Yevhen Murayev, the pro-Russian politician who Britain identified as a possible Kremlin puppet in Kyiv, received no mention at a briefing following a Jan. 24 National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) meeting chaired by President Volodymyr Zelensky.
NSDC secretary Oleksiy Danilov didn’t acknowledge the former lawmaker’s name or mention the British allegations.
He instead reassured the public that the “situation, although complicated, is under control” as a menacing Russian military force of more than 100,000 troops and heavy weaponry are deployed around the country’s state borders.
The British foreign secretary released a statement on Jan. 22 saying that Russia is planning to overthrow the government in Kyiv.
“We have information that indicates the Russian Government is looking to install a pro-Russian leader in Kyiv as it considers whether to invade and occupy Ukraine,” Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said. “The former Ukrainian MP Yevhen Murayev is being considered as a potential candidate.”
The Kremlin dismissed the allegations as “disinformation.”
Murayev, who unsuccessfully ran for president in 2019, denied the Kremlin wants to place him in charge in the Ukrainian capital.
He called himself a “patriot” while saying “Russia has another candidate and it is not hiding who that person is,” Murayev said without specifying in an interview with British newspaper The Telegraph.
Adding that the British allegations are “absurd,” the Nashi (Ours) Party founder and leader said in his defense that he has been subject to Russian sanctions since 2018.
The NSDC secretary, however, did say Murayev is part of Russia’s “fifth column” in Ukraine in a separate interview with the Ukrainian service of BBC on Jan. 24.
“We are fully aware of who Muraev is, [and] other representatives of the Russian Federation, who are not named by British intelligence, we are clearly aware of the names, the patronymics of these people… We are clearly aware of what the fifth column is, what it does,” Danilov said.
While running for office in 2019, Murayev referred to the pro-democratic 2014 Revolution of Dignity as a coup d’etat and the Russo-Ukrainian war in the Donbas as a “civil war” – terms that the Kremlin uses to describe those events.
His Nash television station also promotes Kremlin narratives, media watchdogs in Ukraine say. The TV channel has enjoyed a higher profile ever since Zelensky signed a decree in February 2021 to revoke the licenses of three pro-Russian channels.
Murayev’s Nashi party in late December polled at 5.2%, which would allow it to surpass the electoral threshold for parliamentary seats, according to the survey conducted by Kyiv-based Democratic Initiatives.
Ahead of the New Year, Murayev gave an interview to his channel during which he predicted turmoil in the country this year.
“For some reason I think that we will have a reboot and the government will be new... I am absolutely sure that the format of negotiations on the conflict in eastern Ukraine will change,“
he said.
Murayev continued: “If this big deal happens, then we will be forced to [reset government] because the Ukrainian government does not want peace...People who will change the system and want to dominate will return to the electoral field. There will be many changes and they are inevitable.”
