Canned Democracy

Halya Coynash

It was a bad week for democracy in Ukraine with formal democratic processes as close to the real thing as canned laughter on a TV show to genuine mirth.

The door to Europe, and specifically the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement was all but slammed shut by the rejection on Wednesday of former Interior Minister Yury Lutsenko’s cassation appeal.  Ukraine’s High Specialized Court upheld the outcome of a trial, which, as repeatedly pointed out by the EU and the democratic community, “did not respect international standards as regards fair, transparent and independent legal processes.”

Rule of law was just as removed from a courtroom in Zaporizhzhya, which on 2 April convicted two former sacristans of the Svyatopokrovsk Church and the brother of one of them to 15 and 14-year prison sentences over the bomb blast in the Church on 28 July 2010.  Judge Minasov ignored the fact that there was no evidence in the case aside from multiple “confessions” made without proper defence, and almost certainly under physical and psychological pressure.  The confirmation of this by two forensic psychologists was ignored, while a third report which interpreted smiles, gestures etc during the night interrogations as evidence of an “inclination to crime”  was quoted in detail in the judgement.  Minasov had rejected applications to have all forensic psychologists summoned to give evidence.  The list of irregularities in this case is as long as that in the trial of Lutsenko, and widely believed to be linked with the fact that President Yanukovych at the time demanded arrests within the week.

In both these cases, as well as the ongoing attempt to charge former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko with murder, few believe that the judges – or prosecutor – in the cases are acting autonomously.

The case against Tymoshenko encountered a bump on 2 April with a key witness Serhiy Taruta testifying that at the time of the killing of MP and businessman Shcherban, there was no conflict between him and Tymoshenko.

The case is so dodgy that inconvenient bleeps may not overly worry those pulling the strings.  Renat Kuzmin, Deputy Prosecutor General, whose trips abroad to justify the trials of opposition leaders are organized by such PR companies as Burson-Marsteller, will simply accuse all critics, including authoritative western observers of defamation if they suggest any political motivation.

There were plenty of other uncomfortable subjects during the week.  They included the President’s income declaration which, for the second year in a row, declared 15 and a half million UAH in “royalties.”  The latter must be understood very loosely since the President did not publish a single word in 2012.  In fact, had he published even one book the royalties received per word would quite possibly outdo many international bestseller writers. The amount would also instantly bankrupt most publishing houses, at least in Ukraine.  Not, however, the Donetsk publisher Novy Svit which in 2011 paid 16.4 million UAH for all President Yanukovych’s works, past, present and future.  It now transpires that this was only the first instalment of an ongoing fee.

The use of the rightwing VO Svoboda Party to present the Party of the Regions as antidote to creeping fascism and xenophobia had a novel application on Wednesday with a number of Svoboda activists detained by police in Kyiv and interrogated for many hours.  The events had seemed to promise high drama with a Party of the Regions MP Iryna Horina reporting on Tuesday that after the close of the Verkhovna Rada’s evening session she and other women MPs had been pelted with snowballs, ice and dirt by members of a political protest.  She later apparently claimed that there had been an attempt to kill her.

A criminal investigation is underway, and the police felt no need to follow the restrictions of the new Criminal Procedure Code on how many hours witnesses can be interrogated. From a PR point of view, a trial would be as much of a loser as trying now to bring charges of hooliganism against the young man who so famously felled the then presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych with an egg in 2004.

Thursday was a full-on day for Ukraine’s MPs though few of the events bore much relation to parliamentary democracy.  With the opposition continuing to block the Verkhovna Rada tribune, the Party of the Regions, Communists and others who vote with the government decided to attempt a kind of outreach parliament – in the premises of the parliamentary committees on Bankova St.   There was supposedly a vote on this with 244 in favour (226 is a simple majority), however leader of the Batkivshchyna faction in parliament, Arseny Yatsenyuk asserted that only 168 MPs were actually present.

It was one side’s word against the other’s since opposition MPs were not allowed into the building on Bankova St.

Interpretation of the Parliamentary Regulations also depends on which side you listen to, and how one is to understand “exceptional circumstances”.

This is of enormous importance since the pro-government MPs (in person, or in name and MP card alone) managed to vote on 22 laws, one of which changed the 2013 State Budget.  All of this without open discussion and without the presence of the opposition who numerically cannot override a government vote, but can at least point to dangers in the laws passed.

What is particularly disturbing is that analysts asked by the Deutsche Welle Ukrainian Service considered the votes to be illegitimate, but were not at all confident that they would be revoked. Former MP Yury Klyuchkovsky pointed out that there had been similar situations during the 2000s and the laws passed, however dubiously, remained in force.  The Constitutional Court then refused to consider submissions from MPs asking for the laws to be declared unconstitutional.  In this regard it’s worth noting that the Constitutional Court in March for the fourth time refused to consider the highly controversial language law signed into force by President Yanukovych in August 2012.  This law effectively ignores the constitutional norm stipulating that Ukrainian is the sole official language and significantly increases the role of the Russian language.

Another specific smell from Ukraine’s parliamentarianism comes from turncoats or, in the Ukrainian, “tushki” (carcases).  On Thursday Speaker Rybak announced that four Batkivshchyna faction MPs had changed sides.  Interpretation of motives and / or incentives will inevitably depend on whose version you trust, however the phenomenon cannot under any circumstances be considered healthy.

It is also difficult to see it as democratic. Even during the last elections where 50% of the candidates entered parliament on party lists and 50% stood for election on an individual basis, the vast majority of voters would have voted for the party.

If MPs can then choose where the grass for them is greener, the voters’ electoral choice is rendered meaningless, like so many other fundamental components of democracy increasingly treated as cosmetic props.

Triumph of the Cargo Cult

Mykola Riabchuk

Six years ago, I published an article under the (perhaps too optimistic) title “Farewell to the Cargo Cult” (Berliner Zeitung, 13 April 2007). It was about the ongoing protests in Kyiv organized by the Party of Regions against president Viktor Yushchenko’s decree dissolving the parliament and declaring early parliamentary elections. The decree was indeed controversial but probably it was the only way to stop the creeping coup d’etat: the buying up and blackmailing of deputies in the parliament to form a pro-Yanukovych constitutional majority.

The protests staged by Yanukovych’s supporters looked like a parody of the Orange Maidan — a dull, uninventive imitation of the revolutionary events that had occurred in Kyiv two years earlier. The pathetic turnout of the “protesters,” their passivity and lack of enthusiasm, inability to explain what they were fighting for and off-record confessions about banal remuneration received for the participation in that political show made a striking contrast to the powerful civic spirit revealed during the 2004 revolution.

For me, it was a clear sign that Yanukovych and his Party of Regions believed sincerely that the Orange upheaval was brought about by money, and if they invested in similar fashion they would get the same result.  The “Cargo Cult” metaphor referred to a quasi-religious cult that emerged allegedly in the Pacific islands among the aboriginal tribes after the Second World War. During the war, aborigines witnessed American soldiers who received delightful goods, called “cargo”, from the sky. After Americans left, they decided to appease the sky gods in the same in order to get the same bounties. They developed a sophisticated ritual that imitated the landing of airplanes with bonfires around the landing stretch cut out of the jungle and native priests with wooden headphones communicating with their gods in some incomprehensible sacral language.

I confess I was wrong in using the word “farewell.” The Cargo Cult is alive and well in today’s Ukraine where the governing Party of Regions has made it a kind of a state religion. They worship it everywhere: in both political statements and institutional practices. Here and there, they imitate democratic elections, legal procedures, and parliamentary deliberations, with the candid hope that the European gods would bestow some sort of democratic legitimacy upon them or at least would not sanction them for skullduggery.

The new indictments of Yulia Tymoshenko for bribery, theft, tax evasion, and even killing a rival businessman back in 1996, represent a perfect example of “cargo” mentality: if our wooden headphones do not help us to communicate with the EU, let’s produce more wooden headphones. If there are no reliable proofs of Tymoshenko’s wrongdoing, let’s produce more unreliable proofs, hoping that sheer quantity would substitute for the dismal quality. It would be funny, if was not so depressing. If very shaky evidence sufficed to sentence Yulia Tymoshenko to seven years in prison for the gas deal with Putin, even shakier evidence – but a greater amount – may well suffice to give her a life sentence in a country where no independent judiciary exists.

So far, the court process looks even more farcical than it looked two years ago when the routine political-cum-economic decision was notoriously criminalized. All the witnesses summoned by prosecutors are reasonably suspected of being in their pockets [http://blogs.pravda.com.ua/authors/chornovol/511cf62064a09]. All of them had either a criminal past and long history of cooperation with the authorities, probably as paid agents [http://blogs.pravda.com.ua/authors/chornovol/511e5bc4a816d], or some would-be criminal problems today that are likely to be solved only through their “cooperation” [http://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2013/02/13/6983385/]. Remarkably, none of them has had any personal contact with Yulia Tymoshenko, nor they have any direct proof of her involvement in the criminal case. All their testimony to the court is based on some ambiguous information they presumably heard from others who have typically disappeared and can neither confirm nor deny the allegations. Remarkably, all of them kept this hearsay evidence unrevealed for seventeen years, ostensibly because they were afraid of Tymoshenko’s revenge, even though she became the prime minister only in 2005. Before that, she was persecuted and even imprisoned briefly by Leonid Kuchma. He was not so inventive, however, to accuse her of murder. And, surprisingly, none of today’s witnesses gave him a hint.

The authorities not only failed to produce any serious evidence of Tymoshenko’s involvement in the 1996 contract killing of Yevhen Shcherban. They failed even to explain persuasively what might have been her interest in such a plot [http://blogs.pravda.com.ua/authors/chornovol/5122684597f9f/]. The only argument is that there were some tensions between Tymoshenko’s boss (and Ukraine’s prime minister at the time) Pavlo Lazarenko and the victim, hardly an unusual situation in Ukrainian business environment. Yet, as two business partners of the late Mr Shcherban — ­Serhiy Taruta [http://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2013/02/8/6983135/ ] and Vitaliy Hayduk [http://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2013/02/19/6983862/] — testify, all the disputes had been solved by that time and Lazarenko had no reason to embark on such crude methods as killing. Actually, as prime minister, he had much more subtle instruments to promote his own business and intimidate disobedient rivals. Viktor Yanukovych must be perfectly aware of this.

Furthermore, even if one imagines that Mr Lazarenko went crazy and decided to do something irrational, he certainly did not need any assistance and mediation from Mme Tymoshenko, a minor pawn in his business empire, much more suitable for performing clean rather than dirty jobs [http://gazeta.ua/articles/479282]. There have always been plenty of professionals in this field in Ukraine, and even today such a job does not cost $3 million as the prosecutor alleges. Back in 1996, the experts claim, it was about ten times cheaper.

It is not clear, indeed, whether the Ukrainian authorities expect to sentence Tymoshenko to life imprisonment on such dubious legal grounds. What is clear, however, is they may well do so, since the previous case that cost Tymoshenko seven years in prison was not much better substantiated. Hatred is blind, and fear makes people vengeful. In Yanukovych’s case, all these unpleasant characteristics are only multiplied by his poor culture and education, provincial outlook, and lack of wise and committed advisers.

Taras Chornovil, who closely cooperated with him in 2004-2007, believes that “Yanukovych has many complexes, including the ‘blockaded Leningrad’ complex: “he cannot feed himself, he still is hungry for money, property, luxury.” And Tymoshenko, Chornovil contends, threatened to imprison him and re-nationalize “Mezhyhirya,” a government residence on 100 hectares of land near Kyiv, illicitly privatized by Yanukovych when he was prime minister. “I guess, he read these words shortly before he made his decision on Tymoshenko. I know for sure that two weeks earlier there was a large meeting and big debate in his administration on how to continue the process and what to do with her. The prevailing opinion was that Yulia should be accused but left free. But the subsequent denunciation made her arrest unavoidable” [http://gazeta.ua/articles/480185].

This evidence renders any hopes for the imminent release of Yulia Tymoshenko ephemeral, as also any chance of signing the Association Agreement with the EU in the foreseeable future. People who preach the “Cargo Cult” simply do not understand what real airplanes – let alone real democracy, rule of law, and European integration – actually mean. The only good thing is that here, in the post-Soviet realm, they do not practice ritualistic cannibalism. Luckily for us all, they follow a somewhat different political and gastronomic tradition. So far, they have indulged themselves only with the ritualistic imprisonment of their political rivals.

“Family” on the March

Mykola Riabchuk

Ukraine has entered the New Year with a new government approved in the parliament by the Party of Regions, their Communist satellites, and a dozen “independents” engaged by both hook and crook. There are few changes in the content of the new-old government, either in personalities, or (even less) in its spirit, i.e. the expected policies. Some ministers, like Borys Kolesnikov, moved into the parliament to serve as MPs; others, like Valery Khoroshkovsky, resigned citing policy disagreements; and still others were moved to honorable positions as presidential advisers, like SBU chief Ihor Kalinin and Minister of Defense Dmytro Salamatin, or were promoted to seemingly prestigious but less influential positions of deputy prime ministers, like former Minister of Foreign Affairs Kostiantyn Hryshchenko and former Minister of Energy and Coal Industry Yury Boyko.

There are no signs, however, that all these moves were connected to the incumbents’ policy failures or corruption scandals, and no signs that the new nominations are merit-based and policy-driven. Again, more than half of the ministers were either born in the Donbas region or made some crucial part of their careers there. It seems the president and his team feel no need to hide or justify this peculiar regional cronyism—staffing police, judiciary, and tax services all over Ukraine with Donbas people [http://expres.ua/main/2012/01/31/59312], giving various preferences to regional business, or endorsing over 46% of the budget subventions for social and economic development to two privileged oblasts, Donetsk and Luhansk, – 618 million UAH ($76.2 million)  [http://www.epravda.com.ua/columns/2012/12/24/352306/].

The only shamelessness overshadowing this regional cronyism is the nepotism of the president and his son. The latter is particularly notorious for the promotion of his close friends and business associates to top governmental positions. Now, his clients have taken an even firmer grip over Ukraine’s economy and law-enforcement agencies. Besides the General Prosecutor’s office, which fully staffed with Yanukovych’s loyalists from Donbas, and the Security Service and Ministry of Defense subordinated directly to the president, the Family controls the Interior Ministry, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Agrarian Policy, National Bank, and a newly created Klondike—the Ministry of Revenues and Duties, which has replaced the Customs Service (loaned out until recently to the Communist allies) and National Tax Administration. The most conspicuous event is the rise of the 36-year-old Serhiy Arbuzov, within a few years, from the manager of a minor bank in Donetsk to the head of the National Bank and, now, to first deputy prime minister. Rumors are afoot that it is only a matter of time until he replaces incumbent Prime Minister Mykola Azarov.

Serhiy Leshchenko, a leading Ukrainian investigative journalist, aptly characterizes the new government as representing the “undisguised advance of the ‘Family’ into the main power cabinets and onto the major budget flows… Whereas filling and distribution of the budget was already under the ‘Family’s’ control, the really new acquisition by Sasha-the-dentist [Yanukovych junior] is the Ministry of Energy and Coal Industry given to Eduard Stavytsky” [http://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2012/12/25/6980434/].

According to Leshchenko, Stavytsky facilitated a number of business schemes for the Family, including the murky privatization of the Mezhyhirya estate for Viktor Yanukovych [http://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2009/11/5/4293541/].

These six persons—Arbuzov, Stavytsky, the Interior Minister Vitaly Zakharchenko, the Minister of Finance Yury Kolobov, the Minister of Revenues and Duties Oleksandr Klymenko, and the Minister of Agrarian Policy Mykola Prysiazhniuk are nicknamed the “Big Six”—the core of the inner circle of the extended Yanukovych “Family.” Consolidation of their positions in the government, Leshchenko argues, reflects Yanukovych’s increasing distrust of outsiders. “He agrees to entrust his future exclusively to the people with whom he has profited within the past years in power.”

Whether these people will be able and willing to carry out the much-needed reforms, which would inevitably undermine the Family’s profits, is a rhetorical question. No one has ever heard of any reformist plans, or even serious activities among them. They have very “limited competence to rule the country”, the Polish analyst Slawomir Matuszak implied delicately in his report last year on the “Oligarchic Democracy. The Influence of Business Groups on Ukrainian Politics.” Therefore, he concludes, “While future reshuffles among the groups of influence are possible (and will certainly take place), there is still little chance that the model of relations between the ruling class and big business will change, at least in the medium term” [http://www.osw.waw.pl/sites/default/files/Prace_42_EN.pdf].

Dmytro Mendeleyev defines these types of managers as “typical schemers” (схемотехніки) – people whose major goal and main skill is to “extract more money [for the Family] by means of newer, faster, and more efficient schemes” [http://politikan.com.ua/8/11/0/51147.htm].

Such a deeply dysfunctional regime, Alexander Motyl argues, is a “leading candidate for stagnation and decay. And, sooner or later, the sultanistic Yanukovych system will collapse under its own dead weight.” Motyl tends to believe that this will happen rather sooner than later because the regime has already attained the “highest stage” of sultanism and can experience little institutional development in the next three to eight years: “Yanukovych and his family cannot acquire more power, the other institutions of government cannot become more meaningless, and the Regionnaires cannot become more rapacious” [http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/alexander-j-motyl/yanukovych-ruin-and-its-aftermath-part-1].

He is wrong. The Family has acquired a lot of power but can take still more by destroying alternative centers of power and wealth and eliminating the remnants of relative pluralism in Ukraine. At least one institution, the parliament (not to mention some city and regional councils), is not yet meaningless, and the Family might be tempted to emasculate it completely. And the rapaciousness of the ruling “elite” still has some space for development (privatization of land, takeover of citizens’ bank savings, sale of the national sovereignty, and the like): intestinal worms basically do not care much about the organism they exhaust.

We, the experts, may be perfectly aware that such a system has no prospects for the future and sooner or later “will collapse under its own weight.” But this does not mean that the rapacious “elites” understand this as well, and that even they do, they believe in a “sooner” rather than “later.” As Alexander Motyl himself acknowledges: “Because sultanistic regimes are invariably corrupt and conservative, there is no reason to think that the avaricious mediocrities who man the Yanukovych system will be able or willing to sacrifice their well-being to vague notions of reform, especially if reform undermines their power and privilege.”

Rather, logically, they would try to tighten the screws and accelerate the looting of resources, while keeping the population, as it always has been in this country, at the minimal subsistence level.

A few years ago, an influential member of the Party of Regions and of the parliament, former “red director” and current oligarch Volodymyr Landyk made a revealing statement at the end of a lengthy interview. It reflects the mentality of his class and the political force that runs the country but is seldom expressed so candidly:

“What is the difference between Ukraine’s East and West?” – the journalists asked.

“Well, just take a look how a steel worker or machinist works in the East. There are terrible conditions. He earns $200-300. In the meantime, vuyko [a derogatory name for Westerners] says: ‘Why should I work for such money? I’d rather go to a Pole, and do some house work for him, he’ll give me a 100 bucks, and then I’ll come again [to Poland].’ They have such a mentality. We planned to open our factory in Ivano-Frankivsk. But failed. We had to bring our people there by train because vuykies did not want work. Even though we offered the same salary as in Donetsk.”

And what is Mr. Landyk’s conclusion? Should he increase the salary at least to the Polish level? Or, maybe, ameliorate the “terrible conditions”? Definitely not!

“Everyone must work. We should close the borders and produce our own products. We’ll try to do this within the next ten years: or longer, if necessary” [http://obkom.net.ua/articles/2010-11/05.1739.shtml].

Unfortunately, this tells more about Ukraine’s probable future than all the government’s programs, president’s statements, and the shrewd analytical deliberations of political pundits.

HAVING THE CAKE AND EATING IT TOO

Mykola Riabchuk

On the eve of President Vikto Yanukovych’s visit to Moscow on December 19, many Ukrainian experts were confident that the game was over and the beleaguered Ukrainian president would accept Putin’s invitation to the Customs Union as a sine qua non condition for the much-needed lowering of gas prices. The visit was postponed, however, because the agreement on energy cooperation had not been yet finalized http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2012/12/21/6980243/.

There are also some unofficial explanations of the canceled event, ranging from Putin’s whim to a miraculous call from Brussels and promise to soften the EU’s stance on the association agreement. The most feasible argument was discussed in detail in Ekonomichna pravda: some Ukrainian oligarchs have raised a new rescue idea, very similar to the old one realized by the unforgettable RosUkrEnergo http://www.epravda.com.ua/publications/2012/12/19/351560/.

Since his accession to power, Viktor Yanukovych has seemed to be musing over the classical question: how to have one’s cake and eat it too? In other words, how can one exploit the economy for the benefit of cronies and kinsmen, yet keep it alive? How to imitate a democracy and retain authoritarian power? How to befriend the West but avoid the burden of incorporating Western values and the rule of law in particular? How to gain concessions from Moscow without conceding one’s own and one’s clan’s sovereignty?

So far, the process of eating has gone much more smoothly than that of keeping the country afloat. Those perusing Ukrainska Pravda or other independent news sites regularly, would find, every day, a whole series of new facts about some government schemes: misuse of funds, tax evasion, dubious purchases at exorbitant prices from murky off-shore intermediaries, raider attacks, scandalous court rulings, and various examples of lawlessness that make up a fabric of Ukrainian social reality. Remarkably, all these facts that would cause scandals in a normal country and lead to dismissal of corrupt officials and a court investigation, evoke typically no official reaction in Ukraine. If something does not exist on TV (fully controlled by the government), it does not exist at all. Actually, only 20 per cent of the population obtains information from the Internet, whereas 80 per cent receives it primarily or exclusively from TV.

The government seems to believe in the virtual TV world it created for the gullible population. Nothing the government did within the past two months signals any desire to change course, tame the appetites of the “Family,” and carry out comprehensive reforms that may be the only way to save the country. Neither the clear popular vote against the incumbents, nor international condemnation of the rigged elections, nor the dire state of the Ukrainian economy and the even bleaker prospects for the future have compelled the president and his team to revise a single item of their impending disastrous policies.

First, the 2013 national budget was rubber-stamped by the parliament in the best traditions of the ruling Party of Regions: without any discussion but with numerous loopholes and tasty morsels for the “Family” insiders and associates.

Secondly, the new parliamentary majority was formed through the familiar pattern of bribery, blackmail, and intimidation of independent MPs. Many of the latter are connected to various businesses, either personally or via close relatives, and are therefore highly vulnerable to government influence. Opposition MPs are also subjected to pressure. So far, only two of them, from Yatseniuk’s party, have switched sides openly, but reports suggest that many more are being “persuaded” by various means to make the “right” choice http://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2012/12/13/6979494/.

Thirdly, even though the new government has not yet been formed, the approved return of Mykola Azarov to the position of the prime minister does not bode any significant changes to the previous stagnant and corrupt policies. The election of 66-year Volodymyr Rybak, Yanukovych’s close friend from Donetsk, as chairman of the Ukrainian parliament, also confirms the desire to preserve the status quo and keep away any strong figures from top governmental positions that might provide them a good platform in the future to threaten Yanukovych http://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2012/12/14/6979768/.

And fourthly, the outgoing parliament has rubber-stamped one more document that might pose grim consequences not only for Ukraine but also for Yanukovych himself. This was the law on national referendums that is widely believed to be a vehicle for his re-election for a second or even third term but might also become a tricky instrument in the hands of pro-Moscow forces to undermine the sovereignty of both Yanukovych and Ukraine in general.

The controversial law was passed at the first reading two years ago and seemed to have been forgotten until last November when the de-facto electoral defeat of the Party of Regions buried the “Family’s” hopes of mustering a qualified majority of two-thirds of MPs in the new parliament to amend the constitution at Yanukovych’s convenience, as has occurred in several post-Soviet states to satiate local dictators. Now, the anti-constitutional law on referendums means that the authorities can bypass the last remnants of constitutionalism in Ukraine by transforming the results of any plebiscite directly into law, without the need for parliamentary approval.

The referendum can be initiated either by Verkhovna Rada or the “people.” That latter make take such an initiative is very unlikely, however. Even if the “people” collect the required 3 million signatures to support a proposal, there is no independent judiciary in Ukraine to protect these signatures from being dismissed as “fake” by authorities, as happens on a daily basis in Putin’s Russia http://zakon1.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/1286-12.

It is a ticking bomb that is much more dangerous for Ukrainian democracy and sovereignty than any other of Yanukovych’s initiatives, including joining the ominous Customs Union. So far, all the Moscow-led “integration” projects have brought unimpressive results. All Russia’s neighbors are well aware what that kind of “integration” means. Few of them dare, however, to utter a definite “no” to those tricky initiatives (Georgia might be the very graphic exception). Therefore, they typically say “yes, but…” And that “but” stands for various forms of lip service and sabotage that undermines effectively “integration” projects without a direct and potentially dangerous confrontation with Moscow.

There is no reason to believe that Yanukovych’s “Family” is eager to give up Ukrainian customs to any “union” and deprive themselves of such a powerful source of income. The greed of these people might be the best if not the only guardian of Ukraine’s sovereignty–at least as long as their personal security in Ukraine is not under threat. But their incompetence and provincial naivety can make them (and all the nation, alas) an easy prey of the seasoned KGB hunters. Neither the 2010 “Kharkiv agreements” nor the recent scandal with LNG terminal (when the government signed an agreement with a bogus representative of a Spanish company) give much credibility to the alleged “professionalism” of the ruling team.

In October 2012, a leaked conversation of a Russian “political technologist” Semen Uralov, who worked in Odesa for the leader of the “Rodina” party Igor Markov, referred to the eventual victory of the unambiguously pro-Russian forces in Ukraine supposedly led by Viktor Medvedchuk. They implied also an honorable exile for Mr. Yanukovych in his opulent Mezhyhirya mansion, with a private zoo among other luxury possessions. The interlocutors joked about him being “locked in with his kangaroos”: “Ігор днями зустрічався з ВВМ [Віктором Володимирoвичeм Медведчуком]. Той підтвердив загальну концепцію. Не пізніше 15 року все зміниться, а цього пiдoра заженемо до його кенгуру у Межигір’я, а поки що – збираємо групу у Раді” (http://pr-portal.com.ua/peredovitsa/15895.php?sphrase_id=5446311).

It might be a good time to ponder whether a Putin-sponsored and Medvedchuk-led referendum, with a properly formulated question, would not be a much quicker way to push Ukraine into the Russian orbit than the awkward, barely functioning, and a priori unworkable Customs Union.

LANGUAGE LAW A PLOY TO DISTRACT VOTERS

David Marples

On July 3, the Ukrainian Parliament passed the second draft of a language law that would grant official status to minority languages in areas in which they are spoken by at least 10% of the population. Its acceptance sparked furious protests outside Parliament, with riot police using batons and tear gas against demonstrators.

Some analysts maintain that the law would undermine the status of Ukrainian, which has been the only official state language since the country gained independence in 1991. Others anticipate a deepening of a regional divide between the Ukrainian-speaking Western regions, and the mainly Russophone areas of the south and east.

Yet as usual with events involving the ruling Regions Party and its president Viktor Yanukovych, there is more to this move than is at first evident.

The circumstances of the bill’s passing were calculated to inflame. It was introduced without forewarning, when many deputies and Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn were absent. It received votes from 248 deputies, well over the required minimum of 226. The Regions deputies were supported by the Communist Party and People’s Party. Speaker Lytvyn subsequently offered his resignation, but it was rejected by the assembly the following day. Seven deputies announced they were starting a hunger strike in protest. There were angry demonstrations in Kyiv and in the western Ukrainian city of L’viv, the heartland of Ukrainian speakers. Protests are also planned by the Ukrainian community abroad in centers like Toronto.

In theory the bill—it still requires the signatures of the President and Speaker before it becomes law—would mean that Russian would take on official status in 13 of Ukraine’s 27 designated regions, i.e. 11 “oblasts” (provinces) and the cities of Kyiv and Sevastopol. In the far western area of Transcarpathia, Hungarian would gain official status. In Chernivtsi and southwestern Odesa, the same would apply to Romanian and Bulgarian. On the Crimean peninsula, the Tatar language would also gain such status. Altogether, Ukraine would have 18 “official languages”!

There is little logic to its sudden passing other than perhaps to enhance the electoral standing of the Regions Party in Russian-speaking regions prior to the parliamentary elections, anticipated in October. Language issues are hardly a priority in a state riddled with corruption and human rights issues, and suffering a sharp economic downturn. And although tempers are frayed, the number of protesters is small. A mere 1,000 turned out in central Kyiv on July 4, for example, barely enough to cause a flutter on the bustling Khreschatyk.

Also, should the law attain official status its implementation would be a bureaucratic and financial nightmare. Indeed, a representative of the Finance Ministry, Valentyna Brusylo, commented, perhaps indiscreetly, that it would likely cost some $1.5-$2 billion to introduce. Such expenses in an election year would be an issue of much greater contention than the language law itself. The Ukrainian government is in financial trouble: it recently agreed terms for a $3 billion loan from China’s Eximbank, payment for which will be partly in exports of grain up to 2.5 million tons per year.

Third, why do Regions deputies need to introduce a law formalizing the status of Russian, which already enjoys a privileged position? No doubt it will impress Russian president Vladimir Putin who visits Ukraine on July 12. But the question has been dragged up, by Yanukovych and earlier presidents, at every election and then ignored once a new president entered office.

The answer to all these questions appears to be that it is a calculated ploy to inflame and divide residents of Ukraine, a diversion from other issues that should be considered more urgent. The electorate has been sidetracked for the past month by Euro-2012, a successful but costly soccer competition that was well organized and won convincingly by the Spanish. The language law is the new diversion.

After its passing, as opposition deputies gathered in the streets to protest, the remaining 73 deputies passed a total of 20 new laws in a single day. These included new subsidies for the Donbas coal mines, which are at the center of Regions’ power base, a new rail connection to Kyiv international airport, and more funding for the Ministry of Justice and the Office of the State Prosecutor. The costs of the new laws amount to billions.

Because so few deputies were present, others simply voted in their place, pressing the “yes” button in the absentees’ seats in order to secure a majority for each new law. The strategy could be seen as cynical. But Regions deputies habitually pay lip service to the democratic process while finding ways to circumvent it.

The uproar over the language bill may be justified. But it is also a diversion, carefully calculated so that deputies are preoccupied and the rules of Parliament can be circumvented. In the meantime the ruling elite of Ukraine fritter away state funds without a care for the long-term consequences.

The language law is simply impractical, but it is not the main issue. Language does not divide the residents of Ukraine. The real problem is the ruling Regions Party, which treats the country as a personal fiefdom to be robbed at will and finds ingenious ways to ensure that it can continue to do so.

This article first appeared in the Edmonton Journal, 7 July 2012. [http://www2.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/ideas/story.html?id=0a732fad-db3f-4777-b245-c73bcf13873f&p=2]

Raiders’ State

Mykola Riabchuk

This time, I have to start with a frank disclosure. For 40 years, I have been a faithful reader of the Kyiv-based journal “Vsesvit” (“The World”). For more than 30 years, I have been one of its contributors. For two decades, I have been a staff editor there, ending my career in 1994 as a deputy editor-in-chief. And today, after moving to academia, I still remain a committed reader, author, and member of the editorial board.

“Vsesvit” is an independent journal, with very limited resources acquired painstakingly from various grants, but with high and well-grounded ambitions: to promote world culture and literature in Ukrainian translations. I greatly respect all the people who work for “Vsesvit” – for a meager salary and symbolical royalties but also for an encouraging feeling of doing something good and important.

A few days ago, I learned that on April 26, a group of unidentified individuals broke into the “Vsesvit” office at the Hrushevsky Street, ironically located next to the Ukrainian parliament and Cabinet of Ministers and not very far from the President’s administration.  The intruders demanded that Chief Editor Oleh Mykytenko vacate the premises and renounce his claim to the office legally owned by the Vsesvit Publishing Company. They behaved in an extremely rough fashion, tried to damage Vsesvit property, and threatened personnel with further repercussions if they did not step down. Some suggested they were acting on behalf of a certain Valeri Kharlim, an MP from the Party of Regions (little surprise), protected reportedly by the first vice Prime-Minister Valeri Khoroshkovsky. They argued they had their own documented claims to the Vsesvit property, which were apparently faked but convincing enough from the point of view of Ukraine’s thoroughly corrupted and subservient courts (http://khpg.org/index.php?id=1335554817).

The story is hardly unique and certainly not the most eye-catching against the background of some other events in Ukraine that have recently drawn public attention. Whereas mass media discuss the alleged beating of Yulia Tymoshenko by prison guards and four mysterious blasts in Dnipropetrovsk, attributed to unspecified “terrorists,” the raiders’ attacks on property in Yanukovych’s Ukraine is a daily practice that evokes little international attention, except for the cases where foreign companies are involved and western embassies interfere.

“Raiding,” as Andrew Rettman defines it, “is a form of hostile take-over in which someone bribes or blackmails courts to enforce a bogus claim against a profitable business. It can involve a van-full of balaclava-wearing men breaking into your office to tell you that you are no longer the owner. In extreme cases it can involve people shooting at your staff. Most victims are small-and-medium-sized Ukrainian firms in the agricultural sector. But foreign companies are not immune.” Indeed, even the steel giant Arcelor Mittal that purchased unwisely the Kryvorizhstal mill for $5 billion from the previous government, became four years later a target of coordinated raiders’ attacks and pressure from the authorities (http://euobserver.com/24/114646).

“This problem,” one expert contends, “is on the increase and it is common knowledge that it cannot happen without collusion from the authorities.” To prove this claim, Andrew Rettman refers to Transparency International’s latest corruption ranking in which Ukraine dropped 18 places and now ranks below Nigeria. The European Business Association (EBA) has also lowered Ukraine significantly in its index of investment attractiveness. “You cannot protect your legitimate interests in the courts,” the EBA director Anna Derevyanko says. “This comes up in many conversations with potential investors. It makes them reluctant to go ahead.”

Not surprisingly, not only foreigners but also Ukrainian businessmen prefer to invest their money abroad rather than in Ukraine. Small-and-medium-sized companies have little choice, however, in this regard. And even less options are at stake for cultural journals. All of them seem helpless vis-à-vis powerful gangsters and unscrupulous government: intertwined and interconnected, nearly fused in Ukraine into one body. One by one, they are raided and racketeered, raped and pillaged, even though there are thousands of them, and all they need for successful resistance is unity and solidarity. Two years ago, we Ukrainians allowed the raiders to take over unlawfully the parliament and the government. Now, we allow them to destroy and subdue us gradually, one by one, one business after another. “Vsesvit” has never been a political journal. Its editor has always believed, perhaps sincerely, that culture is universal, and any government is able to appreciate it as a much-needed public good. He was wrong. Ukraine has a government that appreciates only brute force, endless amounts of money, and cynical lies.

Much of the international criticism of Ukrainian authorities was expressed within the past two years. Their typical reaction can be graphically exemplified by a recent decision of the ruling Party of Regions (PoR) to hire one of the world’s largest corporate communications companies Burson-Marsteller to whitewash the regime. Or, as Robert Mack, a senior manager at Burson-Marsteller, explained it: “Our brief is to help the PoR communicate its activities as the governing party of Ukraine, as well as to help it explain better its position on the Yulia Tymoshenko case.” Less euphemistically, it means a task to intensify a smear campaign against former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and to tame the international criticism of the Ukrainian authorities, especially the president who has become, since last year, virtually an international pariah (http://euobserver.com/24/116076).

They seem to believe – naively or, rather, arrogantly – that money can fix any problem. And if it is insufficient, bigger money is needed to settle everything. Burson-Marsteller might be a good choice for a government in big trouble. In the past, “the PR company was employed by the Nigerian government to discredit reports of genocide during the Biafran war, the Argentinian junta after the disappearance of 35,000 civilians, and the Indonesian government after the massacres in East Timor. It also worked to improve the image of the late Romanian president Nicolae Ceausescu and the Saudi royal family” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2002/jan/08/gm.activists).

One may recollect here also Leonid Kuchma’s attempt to rescue his image after the “tapegate” with the assistance of similar whitewashers. What all these exclusive clients of PR companies fail to understand – either naively or perhaps arrogantly – is that they can win many battles: against Tymoshenko, Lutsenko, “Vsesvit”, or even Arcelor Mittal. But they can never win the war for the truth and for the real place they occupy in history.

 

LIKE FATHERS, LIKE SONS

Mykola Riabchuk

Recently, 18-year-old Oksana Makar was beaten and raped by three drunken youngsters in the South Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv. To hide the crime, the miscreants tied her up and set her on fire. Oksana later died in hospital from horrendous burns.

The city was shocked and hundreds of people took to the streets to protest after a rumor spread that the culprits had been released, placed under house arrest, and were likely to avoid punishment, which typically happens in Ukraine when the children of big bosses and wealthy businessmen are involved in crimes.

The rumors proved unfounded, but people have become so accustomed to daily lawlessness and the rampant impunity of the strong and wealthy that they tend, naturally, to overreact.

A few years ago, Dmytro Rud, the 25-year-old son of the Dnipropetrovsk prosecutor, ran down three women at a marked road crossing and disappeared after being placed under house arrest. Serhy Kalynovsky, the 23-year-old son of a rich oil trader, crashed at high speed into a parked car containing two passengers, killed both, and eventually escaped from the hospital and took a chartered plane to Israel. Oleksandr Shpyrko, the son of a colonel of the National Security Service in Odesa, heavily drunk, plowed into a boat on his scooter killing one person and injuring three. Again, as the typical story goes, he was released on probation and, after due pressure on victims, witnesses, investigators and judges, received a four-year suspended sentence, later repealed by an amnesty [http://tsn.ua/ukrayina/mazhorni-vitivki-yak-diti-vplivovih-batkiv-unikayut-pravosuddya.html].

By late 2010, as such tendencies became all too obvious, I began to collect the stories of violent crimes committed by Ukrainian VIPs and, especially, their offspring. The list is certainly not exhaustive since I picked up the stories occasionally, inter alia, while searching materials for different projects and screening only a handful of sources. Yet, having gathered about a hundred stories of this kind in less than a year, I found out it tempting to classify them and to denote some distinct features and tendencies.

First of all, the lion’s share of violent incidents in which VIPs and their progenies are involved pertains to speeding (usually in a state of drunkenness), or to some restaurant and post-restaurant brawls (again most frequently with the perpetrators in an inebriated condition). Predictably, young people are much more prominent in this activity, partly because of the age and respective hormones, and partly because their progenitors use (as a rule) personal drivers and bodyguards, in order to preclude such problems.

So, when a minor oligarch and MP from Luhansk, Volodymyr Landyk, happened to be stopped by a traffic policeman because his car was traveling at double the speed limit, he had no need to contest the charge. It sufficed to order his bodyguard: “Go and sort him out!” (The Russian form is much cruder: “Пойди въeби его”) [http://gazeta.ua/articles/374929)] and the issue was settled. The policeman ended up in a hospital with concussion and bruises to his chest, whereas Mr. Landyk swore solemnly that nothing illegal had occurred: “The injuries he has got, well, he had probably inflicted them upon himself, no one beat him!” (“Ті травми, які він отримав, напевно, завдав сам собі, ніхто його не бив!”).

This spectacular chutzpah seems to be the Party of Region’s trademark. Back in 2010, after the bloody melee in the parliament, when oppositionists blocked the podium protesting procedural violations and Mr. Landyk’s colleagues broke their noses in response, Mykhaylo Chchetov, the informal “director” of the Party’s parliamentary faction, brashly explained the incident to the journalists: “There was no assault. Maybe they [hospitalized oppositionists] beat their heads [against a wall] themselves and now decided to blame it on us.” («Драки никакой не было… Может, они сами головой бились, а теперь на нас сваливают” [http://glavred.info/archive/2010/12/17/170622-9.html].

In any case, whenever senior VIPs or their junior offspring are involved in killing a pedestrian or beating a commoner, the pattern of investigation and the subsequent findings are virtually the same. The speed of their cars is always recognized as being within the permissible limits and is never found to be 150-200 km per hour, the speed at which they usually drive. Alcohol is never found in their blood, even though witnesses often attest that they are barely able to speak or even stand. All of them are placed on probation, even though many fled from the accident scene rather than help the victim. In every case, the victims’ relatives and victims themselves (if alive) are intimidated or bribed or both, to withdraw their claims [http://gazeta.ua/articles/403732]. And witnesses are pressed by both the defendants and investigators to reconsider their earlier testimonies or merely to forget some details [http://gazeta.ua/articles/375925].

Another habitual feature of all these stories is their almost exclusive localization in Southeastern Ukraine—the area firmly controlled by the Party of Regions, alongside the capital city of Kyiv where an enormous number of national VIPs is ominously concentrated. It is no accident that all the heroes of these stories are either members of the Party of Regions or their close political-cum-business associates. The only story in my collection that occurred in the West of the country refers to a young man and his cronies at Kalush, Ivano-Frankivsk region, who tried to solve a road incident with the help of gas and traumatic [rubber bullet] pistols. Remarkably, the main culprit, yet again, was the son of the local Party of Regions MP Volodymyr Lychuk.

All these youngsters, like their parents, are strongly convinced that might is right. And they are very cognizant of the open secret of who holds the real power in this country and how. They have no doubt that the law, or whatever this silly word may mean in Ukraine, is on their side. Actually, it is them and their parents and friends who own it. They have captured the state like an alien army, and can pillage it now as they wish.

Police, as a rule, avoid confrontations with these new landlords and their bubbling offspring. (The poor fellow from Luhansk who dared to stop Mr. Landyk was an exception: his singular bravery, or perhaps naivety, would rarely be replicated by anyone, including himself.) One can see in this video how reluctant they are to detain an aggressive youngster whose heavily inebriated monologue sounds like a motto for his entire generation:

“I’m Vladimir Kryvko, f…! Get off my way, f…! I’m having a good time, as I like it. It’s up to me, f…, either to smell coke, or inject, or drink, or drive, or f…, or shoot. I’m Vladimr Kryvko! Any questions?” ["Я - Володимир Кривко, бл... ь! Відійдіть з моєї дороги, бл... ь! Я торчу, відпочиваю як я хочу. Я хочу, бл... ь, нюхаю кокаїн, хочу колюсь, хочу п'ю, хочу їду на машині, хочу е...у, хочу стріляю. Я Володимир Кривко! - Є питання?" [http://gazeta.ua/articles/425850)].

Last year, a big scandal occurred in Luhansk when Roman Landyk, a deputy of the city council and, yes, the son of the same Volodymyr Landyk whose bodyguard knocked out the traffic policeman, brutally attacked a young woman in a night club because she refused his gentle offer to have a good time with him at some other place [http://www.unian.net/ukr/news/news-444915.html]. The story would have probably have had no consequences for the junior, just as the earlier incident had had no impact on his father. But, unfortunately for him, it was recorded on camera and placed on the Internet. The authorities had to react, so they brought the playboy to court and sentenced him to three years in prison – suspended, despite the fact he had never repented. On the contrary, he constantly and openly threatened the victim and journalists with revenge, behavior that in a normal country may have cost him more than three years in prison. Today, the cheerful owner of a 230,000 Euro Bentley Continental needs only to wait for the next pardon (likely in August, by Independence Day) and then try to fulfill all his promises and concealed desires, perhaps with a better luck, i.e. no cameras around.

This assumption may sound somewhat grotesque, but all those who know the story of Dmytro Kravets, the son of a member of the Odesa regional council (one can guess from which party), would certainly recognize it as quite common. This car-lover had killed, at high speed, a young man and seriously mutilated his partner. The prosecutor (under the Orange government) demanded six years in prison for him but the government changed meantime, and the speedster received a pardon. What makes the story even more poignant is that Mr. Kravets Jr. had already been pardoned twice after receiving minor sentences for stealing 16 (!) cars, just for fun [http://tsn.ua/ukrayina/mazhorni-vitivki-yak-diti-vplivovih-batkiv-unikayut-pravosuddya.html].

One should not be surprised, however, by the leniency of Ukrainian judges, if they belong to the same caste as their VIP clients (and patrons). They cooperate in a mutually beneficial enterprise of state capture and looting. And in most cases, they expose the same love for a dolce vita and disrespect for the law. My favorite story of this kind is that of Dmytro Chernushenko, a former deputy of the Odesa city council and, now, a consultant for the anti-corruption (!) committee in the Ukrainian parliament. His drift to the capital coincided, remarkably, with his father’s career jump from the position of a judge in Odesa to the head of the Court of Appeal in Kyiv. Both events (and many more of the sort) coincided with Yanukovych’s ascendancy to power.

Last July, a young lawyer with his girlfriend who also appeared to be a member of the legal profession, a judge of the district court in Kyiv, went to a nightclub in Odesa in which all visitors were required to pass the metal detector gate. The pair refused and, reportedly tipsy, began a brawl with the club personnel. When the police arrived, the “Kyiv lawyers” badmouthed them with obscenities and promised all would be fired. The journalists also got their portion of slander: “I don’t give a s…t whether you’re journalists,” the young district judge put it elegantly, “You will pay for this!”

“We cannot do anything,” a police officer confessed to journalists, under conditions of anonymity, “If we detain them, we would have a lot of trouble. The most we can do is compile a protocol and charge them a minor fine for petty hooliganism…. We encounter problems like this all the time. Children of judges, MPs, top officials behave here like hoodlums. They even spit on the police. They can beat anybody and will be released regardless.” [“Сынки судей, чиновников и депутатов ведут себя в Аркадии, как последние хамы. Плюют даже на милицию. Могут избить любого - все равно их отпустят" (http://zadonbass.org/news/crime/message_33711)%5D.

It is depressing even to read the titles of these stories: “Policeman in Kyiv charged 225 hryvna [$28] for killing a mother with a child at a street crossing” [http://gazeta.ua/articles/375237]; “Judge from Kupyansk [Kharkiv region] who killed two people with his Jeep is acquitted” [http://gazeta.ua/articles/402656]; “A judge from Luhansk who killed a women with a boy at a street crossing is promoted to the High Court” [http://blogs.pravda.com.ua/authors/svirko/4d486d5f00cab/] ; “A young member of the Valky city council [Kharkiv region] kicked a 17-year-old girl” (the story is very similar to that of Mr. Landyk Jr., with the only difference that here the hero’s father, the head of the local council, did not try to excuse his scion: “He drinks too much. We tried to cure him but in vain. He is 26 years old, all I can do is give him a good telling off” [http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2011/10/24/6698926/].

Perhaps the ugliest story in this collection of the lawlessness that reigns supreme in Ukraine comes from the recent publication in Kyiv Post about three mobsters who, back in 2007, kidnapped a man’s business partner-cum-rival, tortured him for three days, and then, as the story relates, “tied an iron radiator battery to his back and tossed him over a bridge into a Dnipro River canal with the words: “Say hello to [Jacques] Cousteau!”

Only one of the killers, Oleksander Kudrin, was convicted for intentional murder and received a seven-year prison sentence, exactly like Yulia Tymoshenko for her unfortunate gas contracts with Putin. Two other accomplices, Serhiy Levchenko and the alleged ringleader Serhiy Demishkan, were given milder sentences on the lesser charges ofkidnapping and concealing a crime. District judge Volodymyr Yeremenko provided this remarkable revelation about the possible usage of heating radiators tied to victims’ backs: “There was no intent of premeditated murder,” he told the journalists. “They (the culprits) wanted to take him (the victim) to a notary public… Perhaps their actions led to accidental manslaughter” [http://www.kyivpost.com/news/nation/detail/122175/].

However strange the court decision, a real miracle happened in December 2010, when a Kyiv appellate court judge ordered an additional investigation into the case and freed Mr. Demishkan with a suspended sentence. The reason for the court’s lenience was very simple: Volodymyr Demishkan, Serhiy’s father, was the head of the state roadway service Ukravtodor and a good friend of the incumbent president Viktor Yanukovych.

Demishkan Senior deserves a book to himself, but it requires a genre that I would rather leave for Ukrainian followers of Mario Puso or Martin Scorsese. Suffice it to say that he is cofounder (with Messrs. Yuri Boyko and Serhiy Tulub, the incumbent and former ministers of fuel and energy) of the Society of the Hunters and Fishermen “Cedar,” patronized by the chief hunter of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych. Such patronage pays off: at the end of last year, “Cedar” received 9,000 hectares of highly valuable reserve lands in Crimea at cut-price rates [http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2011/12/26/6868443/].

To Mr. Yanukovych’s credit, neither of his two sons is alleged to have beaten traffic police or uncooperative girls, or to have tied radiators to the backs of their political rivals or business competitors. There was a minor incident with Viktor Yanukovych Jr. last year when journalists filmed him roaring drunk in the street and cursing with his full vocabulary. He did not asault anyone, however, nor even sue, though he threatened to do so after the video was placed on Youtube. Both he and his older brother Oleksandr are serious statesmen and businesmen (in Ukraine it is a normal combination), with personal bodyguards and therefore the state apparatus that can do the dirty jobs rather than they themselves [http://obkom.net.ua/articles/2012-03/02.1713.shtml].

Oleksandr Yanukovych came to prominence as the alleged shadow owner of “Tantalit,” a murky offshore company that lends the president the estate on which his opulent residency is located, as well as a helicopter and other facilities—using taxpayers’ money, of course, and doubtless at exorbitant prices [http://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2011/11/21/6773868/].

This is how the pyramid ends. Or, rather, begins. And everything one sees at the bottom is just a reflection of what is happening at the top.

Toward an Anecdotal History of Ukrainian Politics

By Mykola Riabchuk

The second anniversary of Viktor Yanukovych’s presidency passed on February 25, and his presidency can be briefly defined in three possible ways: as a period of authoritarian consolidation, of imitative “reforms,” or of permanent and pervasive scandals. The latter definition is perhaps the best since it sheds revealing light on the previous two. In February, there were at least four major scandals – dramatic for their participants, anecdotal for outsiders, and highly instructive, in many ways, for political scientists and cultural anthropologists.

First of all, Roman Zabzaliuk, a member of the Parliament from the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, who switched sides at the end of the last year and joined the governing coalition, revealed the typical mechanism of recruiting opposition MPs by Yanukovych’s cronies. He confessed that he had acted as an “undercover agent” on behalf of his party leadership and, therefore, simulated acceptance of a tempting offer to join the pro-Yanukovych faction “Reforms for the [sake of the] Future,” at an impressive price of $450,000, plus an additional monthly allowance of $20,000 in cash for proper voting (http://www.telekritika.ua/doc/images/news/69665/page%2012-15.pdf).

The news by itself was hardly revealing since many other MPs have reported similar offers made to them at various times by Yanukovych’s people. The practice was not invented yesterday and certainly not by the Party of Regions. Observers remember how the pro-Kuchma majority was forged in the parliament in 2002, when two pro-presidential parties won only 20 per cent of votes but mustered eventually a formidable majority of both “independents” and opposition defectors.

Enormous and largely unrecorded and uncontrolled wealth accumulated by post-Soviet oligarchs enabled them to buy a host of officials, MPs, judges, journalists, et al. at dizzying prices. This is why an amendment was made to Ukrainian constitution in 2004 that required the pro-government majority in the parliament to be formed by factions and not by single MPs, i.e. defectors from other factions. In March 2010, Yanukovych’s supporters blatantly violated this law, which resulted in a sort of parliamentary coup d’etat and paved the way to further violations of Ukrainian laws and creeping usurpation of power by the increasingly autocratic ruler.

The only new thing in Zabzaliuk’s revelations is that he recorded his conversations with Mr. Ihor Rybakov, head of the faction “Reforms for the Future,” who allegedly gave him a bribe and discussed with him some other delicate matters. Thus, we can learn from the horse’s mouth not only the price-list for various deeds that can be considered immoral at best and criminal at worst but also how “Mr. Rybakov” (the real Mr. Rybakov, of course, denies any authenticity of the records) encourages Mr. Zabzaliuk to attract more defectors from the opposition and, most interesting, to recruit more “slaves” (in his words) in Western Ukraine in particular to work for the ruling party in the local electoral commissions as fake representatives of the opposition. This is a clear hint, one of many, at how the regime is going to stage the parliamentary elections later this year. Actually, the incumbents have little choice given that the popularity of the president and his party has fallen to the low teens and their staunch desire to stay in power indefinitely.

Zabzaliuk’s accusations were predictably downplayed by the government and pro-government media. The audio-clips are worthless since Ukrainian law does not consider unauthorized records as evidence. The fingerprints on “Rybakov’s money” are also no proof since he and his friends have already admitted they collected $100,000 for Mr. Zabzaliuk at his request, allegedly for a treatment abroad. And Mr. Pshonka, the prosecutor general (and president’s soldier, in case anyone has forgotten his earlier self-designation), announced that he saw no reason for a criminal investigation in this case since it was merely an internecine quarrel among MPs.

Zabzaliuk passed the money on to the Kyiv Children’s Hospital, but the major TV channels, predictably, ignored his generous move. Although the Tyzhden weekly that did report the story in detail and illustrated it graphically with fragments of “Rybakov’s conversation,” it was immediately withdrawn from the newsstands by some enigmatic order “from above” (http://www.telekritika.ua/news/2012-02-17/69665).

This might be considered the second biggest scandal of the month but since the official reaction of the Tyzhden managers to the incident is not yet clear, we can illustrate the creeping censorship in Yanukovych’s Ukraine with a no less revealing event. On February 14, Judge Olha Salamon of the Desniansky district court in Kyiv suspended the popular website “Dorozhny kontrol” (roadcontrol.org.ua) in response to a libel action by Hennady Hetmantsev, a traffic police officer, who had abused and humiliated a driver and then denounced the website for publicizing the video-record of his misbehavior. Remarkably, the judge shut down the site by a simple order, not by a court decision. Moreover, she closed all the content, not just the material in question. Still worse, she suspended the site for the whole period of court deliberations, which could last, in practice, for years. This is how multiple ways to destroy independent media in Ukraine are perfected.

Hetmantsev, one of the heroes of this ugly story, attained notoriety a year ago in Odesa after he tried to intimidate the Roadcontrol activists who had filmed his colleague Oleksandr Shvets insulting a Ukrainian-speaking driver by calling his speech a “cow language.” After the scandal, Shvets was reportedly dismissed from the traffic police, whereas Hetmantsev survived and retaliated as promised (http://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2012/02/15/6958817/).

There are probably no business or personal ties between Mr. Hetmantsev and Judge Salamon. Her responsiveness to his groundless demand reflects not only widespread incompetence of Ukrainian judges in legal matters (it is an open secret that many of them simply buy their university diplomas and court positions), but also the arbitrariness of the entire system and its fundamental bias for the government against members of society. The judges, police, and prosecutors protect primarily the state and the authorities – with all their privileges and entitlements—but not the rights and freedoms of Ukrainian citizens.

The third scandal in February was related, once again, to the new government nominations. This time, Viktor Yanukovych surprised everyone by appointing Ihor Kalinin head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), and Dmitri Salamatin as Minister of Defense. Neither is a personal friend of the president nor a native of the Donbas region, as has been the norm for appointments over the past two years. Both of them seem to be acts of patronage by the president’s older son Oleksandr, a dentist who has emerged as a successful businessman. Last year, he reportedly placed his acolytes in the upper echelons of the National Bank, Ministry of Interior, and National Tax Administration (http://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2012/02/3/6951682/).

None of them as yet gained prominence as major specialists in their fields. But this is probably not why they were hired (http://dt.ua/POLITICS/oy_ti,_ksivonko_moya_bogatirskaya-97141.html). Ihor Kalinin was a Russian KGB officer and Afghan war veteran who in 1992 for unknown reasons moved from Moscow to Kyiv and made a career in the SBU – all the way to the top, which may give Ukrainians pause for thought about Vladimir Putin’s dictum that KGB agents are appointed for life. Salamatin lacks even such dubious professional credentials. His entire experience in defense, to the best of our knowledge, amounts to a couple of scuffles with opposition MPs in the parliament during which he skillfully broke a few noses and jaws of his political opponents, and was rewarded henceforth by the president with the position of the head of the State Arms Trade Agency.

Born in Kazakhstan, Salamatin moved to Ukraine in 1999 as a Russian citizen and how he acquired Ukrainian citizenship remains a mystery. Even less clear is whether he relinquished his Russian citizenship, as Ukrainian law requires. Thus his appointment has led some observers to speculate on the “Russian hand” in Ukrainian politics and Yanukovych’s readiness to cave in to Moscow (http://tyzhden.ua/Politics/42594). More likely, however, is that Yanukovych does not trust his fellow-oligarchs and party bosses any longer, relying instead on a kind of Praetorian Guard. Or, as Alexander Motyl suggests, Yanukovych’s reliance on “complete outsiders can only mean that [he] is expecting serious trouble at home in the coming year and doesn’t think native cadres can do the job” (http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/alexander-j-motyl/yanukovych-brings-russian-thugs-back).

The fourth scandal is probably the most interesting and unusual. Earlier this month, in Odesa, customs officers confiscated 38 kilos of cocaine worth $7.5 million, hidden in pineapples and transported from Costa-Rica inside a refrigerator. The unusual part of the story is that the incident should not have happened because the cargo was “supervised” by one of four “fashionable” (as they are euphemistically called in Odesa) broker companies that de facto control the green corridor at the seaport. They have, reportedly, such influential patrons in Kyiv that neither customs nor security service officers dare to interfere in their business. At the moderate price of $10,000-$15,000 in kickbacks, therefore, they provide clients with a virtually customs-free access to the Ukrainian market (http://www.segodnya.ua/news/14340652.html).

There are two explanations of why the fashionable company failed to protect its client’s cargo from customs on this occasion. One story is that the power supply was disconnected from the refrigerator for a few days and the customs officers were surprised that the cargo owners were unconcerned. A more realistic version is that the cargo was tracked by the American anti-drug service from the outset and the search in Odesa was made at their request.

And here the unusual part of the story ends and the interesting part begins. The scandal was reported in detail by the popular tabloid Segodnia, owned by Rinat Akhmetov, the leading Ukrainian oligarch and Yanukovych’s main sponsor in the past. Whereas analysts muse on the real meaning of this publication – either Akhmetov is doing a favor for the Americans to persuade them to grant him finally a U.S. visa, or else he is fighting some business competitors, or merely tries to distance himself from the potentially damaging affair: no one (!) believes that the Ukrainian customs merely did their job, that it was a case of business as usual, and they caught the smugglers. And this is the point.

We live in the country in which no one believes the mass media simply report the news, customs take care of smugglers, and law-enforcement agencies protect the citizens rather than themselves and their real masters. Viktor Yanukovych is certainly not the main culprit and did not invent this system. But he is definitely someone who does his best to exploit its faults rather than to fix them. And, frankly, there are no reasons to believe that the next three years of his presidency are likely to be any different.

Under Western Eyes

Mykola Riabchuk

Ironically, the annual EU-Ukraine summit held in Kyiv on December 19 overshadowed all other political events in Ukraine over the past few weeks, even though its actual results were close to zero. Moreover, the meager results had been rather predictable since the Ukrainian government had not indicated any intention to ease its multifaceted pressure on civil society, nor had the EU looked ready to condone Kyiv’s increasingly authoritarian behavior.

Yet, the drama under the title “Ukraine–EU Association Agreement” had been played for so long and by so many actors, that most of the viewers could not merely give it up. Some expected a miracle, but many more simply watched the ship sinking, taking down with it sheaves of toughly negotiated documents.

Still, the Ukrainian crew looked surprisingly cheerful and the foreign guests apparently unworried. Unlike the viewers, all the participants of the performance had got what they wished. Ukraine’s friends like Poland or Sweden left the door open, i.e., the Agreement negotiations pending, albeit at the lowest speed possible and with the slimmest chance of being completed in any form in the foreseeable future. Ukraine’s opponents, like France and Germany, got a plausible excuse not to initial the Agreement they had not wanted to sign anyway. And the Ukrainian president got one more opportunity for publicity photographs with the EU Big Bosses and could display them ad nauseam on all the loyalist TV channels and newspapers. Now, he can continue his “European” rhetoric with even greater confidence.

Very few people believe in this rhetoric but this is of little importance. The main goal of president’s talks is not to bring Ukraine closer to the EU, but rather to prevent his own and his cronies’ expulsion from this prestigious club. Most of them, on a personal level, integrated into the EU long ago, with their families, businesses, bank accounts, and all the daily habits like shopping, holidaying, or health and relaxation. They may dupe Moscow, Brussels, and their own electorate with ideas of a Russian-led Customs Union, Single Economic Space, or Eurasian integration. This is for fools’ consumption—for ‘lokhi’, as they say. But for the real men, the “krutye patsany,” as they define themselves, there is a much better place called “Europe.” And they have already joined it—with no action plans and association agreements, merely with some stolen assets, laundered money, and diplomatic passports that allow them, unlike common Ukrainian “lokhi,” to enter the Schengen fortress without visas.

“Lokhi’,” i.e. Ukrainian society, seems to be the only loser in this whimsical game between the Ukrainian government and EU bureaucracy. Half-measures and general incoherence badly hamper EU policies everywhere, not only in Ukraine. On the one hand, the EU was right to postpone the initialing of the Agreement for some technical reasons, and to condition its signing and eventual ratification with clear demands for restoration of democratic practices in Ukraine. On the other hand, this reasonable decision was not buttressed by a set of additional sticks and carrots. EU politicians seem to believe that the Association Agreement per se is a sufficient bonus for the Ukrainian leaders to strive toward. This might have been true if Mr Yanukovych et al cared a little about something they barely understand: the national interest. This is hardly the case, however. Therefore, a tougher approach is needed, something the feckless EU fails to apply even against bloody dictators from Central Asia.

Such an approach was clearly outlined by Andrew Wilson, a leading expert on Ukrainian affairs, in his policy memo for the European Council on Foreign Relations. He suggested the EU leaders adopt a twin-track approach: “The agreements cannot be formally signed, but should be kept alive until Ukraine is ready to implement the conditionality laid out in resolutions by the European Parliament and other bodies. But lecturing Ukraine on human rights at the summit will have little effect. The EU should also move towards sanctions that show its red lines have not been dropped; targeting the individuals most responsible for democratic backsliding and signaling more general vigilance against the Ukrainian elite’s free-flowing travel and financial privileges in the EU” http://www.ecfr.eu/page//UkraineMemo.pdf .

Since the EU has been reluctant to introduce any serious sanctions against the post-Soviet autocrats, especially in resource-rich countries like Russia, Kazakhstan, or Azerbaijan, their Ukrainian twins have very little to worry about. In December, Yanukovych and his Party of Regions continued their Gleichschaltung in both political life and the economy. First, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine approved (what a surprise!) the decision of the parliament that allows the government to pay social benefits to various categories of people at its whim—even though in past years the Court, not yet staffed with the president’s loyalists, twice rejected similar claims as a violation of the national constitution http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2011/12/27/6870668 . Second, the government of Crimea ceded 9,000 hectares of valuable land to a murky hunters’ society registered to three pals of the president http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2011/12/26/6868443/. Third, the President’s 38-year-old son acquired a few more industrial assets and entered the lists of Ukraine’s top hundred richest men http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=38740. Fourth, the President’s friend and sponsor Rinat Akhmetov received a concession for the virtually monopolistic export of electricity http://www.epravda.com.ua/publications/2011/12/15/309807/, just as another friend and sponsor of the president, Yuri Ivanyushchenko, allegedly acquired a monopoly over the export of grain a few months ago http://lb.ua/news/2011/03/28/90044_Yura_Yenakiivskiy_stav_generalom.html. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has been completely emasculated and de facto subordinated to the presidential administration, under the pretext of the so-called judicial reform http://www.kyivpost.com/news/opinion/op_ed/detail/119708/. And another band of “professionals” from Donbas has occupied several dozen top governmental positions in both Kyiv and other regions of Ukraine http://gazeta.ua/articles/politics-newspaper/_yanukovich-priznachae-na-posadi-lyudej-yakih-znayut-jogo-diti/409143.

Once again, Ukraine was downgraded in 2011 by various international agencies in terms of democracy, civil rights, freedom of speech, corruption, inequality and injustice, conditions for doing business, etc. This might be a part of a global anti-Yanukovych conspiracy, as his propagandists suggest, but domestic opinion surveys confirm the same tendencies. In May, a revealing poll was carried out nationwide by the reputable Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences. The respondents were asked how, in their opinion, the situation had changed in various social fields within the past few months. The answers (below) shed some light on the essence of Yanukovych’s “reforms” that arguably required some curbs on civic freedoms and democratic institutions:
Changed
for worse Not
changed Changed
for better
Economic situation in Ukraine in general 58.1 37.1 4.8
Level [standards?] of living 68.4 29.4 2.4
Level of corruption 37.2 59.8 3.0
Level of democracy in the country 33.1 63.9 3.0
Protection from authorities’ arbitrariness 36.1 61.4 2.5
Job guarantees and possibilities of employment 51.6 46.6 1.8
Source: Krytyka, 15:7-8 (2011), 6.

On December 21, at the annual Putin-style president’s press-conference, Mustafa Nayem from the news portal “Ukrainska Pravda” dared to put to Yanukovych the question that perplexes virtually all Ukrainians: “Viktor Fedorovych, you mentioned many times that the economic situation in the country is bad, people do not feel any improvements in their life, there are no money in state coffins for the victims of Chornobyl, or veterans of Afghanistan… At the same, we observe every day how your personal life is improving. We see how you rent a helicopter at $1 million [a year] from the company controlled by your son http://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2011/07/20/6405659/. We know that in Mezhyhirya [Yanukovych’s 140-hectare estate near Kyiv, controversially privatized http://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2011/11/16/6760109/%5D the construction work is continued by the companies controlled by your son. What is the secret of your success – why is everything so bad for the country and so good for you?” «I do not know what happy life and gossip about my family you are talking about,» responded the president, «I just want to say that I don’t envy you» http://blogs.pravda.com.ua/authors/leschenko/4ef2403ec1268/view_print/.

It is not clear whether the president lost his temper and overtly threatened the journalist or just completed one his numerous linguistic faux pas. It is remarkable also that he completely ignored the essence of the Nayem’s question about corruption, nepotism, and lack of restraint, and interpreted everything as indiscreet interference in his family life. This is a minor story that tells, however, a lot about both intellectual and moral quality of the ruling “elite.”

One may praise the EU for its reluctance to make a deal with these people, but one should also censure the EU for still tolerating these people far too much.

Yanukovych’s Motives Murky

David Marples

The news that imprisoned former Premier of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko is now facing charges of embezzlement, linked to her time as the president of United Energy Systems of Ukraine in the 1990s, raises questions about the motivations of the Ukrainian government and President Viktor Yanukovych in particular.

Why was she jailed in the first place? And why has an old issue, linked to a time when virtually all the Ukrainian oligarchs had their hands in the public trough, suddenly resurfaced?

On October 10, Tymoshenko received a 7-year prison sentence for her part in a gas deal negotiated with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in 2009 that was “disadvantageous for Ukraine.” Throughout the trial she had expressed her contempt for the judge and prosecutor and argued that the procedure was politically motivated. Virtually all the Western governments concurred while Russia was furious that the 2009 agreement had been so publicly reopened.

Yanukovych, supposedly, wished to rid himself of his main political opponent before the parliamentary elections scheduled for October 2012. However, the trial and verdict endangered Ukraine’s chances of signing an Association Agreement with the European Union, which has been under negotiation for some time. Some critics, such as David Kramer of Freedom House, maintain that the discussions should be postponed until Tymoshenko and other opposition leaders have been released and pardoned.

But why was she tried and imprisoned at all?

One suggestion, offered by Dominique Arel, Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Ottawa, is that Yanukovych persecuted Tymoshenko because he believed he could get away with it. The premise is that for the Europeans, relations with Ukraine are too important to be imperiled by a domestic quarrel.

Writing in a Russian source, analysts Maksim Logvinov and Vladislav Zhukovsky, think that the goal of the original trial was to force Russia to revise the price of gas sold to Ukraine. They also maintain that targeting Tymoshenko was a means to divert blame from the government for the economic crisis that Ukraine will face shortly because of the high prices of gas. However, the gamble failed because all the relevant parties—Russia, the EU, and the United States—took the side of Tymoshenko and criticized the Ukrainian authorities. In many ways the trial became a cause célèbre for the embattled Ukrainian opposition.

Yet the actions of Yanukovych still lack rationale and these analyses perhaps attribute a degree of Machiavellianism and political astuteness to the president that have not always been evident, despite his triumphant election victory in January 2010.

Ukrainian analyst Vitalii Portnikov has provided the most logical explanation: the initiatives in the Tymoshenko case are not coming from the president but from a “party of war” within the leadership that includes the head of the Secret Service (SBU), Valery Khoroshkovsky, Serhii Yevochkin of the presidential administration, the Energy Minister Yury Boyko, prominent businessman Dmytro Firtash, and Minister of Foreign Affairs Kostyantyn Hryshchenko. Their goal is to isolate Yanukovych and undermine any plans for integration with the EU or the Russian-led Customs Union. Both are perceived as threats to their own power.

The presence within this group of Firtash is possibly the most significant. An ally of former president Viktor Yushchenko, he established a position for his company RosUkrEnergo as an intermediary in the bitter gas war between Russia and Ukraine. Firtash offered to buy the gas from Russia and resell it to Ukraine.

Tymoshenko, a woman of formidable business acumen, cut Firtash out of the equation with the 2009 agreement. He is now officially back in business (he also controls much of Ukraine’s titanium industry), and out for revenge. The goal appears to be to ensure the complete demise of his rival.

As for the new charges, there is little question that Tymoshenko—then known as the “gas princess”—benefited from state patronage. From 1995 to 1997, when she was president of United Energy Systems of Ukraine, she was given highly lucrative government contracts—including control over imported gas from Russia—by then Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko, who was later convicted for money laundering and wire fraud by a US court. Yet the list of those who could be tried for past crimes in Ukraine is a long one that includes many current oligarchs, and one past president.

It seems safest to assume that either Yanukovych is far more scheming than many have surmised hitherto, or else (and more likely) he is being prodded and pushed by powerful interest groups whose goal is to keep Ukraine free from economic ties so that they are left free to amass wealth.

Such “freedom” requires the obliteration of the opposition and its leader, manipulation of elections, and systematic deployment of the SBU against their critics. In Arel’s view, by targeting Yulia Tymoshenko the Ukrainian government has demonstrated it has the wherewithal to stop opponents from challenging the president. The main casualty is democratic Ukraine.

But few of the “party of war” are likely to lose sleep over that.

This article first appeared in the EDMONTON JOURNAL, 15 October 2011