Editor’s Note: The following op-ed submitted to Kyiv Post deputy chief editor Olga Rudenko on Dec. 4 has triggered controversy after U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s ties to Russia, accused former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort of ghostwriting the piece to help influence the criminal case against him. If Manafort did so, it would be a violation of a court order prohibiting Manafort from trying the case in the press, according to prosecutors. Bloomberg’s Stephanie Baker reported on Dec. 5 that Mueller is now seeking to deny Manafort’s bid for freedom from house arrest before his trial because of the editorial. Manafort is charged with conspiracy to launder money and acting as an unregistered agent for Ukraine. Voloshin told the Kyiv Post that he wrote the op-ed himself, sending it only to Konstantin Kilimnik, a longtime associate of Manafort in Ukraine, and Manafort for fact-checking. “It is totally mine,” Voloshin said. “Paul has absolutely nothing to do with it. Eighteen months ago I gave comments along same lines to the Guardian. I was just annoyed at a McClatchy publication that falsely claimed Manafort had derailed Association Agreement with the European Union. The fact it was meant for the Kyiv Post only proves there was no intervention on behalf of Paul. It is rather difficult to influence U.S. public opinion with publication in Ukraine. As a native speaker, you can easily identify that the text was penned by a non-native speaker. So it has nothing to do with editing or writing by Paul or any other American.” The op-ed was submitted to the Kyiv Post by Irina Milinevskaya, an ex-Inter TV executive, now working for the 43-member Opposition Bloc, which includes many members of the now-defunct Party of Regions led by the exiled Yanukovych.
The European Union – Ukraine Association Agreement might have never appeared but for a person now falsely accused of lobbying Russian interests.
The night of March 4, 2010, turned out to be a nervous one for the staff of Ukrainian Embassy in Moscow where I used to be a press attaché.
The first visit to Russia of newly elected President Viktor Yanukovych was on the brink of cancellation. The Kremlin wouldn’t grant the already scheduled visit an official status. Russian state media also canceled earlier agreed interviews with members of the Yanukovych team. The explanation was rather simple although possibly unusual for contemporary observers who had a mistaken and simplified perception of the fourth Ukrainian president: The Russian leadership was annoyed at Yanukovych’s decision to pay his first visit after inauguration to Brussels before heading to Moscow.
Even Viktor Yushchenko, upon taking office as Ukraine’s third president in 2005, did the opposite. There was one person the Russians blamed for this “treason of special relationship with brother nation”: the political consultant to Yanukovych, American strategist Paul Manafort. Manafort persuaded Yanukovych that going first to Brussels would demonstrate to all that, as president, Yanukovych intended to bring the changes required to allow Ukraine to apply for formal membership in the EU.
Manafort brought to the Ukrainian political consultancy business a very important rule: An effective leader needs to be consistent as a president with his promises as a candidate. In his presidential campaign, Yanukovych made it clear that it was important for Ukraine to maintain its historical and cultural relationship with Russia. However, Yanukovych had also promised to implement the changes that would begin the modernization of Ukraine that would be necessary for Ukraine to become a part of the EU. The Brussels trip sent this signal loudly and clearly to all – including Russia.
I can’t but stipulate that Yanukovych was a bad president and crook who by the end of his rule had effectively lost credibility even of his staunchest supporters. And he finally betrayed them and fled to Russia only to see Ukraine fall into the hands of other kleptocrats now disguised as hooray-patriots and nationalists. But with all that said one shouldn’t ignore the fact that Ukraine under Yanukovych made a number of major steps towards the EU and the West in general. And that Manafort was among those who made those paradoxical accomplishments real.
It was that period when Ukraine finally met U.S. requirements to get rid of the stocks of highly enriched uranium that could have potentially been used to produce nuclear weapons. Ukraine used to be the only non-NATO nation that took part in all peace-keeping and anti-terrorist operations of the Alliance world-wide.
With an eye towards 2015, the Yanukovych government – to the surprise of so many in Moscow – managed to negotiate with the EU a huge list of terms for the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement, known as the DCFTA. No other nation had accomplished this task over such a brief period of time. Yanukovych’s government had the Association Agreement initialed by March 2012. This pace shocked Moscow.
This sense of commitment to the goal is actually the reason why Russia overreacted in the summer 2013 and imposed the trade blockade with Ukraine.
Following the European track created multiple challenges that would never have been solved by a Ukraine government except for the consistent promotion of what had to be done by Manafort.
Legislation such as the Criminal Administrative Code, built on fundamentally new principles consistent with the Western practices and lauded by the Western institutions is one of the vivid examples.
Even at the end of the process, Manafort was engaged in helping the Europeans and the Ukrainians negotiate the final terms.
Just three months before the summit it was the EU, not Yanukovych, who hesitated whether to sign the document or not. And Manafort contributed a lot to change of mood in Brussels and major European capitals while at the same time keeping Ukraine focused on finalizing the details of the DCFTA and Association Agreement. He was doing this while Russia was imposing the trade embargo and threatening even more drastic punishment to discourage Yanukovych from getting into DCFTA with the EU.
With all that said I can only wonder why some American media dare falsely claim that Paul Manafort lobbied Russian interests in Ukraine and torpedoed the Association Agreement signing. Without his input, Ukraine would not have had the command focus on reforms that were required to be a nation-candidate to the EU.
All listed here facts can be easily verified. If only one pursues the truth, not ends to twist the reality in line with his or her conviction that the dubious goal of undermining Trump’s presidency, justifies most dishonest means.
Oleg Voloshin was a spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine under ex-Foreign Minister Konstantin Grishchenko, who served from 2010-2012, during the president of Viktor Yanukovych, ousted by the EuroMaidan Revolution in 2014.
