President Volodymyr Zelensky called upon lawmaker Oleksandr Dubinsky to leave Zelensky’s Servant of the People parliamentary faction, after the United States had added Dubinsky to its sanctions list for meddling in the 2020 presidential election.
Zelensky addressed Dubinsky at the closed-door meeting of the faction late on Jan. 25, which was dedicated to the celebration of the president’s 43rd birthday among other things.
According to reports in Ukrainian media and Kyiv Post sources, Zelensky asked Dubinsky twice to leave the 246-member faction voluntarily. Dubinsky refused, saying he was innocent and never meddled in the U.S. elections.
An argument followed, where Zelensky allegedly accused Dubinsky of undermining the unity of the faction, and Dubinsky said that the president was being manipulated by Ukrainian anti-graft activists who welcomed U.S. sanctions against Dubinsky.
On the morning of Jan. 26, Dubinsky said that he won’t back down.
“I won’t leave the Servant of the People faction voluntarily,” Dubinsky said in a video address to Zelensky he published on YouTube later that day.
He said that he wants to stay to “continue to fight for Zelensky” but at the same time threatened that the faction may “fall apart” if he is expelled.
Dubinsky is known to be close to oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky. Before being elected to parliament in 2019, Dubinsky spent nearly 10 years working as a journalist and host at Kolomoisky’s 1+1 TV channel.
Ukrainian media reported that Kolomoisky influences a group of lawmakers within the Servant of the People party and that vote in agreement with the oligarch’s interests. Dubinsky is the most notorious representative of the group. He has been known to frequently go against the party, lambasting its leadership and top officials approved by Zelensky, such as Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal.
Despite that, Dubinsky has enjoyed a strong standing in the party. He was put in charge of the party’s campaign in Kyiv Oblast during the October 2020 local elections, and has been deputy head of an important parliament committee on taxation and finances.
On Jan. 11, the U.S. added Dubinsky along with other six Ukrainians and four organizations to the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List for attempting to interfere in its 2020 presidential election, according to a statement by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
All of the newly-sanctioned Ukrainians are linked to Andriy Derkach, an independent lawmaker whom the U.S. Treasury calls a “Russian agent” who has been under American sanctions since September for acting in Russia’s interests and attempting to influence the 2020 elections in the country.
Derkach is a graduate of the KGB Soviet secret police force academy in Moscow. Having no affiliation to any political party now, Derkach was formerly a member of the pro-Russian Party of Regions.
Read more: Dubinsky, Onyshchenko, Telizhenko sanctioned by US over election interference
Derkach got infamous in Ukraine for aligning with Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, to spread debunked conspiracy theories about the U.S. President-elect Joe Biden’s alleged corruption and Ukraine’s interference in the 2016 election on behalf of losing candidate Hillary Clinton.
Dubinsky helped him in spreading the word of disinformation about Biden, according to the U.S.
Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksandr Dubinsky meets with U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani on Dec. 5, 2019, in Kyiv (Facebook/ Dubinsky.Pro)
Dubinsky denies it. He has accused the Anti-Corruption Action Center (AntAC), an anti-graft watchdog that advocated for sanctioning Dubinsky, of misleading the U.S. authorities, and threatened to sue the activists.
AntAC brushed off the accusations.
“When the U.S. government imposes sanctions on a person for interfering (along with Kremlin agents) in the U.S. elections, trust me, they do have detailed evidence of such interference (collected by their intelligence services and law enforcement),” Vitaly Shabunin, a co-founder at AntAC, said on Facebook.
After the activities of Dubinsky caught the U.S. authorities’ eye, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office also opened two inquiries against him, investigating him over suspected tax evasion and money laundering.
Also, in December, a Kyiv court ruled that the General Prosecutor’s Office had to open an inquiry on treason against both Dubinsky and Derkach, according to AntAC. However, this has not happened yet.
Lawmakers Oleksandr Dubinskiy (L) and Andrii Derkach speak during a parliament session in Kyiv on Dec. 12, 2019. Derkach has played a leading role in accusing former U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden of corruption in Ukraine, allegations that have not stood up well to scrutiny. (UNIAN)
On Jan. 26, Dubinsky demanded a meeting alone with Zelensky to explain himself.
According to Dubinsky, Zelensky accused him of damaging the reputation of the Servant of the People faction. In his turn, Dubinsky claims that Zelensky’s closest circle is corrupt and has been lying to the president.
Now Dubinsky’s fate as a member of the Servant of the People faction is in the hands of his fellow lawmakers. After the faction gathering, the faction leadership decided that the lawmakers will collect signatures for and against the expulsion of Dubinsky from the faction.
If Dubinsky is expelled from the faction, he will stay a lawmaker. As a lawmaker elected in the single-member constituency, he can’t be expelled from the parliament by the vote of other lawmakers.
Expelling Dubinsky may cost the Servant of the People a few more lawmakers that could leave the faction as a protest.
However, there likely won’t be many of them, according to political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko — not enough to take away the party’s status as a single-party majority.
Currently, the Servant of the People has 246 lawmakers while 226 are required to form a majority.
“If two or three, or a few more lawmakers leave the faction along with Dubinsky, then nothing terrible happens to the Servant of the People faction. It will get even easier for them,” Fesenko said. “Risks may arise if about two dozen lawmakers leave with Dubinsky. But such a scenario seems unlikely (at least for now).”
Meanwhile, the U.S. sanctions are beginning to take effect on Dubinsky’s life.
On Jan. 18, the National Bank notified Ukrainian banks about the newest U.S. sanctions against seven Ukrainians, including Dubinsky, and warned them that servicing these people was risky.
On Jan. 22, Dubinsky said that one of the Ukrainian banks, Monobank, wanted to close his account.
Still, he calls the U.S. sanctions “a temporary inconvenience.”
