Biden on delicate mission to Ukraine, Georgia

Vice President Joe Biden met Ukrainian leaders on Tuesday as the United States seeks a new balance between supporting pro-Western aims of former Soviet republics and putting ties with Russia back on track. His trip this week to Ukraine and Georgia comes two weeks after his boss, President Barack Obama, travelled to Moscow where he called Russia a "great power" and announced a "reset" of strained US relations with its Cold War foe. Biden met President Viktor Yushchenko at one of the presidential residences in central Kiev and the two were expected to speak to journalists following their talks. "We have a European vocation," Yushchenko said as he greeted Biden. "It's clear though that there is a lot of homework to be done." Biden was to meet later with Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, Yushchenko's partner in the 2004 pro-Western Orange Revolution, and Viktor Yanukovych, the main opposition leader seen in the past as friendlier to the Kremlin. After Ukraine, Biden flies Wednesday to Georgia where President Mikheil Saakashvili's drive to lead his country away from Russia and anchor it in the Western camp were strongly backed by Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush. A top aide told reporters in Washington ahead of the trip that Biden wanted to reassure Ukraine and Georgia that they would not be forgotten as the Obama administration pursues its "reset" of relations with Russia. US-Russia ties however were severely damaged in large part due to Washington's robust support for the pro-Western aims of Ukraine and Georgia, and behind the scenes there was speculation about the purpose of Biden's trip. "Biden will make it clear that, contrary to the Bush administration, the new occupants of the White House will not support anti-Russian attacks from the Ukrainian leadership," the Ukrainian daily Segodnya commented. The same paper, seen as close to Ukraine's opposition, simultaneously said Biden would encourage all potential candidates in presidential elections scheduled for next January to stay the pro-Western course. Leonid Kozhara, an opposition member of parliament, said Biden would convey a new US prudence in dealing with Ukraine. "He will get acquainted with the presidential candidates, but the United States will not overtly support any of them," he said. The stakes are different in Georgia, an ancient land straddling the mountainous strip separating the Black Sea and Caspian Sea basins, eyed by the world's big powers as a vital new corridor for energy shipments. Saakashvili's reputation was battered after he led Georgia in what proved a disastrous war with Russia last August, resulting in the loss of chunks of his country and the unmistakable reassertion of Kremlin power there. In its Russian editions on Tuesday, the daily Kommersant said Biden went to Ukraine and Georgia to inform the presidents of both that they should not cling to power and the time had come "to hand over the controls to other people." Separately, the Wall Street Journal on Monday quoted Saakashvili as saying that his campaign to bring Georgia into NATO was "almost dead," a development he described as "tragic". "It means the Russians fought for the right reasons," the paper quoted Saakashvili as saying. Saakashvili and other Georgian officials denied he had made the comments, saying the newspaper report was a "distortion" of Saakashvili's remarks.