KIEV, Aug. 21 – Seeking to reverse Ukraine’s pro-Western policy, Russia has stepped up support for various political groups in the country in an effort unseen since the 2004 presidential election, a top official said Thursday.

The allegations come as Russia has been playing increasingly strong arm tactic in other regions, apparently seeking to reassert its influence lost after the breakup of the USSR in 1991.

Andriy Kyslynskiy, a deputy chief of staff at the office of President Viktor Yushchenko, said on Thursday there were signs of Russia’s increasing meddling in Ukraine’s affairs through various groups of influence.

“Today, the Russian political circles have been creating the basis for the revenge of [pro-Russian] political forces that had lost four years ago,” Kyslynskiy said in a statement. “Something similar took place in 2004.”

This is the strongest warning so far that Russia may try again to impact Ukraine’s presidential election - due in early 2010 – in an effort to help elect a figure that would postpone the country’s accession to NATO.

Russia is estimated to spend $800 million in 2004 to support pro-Moscow candidate Viktor Yanukovych, then the prime minister, who ran against pro-Western Yushchenko, then the opposition leader.

The 2004 election has seen Russian President Vladimir Putin coming twice to Ukraine to campaign for Yanukovych, while the election itself has been full of fraud, according to Western observers.

The sweeping vote manipulation and fraud triggered a popular uprising, known as the Orange Revolution, which has eventually catapulted Yushchenko to the presidency.

One of such anti-Ukrainian activities is a conference that is scheduled to take place Sept. 4-6, financed by the Russian government within a program of “helping [Russian] compatriots overseas,” according to Kyslynskiy.

“It’s not a secret that there is a direct link between this program and the Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia,” Kyslynskiy said.

The conference will seek to reflect Russian official position on the history, for example directly challenging or even denying the fact of Holodomor, a famine that Ukraine believes has been especially inflicted by Moscow in 1930s to kill millions of Ukrainians.

“So, today the model of supporting pro-Russian groups is being re-created,” Kyslynskiy said. “This is a challenge to all national and democratic groups.”

The Communist Party, a small opposition group represented in Parliament, and the Progressive Socialist Party, even the smaller group, are thought to be the most pro-Russian parties that apparently get support from Moscow.

But the office of Yushchenko has recently warned that it had obtained information confirming that Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has been actively cooperating with Moscow.

The office alleged that Russia has been seeking to spend $1 billion to support Tymoshenko’s bid for the presidency in early 2010 in exchange for her pro-Russian stance.

Tymoshenko on Wednesday denied the allegations, but the SBU, Ukraine’s security service, said it will launch its investigation into the matter.

Over the past four months, Tymoshenko has approved a number of decisions that had de-facto strengthen the Russian interests in Ukraine.

In May, Tymoshenko derailed an oil exploration project led by U.S. oil company Vanco Energy that had called for drilling offshore the Black Sea to reduce dependence on Russian energy imports.

In July, Tymoshenko derailed signing of a contract for starting supplies of Caspian Sea crude oil via Ukrainian oil pipeline Odessa-Brody to the European Union, strengthening Russian oil monopoly in the region.

Also in July, Tymoshenko refused to attend high-profile Orthodox Christianity celebrations at which Yushchenko had publicly asked the head of Orthodox Christianity, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, to bless the creation of a Ukrainian Church independent of Russia.

Tymoshenko survived a no-confidence vote on July 13 after the vehemently pro-Russian Communist Party, a small opposition group, had unexpectedly supported her.

But perhaps more articulate was Tymoshenko’s silence in response to an invasion of Russian troops and tanks into Georgia, a small country and an ally of Ukraine, which had put the world on the brink of the new cold war.

By contrast, Yushchenko played a crucial role in rallying early international support for pro-Western Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili. (tl/ez)