You're reading: Former Kuchma chief of staff wins libel case against Tyzhden

A Kyiv district court on Aug. 21 ruled that Ukraine ‘s most widely circulated Ukrainian-language weekly magazine had libeled Victor Medvedchuk, former President Leonid Kuchma’s powerful chief of staff in 2002-2004.

The Solomyansky District Court ruled that Tyzhden
had libeled Medvedchuk in an article printed in its June 29-July 5 issue
authored by Andriy Skumin titled, “The Ukrainian Choice.”

The court ordered the magazine to publish a
retraction of five passages and state that what it had written was “untrue and
that the information wounded the personal honor and dignity” of Medvedchuk.

In particular, the court ordered the
following passages to be retracted for libelous and false content:

·        
Describing Medvedchuk as the
“ideologue of temnyky (media
directives on how to report the news),” “the father of temnyky in the Ukrainian
mass media;”

·        
Saying Medvedchuk was the “son
of (politically) repressed (parents) who cooperated with Nazis (during World
War II);”

·        
Calling Medvedchuk “an
informant for Soviet law enforcement bodies;”

·        
That Medvedchuk’s name is
associated “with the (Soviet-era) imprisonment of Vasyl Stus – the symbolic
pillar who stood against totalitarian occupiers;”

·        
The dissemination of absurd and
untruthful “rumors of the severe beating of Medvedchuk by Viktor Yanukovych.”

Medvedchuk had largely disappeared from
Ukraine’s political scene after Viktor Yanukovych’s failed first bid for
president in 2004 amid widespread election fraud that led to the Orange
Revolution and Viktor Yushchenko’s presidency.

Medvedchuk, 57, was the target of much of
the opposition’s anger during the 2004 presidential elections. A
multimillionaire, he served as deputy speaker in parliament and leader of the
Social Democratic Party of Ukraine.

His reign as head of Kuchma’s
administration from 2002 to 2004 saw a consolidation of the government’s
authoritarian grip on power, according to democracy and human rights watchdog
accounts from that time. He managed the media via ownership or control of the
three biggest television channels and temnyky, secret directives on how
to spin the news, according to investigations by online news portal Ukrainska
Pravda and journalist Vakhtang Kipiani who was largely credited for exposing
the system of media control.

Medvedchuk has denied implementing the
media coverage control system and has successfully sued other news publications
in the past for suggesting this.

After Yushchenko became president, Medvedchuk faded away from mainstream
politics as his party lost deputies and support.

Lately, Medvedchuk has re-emerged as the project leader of Ukrainian Choice, an
online portal that advocates for local referendums on topics related to the
Russian language, the Russia-led Customs Union and other integration projects
with Ukraine’s northern neighbor.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is the
godfather of Medvedchuk’s daughter.

Kyiv
Post staff writer Mark Rachkevych can be reached at
[email protected].