European Union Steps Up Efforts to End Ukrainian Vote Deadlock

The European Union intensified its efforts to resolve the crisis over Ukraine's disputed presidential election, with missions to Kiev by the presidents of Poland and Lithuania and EU foreign policy envoy Javier Solana. Solana arrived yesterday for talks with outgoing President Leonid Kuchma. Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski and Lithuania's Valdas Adamkus are due today. All three are on their second mission to the Ukrainian capital in less than a week. Supporters of opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko yesterday made an unsuccessful attempt to break into the Verkhovna Rada, or parliament. Yushchenko, 50, says Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, 53, took the lead in the Nov. 21 second round of voting only by massive electoral fraud. ``There is a crisis forming, and it's now only a matter of time before it explodes,'' Yushchenko said. The Russian-speaking industrial east of the country, where most of the voting fraud is said to have taken place, largely backs Yanukovych and the Ukrainian-speaking west favors Yushchenko. The dispute has prompted moves toward autonomy or even secession in the east and tensions with Russian President Vladimir Putin who backed Yanukovych. Solana said on Tonis television as he met Kuchma late yesterday he will head for talks with Russian government officials in Moscow today. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Putin agreed in a telephone call yesterday that the result of any rerun of Ukraine's election must be ``strictly respected,'' Schroeder's spokesman said. The Yushchenko backers who tried to break into parliament did so as lawmakers debated the possibility of a no-confidence vote in Yanukovych. The debate is due to resume today; so is a session of the Ukrainian Supreme Court, which is to decide whether to call a new vote. Ukrainians from the provinces continue to arrive in Kiev to take part in the nine-day-old rallies on the city's Independence Square. EU and other international leaders have advised all sides to stay calm.