The appointment of a top prosecutor linked to Viktor Medvedvchuk, Ukraine's pro-Russian politician par excellence, has prompted a flurry of indignation in civil society.
Maksym Yakubovsky was selected as the southern district’s top prosecutor in March, and his ties to Medvedchuk’s Ukrainian Choice party were revealed earlier this month. Critics cite the appointment as proof that Ukrainian authorities are refusing to lustrate officials associated with ousted President Viktor Yanukovych or the Kremlin.
The scandal followed allegations that Vitaly Malikov, a newly-appointed deputy chief of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), supported pro-Kremlin separatists in Crimea, with video footage purportedly proving that. The SBU denies the claims.
Yakubovsky’s spokesman Pavel Aksyonov declined to comment. “It doesn’t make sense to comment on nonsense,” he said by phone on June 30.
Ukraine’s top military prosecutor Anatoly Matios commented on Yakubovsky, whose office is located in Odesa, on June 28.
Maksym Yakubovsky speaking at a Ukrainian Choice conference on March 30, 2013.
“The latest detention of a military enlistment officer in Odesa happened thanks to Yakubovsky’s subtle and assertive position,” he said, referring to an officer accused of corruption. “I don’t know what Medvedchuk and the Ukrainian Choice have to do with this.”
He added that he did not know whether Yakubovsky was linked to the Ukrainian Choice.
Andriy Demartino, a spokesman for the Prosecutor General’s Office, was not available for comment.
Mark Gordienko, head of Odesa’s pro-Ukrainian Civic Security Council, told the Kyiv Post that such appointments are “unacceptable and erode confidence in the authorities.”
“This shows that the government is cut off from public opinion and doesn’t give a damn about it,” he said. “As a result, society won’t give a damn about (the authorities) soon.”
Yakubovsky, born in 1973, is a graduate of Odesa State University. He has worked as a prosecutor since 1996. In August 2014-March 2015, he was a deputy of Ukraine’s top military prosecutor.
According to several videos posted on YouTube and articles published on the Ukrainian Choice’s group, Yakubovsky took part in conferences organized by the group in 2013. He was presented as an expert at Pravova Derzhava (Rule of Law), a legal think tank linked to Medvedchuk.
Pravova Derzhava counts among its members Mikhail Pogrebinsky, a political analyst tied to Medvedchuk, and Stepan Havrysh, an ex-member of Medvedchuk’s Social Democratic Party of Ukraine.
Yakubovsky’s profile on the National Association of Lawyers’ site lists the same telephone number as that of the Ukrainian Choice. Also, Yakubovsky’s address is the same as that of Pravova Derzhava and the Ukrainian Choice.
Medvedchuk is an acquaintance of Russian President Vladimir Putin and one of his major allies in Ukraine.
According to the Ukrainian Choice’s Web site, the group supported the rigged March 16, 2014 referendum that justified Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
The group has also published articles in support of Kremlin-backed militants in Donbas. “Delegates have announced that they would create a unified national front to combine all political forces of (Ukraine’s) southeast to resist the (Kyiv) fascist junta and create Novorossia,” Yelena Alekseyeva wrote on the Ukrainian Choice’s site on June 10, 2014. “The Donetsk and Luhansk republics, created as a result of an expression of popular will, formed a unified state.”
The Ukrainian Choice is against European integration and in favor of joining the Russian-led Customs Union. The party also supports federalization – a demand being pushed for by the Kremlin in what Ukraine sees as an effort to split it up and take over its territories.
The Ukrainian Choice has also published anti-Semitic articles accusing Jews of organizing a political conspiracy.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov can be reached at [email protected]
