Predictions - Past and Future

By Walter Derzko

In 2011, I published over 25 op-ed stories that appeared in numerous publications including The New Pathway, Homin Ukrainy, Kyiv Post and Maidan.org. In many stories, I included predictions for the coming year. As well, back in December 2010, the Strategic Foresight Institute Think Tank project published an extensive list of 47 trends, predictions, “hot buttons”, distractions and “wild cards” (surprises) that we were anticipating for Ukraine, Russia and the Canadian Diaspora. Space limitations prevent us from re-printing all the forecasts, but here are some of the highlights.

First, out of 47 forecasts, we got three wrong. We expected that Mykola Azarov would be dumped as Prime Minister in 2011, and be replaced with possibly Andrij Klujev or Borys Kolesnykov. We thought we might see a coup d’tat in Russia or Ukraine. In fact, it turns out that there was a failed coup against Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin planned for August 2011. (see August Surprise http://bit.ly/tD0EO7)  There were rumours that Renat Akhmetov might dump the Party of Regions as their principle financial sponsor, and maybe start his own party. He recently confirmed, however, that he wouldn’t run for Parliament in 2012. Well, not a bad track record.

Back in mid-2010, I warned that a campaign of arrests against opposition members was in the works. On December 26, 2010, Yurij Lutsenko was arrested, and in August 2011 we saw former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s arrest and later her conviction. That’s after a May 24 phone call between President Viktor Yanukovych and US Vice President Joe Biden, where Yanukovych promised Biden that he would not arrest and imprison Tymoshenko.

We often forget that there are at least 125 political prisoners in Ukraine, if not more.  As a result, I wrote about the need for Western sanctions again Yanukovych’s regime back in June. (http://bit.ly/so1jnt) and again in October (http://bit.ly/uy2P2f). The goal of Canadian Group for Democracy in Ukraine staging three demonstrations in Toronto was not just to support Tymoshenko, Lutsenko and the 125 other political prisoners, but to get all three Canadian political parties thinking about and calling for sanctions, which we witnessed.

This push for sanctions from the Ukrainian side started in earnest, right after the Tymoshenko sentencing.  Various members of the Ukrainian Opposition met with ambassadors from all Western embassies in Kyiv, and started passing on a proposed “Sanctions Watch List”. I obtained a copy of this “black list” from former Economy Minister Bohdan Danylyshyn, who was granted political asylum in Prague, Czech Republic, almost one year ago.

The list has the usual suspects among Ukrainian Party of Regions members, including 12 political figures: 1) President Viktor Yanukovych; 2) his son Alexandr Yanukovych; 3) Renat Akhmetov; 4) Dmytro Firtash; 5) Yurij Boyko; 6) Serhij L’ovochkin; 7) Valerij Khoroshkovsky; 8) Mykola Azarov; 9) Konstantyn Hryshchenko; 10) Andrij Portnov; 11) Anatolij Mohylov; and 12) Serhij Kivalov. Added to this list are four prosecutors and three heads of the State General Prosecutor’s Office, including Viktor Pshonka and Renat Kuzmin, and four representatives from the State prosecution. Also on the “black list” are five economic experts and four general experts who bring the total to 32. Next, we have 11 members of the audit committee of the State NAK Naftogaz Ukrainy, and 5 judges including Radion Kirijev who’s presiding over the Tymoshenko Trial. They bring the total black list now to 48 people when the opposition wants the West to declare personae non-grata.

Notably absent from this “sanctions list” are Klujev, Fursin, Ivanyushchenko, and someone from the penitentiary system. Party of Regions MP Yurij Ivanyushchenko was persona non-grata in America right up until April 2011. That’s when he paid a US lobby firm over $200,000 and was able to secure a US diplomatic visa to negotiate a contract for Westinghouse Electric fuel rods for Ukrainian nuclear reactors. That crushes the monopoly that Russia has on supplying nuclear fuel to Ukrainian reactors. Not a bad pro-Ukrainian tactic in my opinion, but that still doesn’t wash away his criminal past.  According to a recent news story, Renat Akhmetov is already on a US black list. He’s been unable to secure a visa to the USA for a number of years now, even though he owns a coal company in America worth over $1 billion.  Money can’t buy everything. Sanctions, such as visa denials, or asset and bank account freezes are usually the last step in the diplomatic process, which the West has not exhausted with Ukraine. And besides, black lists are usually not made public, so we may never find out who is actually on the sanctions list of any country. Individuals find out only when they apply for a visa and are refused entry, or when it’s politically expedient to publicly announce it or leak it, such as Gaddafi family real estate holdings in Toronto.

In the future, we will talk about predictions for 2012.