Andrey Artemenko said he wanted to be a peacemaker. But within a week of the New York Times revealing on Feb. 19 that the little-known Ukrainian parliamentarian had brought to Washington a plan to end Russia’s war against Ukraine, he faced widespread criticism in his homeland. He could even be charged with treason.
That’s because Artemenko’s plan was distinctly pro-Kremlin. The Radical Party lawmaker’s ideas included leasing Crimea to Russia for 50 years and the lifting of economic sanctions against Russia by the United States.
It didn’t take long for the blowback to arrive.
On Feb. 20, Radical Party leader Oleh Lyashko told journalists in parliament that Artemenko had been expelled from the party.
“He (Artemenko) has positioned himself as a ‘peacemaker’, so we expect that he will also give up being a lawmaker,” said Lyashko. “Let those who suggest leasing Crimea first give their apartments to robbers to rent.”
But Artemenko is not the only Ukrainian politician to reach out to the White House behind President Petro Poroshenko’s back.
Yulia Tymoshenko, the former prime minister and leader of Batkivshchyna Party, had a brief meeting with U.S. President Donald J. Trump before the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington on Feb. 3, during which Trump reportedly promised her that he would “not abandon Ukraine.”
And Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, the former head of the Security Service of Ukraine and a political ally of Tymoshenko, says he visited the U.S. in December and January.
Nalyvaichenko told the Kyiv Post he met there with former Republican Senator Jim DeMint, a Trump advisor and president of the conservative the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, and Bob Corker, a Republican senator from Tennessee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman.
Nalyvaichenko said he delivered to the U.S. Department of Justice proof of “political corruption by (Ukraine’s) top officials.” He said also delivered to Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office materials about alleged money laundering and the illegal use of offshore companies by Poroshenko’s business partner and lawmaker Ihor Kononenko.
Back in 2015, Nalyvaichenko gave the compromising materials on Poroshenko to Artemenko, which he claimed to also give to the U.S. authorities.
At the same time, Nalyvaichenko called Artemenko’s idea of leasing Crimea to Russia unacceptable, and said he had brought to the U.S. his own peace plan.
Many peacemakers
Artemenko, who stays in the Rada as an independent parliamentarian, told the Kyiv Post on Feb. 22 that he saw his plan as the only reasonable alternative to the failed Minsk peace process.
“Minsk doesn’t work – that’s obvious,” Artemenko said, adding that it was especially obvious after Russia said on Feb. 18 it recognized the “passports” issued by the Luhansk and Donetsk-based separatists who call the territories they occupy “republics.”
Artemenko is not the only one to suggest an alternative to Minsk. Since December, suggestions to abandon the failed Minsk peace deal have also been made by oligarch Victor Pinchuk, businessman and former governor of Donetsk Oblast Serhiy Taruta, Vadym Chernysh, the minister for the temporarily occupied territories, and Andriy Yermolayev, the head of Nova Ukraina think tank, which is close to Serhiy Lyovochkin, a top lawmaker from the Opposition Bloc and ex-president Viktor Yanukovych’s former chief of staff.
Like Pinchuk or Artemenko, Yermolayev proposed Ukraine adopt a neutral status and also launch a direct dialogue between Ukraine and the separatist authorities. Under the plan, the separatist-held zone would be demilitarized and placed under the control of UN peacekeepers and armed monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Lyashko later claimed the Kremlin was behind Artemenko’s plan. He said that Artemenko worked on the plan with Lyovochkin, Opposition Bloc faction leader Yuriy Boyko, and Ukrainian politician and close friend of Putin Viktor Medvedchuk.
Medvedchuk’s spokesperson Oleg Babanin told the Kyiv Post on Feb. 22 that the politician had had nothing to do with Artemenko’s plan. He described Lyashko’s claims as “not serious.”
Artemenko confirmed that he worked on the plan with several Ukrainian lawmakers, but said they are now afraid to admit this because of the negative public reaction to the proposed deal.
Artemenko told the Kyiv Post he was going to have a press conference in Washington early in March, at which he will reveal all the details of his plan – and compromising material about Poroshenko, which he supposedly received from Nalyvaichenko.
Meanwhile, fugitive lawmaker Oleksandr Onyshchenko told the Kyiv Post that Artemenko’s evidence of Poroshenko’s alleged corruption was similar to materials he himself had submitted to the U.S. authorities in December. Nalyvaichenko, however, denied having any links with Onyshchenko.
Treason case
On Feb. 21 Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko revealed that Ukrainian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation of Artemenko, suspecting treason.
The preliminary charges read that Artemenko, backed by Russia, betrayed Ukraine by promoting abroad the openly pro-Russian idea of leasing Crimea, thereby aiding the aggressor state.
Artemenko denied that his plan was backed by Russia and said all the accusations against him “were just words that needed to be proven.”
“We desperately need a new platform for dialog,” Artemenko said. “Or should we fight against Russia until the very last Ukrainian soldier?”
The new U.S. administration has to play a key part in resolving the conflict, the lawmaker added.
And for an allegedly pro-Russian peace plan, Artemenko’s proposals have been poorly received by the Kremlin – at least in public.
In particular, Dmitry Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, dismissed the part of the plan about leasing Crimea to Russia.
“There’s nothing to talk about. How can Russia rent its own region from itself?” Peskov told the Telegraph.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov contributed to this story.
