Expert says Yuschenko responded well to Medvedev's claims about Ukraine

Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko has given the best possible response to an open letter from his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev, in which the latter accused Ukraine's leader of pursuing anti-Russian policies, Director of the Sofia Center for Social Studies Andriy Yermolayev said, Interfax-Ukraine reported.

"Yuschenko chose rather a weighted option and a peaceful tone. I think that he chose one of the best ways to respond to Medvedev's statements," he told Interfax-Ukraine on Thursday, commenting on Yuschenko's response to Medvedev.

The expert said that both Ukraine and Russia "expected various responses from the president," and added that the "situation reached a certain peak of expectation, with negative forecasts after the appearance of statements by Mrs. [Presidential Secretariat Deputy Head Vira] Ulyanchenko, which were rather harsh and forthright for the Russian side, like the start of an information and political war between the regimes."

Yermolayev said that Yuschenko had responded to "nearly all of the problems, on each point that was present in Medvedev's letter."

"There are justified points, there are attacking points, and there are explaining points. All of these approaches are quite good," he said.

However, Yermolayev also pointed to the "weakness" of the Ukrainian president's response.

"It should be taken into account that he was responding to accusations, that he responded in a situation in which his counterpart had adopted a strict position by refusing to send a [Russian] ambassador [to Ukraine] and made it clear that he expects a change of power in Ukraine, therefore, it would be logical to expect some practical proposals from the Ukrainian president, some ways to resolve the problem here and now," he said.

He also said that there was a "certain weakness" in the "passiveness" of Yuschenko's response.

"Yuschenko just responded to the content [of Medvedev's letter] without offering anything," Yermolayev said.