suburb of Sevastopol, without causing injuries or damage.

It sounds to me like either a simple mistake, or the sailor in question had some personal “issues” he needed to work through. Either way, the Russian Navy should be embarrassed.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry are, rightly, a bit grumpy about the whole incident. A statement released yesterday reads:

The explosion could result in death of people and severe destruction in the historical site of the city. Therefore it may not be regarded as a simple regrettable incident. It is an obvious consequence of incompliance with the requirements provided in the relevant bilateral documents. Thus, the Agreement of 1997 on the status and conditions of deployment of the Black Sea Navy of the Russian Federation in the territory of Ukraine, particularly, the Section 2 of the Article 8, clearly defines: “The military units shall conduct exercises and other training operations within the bounds of training centers, grounds, positional and dispersal areas, shooting-ranges and (except for prohibited areas) in allotted airspace areas subject to coordination with the competent authorities”.

That’s the way to do it. Fight fire with bureaucracy.

The political tensions that have been building in Ukraine over the past year or so may well come to a head over the next few days.

Two rival protests have been organised in Kiev this weekend. One for supporters of embattled President Viktor Yushchenko, the other for supporters of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich.

The protests are expected to attract tens of thousands each, and I’d imagine there is a significant risk of a clash between rival groups at some stage over the weekend. Particularly as the protests come at a point when President Yushchenko is reportedly considering dissolving Parliament and ordering new elections.

I must confess, I haven’t been following the nuances of Ukrainian politics recently, but I’m a little baffled by this decision. I’d thought that Yushchenko was in a relatively weak position electorally, with his potential support divided between two parties (his Our Ukraine People’s Union party and Yulia Timoshenko’s All Ukrainian Union Fatherland party), whilst his Viktor Yanukovich’s support was more unified.

What do you think? Would dissolving parliament be a wise decision for Yushchenko?

*This image, found on Flickr, was taken by user txd.

Predictably, everyone’s upset, from Ukrainians, who think that she will make Ukraine look silly and recently burnt an effigy of her to make their point, to Russians, who worry that the song’s lyrics:

constitute a direct assault by a wayward neighbour on Moscow itself. At the root of the indignation is a refrain that appears to exhort the audience to sing “Russia goodbye”.

According to Serdyuchka herself, though, its all a big misunderstanding:

His lyrics, he maintains, do not read I want you to sing/Russia goodbye, but I want you to see/Lasha tumbai - which apparently means “churned butter” in Mongolian.

Hmmm - Mongolian lyrics. Another Eurovision first?

Anyway, RFE/RL has a roundup of this year’s Eastern European entries, and you can find a video clip of Serdyuchka in action on the BBC website.

Mosnews reports that a pod of Black Sea dolphins tried to drown a swimmer who they saw as competition for their food:

The man, reportedly heavily under the influence of alcohol at the time, was some 30 metres from land, near a wave breakwater, and calling for help.

The dolphins attempting to push the man out to sea, witnesses said.

The emergency workers brought the man back to dry land after approaching the breakwater via a pier, and striking the water repeatedly with clubs, so as to frighten away the dolphins.

I sense a new series of blockbuster movies on the horizon…

(This post was brought to you by the Mosnews Appreciation Society).

The quite excellent Europhobia has also had a re-launch of sorts in the past few weeks. He’s shifted his focus back to broader European issues, resulting in posts like this second-and-a-bit anniversary of the Orange Revolution post. It’s not all doom and gloom, he concludes, but nonetheless:

There are moves afoot in the former Soviet Union. Quite what moves, I have no idea. But keep your eyes open…

I couldn’t agree more. Moves are indeed afoot.

Viktor Yanukovich was installed as Prime Minister quite smoothly, which bodes well for Ukrainian democracy. It demonstrates that Ukraine can handle conflict democratically, without resorting to renewed dictatorship.

But, at the same time, he is far more pro-Russian than Ukraine’s President, Viktor Yuschenko. And, given Russia’s increasingly pro-active approach towards rolling back the development of democratic governance in its near abroad, that scares me.

If present trends continue (and it is by no means certain that they will), it’s difficult to see Ukrainian democracy continuing to flourish.

Oh - before I go - here’s a great roundup of recent developments in Ukrainian politics by Dan McMinn.

What do you do if you you’ve mined out your salt mine? Why, turn it into a haven for asthma sufferers, of course!

In Soviet times a spell in the salt mines was the fate of dissidents and criminals. But today the glittering tunnels below Solotvyno in western Ukraine have been transformed into a more benign destination: a haven for people with asthma and other respiratory diseases.

Doctors at Solotvyno’s allergological hospital dispatch patients to dank chambers 300 metres below ground, where a unique microclimate is said to ease their coughing and wheezing. The hospital, set among rolling hills near the border with Romania, started as a small clinic almost 30 years ago but is now a luxury complex serving about 6,000 people a year.

[…] Dr Chonka said the air in the tunnels helped to lessen the respiratory tract’s sensitivity to allergens. “People who had a number of treatment courses were cured from asthma for 15 years or more,” he said.

The hospital is said to be targetting British patients, because of the high incidence of asthma in the UK. British medical experts, however, seem to be sceptical of the health benefits. I suspect this is mostly due to the short supply of salt mines in the Home Counties.

The announcement by Ukrainian Rada Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn that CNN were planning to open a bureau in Kiev has led to a blunt denial from a CNN spokesman:

“International news network CNN would like to clarify that it has no plans to open a bureau or a new channel in Ukraine, despite reports today in the Ukrainian media,” Claudia Coles said in a phone interview with RIA Novosti.

“CNN’s Moscow bureau has been an integral part of the network’s operations since it opened in 1983 and continues to report on the region’s pivotal role in the global news agenda, including news out of Ukraine,” Coles said. “We remain committed to bringing the region’s stories to the attention of our global audience.”

Denial or not, I do wonder whether the current pressures that Putin is placing on the press (trying saying that three times quickly while slightly inebriated) in Russia is leading large media organisations to consider whether it would be wise to move their Russia/FSU operations to a slightly freer city than Moscow. True, Moscow is the hub of the FSU and, all other things being equal, the best site for a media bureau. But there may come a time when this benefit is outweighed by the need to work free of outside pressures.

The idea of CNN, the BBC, et al moving to Kiev might sound far fetched at the moment, but I wonder how silly it might seem a few years down the line if the situation in Russia continues to deteriorate…

The EU’s Trade Commissioner, Peter Mandelson, has announced that the EU is considering sanctions against Russia in response to the Russian ban on Polish food exports:

Mandelson, quoted by the British Financial Times told members of the European parliament that the Commission was investigating the Russian ban and expected to end that probe “speedily”. He said he had “doubts” about the reasons given by Moscow earlier this month for introducing a temporary ban on Polish meat, a move that has been condemned by Warsaw.

Russia announced a ban on Polish beef, pork and poultry products, saying there were “frequent violations of [Russian] veterinary legislation”. It has also separately blocked Polish exports of plant products. The ban has strained an already tense relationship between the two countries and has been widely seen in Poland as a political rather than sanitary move designed to test the new government.

Going by past experience, any EU sanctions (if, indeed, the dispute ever gets that far) would probably be closely targetted at the Russian agricultural industry, rather than at Russia as a whole. The value of any sanctions is also extremely unlikely to amount to anything more than the value of Poland’s loss of income.

But, still, if ever an indication of why countries like Ukraine are desperate to join the EU were needed, this is it. Once a state becomes an EU member, it doesn’t have to take on the bear alone.

Is this Interfax report based on some bizarre misquote? I’ve only seen the quote carried by Interfax - no other news organisation has even hinted at this story.

Yushchenko said that, in five years, the number of AIDS-infected people will increased 2.5 times and reach a mortality rate of 26 infected per 100,000 citizens.

“The rates at which the disease is spreading are awful. If the rates remain constant, then Ukraine will loose 10% of its population by 2010,” Yuschenko said at the all-Ukrainian meeting of family physicians in Kharkiv.

Now, I’d never class myself as a mathematician, but I must say I’m somewhat puzzled as to how a mortality rate of 0.01% equates to the death of one in 10 Ukrainains within the next 5 years.

I guess today must be “We hate Ukrainians Because They Are All Diseased Scum Day” over at the Interfax office.

This is great news for the state of democracy in Ukraine - and pretty good news for Azerbaijan, too:

Azeri opposition leader Rasul Guliyev, who was arrested en route from the U.S. to his native country has been released from a Ukrainian detention center by a Simferopol court in the southeastern Crimea, local media reported.

The Azeri side could not provide evidence that the criminal case launched in Baku against Guyliev was not politically motivated. Most of the documents sent to Simferopol were reportedly only uncertified photocopies.

When I heard a couple of days ago that Guliyev had been arrested as his plane landed in Ukraine, and that Ukraine had been asked to extradite him to Azerbaijan I had initially feared that, placed in a difficult situation, Ukraine might cave in and extradite Guliyev.

They could very easily have decided that one man wasn’t worth the trouble of alienating a potential ally in the CIS, and quietly put him on a plane to Baku.

Happily, though, the Ukrainian authorities have decided that their relationship with Azerbaijan’s government is worth less to them than the freedom of a pro-democracy opponent of the regime, showing that the principles of the Orange Revolution are still holding firm and more than that - Ukraine’s commitment to promoting democracy in other CIS states also remains strong.

The BBC will be interviewing Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko later this month, for their show Talking Point. A part of the interview (perhaps all of the interview?) will consist of questions from members of the public. You can put forward your question at the BBC News website.

While Andy is away sunning himself, here’s something to keep his regular readers amused.  Okay, it’s not about Siberia or even Russia, but Ukraine.

Having always wanted to visit the Black Sea resort of Yalta, I finally got round to it this summer and caught a train from London late one Tuesday evening with the intention of making the Crimea in four days.

Here’s what happened.