You're reading: Khoroshkovsky promoted yet again, becomes first deputy prime minister

The promotion means Valeriy Khoroshkovsky will be tasked with shoring up relations with the European Union and mending the country's shaky finances.

President Viktor Yanukovych appointed multimillionaire Valeriy Khoroshkovsky as first deputy prime minister on Feb. 22, handing him responsibility for European integration and grappling with the country’s shaky finances.

The appointment came only one month after Khoroshkovsky was tapped as finance minister, a rapid rise for the former security service chief that has fueled speculation he may succeed Mykola Azarov as prime minister.

Yanukovych has reshuffled his cabinet in recent weeks, appointing new defense and health ministers.

Analysts said the reshuffle was aimed at bringing tighter control over the country’s budget, unlocking billion-dollar loans from the International Monetary Fund and presenting a more reformist face ahead of the Oct. 28 parliamentary election.

Khoroshkovsky will become the new point man for Ukraine abroad, responsible not only for IMF negotiations, but also talks with the European Union over the political association and free-trade agreement.

European officials say that a deal is unlikely to be signed until imprisoned former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko is released.

Khoroshkovsky is a media tycoon and owner of the country’s largest television holding, UA Inter Media.

Tymoshenko has often alleged he is a close associate of gas and chemicals tycoon Dmytro Firtash, who used to have an option to buy the media group.

Firtash is the owner of major chemical plants in the country and, along with Russian energy giant Gazprom, is the co-owner of controversial gas trader RosUkrEnergo.

Khoroshkovsky was head of Ukraine’s SBU state security service from 2010 until last month. Under his leadership, it was heavily involved in building the prosecutor’s case against Tymoshenko.

The SBU was also widely criticized for its probes into opposition and democracy activists. In 2011, an SBU officer visited the rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv and, according to the rector, tried to convince him to warn students not to participate in anti-government protests. Khoroshkovsky later visited the rector and apologized for his subordinate’s behavior.

In July 2010, Nico Lange, the head of the Ukrainian office of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, was detained on an SBU warrant at Boryspil Airport after publishing a critical report on the process of Ukrainian regional elections. The incident was later described by the SBU as a “misunderstanding.”

Under Khoroshkovsky’s leadership, the SBU also launched investigations into Tymoshenko’s business activities in the 1990s, criticized by the West as an example of selective prosecution.

Vadym Karasiov, a political analyst, said Khoroshkovsky was promoted to vacate the finance minister’s seat for Yuriy Kolobov, now first deputy head of the National Bank. Kolobov and National Bank head Serhiy Arbuzov are reportedly close to Yanukovych.

Karasiov said Khoroshkovsky may have been “transferred to the current position not only to pave his way toward the position of a prime minister, but also to let the Yanukovych’s family oversee the finance and monetary police of the country.”

Andreas Umland, a German professor who teaches political science at Kyiv Mohyla Academy, said “people like him in [the EU administrative capital of] Brussels because he speaks good English,” unlike most officials.

A Western diplomat said that the EU is “well aware that he played a big role in the Tymoshenko affair, which hurt EU-Ukraine relations and indirectly played into Kremlin interests.”

Kyiv Post staff writer Yuriy Onyshkiv can be reached at [email protected].