In today’s Ukraine, three formidable forces are working to force the country to turn away from the West and forget the anti-corruption ideas of the 2013–2014 EuroMaidan Revolution that sent President Viktor Yanukovych fleeing to Russia.
The first of these forces is the 44-member faction of the pro-Russian Opposition Platform — For Life party in the Ukrainian parliament.
The second is the notorious billionaire oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky.
The third is Russia itself — a state whose president still appears to bear a psychological trauma from the collapse of the Soviet Union, which he calls “the main geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.”
It was the United States that helped outline this malicious Triple Alliance by identifying three key figures in each of the groups of influence. So, in this convocation of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, three lawmakers have been directly sanctioned by the United States.
These include Viktor Medvedchuk, who leads the Opposition Platform — For Life party and trumpets his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Sanctions against him were imposed back in 2014 as a response to the annexation of Crimea.
Another lawmaker under U.S. sanctions is Andriy Derkach, whom the U.S. government has declared an “active Russian agent” and who was sanctioned by the U. S. Treasury in September for meddling in the 2020 presidential election won by Joe Biden.
Recently, a third Ukrainian lawmaker joined this deplorable list: Oleksandr Dubinsky, a lawmaker from the ruling Servant of the People party. Dubinsky is considered a mouthpiece of oligarch Kolomoisky and was included in the latest sanctions package on Jan. 11 as an associate of Derkach, who helped spread a fake narrative about Ukraine’s interference in the U.S. 2016 presidential election and the alleged corruption of President-elect Joe Biden.
In addition to speaking publicly on this matter, Derkach and Dubinsky stupidly sent letters to members of the U. S. Congress promoting this fake narrative, which the U.S. government believes to have originated in Russia.
New sanctions, old faces
Curiously enough, the new sanctions package also includes former lawmaker Oleksandr Onyshchenko. According to the U.S. authorities, it was he who handed the recordings of phone conversations between ex-President Petro Poroshenko and Biden over to Derkach for public disclosure. Derkach then tried to present the tapes as proof of international corruption that involved Biden.
For several years, Onyshchenko has been a fugitive from Ukrainian justice on embezzlement charges. During this investigation, it was established not only that the starting point of Onyshchenko’s escape was Russia, but also that he had Russian citizenship. A few months ago, Onyshchenko appeared on Russian state television as a witness for the prosecution against Biden, as he was prevented from flying to the U.S. to deliver damaging information to the President Donald Trump’s team.
Side by side with Onyshchenko in the Jan. 11 list of seven sanctioned Ukrainians is former U.S. embassy employee Andriy Telizhenko. In 2016, Telizhenko spread groundless conspiracy theories about the Biden family and foreign meddling in the 2016 presidential election. He spread the allegation that the Ukrainian government, through the embassy, had helped depose Paul Manafort.
To particularly sophisticated conspiracy fans, Telizhenko promoted tall tales that he had been present during some kind of a “briefing” that the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine Chief Artem Sytnyk had held at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next door to the White House to organize a wiretap of the Ukrainian president.
Until recently, Telizhenko worked as a consultant for oligarch Pavel Fuchs, who moved from Russia to Ukraine and tried to infiltrate Trump’s 2016 inauguration by paying $200,000 to a lobbyist.
Today, Fuchs is banned from visiting the U.S., and his lavish payments to Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani have been the subject of an investigation by the U. S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
The recent batch of sanctioned Ukrainians also included former prosecutor Kostyantyn Kulyk, an important figure in the anti-Biden conspiracy.
While still a prosecutor, Kulyk prepared a false memo for Giuliani saying that then-Vice President Biden and then-Secretary of State John Kerry had received bribes from Ukrainian oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky. Zlochevsky owns Burisma, a company that employed Biden’s son. Kulyk also promoted another conspiracy theory that the U.S. investment fund Franklin Templeton laundered $7.5 billion for the family of Yanukovych through the purchase of Ukrainian Eurobonds. Kulyk is connected to Derkach: In 2020, he ran as a candidate in local elections in Kharkiv on Derkach’s party list.
Why not Lutsenko?
For some unknown reason, the U.S. authorities unfairly left out former Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, Kulyk’s boss. He wasn’t among those sanctioned on Jan. 11, even though he definitely tried meddling in the U.S. election for personal benefit.
Lutsenko is no stranger to Derkach, whom the U.S. called an active Russian agent.
Not only did Lutsenko save Derkach from political oblivion in 2006, when he included him in the list of one of the winning parties of the 2004 Orange Revolution that brought Viktor Yushchenko to power.
He also gave Derkach’s wife an award weapon when he was interior minister. He also promoted prosecutor Kulyk and passed on Kulyk’s speculations to American officials. Lutsenko, along with Derkach, promoted the most notorious falsehoods, accusing Ukraine of interfering in the election instead of Russia and urged at least two Giuliani associates to push for the ouster of Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.
The other day, one of the fake stories propagated by Lutsenko and used by Giuliani was completely refuted in a Ukrainian court. I am talking about the accusation against me and NABU chief Sytnyk that we interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election with our disclosures about Paul Manafort.
As the U.S. went into its Christmas recess, the Supreme Court of Ukraine put an end to this fictional story: It made a final ruling clearing me and Sytnyk of the accusations.
But this fake story, with Lutsenko’s help, gave reason to Trump’s entourage and the Russian propaganda to distort Ukraine’s image. Giuliani relied on the 2018 ruling of Ukraine’s most corrupt administrative court that I had acted illegally by disclosing the payments to Manafort in Ukraine. He called me Trump’s enemy on Fox News and CNN. Now that the Supreme Court of Ukraine has refuted another brick from this wall of fakes, I have not waited for an apology from either Giuliani or Lutsenko.
More to come
After the U.S. has added seven Ukrainians and four organizations to the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List for attempting to interfere in its 2020 presidential election, it becomes a good reason to purge the Servant of the People party and expel from the faction Dubinsky, who has long been playing along with Kolomoisky, often contrary to Zelensky’s interests. This is especially relevant in light of the FBI investigation into Kolomoisky using misappropriated funds to buy real estate in Ohio.
Last spring, during a meeting with the president of Ukraine, I witnessed Zelensky criticizing Dubinsky on the phone, demanding that he not block the PrivatBank law that went against the interests of Kolomoisky. Now, with the U.S. linking Dubinsky to a Russian agent, this creates the right political background for Dubinsky’s expulsion from the party and stopping its further decay. The leadership of the faction has no moral right to leave this situation unattended.
This situation should also deprive Russian agents of the tools of political influence. Dubinsky, for example, is the deputy head of the Verkhovna Rada’s committee for taxation and finances, while he really appeared to use the position to serve the interests of his patron oligarch.
The U. S. sanctions do more than simply define the circle of toxic politicians, any connections with whom will cause problems in the U. S. They serve as a warning against the people who, intentionally or not, are promoting Russia’s conspiracies and participate in its efforts to make Ukraine turn away from the West.
The U. S. government should sanction more Ukrainians, including those who use American platforms and achievements of its democracy to spread disinformation and bolster pro-Russian views.
This is why it is important to advocate for the ban of YouTube channels of blogger Anatoly Shariy, lawmaker Dubinsky, as well as Channel 112, NewsOne, and ZIK, which are controlled by Medvedchuk through his ally Taras Kozak.
The latest events in the U.S. showed that American democracy can protect itself. It’s time to protect democracy in Ukraine, too.
Sergii Leshchenko is a Kyiv Post columnist, investigative journalist, and former member of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament.
