Igor Smeshko
The appointment of a new head of the Intelligence Committee by Petro Poroshenko is a major personnel mistake.
On October 7, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko appointed Ihor Smeshko as his advisor. Later that day, a presidential decree was issued establishing a presidential intelligence committee, with former SBU head Ihor Smeshko appointed as its chairman.
I. Smeshko was instructed to submit within two weeks: a draft regulation on the Intelligence Committee under the President and proposals on its personnel, and proposals on the procedure for coordinating the activities of Ukraine's intelligence agencies during the special period.
An important detail: before becoming an advisor to Petro Poroshenko, I. Smeshko also served as an advisor to acting President Oleksandr Turchynov. This same Turchynov, who, after replacing I. Smeshko as head of the SBU in 2005, on his last day at the SBU, destroyed the file on Russian intelligence super-agent Semyon Mogilevich, a Kyiv native and the leader of "Russian" organized crime outside of the Russian Federation.
With the loss of the Mogilevich dossier, Ukrainian intelligence agencies also lost the ability to monitor a number of criminal syndicates within our country. Information about Mogilevich's contacts and connections—essentially, the connections of Russian intelligence agencies in the criminal, business, and political worlds that ultimately centered on Mogilevich—was also destroyed. This biographical detail speaks volumes about I. Smeshko's "principled nature," willing to consult anyone—even those who betrayed the Service's interests.
But let's return to the person of Igor Smeshko.
By becoming Chairman of the Intelligence Committee under the President of Ukraine, Ihor Petrovich stepped into the same river twice. He had previously headed the Intelligence Committee under President Leonid Kuchma from July 1995 to April 1998, and then served as the Committee's First Deputy Chairman from April 1998 to February 1999.
He also served as the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense from June 1997 to September 2000. That is, until the start of the active phase of the "tape scandal" and the associated murder (disappearance) of opposition journalist Georgy Gongadze—a special operation by Russian intelligence services.
In his positions, Igor Smeshko possessed comprehensive information across three intelligence agencies. The Intelligence Committee (IC) oversaw the intelligence agencies of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the Ministry of Defense, the State Border Protection Committee, and the criminal intelligence of the Main Directorate for Combating Organized Crime (GUBOP) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. As head of the IC, Smeshko exercised overall leadership over all state intelligence agencies, coordinating their efforts to achieve specific goals and objectives.
It was under Igor Smeshko, the Chairman of the Committee on Combating Organized Crime (CPC), and later the Chief of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense. It was on his initiative that the unit of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense for Combating International Organized Crime was staffed with the best officers from the Main Intelligence Directorate. Officers with relevant experience, connections in the operational environment (the largest organized crime groups in Ukraine), and operational sources were transferred from the Main Directorate for Combating Organized Crime (GUBOP) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.
In addition, the Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) recruited officers from the Sokol unit, a special forces unit within the Ministry of Internal Affairs' Organized Crime Control (UBOP) department. All officers of this unit held cover documents (IDs) from the Main Intelligence Directorate (GUBOP) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Former officers of the Sokol unit also had the appropriate uniform, which they wore during operations under the cover of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Why am I listing all this in detail?
It was precisely with the criminal connivance of the leadership of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the intelligence units of the Ministry of Defense, the Security Service of Ukraine, the State Border Committee, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs in particular that the unimpeded implementation of the special operation by Russian intelligence agencies—the "cassette scandal" involving the murder (disappearance) of journalist Gongadze—was possible. This scandal caused enormous damage to the statehood of Ukraine, plunging our country into chaos, and setting in motion the process of alienation and occupation of significant territories of our state by an external aggressor.
What's noteworthy is that it was the Main Directorate for Combating Organized Crime of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, including criminal intelligence and Sokol, who worked under the supervision of a number of SBU officers, who were, in turn, "tied" to the FSB and the GRU of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, who became the backbone of the killer gangs.
For example, the infamous "Goncharov gang" (Kyiv region) or the "Maryanchuk gang" (Odesa, southern regions of Ukraine). These, essentially sabotage units made up of active employees of the Main Directorate for Combating Organized Crime of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), as well as agents recruited from the criminal underworld, carried out terror for many years, contracting assassinations of prominent and influential Ukrainian politicians, officials, and businessmen, and providing forceful cover for Russian special services operations in Ukraine—without any effective resistance from the intelligence services of the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, or the SBU. And so it remained until September 2000, when the "tape scandal" erupted and it "suddenly" emerged that the Criminal Investigation Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was involved in the surveillance of the journalist.
Fact: all the intelligence agencies under Igor Smeshko's command had no information whatsoever about the impending "Kolchuga scandal," the "cassette scandal," or "Gongadzegate." Even if they had, they did nothing to prevent or counter these special operations.
Yes, at the time of the "tape scandal," Igor Smeshko no longer headed the Intelligence Committee, but "only" headed the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense. But! It's not for nothing that we described above that it was Igor Smeshko who shifted the responsibility for combating organized crime outside of Ukraine to military intelligence, for which purpose he transferred dozens of employees from the Main Directorate for Combating Organized Crime (GUBOP) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs' Sokol unit, among others, to the GUR structure. At the very least, these were colleagues of those who had served in the "Goncharov gang," the "Maryanchuk gang," and similar sabotage units controlled by the Russian special services. There were no "random people" in Sokol and the UBOP during the initial recruitment of these units—they were recruited with specific expertise, there was mutual responsibility, information sharing, and so on.
Let's remember that I. Smeshko headed the Communist Party of the Russian Federation for almost three years and headed the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense for another three years—and during all this time, he was completely unaware of the "werewolf gangs," with no progress in solving the high-profile murders of prominent political figures (Chornovil, Hetman, Shcherban), no high-profile revelations of large-scale corruption schemes within the highest organs of state power, and rampant theft within the same Ministry of Defense.
Russian intelligence agencies have been grazing in Ukraine as if it were their home, promoting their agents and protégés to positions of responsibility and power in our country. Where has the "hero of the invisible front" Igor Smeshko been all this time? The question is rhetorical.
Nikolay Melnichenko
Traitor Major Nikolai Melnichenko and his accomplices spent years "writing" on the President of Ukraine—where was the valiant intelligence?
Igor Smeshko today bears full personal responsibility for what happened to Ukraine—for the collapse of the security services, the Ukrainian army, and the state apparatus. As the state's "chief intelligence officer" and "chief military intelligence officer," he was unable (or unwilling) to prevent the expansion of Russian intelligence services in Ukraine.
Having essentially been dismissed from his post for failure in September 2000, Leonid Kuchma sent I. Smeshko into "diplomatic exile" to Switzerland. He soon returned, after serving out his sentence, and in September 2003, he became head of the SBU. This appointment took place under Viktor Medvedchuk, the head of the Presidential Administration, when virtually all key senior appointments in Ukraine were coordinated with the administration of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Given the importance of I. Smeshko's position, he was "reinforced" by another of Medvedchuk's protégés, Volodymyr Satsyuk, who became Smeshko's deputy.
Volodymyr Satsyuk and Igor Smeshko organized a dinner at Satsyuk's dacha, to which opposition presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko was invited and poisoned with dioxin. He miraculously survived and eventually became president.
Igor Smeshko himself has always denied the fact of poisoning...
These facts alone in I. Smeshko's biography are enough to put a big end to the future career of any intelligence officer.
Nevertheless, this man has once again become the head of the entire Ukrainian intelligence community. And he will be granted access to all state secrets without exception. Secrets and interests that he neither knows how to protect nor defend. Or doesn't want to.
Expect more "greetings" from the Russian special services.
Georgy Semenets, "Argument"
Subscribe to our channels in Telegram, Facebook, Twitter, VC — Only new faces from the section CRYPT!