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Viktor Medvedchuk (right) is waiting for the right moment to make a political comeback, says Leonid Kravchuk (left), his political ally and former Ukrainian president. PHL Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said she is ready to shake hands with Viktor Medvedchuk if he can organize for Ukraine a beneficial natural gas agreement.

er posted on his official Web site.

In very emotional form, the head of the state accused the prime minister of collaborating with Viktor Medvedchuk, a Kuchma ideologist.

As evidence, Yushchenko named four officials that work with Tymoshenko who played significant roles in political and governmental organs leading up to the Orange Revolution in 2004.

Medvedchuk considers the president’s letter a violation of his rights and is using it as a pretext to file a complaint with the Prosecutor’s General Office.

However his allies assert that soon the head of former President Leonid Kuchma’s Presidential Administration, who has as his kums (parents of godchildren) Russian President Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev’s wife, is going to take an active role in political life.

“I know that Viktor Medvedchuk is preparing to return to active political life,” said Leonid Kravchuk, the former Ukrainian president and “top guy” in the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine United (SDPU(O)). “He is choosing the right time and the right allies. And with his letter, Viktor Yushchenko is actively pushing him towards it.”

The Presidential Secretariat named four “enemies” among Tymoshenko’s ranks – Taras Kozak, deputy head of Customs Service of Ukraine, Oleksandr Parshyn, first deputy head of the National Agency of Ukraine on Ensuring Effective Use of Energy Resources, Oleksiy Ischenko, first deputy minister of regional development and construction and Olexandr Zadorozhniy, the prime minister’s adviser on legal issues.

It was the appointment of Zadorozhniy that exhausted the president’s patience.

“He (Zadorozhniy) practically forced Medvedchuk’s will upon the national deputies, particularly during the attempts to introduce so­called ‘political reforms’ and to ensure the transfer governing in the country along the SDPU(O) scenario,” Yushchenko stated in his letter.

However the Presidential Secretariat is afraid of something greater – a direct partnership between Tymoshenko and Medvedchuk.

The prime minister herself openly announced the possibility of such cooperation at the end of March on a television network.

She said then that she is ready to offer shake hands with Medvedchuk if he can organize for Ukraine a beneficial natural gas agreement with the Russian Federation.

“Medvedchuk has wonderful relations with Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin,” Kravchuk said. “Dmitry Medvedev’s wife Svetlana, together with Vladimir Putin, christened Viktor Medvedchuk’s younger daughter Dasha. Certainly, he can’t make a natural gas agreement himself, but he can convince, find the necessary arguments and channels to improve Ukraine’s terms.”

Kravchuk confirmed the last natural gas negotiations between Tymoshenko and Russian officials involved Medvedchuk’s help.

Moreover, Kravchuk predicts that in the following presidential elections, the Social Democrats would rather support Tymoshenko than the current head of state. “We definitely won’t vote for the national patriots,” the ex­president added.

The Presidential Secretariat most fears that an effective collaboration between Tymoshenko and Medvedchuk may ruin the democratic coalition.

“Basically, it’s already destroyed,” said political insider Vadym Karasiov, advisor to Secretariat Head Viktor Baloha.

“This coalition will hold together in parliament a little longer, but it practically isn’t active there either. Instead of working with the coalition council and advisers, Tymoshenko is more interested in the advice of Medvedchuk’s proteges.”

The Presidential Secretariat is convinced a formal government rank and file exists, as well as an informal version.

And actually this non­formal government develops national policies today. Owing to Medvedchuk and Zadorozhniy, Suzanna Stanik was able to return to the Constitutional Court, though not for long, Karasiov said.

“Zadorozhniy with Medvedchuk engaged in all the affairs regarding Stanik and the Constitutional Court’s decision,” he said. “Medvedchuk’s team works with the judicial body and it’s quite a powerful resource. Accordingly, this is a very serious team that poses quite a number of threats to Tymoshenko’s political competitors.”

The Secretariat is convinced the Tymoshenko­Medvedchuk tandem will bring nothing but underhanded intrigues to the country. And its main threat is everything is done in the dark and behind closed doors.

“It is possible to be an adviser and influence political decisions,” Karasiov said. “Either we play by coalition rules and and act as coalition allies, or we openly say that we have other political allies who stood on the other side of the barricades during the Orange Revolution.”

Under the initiative of the Tymoshenko Bloc and the Party of the Regions of Ukraine, a temporary special parliamentary commission to prepare amendments to the Constitution was created.

Experts are convinced the present initiative comes from Zadorozhniy, who already was active in developing the 2004 constitutional reforms, together with Medvedchuk and his allies.

Medvedchuk’s team has also decisively responded to the Secretariat’s statements.

“Viktor Medvedchuk reacted calmly to the president’s letter,” Kravchuk said. “However he will offer his answer to it later. I know that he will obligatorily turn to the Parliament’s Human Rights Ombudsman Nina Karpachova.

The president’s letter shows that the Secretariat not only interferes in the government’s personnel policy, but forces the prime minister to purge people who hold different competing political views than hers.”

No one denies that Medvedchuk has again become an influential political figure in the country.

But it’s unknown when he will emerge from the shadows.

“We can’t say that Victor Medvedchuk completely left political life,” Kravchuk said. “He carefully follows political events taking place. He organizes meetings with influential people in Moscow, has serious connectons with Kremlin top officials and offers legal consultation to whoever needs it.”

Medvedchuk doesn’t separate today’s politicians between those that are his and aren’t, Kravchuk said.

He offers consulting to Yanukovych, Tymoshenko or even Yushchenko if any of them turn to him, he said.

Quite a number of his party allies have turned up not only in Tymoshenko Cabinet, but in parliament as well.

Among the Members of Parliament with ties to Medvedchuk is Viktor Lozynskiy, who led Holovanivskiy Khlib and serves as general director of the agricultural partnership Manzhura.In 2006, Lozynskiy was a Party of Regions official in a Kirovohrad district.

It’s whispered in the parliament’s halls that Medvedchuk himself secured his 96th place in the Tymoshenko Bloc’s electoral list.

Tymoshenko Bloc deputy Volodymyr Pylypenko is also tied to Medvedchuk. In elections documents, he declared himself a lawyer for Korporatyvni Tekhnolohiyi, a firm co­founded by Serhiy Petrashko, Medvedchuk’s lawyer.

The majority of Medvedchuk's allies are represented by the so­called group of Bohdan Hubskiy, a former SDPU(O) party member who maintains business ties with Medvedchuk.

Hubksiy is allegedly co­owner of Medvedchuk’s international legal company, B.I.M.

Therefore the president’s team has plenty to fear, especially as it preparing Yushchenko for a second term.