Gas problems in PoR too..

Whilst president Yushchenko and PM Tymoshenko are fighting like cat and dog, Party of Regions are having their problems too, as described in an article in today's big-selling 'Segodya' newspaper, which owned by major PoR sponsor and PoR parliamentary deputy Rinat Akhmetov.

Here are some loosely translated portions:

Leading figures in PoR exchange harsh words

This week the conflict inside PoR between the "RosUkrEnergo group" of Lyovochkin and Boyko on one side, and prominent 'Regionaly' Boris Kolesnikov and Andriy Klyuev on the other, spilled out into the open.

Last week they threw accusations at each other behind closed doors, away from the eyes and ears of the public. But now they have begun to do this quite openly.

The dispute flared up after an angry statement from Lyovochkin, who some ill-wishers want to exclude from the party. He said that "persons who were active in the bribing of deputies and causing the VR's disintegration in 2006-2007, those, contaminated by corruption and extortion in 2007, who 'bought up' deputies from the BYuT-NUNS coalition, used money stolen during this period to purchase houses in Dubai for themselves… These guys are ready to betray and submit the party to BYuT, and give up party principles, in exchange for places in Tymoshenko's KabMin".

Nestor Shufrich, from the other camp, compared Lyovochkin with garbage. He claimed Lyovochkin had hindered Yanukovych's presidential campaign in 2004, when he helped to establish contacts betweenViktor Yushchenko and Leonid Kuchma.

Meanwhile PoR leader Viktor Yanukovych was in Moscow today, where he met the new Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill to discuss the forthcoming visit of the Patriarch to Ukraine [and offering prayers for party unity?]

The dispute between these two PoR wings has been rumbling for a while. Unsurprisingly, there is a whiff of gas about it..