Question. If you lose, will you acknowledge your defeat?

Answer. Certainly, though it will not happen.

Q. If you win and your opponent denies it, will you protect your victory on the street or in the courts?

A. I will protect it both in the courts and on the street, and there will be no repeat of 2004 (the third round of elections when Yushchenko won).

Q. Does the EU favor Yulia Tymoshenko?

A. I think Europe is ready to acknowledge the decision of electorate and has identical balanced attitude to the both candidates.

Q. Your campaign seems to be more passive than campaign of your rival. Shouldn’t you get mobilized?

A. We are mobilized enough. I use my force rationally both in life and sports. It is necessary to plan moves and overcome an opponent by means of technique and without superficial agitation. My rival is nervous because she lost five years, during which she instead of efficient work fought against Yushchenko. She is anxious rather than mobilized.

Q. It looks like Europe is disappointed with Ukraine. Do you support the EU integration policy?

A. Europe does not give us prospects, and we understand it. Therefore we should work in order to modernize the country applying social, economic and technical European criteria. ‘Marriage’ with the EU could only take place with the consent of both sides. We do not want to compel a fiancée, but we will fulfill our obligations and become reliable partners for Europe, Russia and the USA. We would like to have trustful, effective and mutually beneficial relations with all of them.

Q. You have been to St. Petersburg at the ‘United Russia’ (Yedinaya Rossiya) (the party of majority in Russian parliament) party congress recently, while prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko met with the head of the Russian government Vladimir Putin in Yalta (Ukraine). Did you meet with president D.Medvedev in St. Petersburg?

A. I met neither Medvedev nor Putin.

Q. What relations do you have with Medvedev?

A. I am the opposition leader in Ukraine. I am not a prime minister. What relations can I have with Medvedev? I do not have any relations at the moment. I am acquainted with Medvedev. Medvedev knows me but we do not have personal contact. Currently I have relations with ‘United Russia’ (Yedinaya Rossiya), and these relations satisfy me.

Q. But Medvedev did not receive you when you were in St. Petersburg.

A. I did not ask him to be received.

Q. You advocate a consortium for gas shipment with Russia and the EU. What would your benefit be?

A. Every side would benefit from it. It would unite Russia as a supplier, Ukraine as a transit country and the EU as a consumer. During these five years, when we lost trust of Russia and the EU, the latter began to build gas pipelines without our participation.

This is not fair and I will discuss this issue with Russia and the EU right after the elections. We would like to participate in the North Stream and South Stream projects (gas pipelines projects along the bottom of Baltic and Black Seas in circumvent of Ukraine). If we lose the volumes of gas transit, we should compensate these losses. We will work out a scheme of our participation as builders and as members of the consortium.

Q. Your promises and commitments to the IMF overlap. Will you fulfill your promises or reject loans?

A. The way the question is put is incorrect. In the USA, Europe, Russia social assistance was increased during the crisis and the IMF did not object it. In Ukraine it has been frozen since 2008 despite dramatic price rise and inflation.

We have a law which ties the increase of pensions and social payments to inflation, but the government does not implement it. The IMF should not forge impoverishment of the Ukrainian people. It should tackle poverty. The government took USD 11.5 billion from the IMF and spent it nobody knows what for against the law, and the IMF let it.

I would like to ask the IMF why it took the side of one presidential candidate and gave so much money not asking what it will be spent for. Why doesn’t the IMF control fulfillment of the budget by Tymoshenko?

Q. Has “orange revolution” created anything positive?

A. It is good to have democracy, freedom of speech and media.

Q. It is connected to “orange revolution”.

A. Yes, much of it appeared after “orange revolution”.

Q. Thus you are a son of “orange revolution”.

A. I consider myself to be not a son but a stepchild. “Orange revolution” treated me badly as a stepchild.

Q. Western Ukrainians deem you pro-Russian. What would you tell them?

A. There is nothing bad about it. We all suffered from the decrease of commodity turnover with Russia from USD 40 billion to USD 13 billion. Our policy towards the Russian Federation should reflect our national interests.

For this purpose we should be pragmatists and not show our uncertainty. During these five years Russia and Europe have accumulated huge mistrust towards Ukraine. It is the worst thing we got. These democrats which always talk about democratic values lost the trust of Europe.

Q. Tymoshenko recalled your past in her elections campaign whilst she was subjected to investigations, which did not reach the court. Do you mind such pages of your rival’s biography?

A. I am sure that by recalling such moments Tymoshenko shows not her strength but her weakness. She knows very well that judges pleaded me not guilty in 1978. Thereafter I joined the communist party and was appointed to responsible positions. It is impossible for a pleaded offender.

Q. I am asking you about criminal investigations against her. Could it not be important for you?

A. The most important thing for me is how we can change life of people. I am not going to enter into dirty arguments. It falls short of my principles.

Q. Did you starve in your childhood in the miner's district of Donbass?

A. The feeling of hunger still remains. The reason is that I starved in my childhood. We were very poor. I lived with my grandmother because my mother died when I was two years old.

Q. What kind of child you were?

A. I have always felt myself independent and dreamt of having a family. At different moments of my life there were people who helped me. But the closest person to me was cosmonaut Yuriy Beregoviy. He used to say I was his son, his friend and brother, and that he was my father, friend and brother.

Q. They say you have mastered Ukrainian. When did you learn it?

A. I started to learn it at night on November 20 to 21, 2002 on the eve of my speech in parliament.

Q. Can you imagine that the Russian language would become the second official language on equal grounds with the Ukrainian language for the whole state?

A. Ukraine is the European state and at least it should implement the European Charter on Languages of Regions and Minorities, which we ratified. When the laws start to operate to full extent, then we could delve into this subject. Currently it only splits the Ukrainians and the society. The problem should be solved in the way so that the Ukrainian-speaking and Russian-speaking citizens would feel themselves comfortably.

Q. Could you imagine yourself making an oath on the Constitution of Ukraine in Russian?

A. I think it would make no sense. According to our Constitution, Ukrainian is the official language. As a person who respects the law, I should make an oath in Ukrainian.

Q. Yushchenko signed a decree under which nationalist Stepan Bandera is proclaimed to be a hero of Ukraine despite that part of the Ukrainian society accuses him of working with Nazis. What will you do with this Yushchenko’s decree if you become a president?

A. The highest awards of Ukraine should be given to those living rather than to personalities in the history of the country existed before the one appeared following a collapse of the USSR. Let us leave history for historians.

Q. Is Ukraine more united now than in 2004?

A. Yes, it is. My result in the first round of the presidential elections in the Western regions of Ukraine is twice as much as it was in 2006. It is a positive sign.

To be understood, I need to be given a chance to show that I will be a fair and effective president. In my region, Donetsk, and in my town, Enakieve, people voted for me. At the same time, Tymoshenko got a very low result in her native city, Dnipropetrovsk, just because she is well known there.

The bigger the gap, the fewer complaints

Ukrainian society displayed high maturity in the first round of presidential elections on January 17, 2010. Yet anxiety about an ultimate duel is felt in the western media. Viktor Yanukovych and Yulia Tymoshenko will raffle their political careers.

“Unless a winner has a substantial advantage over a loser, problems could appear", a diplomat said pointing out the probability of appealing against the results with a reference to would-be violations. Given this fact, the participation of the OSCE observers (about 600 people) headed by Heidi Tagliavini (author of a report on war between Russia and Georgia in August, 2008) is vital. Their duties include exposure of frauds, as well as non-admission of any other possible illegal steps of the losers.

Victory with considerable advantage of one of the candidates would facilitate work and refute doubts which may arise in case of a tiny gap. “It cannot be excluded that consequently three presidents will be elected: Yanukovych and Tymoshenko as potential winners, as well as Yushchenko as guarantor of the Constitution", a local official notes ironically.

Agitation for Tymoshenko is aggressive and sometimes untruthful. A small party with the status of observer in the European People’s Party, just like prime minister’s party, has repeatedly used the personalities of French president Nicolas Sarkozy, German chancellor Angela Merkel, head of the Polish government Donald Tusk in order to assure that all of them support Tymoshenko as “the only” European alternative. The ambassadors of these three states underlined yesterday in Kyiv that they supported democratic processes in Ukraine and did not favor any of the two candidates.

Pilar Bonet, "El Pais" newspaper, February 2, 2010