A diplomatic “pocket”

Minsk 1 and Minsk 2 has been the subject of a heated debate in society, especially after the Debaltseve retreat which incurred heavy losses… Today the public begins to look differently at the trial of Oleksii Pukach. People can see more and more clearly – particularly after the defendant’s latest sensational statements   – what “the root of all evil” is, who and what have caused the current state of affairs. But, of course, there are also those who are saying: why rake over old ashes about the murder of journalist Heorhii Gongadze, when there is a war going on, why disturb Kuchma at all? We say, however, that if there had been no Kuchma presidency or if at least his ten-year rule had been properly appraised, there would be no war now. Besides, let us not forget that the ex-president is not a pensioner vacationing somewhere in Sardinia – he still continues to wield a great deal of political clout.

An illustrative example of this country’s present-day infection is Kuchma’s official participation in the Minsk negotiations. This a priori disadvantageous option which Kyiv accepted (why it did so is a separate subject), rejecting the “Geneva format,” is in fact part of the Kremlin’s special operation against Ukraine. Although the Ukrainian leadership says that the so-called ceasefire has made it possible to “build the army,” Russia has derived more benefit from this temporary “lull.” Russia “stuffed” the Donbas with its servicemen and equipment and struck back in force, “biting off” more Ukrainian lands. The same is going on now, after Minsk 2, – the Russians are regrouping again and building up their forces. Meanwhile, the other “Norman format” participants (Ukraine, Germany, and France) go      on chanting, like a mantra, that the Minsk agreements must be observed. As if there had been no Debaltseve…

In a word, we have zero results and numerous casualties, but what about responsibility? One of the reasons is that the current leadership has not yet explained clearly how Kuchma could find himself at these crucial negotiations. Incidentally, one of the items of the Trilateral Contact Group’s deal was “guarantees of personal security for participants in the consultations.” Nobody has canceled the September protocols. Taking into account Kuchma’s “gains” during his presidency, this is the most important item for him. But what is most important for the leadership – the country’s interests or personal corporate relationships? The question remains open.

“We still don’t know why the choice fell on none other than Kuchma and what considerations guided the head of state,” a well-known journalist, Leonid Frosevych, comments to The Day. “This also makes me wonder. Minsk 1 and Minsk 2 showed that Kuchma had scored no victories at this diplomatic front. Society is dissatisfied with this course of events, for it has not received a clear and easy-to-grasp signal that territorial integrity of Ukraine is above all for the negotiator, that, for the sake of Ukraine, he will never come under the influence of either the Russian powers that be, with whom he is on good terms, or Ukrainian oligarchs, or Viktor Medvedchuk (Putin is the godfather of his child). Many servicemen who are defending the country in the east do not accept Kuchma as negotiator – by contrast with some generals who owe their career to none other than Kuchma. Accordingly, low- and medium-ranked army men will again focus their criticism on Poroshenko.”

Our editorial office was invited the other day to take part in spotlighting a meeting of the Budapest Memorandum Pressure Group. It is a good thing, but one of the participants is the former president of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma, who is now trying hard to hype himself up as a “peacemaker.” The organizer of this event is the NGO International Initiative in Support of Ukraine founded in this very year, 2015.

Tellingly, a lot of politicians, experts, and journalists are helping whitewash Kuchma. Analyzing the information, you can see that the ex-president’s family has formed a response of sorts to the ever-growing societal understanding of the second head of state’s role in forming an oligarchic clan system in this country. This can be seen in many fields. For example, some politicians begin to say that Kuchma needs to be thanked for his stand during the Minsk talks, experts are in raptures over this great strategist and peacemaker, and journalists are describing some well-known paid-for versions of the Gongadze case.

Let us not dwell on all the informational attacks. We will only emphasize some key moments.

From the political angle, we can recall two simultaneous odes to Kuchma from governmental officials at different TV channels’ talk shows on Friday, February 13. Speaking about the Minsk “victory” and great achievements of the leadership in the resumed Schuster Live program, the First Deputy Chairman of the Presidential Administration, Valerii Chaly, decided to thank Kuchma for his contribution to the process of negotiations: “We have thwarted military blackmail and the possibility of a large-scale operation against Ukraine. Putin did not want to sign any documents at all. We have broken their scenario. That was a major diplomatic battle. Incidentally, I am very grateful to the Trilateral Contact Group, particularly to President Kuchma, who was and still is the official representative in this group. They all worked very well.” Praise was also lavished on the ex-president in the program Black Mirror, when Iryna Lutsenko, a Petro Poroshenko Bloc MP, emphasized during the debate: “I am ready to take my hat off to Kuchma, a person who firmly defends all these items. It’s not as simple as it may seem. Only when the first item is fulfilled, all the next will be fulfilled, too.”

This kind of statements shows either absolute failure to understand the current crisis’ causes and effects or a deliberate manipulation of reality – in other words, obeying a “gag order.”

“If Leonid Kuchma continues to represent our state as member of the Trilateral Contact Group for settling the conflict in eastern Ukraine, the patriotically-minded strata of the population will be more and more displeased with Petro Poroshenko’s choice,” Frosevych stresses. “Banking on Kuchma is a clearly erroneous step. For this retired politician is neither a moral role model for the nation, nor a prominent military figure, nor a person with an untarnished reputation. Kuchma’s two presidential terms saw a number of fiascos in the domestic and foreign policy, a host of high-profile corruption scandals, the “grab-it-itization” of state-owned resources by the president’s inner circle, a colossal enrichment of his family, playing up to oligarchic clans, reduced efficiency of the armed forces, and impoverishment of the populace. So, all this negative can also rebound at the current president and sully his reputation.”

As far as experts’ viewpoints are concerned, there is an interesting material by the international policy expert Oleh Hrytsaienko. The headline is “Why did Poroshenko appoint Kuchma as negotiator.” Next goes the answer: “Feeling disappointment and knowing their interlocutors very well, both Poroshenko and Kuchma harbor no illusions. For this very reason, they can speak calmly and from a position of strength with both the leadership of Russia and the leaders of Donetsk militants.” To grasp this author’s true message, one should recall his appearance in the ICTV program “Freedom of Speech” on February 16. Hrytsaienko said then: “I    hope pressure of the international community will force both Russia and the ‘DNR’ and ‘LNR’ puppet governments to observe the Minsk agreements and go step by step in the right direction. Moreover, it is very important to keep the team united and preserve the ‘Poroshenko-Kuchma tandem’ so that parliamentary factions continue to give us unanimous support.”

The key words here are, naturally, “Poroshenko-Kuchma tandem.” And while the latter really needs this “team unity,” at least as long as Poroshenko is in power, with due account of his political “baggage” and his personal interest, the position of the current president is absolutely unclear  – what is his interest? To take the rap for all the scandals that erupted 15 years ago? Nobody can explain today why the second Maidan should absolve a person against whom the first Maidan rose up – the Maidan in which, incidentally, Poroshenko also took part.

In reality, Hrytsaienko’s abovementioned article is, from beginning to end, a master class in surrealism. For example, the author writes: “June 2004. NATO summit in Istanbul… In the summer of 2004, under a ‘pro-Russian’ Kuchma, this country was so much prepared for NATO membership that many in the Alliance agreed in principle that Kyiv should be granted the Membership Action Plan (MAP) and were just waiting for the presidential elections.”

WHO IS FOR UKRAINE HERE? / REUTERS photo

It would be a good idea to clarify some things for the author and remind him that Yevhen Marchuk, as National Security and Defense Council secretary, did his best in 2013 for parliament to pass the law “On the Foundations of Ukraine’s National Security.” The law set out that, to guarantee its national security, Ukraine may choose to join military-political blocs, including the North Atlantic Alliance. In line with this formula, a military doctrine was mapped out and approved by the president. But the situation changed just after the 2004 NATO Istanbul summit which Hrytsaienko mentions. It was clear that Ukraine was going to sign the MAP, and right at that time the media suddenly lost sight of Kuchma and Vladimir Putin, who had retreated to some place on the Sea of Azov coast. On coming back, Kuchma ordered that the abovementioned provision on cooperation with NATO be immediately withdrawn from the military doctrine. If the second president Kuchma had not been playing with his foreign-policy course at the time, Russia would hardly dare commit stark aggression today. Ukraine would have an altogether different status and relationship with the Alliance.

Incidentally, it is also important to know what organization Hrytsaienko represents. It is the Center of International and Comparative Studies with Leonid Kozhara, the Yanukovych-era foreign minister, as president and Anatolii Orel as director general. “The latter was deputy chairman of Kuchma’s Presidential Administration (under Lytvyn and Medvedchuk), in charge of foreign policy matters,” comments Oleksandr Yeliashkevych, member of the Verkhovna Rada of the 2nd and 3rd convocations. “He vehemently opposes Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration and is an active advocate of this country’s pro-Russian foreign-policy vector. After the Kuchma presidency, he actively cooperated with Viktor Yanukovych and the Party of Regions. It is he who advised Yanukovych to appoint Leonid Kozhara, his former subordinate in Kuchma’s administration and a pro-Russian-minded diplomat, as minister of foreign affairs. Orel and Kozhara are now at the head of the Center of International and Comparative Studies.”

From a journalistic viewpoint, this requires a special discussion, but, in a nutshell, the latest illustrative example of a misplaced idea is Artem Shevchenko’s article “Gongadze Case: the Answers that We Need” on the website espreso.tv. Instead of discussing the pivotal points of the Pukach trial (as long as the Gongadze case is in question), the article offers such well-known cliches as “instruments in the oligarchs’ corporate squabbles,” “it is impossible to investigate Gongadze’s death unless there is a parallel investigation into the preparation and organization of the so-called ‘Kuchmagate,’” “on whose orders did he [Major Melnychenko. – Ed.] act 15 years ago, who instructed him, who supplied him with tapes?” “it is now the time when the leadership of a country that is at war with an aggressor will perhaps muster enough political will to seriously tackle the version of foreign special services (and their agents inside Ukraine) involvement.”

Of course, all these questions and versions have the right to exist. But the central point today is to investigate the essence of what was recorded on the “Melnychenko tapes.” And in what way he bugged the president, who does or does not stand behind this, which special services took advantage of this situation – these are the issues that also need to be investigated parallelly or later. First of all, one must handle the crimes mentioned in the tapes, which include not only the murder of Gongadze, but also the kidnapping and beating-up of the public activist Oleksii Podolsky, an attempt on the life of Oleksandr Yeliashkevych, and others. This must also be spoken and written about.

The aggrieved party in the Gongadze case, Oleksii Podolsky, has given an apt answer to Shevchenko’s article. “There has been so much talk lately about oligarchs using the Kuchma case in their quarrels. Journalists are being supplied again with conspiracy versions about the ‘Kuchmagate’ – the versions created and financed on the basis of the billions Kuchma squeezed out of Ukraine,” he wrote in Facebook. Podolsky also gave a more detailed and concrete response to the abovementioned article in his obozrevatel.com blog.

“It is the media resources controlled by the ex-president’s family that were and still are the main striking force in whitewashing Kuchma,” Frosevych emphasizes. “Clearly, they have been assigned a certain algorithm of actions in the field of information. The basic message is that Kuchma and crime are different things. I do not rule out that there still exists an association of spin masters who keep their fingers on the pulse of the topic ‘Kuchma and society.’ At times, even journalists, who are not exactly Kuchma buffs, contribute to the making of his positive image. More often than not, they pick up information without looking into its deep-set meaning. Some of them do so because they are ignorant of the topic, do not wish to plumb the depths of the problem, and do not take the trouble to read analytical research into sociopolitical processes. So, we can see that this work is somewhat superficial, but still it is a certain touch in ‘glossing over’ the image of Kuchma. This ‘gloss-over’ is supplemented with sponsored, paid-for, materials. There has always been a plethora of such materials about Kuchma. Now that a court is handling the Gongadze case, we can see no dearth of experts who are foisting on society the idea that Kuchma was a ‘good tsar.’”

We are not calling into question the discussion of this high-profile subject. The matter will come to an end sooner or later, but when this will occur depends on how hard we fight and what attitudes we take. All insinuations about the Gongadze case and the whitewashing of criminals slow down the search for justice. “The active whitewashing of Kuchma was caused by the following factors,” lawyer Oleksandr Kravchuk comments to The Day. “Firstly, some ‘politicians, experts, and journalists’ are closely linked to the oligarchic system of government formed during Kuchma’s presidency. They are part and parcel of the Kuchma clan whose activities were tragic for Ukraine in all dimensions. Secondly, I do not rule out a banal bribery of politicians, experts, and journalists. In any case I think that those who are trying to whitewash Kuchma are pursuing their own interests. By appointing Kuchma the negotiator the current leadership has in fact recognized him as member of their team. For me personally, this means that the authorities recognize and support the Kuchma-created oligarchic system. But the events in Ukraine show that the oligarchic system has already exhausted and fully discredited itself. Its demise is only a matter of time.”

Unfortunately, neither the Maidans, nor the sacrifices, not the politicians are so far able to change the “Kuchma-Yanukovych system,” the current government being no exception, for they are also infected. Today we can see Viktor Medvedchuk coming, together with the Russian ambassador Mikhail Zurabov, to Minsk for talks, where Ukraine is represented by Kuchma who was twice delegated by the post-Maidan government. Moreover, Medvedchuk takes part in the release of Ukrainian prisoners of war. It is a good and right cause. The only trouble is that these poor men were sacrificed into the militants’ captivity by the system created by Kuchma and Medvedchuk. But the current leadership considers them “peacemakers…”

Pres. Petro Poroshenko’s advisor Oleh Medvedev tried the other day to justify, in a way, the government’s actions. He wrote in Facebook: “The first charges against the Serbian General Ratko Mladic were leveled in 1996. He was arrested in 2011. The Hague trial began in 2012. But the sentence is not expected to be passed until after 2017. This shows the difference between a fair trial and out-of-court lynch law which society believes the government should take up. I address this information to all those who suggest gathering on the Maidan again, just a year on, because those who committed crimes against the previous Maidan have not yet been punished, – and particularly to those who demand adhering to the Roman Statute and taking Yanukovych to the Hague Court for crimes against humanity. Yesterday I finished reading Thatcher’s book Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World which has a chapter on the events in former Yugoslavia. Reading it, I made some inquiries in Wikipedia. Hence is this post.”

“Take up the Gongadze case –15 years have already passed. Maybe, it will be easier to solve the case of shootings… And there will be no Kuchma-Medvedchuk diplomatic ‘pockets.’ Reject, at last, dead-ended people and ideas. Is it not about character and leadership in Thatcher’s book?!” Den’s editor-in-chief Larysa Ivshyna answered him on his page.

The Minsk “diplomatic pocket” may have some consequences. Ex-premier Mykola Azarov (now on the international wanted list for crimes in Ukraine) has in fact revealed them as he was launching his book Ukraine at a Crossroads in Moscow. “What we need is the ‘Big Three’s decision – like in Yalta and Potsdam,” Azarov said. “The Ukraine crisis pales in comparison with that situation in terms of the complexity of problems. But still they came together, reached a number of compromises, and Europe has seen no war in 70 years. So, only the ‘Big Three’ – Putin, Merkel, and Obama – can find a common language and make a right decision. I    think it is necessary to organize an international conference to settle the Ukraine crisis, in which presidents of Russia and the US, as well as the chancellor of Germany, will take part.”

Of course, Azarov is to be prosecuted. But what he is saying should not be ignored. He could have hardly made this statement without a sanction from the Russian leadership. We all remember that Yalta 1 in fact partitioned Europe, and is Yalta 2 supposed to partition Ukraine? “The Russians had long been preparing a special operation in Ukraine,” Oleksandr Yeliashkevych stresses. “This preparation lasted for many years in several directions – diplomatic, informational, military, and economic. Today we can see this operation in action. And what Azarov is saying is in fact a declaration of Moscow’s intentions. The Ukrainian leadership is a different thing. I just wonder at the way they behave in confrontation with such a serious adversary. For example, what did they count on, when they rejected the ‘Geneva format’ with the Americans and opted for the disgraceful and disadvantageous Minsk negotiations in which Kuchma was also involved? Hence are the results. The only thing that restrains the Kremlin and causes the West to help Ukraine is the energy and actions of our society. The courageous and strong Ukrainian nation must win in this complicated game.”