U.S. intelligence officials are worried that economic crisis and ethnic tensions in nuclear-armed Ukraine could lead to a breakup of the former Soviet republic.
CIA Director R. James Woolsey said Tuesday that secessionist forces in Ukraine might appeal to Moscow for support. That would put further strain on already uneasy relations between Ukraine and Russia, he said.Meanwhile, the speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament said Wednesday that the Kremlin nuclear disarmament accord signed by the leaders of Ukraine, Russia and the United States gives his country too little in return for giving up its nuclear arsenal. Parliament Chairman Ivan Plyushch said, "What happened in Moscow is not nuclear disarmament but stripping the state naked."
In an oral review of key trouble spots around the world, Woolsey put special emphasis on what he called a "potential crisis" in Ukraine, where a significant minority in some regions populated by ethnic Russians favor secession.
Woolsey did not specifically refer to a reported new U.S. intelligence analysis of Ukraine, but his remarks echoed the study's main theme: economic distress and ethnic tensions could lead to a partitioning of the nation and to conflict with Russia.
"The celebration of Ukrainian independence has given way to disillusionment as a result of economic mismanagement and political drift," Woolsey told an open hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
"Reform has been nonexistent, energy shortages have become a way of life, the inflation rate for December was 90 percent and nearly half of Ukraine's citizens are living below the poverty level," he said.
Woolsey also expressed concern about economic distress.