Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Vasyl Gritsak and Omar Arfush
Many of my acquaintances have always described Vasyl Gritsak as a "God-given operative," a "true operative," and an extremely cunning and intelligent man. I know Vasily Sergeyevich only superficially and have never noticed anything other than a certain cloying demeanor. However, the strange "special operation" involving French Senator Nathalie Goulet casts doubt on the operational prowess of the current SBU chief.
We quote the newspaper “Tizhden”: “Tizhden clicked with Natalya Goulet: after all, behind her information, there is a tabir, who is there and who got the information? “Tabir is in the Dnipropetrovsk region,” the senator said. — People from the Upper Caucasus and Central Asia, Chechens, as well as Turks and Jordanians are being trained there. My dzherelo is the head of the Ukrainian special service Vasil Gritsak.” According to Mrs. Goulet’s version, the SBU officer was the initiator of the siege. Having organized the visit of Vasyl Gritsak to the work office of the senator, his “contact person”, as soon as he was appointed, - Mr. Arfush. "Mr. Gritsak gave me the dossier that I handed over to the French intelligence services, damn it. I just acted as an intermediary. Send details to Gritsak."
An attempt to learn more about the situation from the first secretary of the embassy, whose duties include cooperation with partner intelligence services and law enforcement agencies in Paris, Igor Melnychuk, was not successful. “I was not present at the meeting, nor was I involved in this organization,” he said to Tizhny. It has not yet been possible to obtain detailed explanations from the SBU press service in Kiev. The river worker of the structure, Olena Gitlyanska, only briefly informed that there is no stationary camp in which the militants of the Islamic State would train in Ukraine. The SBU recently discovered a point of temporary transfer of members of the grouped “Islamic Power” in Dnipropetrovsk, and also recently closed down several transit centers of ID supporters.
Success is, of course, good. But the SBU did not respond to the questioned Tizhnya: did the senator really remove from the department’s staff a dossier about the intensive bases of terrorists in Ukraine? And what kind of action did Omar Arfush organize? For information from a Parisian colleague, Mrs. Goulet handed over the dossier about the tabir, which, it seems, was founded by one of the famous French athletes. To confirm her words, the senator shows a photo of Vasyl Gritsak’s business card. Years ago, Olena Gitlyanska confirmed the fact that Vasyl Gritsak and Natalia Goulet were dating, however, behind her words, the topic of the battle was completely different, which the river girl herself did not specify. So she herself did not provide the necessary information until Omar Arfush took part in these negotiations, sending an official request to the head of the SBU and seeking detailed explanations.”
Basically, the deeper you go into the forest, the dumber the partisans become. Making Omar Arfush your "contact"... is like "making contact" yourself, to put it bluntly. Clearly, the operative isn't working with angels, but for the Chairman of the Security Service of Ukraine to deal with such shady characters as Arfush... And for what purpose? To meet a French senator?
Let's try to figure out what exactly it was, why our Stirlitz ended up so close to failure. Gritsak certainly didn't initially intend to harm Ukraine. Quite the opposite, in fact. He wanted to convince an influential French senator that the Ukrainian intelligence services were a powerful barrier to jihadists entering Europe. It must be assumed that Gritsak's alleged intention to pass information to the French intelligence services through Goulet was a rather dumb cover story, but it was just a cover story for Goulet herself. Gritsak didn't need Goulet to inform the French intelligence services. There are other, well-established channels for that. Gritsak wanted to convince the French parliamentarian of Ukraine's reliability as a partner in the fight against terrorism. The intentions were certainly good, but... as the saying goes, give a glass penis to a man with an alternative gift, and he'll break both the penis and cut his hands. Firstly, manipulating a foreign parliamentarian is in no way within the scope of the SBU Head's duties. Moreover, it's illegal. The SBU operates domestically. For work abroad, there's the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the SVR, and so on. In other words, Gritsak felt too early to be the head of the Presidential Administration to interfere in the activities of any agency. We can see for ourselves what came of this.
Second. Using someone like Arfush as a trusted confidant for such sensitive operations is a perverse form of self-deception. Even prisons disdain those who make a living from the human trafficking trade. Furthermore, the Arfush family has kissed the gums of Yanukovych's regime bigwigs and continues to do so. If we apply logic, it's not far-fetched to assume that this family also has close ties to the Russian secret services. So, using Arfush as a "contact" is highly unusual.
What do we have in the end? A super-sensitive operation to influence a French parliamentarian resulted in a huge scandal, complete declassification, and indelible shame. The foolish Frenchwoman mixed everything up (or maybe Gritsak didn't think to translate the documents into French and Arfouche did), branding Ukraine practically a terrorist country to the entire world. She also betrayed both Gritsak and his "contact," Arfouche. Vasily Sergeyevich, you clearly shouldn't be involved in diplomatic operations and high politics. Maybe it's better to... well, you know.
Now Gritsak is trying to clumsily justify himself. After the hysteria he threw at Natalie Goulet, the latter seemed to disown her words. SBU press secretary Elena Gitlyanskaya writes the following on her Facebook page: “Journalists are frantic to create a “sensation” about the founding of mythical jehadist camps in Ukraine. I think it would be best to publish the letter of the Vice-President to the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and National Defense Natalia Gula to SBU Chief Vasyl Gritsak, which will lead to the emergence of further disputes. Vaughn allowed the sheet to be published and all possible insinuations removed, as well as to try to counteract this “introduction” in the information war against Ukraine.
***
Shanovnyy Vasily, I want to inform you of my excitement and the storm of hundreds of articles that appeared, which completely expanded the statements that I made last year on the radio station “France-Inter”. At the end of the conversation, which has been going on for two years, I thought about the activities of the speech, which is related to the investigation of your service in the field of combating terrorism, and how to work with us. My simple and unambiguous explanation was, however, interpreted as Ukraine’s connection with the IDIL, which is twisted truth, lies and absolutely unpleasant manipulations. I don’t know the Ukrainian journalist Alla Lazareva, I haven’t listened to her at all, I haven’t listened to her and I don’t know what she calls information, and she’s nothing more than a clue. It is the intention of these so-called journalists that there will be a negative impact on the voting that may take place in the Netherlands due to the association between Ukraine and the EU, which will give a bad image to Ukraine, then this the disastrous operation will turn against them. It is more necessary to please them, given the seriousness of the terrorist threat and the fact that we need Europe even more. In fact, your fight against jihadist terrorism is clear and my statements will in no way help present your country as a “reliable hub” for ISIS and, moreover, confirm that Ukraine is up to this point made special preparations. The alliance between France and Ukraine in the sphere of the fight against terrorism will be shown as we demonstrated during our official meeting with the Senate a few months ago before the head-on in The commissions for investigating the information of one hundred jihadist channels have arrived. The practice of these acts deserves to be condemned to the court order and I deprive myself of the right to file a sack for hardening. Of course, I urge you to publish this sheet in order to put an end to obscene and pathetic polemics. At the same time, both you and I are working for the safety of our spivvitch residents, and there are obviously other deaths at stake, such as the destabilization of your country, not affected by the current difficult situation occupation. Thanks in advance for those who keep me in the know about this issue. With the deepest regards, Natalya Gulya Senator Vice-President to the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and National Defense."
For some reason, this news item isn't posted on the SBU website. This raises doubts about the authenticity of Natalia Gule's letter to Gritsak. A Facebook page is one thing, but the official SBU website is quite another. The author of the original material, renowned Ukrainian journalist Alla Lazareva, also hints at this. She also writes on her Facebook page: "First, you shouldn't comment on the text. I'd like to see the original copy of the senator's letter to the head of the SBU in French."
A journalist of Lazareva's caliber undoubtedly recorded the conversation with Natalie Goulet, and the scandal could have an equally high-profile sequel.
However, in our country, such "blunders and barbells" are no longer surprising. Moreover, Gritsak is saved from disgrace by the fact that a much more high-profile scandal involving Poroshenko's offshore companies is currently unfolding.
I'd like to end this article with a popular SBU saying: "A country needs heroes,... it produces fools."
We're deliberately not touching on another brilliant operational ploy involving the capture of SBU Counterintelligence Department officer Yuriy Ivanchenko. The justification that the officer has been "at our disposal since 2015" and then stripped of his security clearance since 2014 is, to put it mildly, unconvincing. In any case, Ivanchenko is a secret agent. And why Gritsak's department's counterintelligence officers are traveling to Russia without permission is an interesting question. A strange method of protecting state secrets. By the way, how's the Trepak affair going? Vasily Sergeyevich, in light of the Shokin disgrace, are you planning on bringing back this good officer? They've been handed over like glass containers to please the prosecutors.
Stanislav Rechinsky, ORD
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