You're reading: Update: Kuchma says foreign secret service agencies involved in Gongadze’s disappearance (VIDEO)

Former President Leonid Kuchma on Sept. 15 said the murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze ten years ago is an international provocation.

“It’s an international scandal designed to compromise Ukraine. They didn’t give me or Ukraine any peace for five years,” Kuchma was quoted by the Kyiv-based information agency UNIAN as saying.

The former Ukrainian president said foreign secret services were involved in Gongadze’s disappearance. He added that agents from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency were present at [anti-presidential] demonstrations following Gongadze’s disappearance.


“This was paid for. Money makes everything possible,” Kuchma said, adding that he is satisfied that the U.S. under President Barack Obama has changed its view of the world and is no longer trying to spread democracy around the globe.

Read the Ukrainian-language comments made by Kuchma to UNIAN here.