Black Square

Technical aspect

The case of Yuliya Tymoshenko’s high treason was, supposedly, initiated by Viktor Gvozd, Chief of the Main Intelligence Division of the Ministry of Defence, promoted to Major-General three days ago. His analytical paper laid the foundation of a pyramid of evidence of the Prime Minister’s pro-Russian activities. Quoting a high-ranking official in one of the Russian ministries who communicates with an employee of the Russian Premier’s office, an informant of the Main Intelligence Division reported that during her negotiations with Putin, Tymoshenko promised to expedite Russian business interests in Ukrainian privatization and to refrain from supporting President Yushchenko’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations in return for backing her as a presidential candidate.

There is another version whereby the case was triggered by an audio record that the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine obtained in the course of air monitoring. According to the source, two interlocutors who are non-Ukrainian residents used frequencies monitored by the intelligence service so as to convey to them the contents of the last conversation between the Russian and Ukrainian premiers.

These are guesses vented by the secret service representatives. What we know for sure is that the Presidential Secretariat – personified by Viktor Baloha’s deputies Shlapak and Kyslynsky – accused Yuliya Tymoshenko of political corruption and parricide aiming to mobilize financial and political support from Russian leaders. The Secretariat spokespersons said they would pass the available evidence over to the prosecution. The prosecution studied the evidence, found no fact of crime in it and refused to institute criminal proceedings against Tymoshenko. Upon brief contemplation, the Secretariat instructed the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) to analyze the evidence and determine if there were components of crime and premeditation in Tymoshenko’s behaviour. According to ZN sources, the Security Service of Ukraine got hold of some documents signed by Yuliya Tymoshenko and, probably, tapes. SBU sent queries to the Cabinet of Ministers and Foreign Intelligence Service (sic!). If the tapes do exist, the Security Service cannot claim it received them by mail in an unsigned envelope, can it?

According to SBU acting Chief Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, the President’s petition to the Security Service contains seven counts. ZN knows five of them. The Presidential Secretariat accuses the prime Minister of: obstructing the direct use of the Odessa-Brody oil pipeline; sabotaging the implementation of the NSDC and government decisions on the Black Sea Fleet; conniving at the Russian interference in the nuclear power sector (Turboatom, National Joint Stock Company Energoatom); promoting preferences in tariff policy regarding Russian cargo transportation; undermining the country’s defence capacity through under-financing its armed forces.

Yuliya Tymoshenko, coming back after vacation (which she did not spend on the Mediterranean coast, according to ZN sources), suggested that the Secretariat change the sign on its building in Bankova Street to “lunatic asylum.”

Premier’s perspective

The tradition of Ukrainian leaders going to Moscow seeking to muster more electorate is long-standing. Kuchma, Vitrenko, Symonenko, Lytvyn, Yanukovych – all of them were eager to win support for their election campaigns from the Kremlin. Yuliya Tymoshenko and Viktor Yushchenko are no exception. However, some time ago neither of them had an opportunity to insert a handshake with Vladimir Putin in their promotion videos; besides it was not what their voters would expect of them. As for the content of conversations between Ukrainian and Russian leaders, the lasting tradition has been to promise everything and to do nothing, or next to nothing. In fact, this was the main reason for the souring of relations between the two countries. Ukrainian leaders could never follow suit of their Kazakh counterparts who have always been firm in advancing their national interests, vocal in defining the “negotiation margin” and consistent in implementing the reached agreements.

Now back to Yuliya Tymoshenko. ZN published the list of issues discussed by the two prime ministers during their 90-minute tête-à-tête talk (see Yeremenko’s full interview with Oleh Dubyna, CEO of the National Joint Stock Company NAFTOGAS UKRAINY) long before the Secretarial “exposed the plot.” We maintained that the government’s activities relating to Energoatom, Zhovti Vody, aviation concern, Odessa Port Plant and Black Sea Fleet should be closely monitored for their adherence to Ukraine’s state and public interests. At that time we had no reasons to blame the Prime Minister for gratifying Russian interests. Frankly speaking, one such reason has emerged since then: Yuliya Tymoshenko has failed to sign the resolution (adopted twice by the Cabinet of Ministers) on the rules for relocation of the Black Sea Fleet forces (including vessels, aircraft, armoured vehicles and personnel) within the territory of Ukraine and across its state border. At a press-conference Olexander Shlapak claimed that at first Tymoshenko did not want to sign the resolution on the eve of her visit to Moscow, which is understandable. Yet the Cabinet resolution was not enacted upon her return form Moscow, either. As a result, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry lost legal leverage it could have used when it came to the Russian naval parade in Sevastopol. The resolution could have been instrumental at the beginning of the Russian-Georgian armed conflict as well.

Other than that, the Prime Minister’s behaviour can hardly be qualified as pro-Russian. The fight for Energoatom between Derkach, Dubov and Nedashkivsky seems to be won by the latter. The whole matter is too complicated but, while others were trying to sort it out, Yuliya Tymoshenko’s right-hand man got the upper hand.

The Prime Minister’s denying licence for direct use of the Odessa-Brody oil pipeline to an off-shore company could be interpreted as betrayal of Kolomoisky’s, rather than national, interests.

The Ukrainian transportation sector has not been properly managed for four years now (for want of an effective minister), let alone Ukrainian railways. The latter have been beneficial only to their appointed CEOs: Gladkikh, who works for the Russian Railways now, member of the Party of Regions Prygotsky and BYT member Kovzel.

Those blaming Tymoshenko for undermining the defence capacity are right only in theory. Insufficient funding of the armed forces is a curse of all budgets – adopted and rejected. At the same time, the Commander-in-chief should be blamed for the absence of a military development strategy. Moreover, he signed all of the scanty military budgets although he could have vetoed them.

According to ZN sources, Viktor Medvedchuk and his team did, indeed, provide legal expertise and support to a number of the BYT initiatives, including the new draft Constitution. Rumour has it Medvedchuk met with Medvedev in Moscow on the Ukrainian Premier’s behalf. What could Yuliya Tymoshenko want from the Russian leaders? Money for the election campaign? That is ridiculous: there is plenty of money in Ukraine, and few experts know how to spend it wisely. Access to the media? They belong to Ukrainian oligarchs, so she should be negotiating with them. A picture with Vladimir Putin to endorse the candidate with his popularity? Tymoshenko has already got it. Besides, one should not overestimate Moscow’s impact on the outcome of Ukrainian elections: in 2004 the Kremlin lost; in 2006-2007 it preferred to keep aloof.

Yuliya Tymoshenko could want two things: a gas price that, in her opinion, should not rise more than by 25%-30% and exceed USD 230, given that the transit tariff remains unchanged (a tentative agreement thereon was reached before her vacation); a programme allowing the Antonov Aircraft Building Plant to be saved. Olexander Zinchenko will be in a better position to comment on the latter. As for the former, there is no guarantee that the tentative agreement will be honoured, and even Tymoshenko’s studied silence about the Caucasian conflict might not help her get what was promised to her.

It is unfair to reprimand Yuliya Tymoshenko for inconsistency and passivity in respect to NATO. She has never had a clear vision of Ukraine’s foreign policy and security priorities. Here she does not lead the public but, rather, is led by the public sentiment. Frankly speaking, foreign policy is not a strong point of any of the three principal Ukrainian politicians. They take part in international life by proxy – through their advisers and western PR companies. In NATO-related matters, Tymoshenko could think she has fulfilled all her obligations to Yushchenko when she signed the MAP letter.

Until recently, Ukrainian leaders’ traditional commercial-and-political bargaining with the Kremlin was promoted as strategic partnership. Now it is downplayed as high treason. The Prime Minister has only briefly commented on the shift of definition. When a couple of months ago BYT made a public statement accusing Viktor Yushchenko of “betraying national interests,” the president totally ignored it. In this country words lost meaning and power long ago. Of course, BYT had neither the tame secret service at their disposal nor clout with the General Prosecutor’s Office. The President and his Secretariat intend to use all available opportunities and means, for the reasons listed below.

President’s perspective

First, the Secretariat people are sure that the case of high treason is a long-term project that will, eventually, ruin Tymoshenko’s ratings. Viktor Yushchenko has to deactivate or weaken Tymoshenko as a primary presidential candidate. This can be done by discrediting Tymoshenko in the eyes of her core constituencies in the West and Centre of the country and exploiting their fairly high sensitivity to the topic of Russian threat to Ukraine’s independence. So far, the Secretariat has not succeeded, which is evident from the survey conducted, on ZN commission, by the TNS-Ukraine Company. “The presidential Secretariat accused Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko of political corruption, parricide and colluding with the Russian leadership about supporting her at the next presidential elections. What do you think of it?” – was the question. Surveyed were 1200 persons from cities and towns with more than 20,000 residents. Their responses break down as follows: 52.7% — “I do not care, this is all about the election struggle between Yushchenko and Tymoshenko”; 18.2% — “I think these allegations are false”; 10.4% — “I think these accusations are true”; 10.5% — “I do not care”; 8.2% — “It is hard to say”. Half of the Ukrainian voters are known to disapprove of Tymoshenko; so anyone who dislikes her or always votes against her could have told the sociologists that he or she believes in the accusations. Therefore, 10.4% is too low a rate of the launched slander campaign efficiency. It looks like in the future, even if Tymoshenko loses part of her constituency in Western Ukraine, she will be able to gain latent votes in the East and South. It could be a potential threat to Viktor Yanukovych’s ratings, rather than to Tymoshenko’s. Interestingly, some MPs from the Party of Regions were seriously worried over the news of Tymoshenko’s alleged scheming with the Kremlin: “What are we trying to accomplish?”

Second, the foiled ratings war should not upset its masterminds in the Secretariat. Maybe Tibery Durdynets, SBU Deputy Chief in charge of checking the President’s “seven counts,” will find some data interpretable as proof of the Prime Ministers’ activities in Russia’s favour. These data could be used as an argument in persuading members of the Our Ukraine/People’s Self-defence faction to join the “group of 37.” Unless this group is established, no new coalition with the Party of Regions and Lytvyn Bloc can be formed in the event of Tymoshenko’s dismissal. At the moment, the OU-PS faction has no thirty seven MPs ready for reformatting the coalition. However, the Secretariat hopes that the Constitutional Court ruling or the withdrawal of another dozen MPs from the coalition in early September will give a chance to the “broad coalition.” If MPs fail to form a new coalition within a month, the President can dissolve the Verkhovna Rada. In this case quite a few incumbent MPs forming the OU-PS faction will not make it to Parliament. The Secretariat people believe that such MPs will use the allegations against Tymoshenko as a public excuse for joining the “group of 37,” on the one hand, and saving face, on the other.

Third, allegations against Tymoshenko are meant not only to kill her ratings but also to facilitate Yushchenko’s new positioning and improve his ratings. Most probably, his spin doctors are planning to portray the head of state as a leader of anti-Russian forces and public opinion. In fact, they will be using a method of splitting the nation, akin to that applied by Yanukovych’s consultants in 2004. You will remember that when Kuchma nominated his successor, Yanukovych’s popular support was as low as 15%, and his biography was not conducive to the growth popularity. So his team came up with slogans aiming to attract pro-Soviet and pro-Russian electorate, even at the cost of tearing the nation into two.

President Yushchenko seems to be willing to twist a knife in the nation's wound and, despite his own mantras about uniting Ukraine, to try and raise his 8% rating by exploiting anti-Russian sentiment. He hopes to muster the lacking votes in the territories controlled by the Secretariat’s business partners from the Party of Regions, who have a wealth of experience in “correct” vote counting… Viktor Yushchenko has several subjective reasons to do so. He failed to establish meaningful relations with Vladimir Putin, who viewed the “orange” revolution leader as a living reminder of his biggest foreign policy blunder. Yushchenko had a chance to amend his relations with the Kremlin after Dmitry Medvedev was elected President. Yet his visit to Georgia, open support of President Saakashvili and tough stance over the Black Sea Fleet (voiced by the Foreign Ministry) made it impossible. Both Russian leaders are fully aware that they no longer owe Viktor Yushchenko anything for the RosUkrEnergo arrangement. So he will not be able to take on the Russian issue in the East and South of the country. He cannot expect any support from Moscow. Why not try to rip the electorate again, aiming to raise his rating to the level of late 2004 and never caring about the consequences for the country?

Fourth, an article by Vadym Karasiov, political scientist and advisor to Viktor Baloha, about the next elections and the need for Ukrainian people to choose not only their president but also Commander-in-chief and a foreign policy course, suggests that Yushchenko’s political consultants could get him to ride on a tank, fly on a fighter aircraft and emerge from the stormy seas with a platoon of marines, dressed in camouflage gear. For the armed forces to draw pubic attention, several factors should be at play, including: а) the population’s belief in the probability of conflict and in the existence of a potential external enemy; b) the slogan “A woman-traitor cannot be Commander-in-chief under the circumstances!”; c) an increased military budget, which is an objective necessity for the state; and d) the tripling of the military budget in 2009 announced by Defence Minister Yekhanurov, which is a subjective necessity for the presidential candidate.

People ceased regarding Viktor Yushchenko as a messiah long ago; they have never regarded him as an effective manager. According to the Razumkov Centre survey, 60% of Ukrainians do not think Yushchenko is a democrat. Why shouldn’t the politician symbolizing public disappointment to the overwhelming majority of people try on the camouflage gear? Against the background of military parades, exercises, awards and renaming of military units, Yushchenko can emerge in a new light. What the ideologists of his second-term campaign failed to take into account is that the voltage in their grid can prove too high for this new light. The abovementioned TNS-Ukraine Company asked the surveyed: “Do you trust President Viktor Yushchenko as Commander-in-chief?” 22.2% of respondents said they trusted him while 71.5% did not. Geography-wise, 51.5% of residents of Western Ukraine and 84.3%of the population of Southern oblasts distrust the President. Remarkably, young people are more skeptical of Yushchenko’s military command skills than the middle-aged: 70.3% of people over 60 and 73.4% of people aged 20-29 stated they did not trust Yushchenko as Commander-in-chief. 6.3% of respondents were undecided.

There is a way that could, God forbid, seem appealing to the Secretariat due to its great efficiency potential. It is a small victorious war allowing to address all internal problems and to eclipse the Commander-in-chief’s inability to remember the difference between corps and brigade, branches and forces. The Chechen war guaranteed Putin’s victory in the first presidential campaign. Another war united Georgia around Saakashvili, at least temporarily. The war made Medvedev’s ratings soar. Isn’t it tempting?

It will be catastrophic if Yushchenko’s consultants urge him to set up a “hot spot” in Ukraine for the above reasons, although I believe the president will not be talked into such a ruinous course of action. Another danger for the country is his inability to control decisions made and communicated to the executing agencies by the Secretariat. According to our sources in the Secretariat, Yushchenko did not know the contents of half of the censuring letters sent to Tymoshenko on his behalf. The scandal with the presidential decree on appointing Mykola Shvest governor of Dnipropetrovsk oblast, with a facsimile of the President’s signature was also most indicative of the situation in the Secretariat. The most recent in this chain of absurdities was the appointment of the Chief of Odessa Oblast SBU Division, of which SBU Chief Nalyvaichenko learnt from the Internet. According to our sources in the Secretariat, the respective decree also bears only a facsimile signature. Anyway, who can guarantee that somebody would not act behind the organized, meticulous and hardworking President and order that a confrontation be provoked, say, in the Crimea? Pro-Russian organizations behaving like masters of the peninsula and the Black Sea Fleet intelligence division are always ready to provide a pretext.

Upon discussing probable motivation for Viktor Yushchenko to launch a campaign against Yuliya Tymoshenko, I have to ask a logical question: who is to judge her?

Olexander Zinchenko, by far not the most effective manager, was invited to run Viktor Yushchenko’s election campaign in 2004 with the sole purpose of establishing contacts with Russia. His connections proved insufficient for alluring the Kremlin that had already engaged in the battle on Yanukovych’s side, but that is another story.

It is immoral to use foreign money to finance one’s election campaign but the person elected with the help of Borys Berezovsky’s funds is not in the position to point fingers.

A lot has been said about Tymoshenko’s welcoming former Kuchma cronies to her crew. As a matter of fact, both belligerent camps – the Secretariat and the Cabinet – do so. Sometimes those decisions are wise, as in the case of inviting Serhiy Tyhipko to Tymoshenko’s team and Volodymyr Horbuin to Yushchenko’s team. Unfortunately, the President and Prime Minister seldom listen to their advice. As for the others, why is Stepan Havrysh better than Viktor Zadorozhny? If Tymoshenko’s meeting with Medvedchuk is tantamount to betrayal of state interests, then who or what did Yushchenko betray during his leisurely evenings in the bath-house with Rinat Akhmetov? Didn’t the sponsors of Yanukovych’s camping in 2004 finance the OU campaign in 2006? What about Akhmetov, Pinchuk, Kolomoisky?

The politician and economist who in 2004 faint-heartedly withheld comment on the decision to permit the TNK Company to use the Odessa-Brody oil pipeline in reverse direction, suppressing any criticism from his campaign HQ, is not in the position to reproach Tymoshenko for disrespecting Ukraine’s national interests in this area. At that time the oil company was most responsive to the presidential candidate’s needs.

Another question to those who judge Yuliya Tymoshenko is who brought RosUkrEnergo and GASPROM to the Ukrainian market? Who annulled the agreement on cheap gas supplies to Ukraine till 2011 by putting forward the monetarization idea grasped at so enthusiastically by the Kremlin and GASPROM? Who gave the green light to billion-worth loans that caused the NAFTOGAS bankruptcy? Who saved from punishment the NAFTOGAS CEO that embezzled those target loans?

Only once before did the Ukrainian authorities hurt the national interests so badly -- when they gave up the tactical nuclear weapons after the collapse of the USSR, even without demanding adequate compensation. The USA could afford a decent compensation, given that it used to spend at least USD 20 billion per year to ensure the deferral of the nuclear missiles inherited by Ukraine and aimed at America.

Finally, the person who drained the central and regional governmental agencies of professional cadre, the politician who destroyed the state power vertical is not in the position to assess other people’s patriotism. Of course, all post-Maidan prime ministers assisted him in it.

Russia’s perspective

The statement by Deputy Head of the Presidential Secretariat Kyslynsky about Tymoshenko’s collusion with the Russian authorities – may we remind you that this year she has met with Zubkov, Putin and Medvedev? – was placed on the President’s official website. Thus it reflects the President’s official stance on the matter. Why hasn’t Moscow reacted yet? Typically, the Kremlin would respond very promptly to any statement of Ukrainian authorities mentioning Russia even in passing. The impression is that all diplomats in charge of relations with Ukraine work around the clock. GASPROM Press Secretary Kupriyanov, it seems, never sleeps, as if he were manufactured in Japan. In this case Moscow is silent. No one volunteers to explain the origin of USD 1 billion allegedly earmarked for Tymoshenko’s presidential campaign: does the money come from the state budget of the Russian Federation or Putin and Medvedev’s personal savings? Could it be raised by new Russian citizens Bakay, Bilokon, Satsiuk and Bodelan? Moscow says nothing. Presumably, it enjoys watching irresponsible bickering between the Maidan leaders who must, just must, under the circumstances, “think about Ukraine” rather than attack each other. Why shouldn’t Moscow keep silent, letting Yushchenko and Tymoshenko drag each other through the mud? The silence is an indirect indication that the Kremlin did not stake on Tymoshenko and still supports Viktor Yanukovych. Of course, Russian leaders understand that Yanukovych is a poor performer of the orchestrated political game. Every time he takes office, he starts flirting with the West, shifting Russian business interests to the background; his ratings start falling, the electorate – losing faith and the team – looking around for an alternative leader…

Russia is biding its time, while Ukrainian authorities are doing their best to destroy themselves and their country…