Wikileaks mentioning Ukraine

[Gotno Gizmo]

All manner of revealing scandalous political stuff is appearing on the internet and elsewhere resulting from the Wikileaks releases. I thought it would be an interesting idea for Ukraine.com contributors to post any material concerning Ukraine that they found interesting in this thread. Here is a a fairly mild piece from the Guardian to start things off:-

WikiLeaks cables link Russian mafia boss to EU gas supplies | World news | guardian.co.uk

I hope other site members will find more interesting ones

[stepanstas]

Ya, Ukraine.com Forums - Holodomor, WikiLeaks and Russia's single historical space

This one talks about Russia's threats about Holodomor recognition. Explains a few things. Written by Stepan Bandera (actual Stepan Bandera's grandson, I think).

[stepanstas]

WikiLeaks: U.S. official accuses Ukraine of lying about arms sales to Sudan

The U.S. had satellite imagery that proved Ukraine lied about shipping arms to South Sudan, according to a U.S. State Department cable published Dec. 8 by WikiLeaks.

Such sales to Sudan would violate international sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council because of the alleged genocide that has taken place during a protracted and bloody civil war.

The arms shipments were made in 2008, and included tanks and other weapons aboard the Faina, a ship that was hijacked by Somali pirates on Sept. 25, 2008, before later being released on Feb. 5, 2009,after a ransom was paid.

The account of meetings between Vann H. Van Diepen, a U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state, and senior Ukrainian officials in November 2009 also detail how American diplomats raised concerns that Ukraine:

- intended to sell missile systems to Saudi Arabia capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction;

- continued to exports parts, albeit in reduced quantities and not completed weapons, to the military dictatorship in Myanmar;

- was not intervening in the sale by Ukrainian entities of specialty metals for Iran’s ballistic missiles.

Ukraine’s export of arms hit the headlines when the Faina was captured by Somali pirates in September 2008 en route to Kenya. According to the account of the meeting in the cable, Ukraine claimed the weapons on board this and an earlier shipment were destined for Kenya, but Van Diepen produced a copy of a contract that showed the arms were destined for South Sudan. The Ukrainian side “held to this line, questioned the authenticity of the contract, and asked if the U.S. had any better evidence,” whereupon Van Diepen “showed the Ukrainians cleared satellite imagery of T-72 tanks unloaded in Kenya, transferred to rail yards for onward shipment, and finally in South Sudan.”

“This led to a commotion on the Ukrainian side,” the author of the cable noted laconically. Ukrainian officials claimed they couldn’t be held responsible for the actions of Kenya.

Arms exports to the war-torn country are carefully watched, and under embargo to the Darfur region. South Sudan was granted a degree of autonomy from Sudan in 2005.

U.N. officials told the Associated Press in 2008 that there was no blanket arms embargo on Sudan’s government, but any movement of military equipment and supplies into the Darfur region would violate a U.N. arms embargo if it were not first requested by the government and approved by the UN Security Council's Sudan sanctions committee.

Van Diepen reminded the Ukrainians that Sudan was on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terror and rebuked the Ukrainian side for lying. He added that the U.S. “would have to consider whether to impose sanctions for the tank transfer, and that a factor in U.S. deliberations would be whether the [government of Ukraine] was being truthful.”

[AkMike]

Still more..Wikileaks , Gazprom ,Mafia and Ukraine


Ukraine's Firtash questioned over mafia links - Yahoo! UK & Ireland Finance

Dmitry Firtash, the Ukrainian businessman who was for years a key figure in the multi-billion dollar Russian natural gas trade to Ukraine and Europe (news) , reportedly admitted ties to alleged organised crime bosses during talks with US officials.

According to diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks this week, Mr Firtash told the US ambassador to Kiev in 2008 that he had sought permission from Semyon Mogilevich, who is on the FBI's 10 most wanted list, when setting up some businesses.

The US alleges that Mr Mogilevich, who was arrested in Russia (OMXR.EX - news) in 2008 for alleged tax evasion but released last year, is a leading mafia boss.

Mr Firtash owns 45 per cent of RosUkrEnergo, the gas trader half-owned by Russia's Gazprom (GAZP.ME - news) that until 2009 held the monopoly on supplying Russian gas to Ukraine. RosUkrEnergo was at the centre of two disputes between Kiev and Moscow since 2006 that disrupted supplies of Russian gas to European markets.

(More on the link)

[stepanstas]

Leaked Cables Show U.S. Was Wrong On Ukraine's Yanukovych

The U.S. Embassy cables from Ukraine leaked recently by the website WikiLeaks prompt two observations.

The first is that the embassy believed Party of Regions leader Viktor Yanukovych had changed from what he was during the 2004 election, when he sought to come to power through election fraud. The second is that U.S. officials believed Yulia Tymoshenko was not a better option than Yanukovych in the 2010 presidential election. One cable quotes former President Leonid Kuchma as saying the 2010 election was one of "choosing between bad and very bad" -- with Tymoshenko allegedly being the latter.

Both of these positions were fundamentally wrong -- especially as seen from the hindsight of Yanukovych's first year in power.

The WikiLeaks cables critical of Tymoshenko were a reflection of her own mistakes and of lobbying by U.S. political consultants working for Yanukovych and the Party of Regions since 2005. One of the main criticisms was that Tymoshenko is a "populist," a claim that ignores widespread populism among all Ukrainian politicians. Indeed, Yanukovych was the most populist in the 2010 elections and the prize for the most populist billboard goes to former President Viktor Yushchenko, who promised to place a 20 percent tax on yachts, limousines, and villas.

The U.S. Embassy bought into the accusation that Tymoshenko was beholden to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Tymoshenko was allegedly the biggest threat to Ukraine's sovereignty and willing to be Russia's pawn, according to a cable quoting oligarch Dmytro Firtash. Evidence to back this conclusion was her supposed concessions on Georgia during Russia's 2008 invasion and Moscow-friendly positions on the Holodomor and the Black Sea Fleet.

In reality, Yanukovych has caved in to Russia on all three issues. During the Georgian crisis, the Party of Regions and the Communist Party (KPU) supported Russia's dismemberment of Georgia. Likewise, the Party of Regions and the KPU did not support the 2006 law on the Holodomor, and Yanukovych has adopted Russia's position that it was a Soviet (not Ukrainian) famine. As president, he has extended the Black Sea Fleet base in Sevastopol until 2042-47. A January 2010 U.S. cable reports Yanukovych telling the U.S. ambassador that he was ready to extend the base in exchange for economic preferences from Russia.

Yanukovych, The Pro-Russian Candidate

All this led to the mistaken impression that Russia supported both Tymoshenko and Yanukovych in the 2010 election, as they were both "pro-Russian" and Moscow would be satisfied with either winning the election. Yushchenko made this argument during the campaign, calling for his supporters not to vote for either candidate in the second round of balloting. That decision probably cost Tymoshenko the election, since she ended up losing by just 3 percentage points.

Other cables claimed it made no difference whether Yanukovych or Tymoshenko were elected as both are authoritarian and would allegedly seek to build a "Putinist vertical power." Such analysis contradicted the reality that Tymoshenko did not have the political machine, ability to blackmail deputies, or control of television stations necessary for such a project. In addition, since 2008 Tymoshenko has consistently argued for the need to move toward a full parliamentary system. The authoritarianism of the Party of Regions is well documented among Ukrainian sociologists and has been plain to see during the transformation of parliament into a rubber-stamp institution and the return to a presidential constitution.

U.S. cables also buy into the argument of a "pragmatic" wing in the Party of Regions that supposedly desires to unify Ukraine and is pro-European, even possibly willing to compromise on NATO. Such views were intensely lobbied by U.S. political consultants working for the Party of Regions.

But the pragmatic wing of the Party of Regions was not evident in 2005-08 when the party voted with the KPU against legislation to join the WTO. Ukraine's 2008 WTO membership paves the way for the signing of a Deep Free Trade Agreement with the EU, a process the pragmatic wing of the Party of Regions allegedly supports.

These cables also ignored the anti-NATO stances of Yanukovych and the Party of Regions, arguing that this was election rhetoric to mobilize eastern Ukrainian voters that would be ignored after the voting. Again this was wrong, as President Yanukovych is the first of four post-Soviet Ukrainian presidents to not support NATO membership. The party has also adopted contradictory positions on Ukraine's participation in NATO's Program for Peace exercises, opposing them when in opposition (leading to the cancellation of the Sea Breeze exercises in 2006 and 2009) and supporting them when in power.

U.S. cables from Ukraine also claimed that Yanukovych, if he won the 2010 election, would not be a Russian pawn and would defend Ukraine's interests, even if only in the economic sphere. Although Yanukovych defends his economic interests from Russia, he has adopted domestic, national-identity, and foreign policies that are in Russia's national interests. Russia successfully lobbied for the four candidates who became the chairman of the Security Service (SBU) and ministers of education, foreign affairs, and defense. Russian citizens illegally control the president's bodyguards and the media-analytical section of the presidential administration.

The Real Yanukovych

U.S. cables from 2005-06 were more critical of the Party of Regions, but in 2008-10 two factors changed. First, public-relations efforts by U.S. consultants persuaded many in the West, including the U.S. Embassy, that Yanukovych had changed. This ignored his unwillingness to concede the election fraud of 2004 and his continued contention that he won that election. A December 2005 cable quotes Yanukovych as complaining that a "putsch" and "Kuchma's machinations" had denied him the presidency. One cable analyzed the Party of Regions' "heavily pro-Russian campaign rhetoric" in 2006, attributing this to its co-option of Communist voters.

A second factor that changed the tone in the U.S. cables by 2008 was Western fatigue with the feuding Orange political leaders, Yushchenko and Tymoshenko. The pair had squandered the five years of opportunity given to them by the Orange Revolution.

All four elections held on Yanukovych's watch -- two as governor in Donetsk in 1999 and 2002 and two as prime minister and president in 2004 and 2010 -- have been criticized as unfree. U.S. cables from 2005-06 showed that senior members of the Kuchma government who were involved in abuse of office and election fraud were embedded in the Party of Regions, which is described as a "cover for Donetsk criminal circles and oligarchs."

These cables continued to be skeptical about the new face of the Party of Regions and express concern it would abuse state administrative resources, tamper with election laws, and seek to close media outlets they do not control. This is precisely what Yanukovych has done in his first year in office.