This brief item on the president’s official website was illustrated with a photo of smiling participants Viktor Yushchenko, Leonid Kravchuk and Leonid Kuchma with the incumbent. None of them, with the exception probably of the host, realized that behind its cheerful facade, the meeting resembled one of those Byzantine banquets that would end with the poisoning, slaughtering or impaling of the distinguished guests.
A month later, Kuchma may understand that metaphor. On March 24, he was summoned for interrogation to the prosecutor’s office, charged with abuse of power and implicated in the killing of investigative journalist Georgiy Gongadze on Sept. 16, 2000. In Yanukovych’s Ukraine, where the judiciary is just a part of the executive subordinated to the president, and where the prosecutor general is his bosom buddy (“a member of president’s team,” as Viktor Pshonka characterized himself proudly in public), hardly anyone believes that the trial against Kuchma was launched without the blessing of Yanukovych.
Speculation revolves around the question of why Yanukovych has made this dubious step. The alleged reasons include Yanukovych’s desire to divert public attention from his failures, to disprove accusations against his government about selective justice and to impress opponents by proving that the president is tough but just.
Journalist Yulia Mostova highlights another reason why Yanukovych might want to persecute Kuchma: revenge for the perceived humiliation during the 2004 Orange Revolution, when the incumbent refused to use force against protesters and let Yanukovych take office, opting instead for negotiation and compromise that ended up with the election of Yushchenko over Yanukovych in the repeat presidential election on Dec. 26, 2004.
Launching a trial against Kuchma might be in the interests of people around Yanukovych, but not the president himself, for the following reasons:
No one considers it an act of justice and proof of the equality of all Ukrainian citizens before the law. All the policies of Ukrainian authorities suggest the opposite. And the recordings presumably made by Kuchma’s bodyguard, Mykola Melnychenko, even if accepted as evidence, do not contain any direct order to carry out murder.
Also, by initiating the trial, Yanukovych very unwisely draws public attention to his own conversations with Kuchma recorded by Melnychenko, which definitely merit a criminal investigation (intimidation of judges, blackmail, bribery, large-scale corruption, etc).
Deputy Prosecutor General Renat Kuzmin, who mentioned Melnychenko’s recording among the possible evidence against Kuchma, has inadvertently opened a Pandora’s box. This evidence could be used against dozens of Ukrainian officials who discussed a variety of criminal plans with Kuchma.
There is little surprise that opposition member of parliament Yuri Hrymchak has submitted an official request demanding an investigation of many more episodes recorded by Melnychenko that testify to criminal conspiracy of other members of Kuchma’s team, including Prime Minister Mykola Azarov and Yanukovych. And, finally, Yanukovych apparently has created the precedent of persecuting ex-presidents that may eventually be applied against him.
So, if the trial does not serve Yanukovych’s interests, who is most likely to benefit?
Andrij Zhalko-Tytarenko, former head of the Ukrainian Space, considers the entire “Melnychenko affair” a provocation of the Russian secret services to control Kuchma. Many experts have argued that Kuchma had no reason to kill Gongadze and that he was framed by powerful and influential enemies seeking to compromise him. The weak element in this theory is the involvement of leading police officers, including the late Interior Minister Yury Kravchenko, in Gongadze’s abduction and killing.
Zhalko-Tytarenko hypothesizes that the current re-launch of the Gongadze case is part of the Russian domestic power game. According to his theory, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev may be planning to run for a second term and needs to convince the two-time former president, Vladimir Putin, not to run. “If Kuchma will face murder charges, he will have no choice but to provide all the names that he certainly knows from Ukrainian secret service reports.” This may hold a grain of truth, provided that Melnychenko’s records contain unpleasant information about Putin known to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) about his connections with the notorious Semion Mogilevich.
The Russian element in the story, however, is simpler and more traditional: The Kremlin people in Yanukovych’s team persuaded him to make one more self-defeating step. Taras Chornovil, Yanukovych’s former insider, defines these people as the “Moscow Quartet”: chief of staff Serhy Lyovochkin, SBU head Valery Khoroshkovsky, gas billionaire Dmytro Firtash, and Energy Minister Yuriy Boyko. All are reportedly involved in murky Russian gas deals controlled Gazprom’s shadow owners, Putin and Mogilevich.
The Kuchma trial will not end soon, but will probably be used to blackmail the entire elite, including Yanukovych himself. This might be part of the strategy of “directed chaos” that includes also the creation of fake “nationalist” and “extremist” groups, planting bombs and so forth.
Back in 2004, Moscow “political technologists” tried to implement such a strategy in Ukraine to promote the candidacy of Kuchma for a third presidential term. The “directed chaos,” however, veered out of control and resulted in an authentic mass uprising, the Orange Revolution. Remarkably, one of the leading Moscow “technologists” of that time, Igor Shuvalov, serves as an adviser to Lyovochkin and to the leading TV channel Inter, owned by Khoroshkovsky.
Besides the political goal of strengthening the authoritarian power of a rogue president dependent on Moscow, the team may pursue a more practical goal: to eliminate as many players as possible from the forthcoming privatization of Ukraine’s last asset, its arable land.
In a recent interview, Kravchuk, the nation’s first president, suggested: “the system has already gnawed away Yanukovych’s legs and is approaching his belly” so he must “either destroy the system or concentrate all power in his hands and become a totalitarian leader.” Totalitarianism, Kravchuk believes, is unlikely because Ukrainians would not accept it. He may be right, but the problem is that Yanukovych is listening not to Kravchuk, but rather to the Moscow Orchestra.
Mykola Riabchuk is a Ukrainian author and journalist. This article is reprinted with the author’s permission. It originally appeared in Current Politics in Ukraine at http://ukraineanalysis.wordpress.com, Stasiuk Program for the Study of Contemporary Ukraine, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies.
