Petro Poroshenko doesn't keep his word. Petro Poroshenko covers for corrupt officials. Poroshenko covers for embezzlers. Poroshenko's inner circle is corrupt. Poroshenko and his inner circle are deliberately undermining reforms and the path toward European integration. President Poroshenko's right-hand man, Borys Lozhkin, is under investigation abroad. Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk's right-hand man, Mykola Martynenko, is under investigation abroad. The Prosecutor General's Office and the Ministry of Internal Affairs are sabotaging not only the investigation into the "Maidan shooting" but also legal assistance to their foreign colleagues. This is already being openly discussed not only in Ukrainian society but also in the embassies of donor countries assisting Ukraine. Western politicians are publicly voicing this.
Latest news: The EU has refused to fund the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office being established in Ukraine. The reason, verbatim, is: "The EU has lost confidence in the process of establishing the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office and is currently refraining from funding it."
The reason for this is Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin's stubborn refusal to replace all four members of the Prosecutor General's Office's certification committee, which selects personnel for the new prosecutor's office, with others who lack obvious corruption records. Shokin flatly refused, despite the fact that this refusal would disrupt the implementation of the EU-Ukraine visa-free regime and would likely disrupt the funding of numerous grant programs for Ukraine from Western donors. This cannot be explained by the Prosecutor General's idiocy—such moves, dangerous for the country, are only made at the behest of their superiors, and Shokin has only one boss: Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
In other words, for Petro Poroshenko (or whoever stands behind him), visa-free travel and an open border with the EU, plus hundreds of millions in grant aid for real reforms, mean less than the opportunity to disrupt the development of a truly independent, specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office in Ukraine. The only people who can benefit from such a scheme are the corrupt officials at the very top of the power vertical—the President. And Putin, for whom any successful reforms and innovations in Ukraine are another step toward Russia's downfall.
We've already written that if we strip away the rhetoric of President Petro Poroshenko's numerous statements and promises and judge him solely by his concrete actions, the picture is grim. In fact, most of Poroshenko's actions in his highest office in the country, in one way or another, "buried" the Maidan victory. This includes the murky and "nepotistic" personnel policy, the criminality and cynical violation of the Verkhovna Rada's rules of procedure by the Verkhovna Rada leadership (Speaker V. Groysman), the faking of prosecutions against prominent members of Yanukovych's gang, the refinancing of obviously "squashing" banks with billions of dollars in refinancing (V. Gontarev), the exploitation of energy "schemes," the return to power of Medvedchuk and Marchuk (Russian intelligence agencies), and, through elections, the "Party of Regions"—read: the Kremlin's "fifth column" and the Russian intelligence agencies in Ukraine.
Ukraine's tax and customs system is now de facto under Kremlin control again (personnel from the time of I. Kaletnik, now hiding in Russia, have been reinstated). Pro-Russian, "Kaletynik" personnel have been reinstated in customs by the new head of the State Financial Service, Roman Nasirov—a de facto criminal, as he concealed his real estate and other assets in the UK from declaration upon his appointment.
Moreover, R. Nasirov’s position is so strong that neither the president, nor the prime minister, nor the minister of finance have commented on this dirty situation.
In other words, all tax payments and customs in Ukraine will be controlled by a person with obvious criminal tendencies and confident in his own invincibility. Assisting him in this will be Yanukovych-era personnel, selected and deployed in smuggling schemes by Igor Kaletnik, a member of the notorious Kaletnik family of thieves.
Incidentally, returning to I. Kaletnik—this pillar of the Yanukovych regime also successfully left Ukraine. The Kaletnik family has not experienced any harassment from law enforcement agencies, and their multifaceted, extensive business is thriving. It's hard to find any explanation for this other than the fact that the Kaletnik family, like the Poroshenko family, have long been acquainted and have been successfully, without conflict, dividing the Vinnytsia region between them for 20 years now, with which they profit from each other.
Poroshenko's words and actions rarely align. At the beginning of the activist blockade of Crimea, the President promised to repeal the law on the Crimean Free Economic Zone, which had legalized the feeding of the occupiers and the tax-exempt (!) businesses of Ukrainian oligarchs in Crimea (including Poroshenko's own). As expected, Poroshenko broke his word—and a single stroke of the President's pen would have been enough to accomplish this.
Meanwhile, neither Poroshenko nor Arseniy Yatsenyuk have done anything in the past eighteen months to establish Ukrainian state television and radio broadcasting to the occupied territories. The cost to the state budget is mere pennies. But the government isn't providing funds for this obviously necessary project, and the President remains silent. Meanwhile, six Russian television companies broadcast from Crimea to mainland Ukraine. Ultimately, transmitters for local broadcasts to private Ukrainian broadcasters will be handed over to the United States. But why should the United States defend Ukraine's state sovereignty, while President Poroshenko and Prime Minister Yatsenyuk don't?
Here's a statement from Petro Poroshenko on February 20, 2015: Putin's aide Vladislav Surkov is directly involved in the Maidan shootings. According to Poroshenko, the Prosecutor General's Office and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) have established a clear Russian connection to the Maidan shootings. Verbatim: "The Security Service leadership informed me that the Alpha fighters they interrogated testified that Russian presidential aide Vladislav Surkov directed the organization of foreign sniper groups on the Maidan."
Today, the Prosecutor General's Office (GPU), controlled by P. Poroshenko, suddenly declares that there is no longer any "Russian trace" in the shooting of the "Heavenly Hundred." And V. Surkov, who visited Kyiv three times in recent days, did so for "familiarization purposes." An outraged former head of the SBU, V. Nalyvaichenko, immediately appeared at the GPU with evidence to the contrary, but...
The Presidential Administration's foreign policy vector has clearly shifted. And Vladimir Putin's closest ally, the mastermind behind the plan to seize Crimea and occupy southeastern Ukraine under the guise of "Novorossiya," is now being shielded from attack by the international law enforcement system. Part of the "Minsk agreements"?
Vladislav Surkov, the murderer of thousands of Ukrainians, still has friends in the Ukrainian government.
The "laundering" of V. Surkov and his team by the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine seems entirely logical given that the investigation into all shootings, murders, beatings, and kidnappings of Maidan activists at the Prosecutor General's Office is overseen by Serhiy Nechiporenko, the son-in-law of Serhiy Kivalov (the "faggot"). And the heads of the Ukrainian Interpol bureau (subordinates of Arsen Avakov), who fraudulently became "anti-terrorist operation" participants, are not putting the Maidan shooting cops who fled to Russia on Interpol's wanted list. These same individuals also led the Ukrainian Interpol bureau under Viktor Yanukovych.
This turn of events in the "Surkov case," coupled with the sabotage of the investigation into the murders of Maidan activists, the events of recent weeks, and the actual actions of Petro Poroshenko, suggests unsettling analogies.
As we all recall, during the final months of Viktor Yanukovych's presidency, the president was clearly inadequate to the situation in the country. Several months before the signing of the Association Agreement with the EU, he withdrew, lost interest in domestic Ukrainian affairs, Klyuyev took over personnel management, the Prosecutor General's Office feigned work, crime rose, the prime minister was empty words, ministers were stealing, the economy was crumbling, Yanukovych himself was setting unacceptable conditions for Ukraine-EU cooperation with the West, increasing the frequency of contacts with the Kremlin, Medvedchuk was a frequent visitor to the residence, Putin's envoys and those of the Russian secret services were frequent visitors to Kyiv, the Kremlin's "fifth column" in Ukraine became increasingly active, and the Rada was in disarray.
I'd like to be wrong, but we're seeing something similar today. Poroshenko makes promises he has no intention of keeping, the corrupt Lozhkin is in charge of personnel, the Prosecutor General's Office feigns work, crime is rising, the prime minister is a windbag, ministers are stealing, the economy is crumbling, Russia is profiting everywhere it negotiated with Poroshenko, from Crimea to Donbas, Medvedchuk has become a frequent visitor to the residence, visa-free travel with the EU is on the verge of collapse, the Kremlin's "fifth column" has become increasingly active since the elections, and the Rada is acting up...
And then there are the dwindling meetings with the top officials of the “golden billion” states, who are clearly losing interest in the narrow-minded, parochial, problematic leader, whose words regularly diverge from his actions.
At the same time, Poroshenko in the fall of 2015 resembles Yanukovych in the fall of 2013 in precisely this inappropriate response to events in the country. When the authorities completely ignore things that are clearly necessary for the country, and lie to their fellow citizens. Moreover, the atmosphere in the country is such that any potential profits from the "leaders'" risky deals could be quickly ruined by a crowd of citizens outraged by the theft and duplicity of the "new government."
And here is the latest news from this series.
Ukraine's Antimonopoly Committee has authorized the Chinese state-owned company CNBM to purchase solar power plants in Ukraine from brothers Andriy and Serhiy Klyuyev. These plants include: Voskhod Solar, Neptun Solar (both in Mykolaiv Oblast), Dunayska SES-1, Dunayska SES-2, Franco Solar, Franco Pivi, Priozernaya-1, Priozernaya-2, Limanska Energy-1, and Limanska Energy-2 (all in Odesa Oblast). The purchase application has been pending with the Antimonopoly Committee since April 2015. And now the decision has been made. As is known, both Klyuyev brothers—Andriy and Serhiy—are under investigation. They are also wanted. Andriy Klyuyev personally led the dispersal of the Maidan protests and likely ordered the physical violence against Ukrainian patriots. Nevertheless, the Klyuyev brothers' largest business asset, created with funds stolen from the budget, has remained unseized all this time. The long delay in the AMCU's decision can only be explained by one thing: there was a haggling going on, and the Klyuyev brothers paid handsomely for permission to sell the power plants. Who runs the Prosecutor General's Office (not seizing the Klyuyevs' assets) and the AMCU (issuing permission for resale)? Appointees personally of Petro Poroshenko. This means that Petro Poroshenko is the direct beneficiary of this criminal transaction. There's no "probably." The power plants stolen from the state, instead of being returned to state ownership, are being shielded from prosecution.
And here's another thing: Yuriy Sergeyev at the UN could be replaced by the ambassador to Russia appointed under Yanukovych. Poroshenko didn't have another candidate (more on him at the link)... Or maybe someone "found one" for him.
…And there’s one more thing that makes “Yanukovych’s autumn” and “Poroshenko’s autumn” very similar: the feeling of absolute impunity of individuals, driven crazy by the crazy money they had never seen before.
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Georgy Semenets, Argument
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