We also share the view that Ukraine’s political and law enforcement authorities have long created a permissive atmosphere in society regarding violence against journalists. If crimes against journalists are never solved, as they almost never have been in Ukraine, the impunity only breeds more violence or harassment. In Inter’s case, it looks like police were slow in responding to the attack on the TV station. Given the hostility of Ukrainian officials, including Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, to Inter’s pro-Russian news coverage, the question arises about whether Ukraine’s police will enforce the law effectively and equally.
But let’s also say this directly: Inter has been playing with fire of a different kind for decades. It is preposterous to hold Inter up as a bastion of free speech in Ukraine. In fact, Inter’s history is exactly the opposite – one of suppression of free speech.
This channel’s main advantage has always been its huge reach in Ukraine – delivering its brand of crapola pro-Kremlin, pro-corrupt oligarch PR, pro-whoever is in power, from one end of the nation to the other.
Its ownership roster includes Viktor Medvedchuk, who is proud to call Ukraine’s enemy Vladimir Putin his friend and who is also shameless about vacationing in Russian-occupied Crimea.
In a country with rule of law, Ukraine’s “Prince of Darkness” would be near the top of any investigative list of police and prosecutors. He deserves U.S. sanctions and much worse for, as the American government correctly put it: “threatening the peace, security, stability, sovereignty, or territorial integrity of Ukraine, and for undermining Ukraine’s democratic institutions and processes.”
A White House statement also said that Medvedchuk had “provided financial, material, or technological support” to ex-President Viktor Yanukovych, who ran from power in 2014.
The Kyiv Post has watched this quisling for decades. Here’s what we wrote in a Nov. 26, 2008, editorial headlined “Scary return,” an opinion that prompted Medvedchuk to send a case of toilet bowl cleaner to the newspaper.
“Medvedchuk used the nationwide reach of Inter TV station to shamelessly promote the so-called ‘oligarch’s party,’ which flopped as a political force. Then he sank to greater depths as chief of staff for ex-President Leonid Kuchma. In that capacity, the presidential administration muzzled the press with ‘temnyky’ orders on how to cover the news. Medvedchuk’s main job seemed to be to hold Kuchma together during a time of rising condemnation for the lame president, caught on the ‘Melnychenko tapes’ with running the nation as a criminal enterprise…Medvedchuk has nothing constructive to offer modern-day Ukraine.”
Today’s owners of Inter are no better. The station belongs to the indicted oligarch-in-exile Dmytro Firtash, fighting U.S. bribery charges from his home in Vienna, and former Yanukovych chief of staff, Serhiy Lyovochkin. If ever there were two more people who deserved the full weight and force of law enforcement in Ukraine, it’s these two characters.
Firtash got rich at Ukraine’s expense from his RosUkrEnergo gas trade. To this day, the National Bank of Ukraine says he owes the nation more than $500 million in unpaid refinancing loans and his long-insolvent Nadra Bank cost taxpayers another $150 million to repay depositors who lost their savings in the bankrupt enterprise.
It’s nothing short of criminal negligence that these two blokes are allowed to keep their hands on Ukraine’s largest and most-watched TV station.
The blame ultimately lies with President Petro Poroshenko. Despite his hollow denials and tough anti-corruption talk, we believe the reports of the “Vienna Agreement,” in which he and Vitali Klitschko flew to Vienna in 2014 to offer immunity and impunity to Firtash in exchange for his support of their presidential and mayoral bids, respectively.
With his public support sinking to 11 percent nationaly in recent polls, Ukrainians no longer trust or support him. He is getting what he so richly deserves. It’s too bad that, because of him, Medvedchuk, Firtash, Lyovochkin and many others are not getting what they deserve.
As for Inter, the best way to counter its gusher of distorted “news” is for viewers to stop watching the channel and for advertisers to stop supporting the station.
