With Such A Friend, Who Needs Enemies?

By Dr. Andriy Zhalko-Tytarenko and Walter Derzko

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In his interview on June 7, 2013, Yurij Lutsenko stated, that he will be ready to make peace with the State Prosecutor’s office, if Deputy State Prosecutor Renat Kuzmin is fired. His motivation is that firing Renat Kuzmin will liberate many people from a fear which they experienced before this “self-inflated Great Inquisitor”, as Lutsenko puts it. Lutsenko continues that everyone who broke the law and shattered people’s lives must leave public service.

The damage goes far beyond that. The situation with Victor Yanukovych is going from bad to worse. According to a recent poll by the Democratic Initiatives Foundation, his approval rating is at 6.5%; an additional 18-19% of Ukrainians partly approve his policies, and 48% disapprove. His balancing act between Russia and the West has come to the point where he needs to make a final decision. He can go east, get paid, alienate his Ukrainian oligarchs and the majority of Ukrainians, and eventually receive asylum in Russia. There are precedents for this: the Slobodan Milosevic family from Serbia, Asian Abashidze, the former leader of the Ajarian Autonomous Republic in western Georgia, Ukrainian Igor Bakai and Belorussian General Volodymyr Naumov are already in Moscow. He can go west, gain support from a majority of Ukrainians, relax tensions with his oligarchs, and regain admittance into the club of civilized country leaders. In this case, the west will probably go easy on Dutch MAKO HOLDING, British BLYTHE (EUROPE) Ltd. and other shadowy ventures, while if he goes east, this will not likely be the case. It has come down to the wire now, and even a small push can get Yanukovych spiraling down a route which he will later regret or the decision can be made for him, by an intentional or simply clumsy move made by hyperactive, flunky bureaucrats somewhere in the system. It is very difficult to negotiate internationally when someone at home takes steps which directly contradict the commitments of the Head of State. The President finds himself in a really awkward situation: either he has to admit, that he has no control over the run-away bureaucrats at home, or he looks like a double-faced liar.

And then along comes Deputy State Prosecutor Rinat Kuzmin. A year ago his PR manager Alexandre Sery arranged for Kuzmin to hold a long interview with the The Kiev Times (not The Kiev Post) outlet. Lucky for Kuzmin, Kiev Times is by far not The New York Times. The world ranking of The Kiev Times is 162,688th, the Ukrainian rating is 1,414th, the reach is 0.00134% and falling, and the most popular topic is “Night Life in a Detention Facility”, in other words, no one reads it, and those few who do read it, aren’t looking for the Deputy State Prosecutor’s interview. Alexander Sery, is otherwise known for advancing the case of dismantling the two hundred year old historic Hostinny Dvir buildings in Kyiv for the sake of “progress”. These attempts already called for mass protests and near riots in Kyiv. If Mr. Sery is still the PR manager for Mr. Kuzmin, Mr. Kuzmin has made a wrong choice.

He likely still is, because Kuzmin cannot stop. On May 28, 2013 he gave a new interview, to Ukrainian Forbes. Ukrainian Forbes also is not exactly the Forbes which we all know, so Kuzmin’s interview did not come out in the West. The timing of the interview (May 28, 2013) was “strategic.” While Yanukovych was talking to Putin in Astana, Kuzmin attacked the USA, as well as Hillary Clinton and American public servants. He accused German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy of incompetence, showed no respect for the ruling of the European Court, and could not stop before threatening the former President, Leonid Kuchma. It was a clear signal to Russia that Ukraine is not really serious about its European plans; Kuzmin had weakened the position of his boss in the negotiations. We all knew that Ukraine signaled plans to eventually become an observer in the Customs Union - probably the most that Putin could expect this time. It is quite possible that Renat Kuzmin contributed to this success of the Russia’s diplomacy. This is not necessary a conspiracy: close ties of Renat Kuzmin and former State Prosecutor Gennady Vasiliev are a matter of the common knowledge. Vasiliev is a well known promoter of the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill in Ukraine; he already sponsored the attempt of a “coup d’etat’ to overthrow the Metropolitan Vladimir, and replace him with much more pro-Moscow Illarion or Metropolitan Agafangel (Sawin) of Odessa. The close ties of the Russian Patriarchy and Kremlin are well known.

If anything can save Yanukovych’s reputation and restore his relations with the West, it is to follow the ruling of the European Court, restore civilized legal proceedings in the country, and take the first step of the long journey of rebuilding relations with Western elites. Angering and humiliating the two-term Ukrainian President by beating the dead horse of the “Melnychenko tapes” is probably the most damaging activity for Yanukovych after the prosecution of Tymoshenko, but Kuzmin keeps on going. If Victor Yanukovych is serious about European integration, he has to silence Mr. Kuzmin. As a matter of fact, if he wants to conduct any independent policies, he needs to do this - the Deputy State Prosecutor de-facto assumes the role of the policy maker, who influences Ukrainian international politics going over the head of the President.