On safety of a “drop-in center”

When the oppositionist from a neighbor country is kidnapped in broad daylight and our special services do not react to it at all, an unflattering but revealing comparison with a “drop-in center” inevitably springs to mind. Of course, we do not deserve such associations, but unfortunately, the inability of Ukrainian government to even articulately comment on the situation only enhances this comparison.

Leonid Razvozzhaev, a member of the radical movement Left Front and aide to the Russian MP Ilya Ponomarev, was kidnapped on October 19 in Kyiv, right after he applied for political asylum. And only after Russian and Ukrainian mass media raised alarm about it and made a fuss, only after the UN threatened to impose sanctions on Ukraine because of this case, the first reluctant reaction from Ukrainian law-enforcement agencies appeared. It happened only on October 22.

The Prosecutor General’s Office informed that they had not received official statements from Russian law-enforcement bodies on the subject of search for, or arrest of, Razvozzhaev. The Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs also said that the Ukrainian police did not dispose of information on detention of the Russian oppositionist on the territory of Ukraine.

And the SBU of Ukraine also stated that they had not received requests concerning Razvozzhaev’s arrest. But the reaction of Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry beats everything. In response to the UN’s statement, they said that “we are studying this matter at the moment, and we will give comment as soon as we have an official opinion on it.” What else should happen for them to finally form an opinion?

As we can see, the Ukrainian government’s response looks even worse than it would if they admitted to having participated in, or known of, this operation. Since nobody informed them, it suggests a dramatic and even unprecedented conclusion: how can national security be guaranteed? It seems to be high time to convene an emergency National Security and Defense Council meeting. But when we addressed the Council’s press service, we found out that Andrii Kliuiev was on vacation, and nobody else is authorized to comment on the situation.

And in what way did Ukrainian opposition react to the kidnapping of their Russian colleague? Did they demand the creation of a special parliamentary commission to investigate this unprecedented case? Not a chance.

Before answering this question, let us remind that the Investigative Committee of Russia put the Left Front activist Razvozzhaev on the wanted list on October 19. He, along with the Left Front coordinator Sergey Udaltsov and oppositionist Konstantin Lebedev, is charged with “preparing for the organization of mass riots.” Formal proceedings were initiated after the verification of facts given in the film Anatomy of a Protest 2. The authors of the film, which was aired on NTV channel, state that the opposition was planning a violent overthrow of the government with the help from foreign sponsors. According to the authors, the latter have enough experience of preparing “color revolutions” in Georgia, Ukraine, and mass riots in Belarus.

Though the Ukrainian opposition declares that Yanukovych is building a dictatorship in Ukraine, it is known that their Russian colleagues are in a far more complicated situation. Nevertheless, the Ukrainian opposition’s reaction was weak. In fact, it did not forestall the reaction of their opponents from the government. The former SBU head and present UDAR member Valentyn Nalyvaichenko reacted only after he was directly asked about it on October 22: “We need answers to the following questions: who came to Ukraine, who kidnapped Razvozzhaev, where are these people now, and finally, who financed the activity of foreign secret services on our territory? This is a systemic error of Ukrainian law-enforcement agencies.”

The United Opposition woke up only four days after the kidnapping took place. It demanded an immediate reaction from the Foreign Ministry and the SBU. “What happened in Ukraine to a Russian oppositionist? Who kidnapped a person who sought refuge in the UN office? Why does neither the MIA nor SBU have a clear opinion on the matter? Did foreign secret agencies act on the territory of Ukraine? If that is the case, it is going to be an object of investigation of the special parliamentary commission in the new parliament,” said Arsenii Yatseniuk, one of the leaders of the United Opposition.

Of course, this story is to be continued. Perhaps, the authorities will get enough courage to give us more information and comment on this in a proper way. But at the moment it stands clear that we have problems with national security. The Razvozzhaev case is only one of many examples of it. It shows that after a similar case, when the Palestinian national Dirar Abu Seesi was kidnapped in 2011 (it was said that the Mossad was involved), no conclusions were made. This applies to the whole law-enforcement system. As the case with the killing of three security guards at Karavan shopping mall shows, within the police the state of affairs is not any better.

COMMENTARY

“IF THIS HAPPENED WITHOUT UKRAINIAN SPECIAL SERVICES’ KNOWLEDGE, IT IS JUST A SHAME”

Oleksandr SHARKOV, veteran of the SBU foreign intelligence service:

“The SBU has to keep an eye on such things. Unfortunately, this is not the first time such thing has happened in Ukraine. For example, we all remember the Mossad story. Two matters arise in the case of the missing Russian citizen.

“Firstly, the Ukrainian party in this case rendered assistance at the instance of the Russian party, but they keep quiet about it or say that it is a political issue, the elections are close, and they do not want to damage relations with Russia. Besides, on the eve of the president’s visit to Moscow, they feel an urge to somehow please our neighbor. Even if that is true, it should have been done with more diplomatic delicacy, the situation should have caused at least some reaction within the government. But it is not happening, therefore, a suspicion arises that there is some shady agreement or funny sluggishness.

“Secondly, if this happened without the Ukrainian special services’ knowledge, it is just a shame. This is totally unacceptable. How is it possible that a foreign national seeking refuge is seized in Ukraine, and nobody knows a thing about it here!

“I can say only one thing: either of these scenarios should not have happened.

“I can also add the following. We all see what is going on with the manning of our secret services. It used to be an honor to be employed by the SBU’s central office in Kyiv (sometimes, people would even agree to be demoted in order to work there), but now nobody wants to go there. A person thinks something like that: ‘this place has been my home for a while, I have made connections, settled all the matters, my family is well off, we have a nice place to live, and what am I going to do in Kyiv? I don’t know a single soul there, got neither harrow nor barrow, they will not take care of my housing, the salary is ridiculously small, it won’t even be enough to rent an apartment.’ Once we used to handpick the best cadres all over Ukraine, but where should we get them now? I had a conversation with a secret service officer once, and he said, ‘well, half of my people are adequate enough to work with, but the other half is total rubbish.’

“This situation can be observed not only in the SBU, it is the same with the frontier guards and the police. The latter showed what they are worth in the situation with the Karavan shooting, when that guy just went and killed three people, and ran outside, and they never found him.”