KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's richest man, Rinat Akhmetov, has been forced to scrap plans to build a glitzy business centre at a historic tourist site in Kiev after a public outcry in which he was accused of "spitting on the soul" of the capital.
Protests by several hundred people brought a rare dose of bad publicity for the 45-year-old steel and coal tycoon who normally shuns the public limelight but is one of the most influential political players in the ex-Soviet republic.
Several hundred protesters, alerted by the social networking site Facebook, turned out to rally on Wednesday night against plans by the billionaire's System Capital Management (SCM) company to build a multi-storey business centre on "Andriyivsky Descent", a picturesque cobbled street and one of Ukraine's best-known tourist spots.
But the protests came too late to stop bulldozers from destroying at least one 19th century building and wrecking another built 40 years ago in mock 19th century style, cultural officials said.
Chanting "(Put) Akhmetov down a mine shaft !" and "Get Akhmetov out of town", several protesters dumped building material near SCM headquarters to signify their disgust.
"They have come here and brutally turned things into a pig-sty," said Olexander Serhiyenko, a member of a Kiev civic organization.
"They have spat on the soul of Kiev with their 'Andriyivsky Plaza'", he said.
"The ESTA company (a subsidiary of SCM), having examined the opinions of Kiev people, decided back in March to cancel the construction of the business centre," said Akhmetov in a statement issued by his press service.
"Unfortunately, after this decision, there were two bad errors. Firstly, the actions of the company were not coordinated. Secondly, they were not explained to the public," Akhmetov said.
Akhmetov, whose net worth Forbes puts at $16 billion, added:
"I promise that SCM will return the original look to the destroyed facades. We will also help the town restore Andriyivsky Descent."
Akhmetov, whose power base is in the eastern city of Donetsk, made his fortune in steel and coal in the 1990s after a turbulent period in post-Soviet history marked by gangland-style shootings and bombings.
A big soccer enthusiast, he is the owner of Shakhtar Donetsk, one of Ukraine's most successful football clubs, and also has interests in construction, banking, media and property.
According to British media, he bought a penthouse at One Hyde Park in London a year ago for a price of about $220 million.
KING-MAKER
As a financial backer of President Viktor Yanukovich's election campaign in 2009 he is seen as a 'king-maker' in politics, but he is notoriously publicity-shy and rarely meets journalists.
In his power base of Donetsk he is revered as a benefactor and his critics say the protests in Kiev have clearly shaken him.
"They called the Berkut (Ukrainian special forces) to their headquarters as soon as they heard about the protest. They were afraid of a peaceful protest. But without this protest they would have just gone ahead with their plans," said Anna Putova, an archivist at Ukraine's national archives.
"I don't believe a word of his promises. I don't believe him and I don't think anyone in Kiev believes him," she said.
Andriyivsky Descent, a half-mile winding drop down from the administrative centre of Kiev to a riverside quarter, is a top tourist spot in season, with chic restaurants, street-side arts and crafts studios and souvenir stalls.
With Ukraine co-hosting the Euro-2012 soccer championships in June, the street would normally be heaving with traders preparing for a busy season ahead.
But eve-of-Euro reconstruction work to install new drainage and upgrade the quarter's infrastructure has reduced the cobbled street to a sea of building sand, bricks, mud and heavy machinery.
Most traders are sitting things out, hoping city authorities will complete the work by the target day of May 27
Sunday, 15 April 2012
Platini Raps Ukrainian "Swindlers" Over Euro Hotel Prices
LVIV, Ukraine -- "Bandits and swindlers" are undermining Ukraine's Euro 2012 preparations by pushing accommodation prices up to exorbitant levels, UEFA president Michel Platini said on Thursday.
Hotels in Kiev, Donetsk, Kharkiv and Lviv, the four Ukrainian host cities, have hiked prices in some cases more than 10-fold.
Talking to reporters during a visit to Lviv, Platini said "bandits and swindlers who want to earn a lot of money" could keep fans away from Ukraine.
"You cannot raise prices from 40 euros ($53) to 100 euros ($132) to 500 euros ($657) from one day to the next," added the president of European soccer's ruling body. "That is just not done."
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich this month ordered his government to investigate price hikes and ensure hotel rates are at an "economically reasonable" level during the championship.
"We will be preparing to the last night and will welcome (guests and participants) the way it should be done," Yanukovich said in a statement on Thursday.
The cheapest Lviv hotel listed on UEFA's championship website as available for the Germany-Portugal match on June 9 charges 195 euros ($256) per night. For the Ukraine-Sweden match on June 11 in Kiev, offers start at 104 euros ($137).
A tent camp set up 35-km away from Kiev plans to charge 30 euros ($40) per night.
Ukraine, tournament co-hosts along with Poland, has invested billions of dollars in Euro preparations and hopes to gain a return in the form of increased tourist traffic.
Hotels in Kiev, Donetsk, Kharkiv and Lviv, the four Ukrainian host cities, have hiked prices in some cases more than 10-fold.
Talking to reporters during a visit to Lviv, Platini said "bandits and swindlers who want to earn a lot of money" could keep fans away from Ukraine.
"You cannot raise prices from 40 euros ($53) to 100 euros ($132) to 500 euros ($657) from one day to the next," added the president of European soccer's ruling body. "That is just not done."
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich this month ordered his government to investigate price hikes and ensure hotel rates are at an "economically reasonable" level during the championship.
"We will be preparing to the last night and will welcome (guests and participants) the way it should be done," Yanukovich said in a statement on Thursday.
The cheapest Lviv hotel listed on UEFA's championship website as available for the Germany-Portugal match on June 9 charges 195 euros ($256) per night. For the Ukraine-Sweden match on June 11 in Kiev, offers start at 104 euros ($137).
A tent camp set up 35-km away from Kiev plans to charge 30 euros ($40) per night.
Ukraine, tournament co-hosts along with Poland, has invested billions of dollars in Euro preparations and hopes to gain a return in the form of increased tourist traffic.
U.S. Calls On Ukraine To Release Tymoshenko Ally
KIEV, Ukraine -- The United States said on Friday the jailing by Ukraine of an ally of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko was a miscarriage of justice and called for the release of Valery Ivashchenko on health grounds.
A Ukrainian court this week found Ivashchenko, who served as acting defence minister in opposition leader Tymoshenko's cabinet in 2009 and 2010, guilty of abusing his powers in privatising a Black Sea ship repair facility.
"With respect to the conviction of former Acting Defense Minister Ivashchenko, we are deeply disappointed in this latest example of selective justice in Ukraine and call for his release, particularly given the state of his health after 18 months in pre-trial detention," the U.S. embassy in Ukraine said in a statement.
Tymoshenko, the fiercest opponent of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, has described her conviction for abuse of office, for which she has been sentenced to seven years in prison, as part of the government's campaign to destroy the opposition.
The United States and the European Union saw it as an example of selective justice and have urged her release.
Ivashchenko has dismissed the charges against him as politically motivated and plans to appeal.
A Ukrainian court this week found Ivashchenko, who served as acting defence minister in opposition leader Tymoshenko's cabinet in 2009 and 2010, guilty of abusing his powers in privatising a Black Sea ship repair facility.
"With respect to the conviction of former Acting Defense Minister Ivashchenko, we are deeply disappointed in this latest example of selective justice in Ukraine and call for his release, particularly given the state of his health after 18 months in pre-trial detention," the U.S. embassy in Ukraine said in a statement.
Tymoshenko, the fiercest opponent of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, has described her conviction for abuse of office, for which she has been sentenced to seven years in prison, as part of the government's campaign to destroy the opposition.
The United States and the European Union saw it as an example of selective justice and have urged her release.
Ivashchenko has dismissed the charges against him as politically motivated and plans to appeal.
People Power In Ukraine
KIEV, Ukraine -- Even as Ukraine drifts towards ever-more authoritarian government, the people’s ability to challenge the authorities was illustrated recently by protests against the demolition of a historic squarter in Kiev.
The Ukrainian authorities continue to test the limits of patience of their own people. A first example is the destruction of ancient buildings in a historic part of Kiev, Andriyivskyy Descent, while another is the change of rules for the parliamentary elections due for October of this year.
In first case we have Andriyivskyy Descent, a short, ancient street in the centre of Kiev where tourists could buy souvenirs and paintings and feel the spirit of traditional Ukrainian culture.
It is now completely under reconstruction with several old buildings destroyed.
Apologies to the tourists Ukraine is expecting for the Euro 2012 Football cup in June: they will not see it.
In a second case, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine has forbidden simultaneous balloting of parliamentary candidates on party lists and in first-past-the-post districts.
It means that the opposition henceforth has even less chances of getting a majority in the new Parliament.
The reactions of two participants in the Ukrainian political process – civil society and the opposition – to the authorities’ actions are demonstrative.
First we have the community of Kiev’s people.
The very day when three ancient buildings at the Andriyivskyi Descent were demolished, protest groups were organised through the internet and people gathered to offices of the builders and organisers of the destruction of that historic part of Kiev.
They brought construction garbage and left it in front of the offices of the self-styled ‘modernisers of the capital’.
The reaction of the authorities was telling.
All TV channels aired speeches of officials who assured that everything would be renewed in a short time frame.
They recognised that the wrecking of historical buildings was a big mistake and said that those guilty would be punished.
The proactive actions of the public frightened the authorities and forced them to start a dialogue and seek compromise.
Or else the bricks could fly through the windows of offices of builders and state and city officials.
Kiev’s civil society has demonstrated its capacity to protect the city and its way of life.
Regarding the second case, when the authorities took away the right of the opposition to double balloting by party lists and majority districts by means of the Constitutional Court, the opposition-minded forces and their leaders became confused and didn’t know what to do.
The opposition has once again shown its own impotence.
A joint strong-willed decision on boycotting parliamentary elections by all opposition forces could become a way out of the situation.
The authorities would be compelled to make concessions in the face of the threat of delegitimisation in the eyes of society and the opposition.
But it seems that the current Ukrainian opposition establishment, unlike civil society, is unfortunately incapable of displaying maturity.
If we look at the future development of Ukraine, considering tendencies predominating now, the following picture emerges:
Viktor Yanukovych’s regime will continue the process of growing authoritarianism of power.
This will be achieved through the conclusion of non-public arrangements on cooperation with a part of the opposition parties and their leaders.
And in case someone won’t be cooperative, the state machinery of pressure in the form of law enforcement bodies, tax and control services will be applied to them.
It will deal a considerable blow to the possibilities of financing any mass oppositional or anti-government activities.
The authorities will definitively monopolise their grip on any big and medium-sized businesses in Ukraine.
There won’t be any foreign investment coming, as political risks will be too high.
At the same time there will be a large-scale backslide in the area of freedom of speech, freedom of opinion, freedom of assembly and free movement.
This will lead to intimidation of the population and strengthen the manipulation of public opinion.
The authorities will be happy to introduce rigid control over the internet.
The authorities hope that the society will degrade to poverty, social apathy and to the basic level of survival.
But without any doubt, radical anti-authority resistance will also amplify and it will be headed by the present public activists and leaders.
This image of Ukraine in the near future has high chances of becoming reality.
In two to three years Ukraine could turn into a classic sample of an authoritarian state on the model of Belarus or the Central Asian post-Soviet regimes.
But this is provided that external players, first of all, Russia and the EU, won’t influence the situation.
And this is highly improbable.
Russia already now is actively developing variants of deepening cooperation with Ukraine.
A latest example is provided by the plans of the Russian Federation to create a new advisory council which would deal with the promotion of Russian interests in the post-Soviet territories.
The European Union is also trying to “not freeze” relations with Kiev.
The only thing which can transform today’s Ukraine into a democratic country which will care about interests of its citizens, and not about officials and big business, is the Ukrainian people, and more precisely, its most active and most conscious representatives.
Those public activists who are now rescuing historical Kiev from destruction, tomorrow will go out to rescue the whole state, and not only its capital.
They won't be deceived by politicians any more, as it was the case in 2004-2005.
External players who would like Ukraine to be democratic and not authoritarian will bet on them.
As long as the majority of Ukrainians don’t realise that they have influence, changes won’t come about.
But look at what public activists did at the Andriyivskyy Descent – they proved that their anger matters.
Let’s not let our hope die! There is enough will for this
The Ukrainian authorities continue to test the limits of patience of their own people. A first example is the destruction of ancient buildings in a historic part of Kiev, Andriyivskyy Descent, while another is the change of rules for the parliamentary elections due for October of this year.
In first case we have Andriyivskyy Descent, a short, ancient street in the centre of Kiev where tourists could buy souvenirs and paintings and feel the spirit of traditional Ukrainian culture.
It is now completely under reconstruction with several old buildings destroyed.
Apologies to the tourists Ukraine is expecting for the Euro 2012 Football cup in June: they will not see it.
In a second case, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine has forbidden simultaneous balloting of parliamentary candidates on party lists and in first-past-the-post districts.
It means that the opposition henceforth has even less chances of getting a majority in the new Parliament.
The reactions of two participants in the Ukrainian political process – civil society and the opposition – to the authorities’ actions are demonstrative.
First we have the community of Kiev’s people.
The very day when three ancient buildings at the Andriyivskyi Descent were demolished, protest groups were organised through the internet and people gathered to offices of the builders and organisers of the destruction of that historic part of Kiev.
They brought construction garbage and left it in front of the offices of the self-styled ‘modernisers of the capital’.
The reaction of the authorities was telling.
All TV channels aired speeches of officials who assured that everything would be renewed in a short time frame.
They recognised that the wrecking of historical buildings was a big mistake and said that those guilty would be punished.
The proactive actions of the public frightened the authorities and forced them to start a dialogue and seek compromise.
Or else the bricks could fly through the windows of offices of builders and state and city officials.
Kiev’s civil society has demonstrated its capacity to protect the city and its way of life.
Regarding the second case, when the authorities took away the right of the opposition to double balloting by party lists and majority districts by means of the Constitutional Court, the opposition-minded forces and their leaders became confused and didn’t know what to do.
The opposition has once again shown its own impotence.
A joint strong-willed decision on boycotting parliamentary elections by all opposition forces could become a way out of the situation.
The authorities would be compelled to make concessions in the face of the threat of delegitimisation in the eyes of society and the opposition.
But it seems that the current Ukrainian opposition establishment, unlike civil society, is unfortunately incapable of displaying maturity.
If we look at the future development of Ukraine, considering tendencies predominating now, the following picture emerges:
Viktor Yanukovych’s regime will continue the process of growing authoritarianism of power.
This will be achieved through the conclusion of non-public arrangements on cooperation with a part of the opposition parties and their leaders.
And in case someone won’t be cooperative, the state machinery of pressure in the form of law enforcement bodies, tax and control services will be applied to them.
It will deal a considerable blow to the possibilities of financing any mass oppositional or anti-government activities.
The authorities will definitively monopolise their grip on any big and medium-sized businesses in Ukraine.
There won’t be any foreign investment coming, as political risks will be too high.
At the same time there will be a large-scale backslide in the area of freedom of speech, freedom of opinion, freedom of assembly and free movement.
This will lead to intimidation of the population and strengthen the manipulation of public opinion.
The authorities will be happy to introduce rigid control over the internet.
The authorities hope that the society will degrade to poverty, social apathy and to the basic level of survival.
But without any doubt, radical anti-authority resistance will also amplify and it will be headed by the present public activists and leaders.
This image of Ukraine in the near future has high chances of becoming reality.
In two to three years Ukraine could turn into a classic sample of an authoritarian state on the model of Belarus or the Central Asian post-Soviet regimes.
But this is provided that external players, first of all, Russia and the EU, won’t influence the situation.
And this is highly improbable.
Russia already now is actively developing variants of deepening cooperation with Ukraine.
A latest example is provided by the plans of the Russian Federation to create a new advisory council which would deal with the promotion of Russian interests in the post-Soviet territories.
The European Union is also trying to “not freeze” relations with Kiev.
The only thing which can transform today’s Ukraine into a democratic country which will care about interests of its citizens, and not about officials and big business, is the Ukrainian people, and more precisely, its most active and most conscious representatives.
Those public activists who are now rescuing historical Kiev from destruction, tomorrow will go out to rescue the whole state, and not only its capital.
They won't be deceived by politicians any more, as it was the case in 2004-2005.
External players who would like Ukraine to be democratic and not authoritarian will bet on them.
As long as the majority of Ukrainians don’t realise that they have influence, changes won’t come about.
But look at what public activists did at the Andriyivskyy Descent – they proved that their anger matters.
Let’s not let our hope die! There is enough will for this
Ukrainian Civil Society - Eleven Wise Men
WARSAW, Poland -- Twenty years ago, the West tried to build civil society in post-Soviet Ukraine.
Now 11 Ukrainian intellectuals have taken the matter into their own hands, through the “1st December” initiative (Pershoho Hrudnya).
Launched in December 2011, its name is a reference to Ukraine's 1991 referendum on independence.
Its members are giants, if faded ones.
One, Ivan Dzyuba, broke Soviet taboos in his essay "Internationalism or Russification?", written in the mid-1960s.
Another, the Geneva-based economist Bohdan Hawrylyshyn, was one of the few people to predict the collapse of the USSR.
A third, Cardinal Lyubomyr Huzar, is a former archbishop of the patriotic Ukrainian Catholic church (although the initiative was endorsed by three Orthodox churches).
Several members are former dissidents who served sentences in Soviet labour camps, an asset in a region where moral currency is often measured in years spent imprisoned by the Communist regime.
The initiative's first round-table event, held in Kiev last Thursday, gathered 70 members of the Ukrainian intelligentsia to discuss relations between state and society.
Their banner, "A Free Person in a Free Country", is a reaction to a society they see as basking in consumerist indifference; or, as Yevgen Sverstyuk , a philosopher, put it, “like a varenyk [dumpling] in butter”.
In pushing for a stronger, more responsible society, and one that is closer to Europe, these grandees turn to abstract themes: human dignity and responsible citizenship.
They hope to drum up interest through a series of local round-table meetings.
The initiative aims to include all Ukrainians, regardless of political affiliation.
The response has been quiet but broadly positive.
Taras Voznyak, editor of the cultural journal Ï, said, “I have understood why there are 11 of them. They are apostles”.
Ukraine's president, Viktor Yanukovich, has expressed an ambiguous interest in the initiative.
The group's members say they hope to connect with younger Ukrainians, despite their average age being well over 70.
But even their most enthusiastic backers wonder what practical steps these philosopher-kings can take to improve life in Ukraine.
Or why it has taken them 20 years to get into gear.
One answer to that may be the chillier atmosphere that has descended in Ukraine since Mr Yanukovich took power in 2010, and the eroding hopes of the generation of Orange revolutionaries that grabbed the world's attention in 2004.
Ukraine's media have begun speculating about parliamentary elections due in October.
If the message of the 1st December group begins to resonate before then, it could become a significant political player.
But some think its influence will be better expressed through a gradual renaissance of civil society, and as an influence for future generations of Ukrainians.
Food for thought, as Ukraine’s Orthodox Christians celebrate Easter this weekend.
Now 11 Ukrainian intellectuals have taken the matter into their own hands, through the “1st December” initiative (Pershoho Hrudnya).
Launched in December 2011, its name is a reference to Ukraine's 1991 referendum on independence.
Its members are giants, if faded ones.
One, Ivan Dzyuba, broke Soviet taboos in his essay "Internationalism or Russification?", written in the mid-1960s.
Another, the Geneva-based economist Bohdan Hawrylyshyn, was one of the few people to predict the collapse of the USSR.
A third, Cardinal Lyubomyr Huzar, is a former archbishop of the patriotic Ukrainian Catholic church (although the initiative was endorsed by three Orthodox churches).
Several members are former dissidents who served sentences in Soviet labour camps, an asset in a region where moral currency is often measured in years spent imprisoned by the Communist regime.
The initiative's first round-table event, held in Kiev last Thursday, gathered 70 members of the Ukrainian intelligentsia to discuss relations between state and society.
Their banner, "A Free Person in a Free Country", is a reaction to a society they see as basking in consumerist indifference; or, as Yevgen Sverstyuk , a philosopher, put it, “like a varenyk [dumpling] in butter”.
In pushing for a stronger, more responsible society, and one that is closer to Europe, these grandees turn to abstract themes: human dignity and responsible citizenship.
They hope to drum up interest through a series of local round-table meetings.
The initiative aims to include all Ukrainians, regardless of political affiliation.
The response has been quiet but broadly positive.
Taras Voznyak, editor of the cultural journal Ï, said, “I have understood why there are 11 of them. They are apostles”.
Ukraine's president, Viktor Yanukovich, has expressed an ambiguous interest in the initiative.
The group's members say they hope to connect with younger Ukrainians, despite their average age being well over 70.
But even their most enthusiastic backers wonder what practical steps these philosopher-kings can take to improve life in Ukraine.
Or why it has taken them 20 years to get into gear.
One answer to that may be the chillier atmosphere that has descended in Ukraine since Mr Yanukovich took power in 2010, and the eroding hopes of the generation of Orange revolutionaries that grabbed the world's attention in 2004.
Ukraine's media have begun speculating about parliamentary elections due in October.
If the message of the 1st December group begins to resonate before then, it could become a significant political player.
But some think its influence will be better expressed through a gradual renaissance of civil society, and as an influence for future generations of Ukrainians.
Food for thought, as Ukraine’s Orthodox Christians celebrate Easter this weekend.
Ukrainian Former Prime Minister Tymoshenko Faces Murder Accusations
KIEV, Ukraine -- Ukrainian prosecutors announced last week that former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko (2005; 2007-2010) and former Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko (1996-1997) were suspected of commissioning several murders in the 1990s.
This looks like a last-ditch attempt to influence public opinion – both at home, ahead of the October parliamentary election, and in the West, where opposition leader Tymoshenko is regarded as a political prisoner – that she is a monster who deserves to be in jail.
A court in Kiev last October imprisoned Tymoshenko for seven years for exceeding her authority in preparing the controversial January 2009 contracts with Russia’s Gazprom, while Lazarenko, who is Tymoshenko’s former ally, is serving a prison sentence for money-laundering in the US.
First Deputy Prosecutor-General Renat Kuzmin spoke last fall about Tymoshenko’s possible involvement in the 1998 murder of Yevhen Shcherban, who was an influential people’s deputy and businessman from Donetsk.
Kuzmin admitted then that the prosecutors lacked evidence.
It has since become obvious that public opinion and Western policymakers do not trust Ukrainian prosecutors on Tymoshenko, which has been jeopardizing Ukraine’s European integration.
The EU has made it clear that the association and free trade agreement with Ukraine will not be signed if Kiev does not change its attitude to justice in general and Tymoshenko in particular.
What is more, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych himself admitted in Davos this year that Tymoshenko had been indicted under an outdated Soviet law.
The ruling team has apparently decided that it is now time for more serious charges against Tymoshenko to influence Western opinion.
Kuzmin has told FT that he had evidence that companies, which were linked to Tymoshenko and Lazarenko, transferred money to Shcherban’s killers.
Kuzmin also chided the West for defending Tymoshenko:
“What is your view in the West of political persecution? Does this mean that the leader of the opposition cannot be prosecuted even for murder?”.
Simultaneously, Shcherban’s son Ruslan Shcherban, who is a deputy of the Donetsk regional council from the ruling Party of Regions (PRU), wrote a letter to US Ambassador John Tefft saying that European and US politicians should not defend Tymoshenko who, he claimed, had commissioned his father’s killing.
Ruslan Shcherban alleged that he had heard threats from Tymoshenko and Lazarenko whose businesses, he said, competed with his father’s.
He also accused Washington of blocking Kiev’s attempts to establish the truth.
The gas trader United Energy Systems, which Tymoshenko headed in the mid-1990s, was a bitter rival of Shcherban’s businesses on the energy market when Lazarenko was prime minister.
On April 5, Prosecutor-General Viktor Pshonka announced that his team had re-launched the investigation into Shcherban’s murder, which was closed a decade ago.
Also, commenting on old embezzlement cases against Tymoshenko, Pshonka claimed that several of them were closed in January 2005 by his predecessor, Svyatoslav Piskun, because then-President Viktor Yushchenko threatened Piskun with dismissal if he did not close the cases.
In the meantime, the person who confessed to killing Shcherban a decade ago, Vadym Bolotskikh, has been reportedly transferred from a distant prison to Kiev for questioning.
Kuzmin, asked during a talk show why Ruslan Shcherban had not come up with his accusations earlier, said that he was afraid for his life.
What’s more, Kuzmin said that his team suspected Tymoshenko and Lazarenko of also commissioning the murders of another Donetsk businessman, Oleksandr Momot, in 1996, and former central bank governor Vadym Hetman in 1998.
Kuzmin also said that the prosecutors were targeting the deputy chairman of Tymoshenko’s Fatherland party, Oleksandr Turchynov, who de facto heads Fatherland while Tymoshenko is in prison.
He said Turchynov was suspected of illegally awarding an apartment to his spokesman when Turchynov headed the security service in the Yushchenko-Tymoshenko government in 2005.
Another ally of Tymoshenko, former Interior Minister Yury Lutsenko, was sentenced to four years in jail earlier this year for awarding an apartment to his former driver.
Turchynov has dismissed all the new accusations against his boss and himself as a smear campaign and suggested that the prosecutors’ goal was to shock Europe into stopping its defense of Tymoshenko.
He also alleged that those who commissioned Yevhen Shcherban’s murder must be among the PRU ranks as several influential members of the PRU had built their business empires on the ruins of Shcherban’s business.
Meanwhile, another former minister from Tymoshenko’s government has received a prison term.
On April 5, a court in Kiev sentenced former Environment Minister Georgy Filipchuk to three years in jail for exceeding his authority in preparing a ministry contract with a legal company.
Filipchuk was indicted under the same law under which Tymoshenko was indicted last October and which Yanukovych called “outdated.”
Fatherland has claimed that Filipchuk was punished for opposing the US company Vanco’s attempts to “snatch the Black Sea shelf from the state”.
Tymoshenko’s cabinet canceled Vanco’s license to develop the Prikerchenskaya oil field in the Black Sea in April 2008 claiming that it had been awarded the license illegally.
Vanco planned to develop the field in partnership with Donetsk-based tycoon Rinat Akhmetov, who is a senior member of the PRU.
This looks like a last-ditch attempt to influence public opinion – both at home, ahead of the October parliamentary election, and in the West, where opposition leader Tymoshenko is regarded as a political prisoner – that she is a monster who deserves to be in jail.
A court in Kiev last October imprisoned Tymoshenko for seven years for exceeding her authority in preparing the controversial January 2009 contracts with Russia’s Gazprom, while Lazarenko, who is Tymoshenko’s former ally, is serving a prison sentence for money-laundering in the US.
First Deputy Prosecutor-General Renat Kuzmin spoke last fall about Tymoshenko’s possible involvement in the 1998 murder of Yevhen Shcherban, who was an influential people’s deputy and businessman from Donetsk.
Kuzmin admitted then that the prosecutors lacked evidence.
It has since become obvious that public opinion and Western policymakers do not trust Ukrainian prosecutors on Tymoshenko, which has been jeopardizing Ukraine’s European integration.
The EU has made it clear that the association and free trade agreement with Ukraine will not be signed if Kiev does not change its attitude to justice in general and Tymoshenko in particular.
What is more, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych himself admitted in Davos this year that Tymoshenko had been indicted under an outdated Soviet law.
The ruling team has apparently decided that it is now time for more serious charges against Tymoshenko to influence Western opinion.
Kuzmin has told FT that he had evidence that companies, which were linked to Tymoshenko and Lazarenko, transferred money to Shcherban’s killers.
Kuzmin also chided the West for defending Tymoshenko:
“What is your view in the West of political persecution? Does this mean that the leader of the opposition cannot be prosecuted even for murder?”.
Simultaneously, Shcherban’s son Ruslan Shcherban, who is a deputy of the Donetsk regional council from the ruling Party of Regions (PRU), wrote a letter to US Ambassador John Tefft saying that European and US politicians should not defend Tymoshenko who, he claimed, had commissioned his father’s killing.
Ruslan Shcherban alleged that he had heard threats from Tymoshenko and Lazarenko whose businesses, he said, competed with his father’s.
He also accused Washington of blocking Kiev’s attempts to establish the truth.
The gas trader United Energy Systems, which Tymoshenko headed in the mid-1990s, was a bitter rival of Shcherban’s businesses on the energy market when Lazarenko was prime minister.
On April 5, Prosecutor-General Viktor Pshonka announced that his team had re-launched the investigation into Shcherban’s murder, which was closed a decade ago.
Also, commenting on old embezzlement cases against Tymoshenko, Pshonka claimed that several of them were closed in January 2005 by his predecessor, Svyatoslav Piskun, because then-President Viktor Yushchenko threatened Piskun with dismissal if he did not close the cases.
In the meantime, the person who confessed to killing Shcherban a decade ago, Vadym Bolotskikh, has been reportedly transferred from a distant prison to Kiev for questioning.
Kuzmin, asked during a talk show why Ruslan Shcherban had not come up with his accusations earlier, said that he was afraid for his life.
What’s more, Kuzmin said that his team suspected Tymoshenko and Lazarenko of also commissioning the murders of another Donetsk businessman, Oleksandr Momot, in 1996, and former central bank governor Vadym Hetman in 1998.
Kuzmin also said that the prosecutors were targeting the deputy chairman of Tymoshenko’s Fatherland party, Oleksandr Turchynov, who de facto heads Fatherland while Tymoshenko is in prison.
He said Turchynov was suspected of illegally awarding an apartment to his spokesman when Turchynov headed the security service in the Yushchenko-Tymoshenko government in 2005.
Another ally of Tymoshenko, former Interior Minister Yury Lutsenko, was sentenced to four years in jail earlier this year for awarding an apartment to his former driver.
Turchynov has dismissed all the new accusations against his boss and himself as a smear campaign and suggested that the prosecutors’ goal was to shock Europe into stopping its defense of Tymoshenko.
He also alleged that those who commissioned Yevhen Shcherban’s murder must be among the PRU ranks as several influential members of the PRU had built their business empires on the ruins of Shcherban’s business.
Meanwhile, another former minister from Tymoshenko’s government has received a prison term.
On April 5, a court in Kiev sentenced former Environment Minister Georgy Filipchuk to three years in jail for exceeding his authority in preparing a ministry contract with a legal company.
Filipchuk was indicted under the same law under which Tymoshenko was indicted last October and which Yanukovych called “outdated.”
Fatherland has claimed that Filipchuk was punished for opposing the US company Vanco’s attempts to “snatch the Black Sea shelf from the state”.
Tymoshenko’s cabinet canceled Vanco’s license to develop the Prikerchenskaya oil field in the Black Sea in April 2008 claiming that it had been awarded the license illegally.
Vanco planned to develop the field in partnership with Donetsk-based tycoon Rinat Akhmetov, who is a senior member of the PRU.
Saturday, 7 April 2012
Outraged By Fatal Assault On Young Woman, Ukrainians Force An Investigation
MOSCOW, Russia -- The crime was shocking enough: an 18-year-old woman gang-raped, half strangled, set on fire and left for dead.
ut what sent hundreds of Ukrainians into the streets and rushing to her hospital to give blood this month was a police decision to free two suspects rumored to be politically connected.
The uproar has shaken the upper echelons of Ukraine’s government.
On Thursday, three weeks after the attack, the young woman died.
Viktor F. Yanukovich, the president, and Nikolai Azarov, the prime minister, were among the first to offer condolences — along with vows that the perpetrators would be brought to justice.
“I will press law enforcement agencies to investigate and obtain a just punishment,” Mr. Azarov wrote on his blog.
“No compromises. Only with the knowledge that punishment is inevitable will these monsters fear to encroach on people’s lives and rights.”
Whether they will succeed in calming the outrage is unclear.
Doctors said the young woman, Oksana Makar, suffered serious burns to about 55 percent of her body and had severe internal injuries.
One of her arms was amputated.
She was able to give at least one videotaped interview, her blond hair matted and blue eyes straining against what she described as excruciating pain.
For Ukrainians transfixed by her ordeal, she came to embody long-simmering animosities over government impotence and impunity for the privileged in this former Soviet nation.
It was only after the street protests and Mr. Yanukovich’s personal intervention that the police in the small southern town of Nikolayev re-arrested the young men.
On Thursday, they and a third jailed suspect were officially charged with murder.
The men met Ms. Makar at a cafe in Nikolayev on the evening of March 9, according to prosecutors.
After a few drinks, she agreed to go with them back to one of their apartments.
They continued to drink.
At some point, Ms. Makar complained of not feeling well and went to lie down in the bedroom.
“After that they came to their criminal intention: to rape her,” Yuri V. Boychenko, a spokesman for the prosecutor general’s office, said by telephone.
“After they committed this act, they were worried that she would go to the police, and to avoid this — all were in a state of intoxication — took further steps.”
The men, he said, tried to strangle Ms. Makar with a cord, leaving her barely conscious.
Then they wrapped her in a blanket and dragged her to a nearby construction site, where they set her on fire.
She was discovered the next morning, still conscious, by a passing motorist.
It is not clear why the police initially freed two of the suspects.
Investigators maintain that they lacked enough evidence to hold them.
Rumors quickly spread that the parents of the two, both in their 20s, had ties to the local government.
Officials confirmed that one, Maksim Prisyazhnyuk, is the adopted son of a former chairwoman in a regional legislature.
The perception that the men were released because of political connections touched a nerve.
Ukrainian tabloids are filled with the exploits of the so-called mazhory, the children of the wealthy and powerful who can seem impervious to punishment.
Some called on the government to reinstate the death penalty as in Soviet times and execute the men, according to local media reports.
After the public outcry, Mr. Yanukovich directed Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Viktor Pshonka, to open an inquiry.
It found that the police had acted carelessly.
Several officials in the local prosecutor’s office and police departments involved in the case were fired and others were demoted.
Asked in a videotaped interview shortly before her death what she wanted to say to her attackers, Ms. Makar, visibly straining against the pain, said she hoped they would be raped in prison.
ut what sent hundreds of Ukrainians into the streets and rushing to her hospital to give blood this month was a police decision to free two suspects rumored to be politically connected.
The uproar has shaken the upper echelons of Ukraine’s government.
On Thursday, three weeks after the attack, the young woman died.
Viktor F. Yanukovich, the president, and Nikolai Azarov, the prime minister, were among the first to offer condolences — along with vows that the perpetrators would be brought to justice.
“I will press law enforcement agencies to investigate and obtain a just punishment,” Mr. Azarov wrote on his blog.
“No compromises. Only with the knowledge that punishment is inevitable will these monsters fear to encroach on people’s lives and rights.”
Whether they will succeed in calming the outrage is unclear.
Doctors said the young woman, Oksana Makar, suffered serious burns to about 55 percent of her body and had severe internal injuries.
One of her arms was amputated.
She was able to give at least one videotaped interview, her blond hair matted and blue eyes straining against what she described as excruciating pain.
For Ukrainians transfixed by her ordeal, she came to embody long-simmering animosities over government impotence and impunity for the privileged in this former Soviet nation.
It was only after the street protests and Mr. Yanukovich’s personal intervention that the police in the small southern town of Nikolayev re-arrested the young men.
On Thursday, they and a third jailed suspect were officially charged with murder.
The men met Ms. Makar at a cafe in Nikolayev on the evening of March 9, according to prosecutors.
After a few drinks, she agreed to go with them back to one of their apartments.
They continued to drink.
At some point, Ms. Makar complained of not feeling well and went to lie down in the bedroom.
“After that they came to their criminal intention: to rape her,” Yuri V. Boychenko, a spokesman for the prosecutor general’s office, said by telephone.
“After they committed this act, they were worried that she would go to the police, and to avoid this — all were in a state of intoxication — took further steps.”
The men, he said, tried to strangle Ms. Makar with a cord, leaving her barely conscious.
Then they wrapped her in a blanket and dragged her to a nearby construction site, where they set her on fire.
She was discovered the next morning, still conscious, by a passing motorist.
It is not clear why the police initially freed two of the suspects.
Investigators maintain that they lacked enough evidence to hold them.
Rumors quickly spread that the parents of the two, both in their 20s, had ties to the local government.
Officials confirmed that one, Maksim Prisyazhnyuk, is the adopted son of a former chairwoman in a regional legislature.
The perception that the men were released because of political connections touched a nerve.
Ukrainian tabloids are filled with the exploits of the so-called mazhory, the children of the wealthy and powerful who can seem impervious to punishment.
Some called on the government to reinstate the death penalty as in Soviet times and execute the men, according to local media reports.
After the public outcry, Mr. Yanukovich directed Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Viktor Pshonka, to open an inquiry.
It found that the police had acted carelessly.
Several officials in the local prosecutor’s office and police departments involved in the case were fired and others were demoted.
Asked in a videotaped interview shortly before her death what she wanted to say to her attackers, Ms. Makar, visibly straining against the pain, said she hoped they would be raped in prison.
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