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PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS SAY UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT NOT INVOLVED IN JOURNALIST'S DEATH... Kroll Associates, a private investigative agency from the United States, said on 25 September that there is no evidence to link Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma to the murder of Ukrainian Internet journalist Heorhiy Gongadze. Kroll Associates was hired by the pro-Kuchma Labor Ukraine party to conduct an independent investigation into the Gongadze case. Secret recordings made by former presidential bodyguard Mykola Melnychenko suggested that Kuchma may be involved in the slaying of Gongadze. "Our investigation raised questions about the credibility of the person [Melnychenko] purportedly making the tapes and the integrity of the recordings themselves," Kroll Associates said in their report. The report does not answer the question of how Gongadze was killed. ("RFE/RL Newsline," 26 September)

...WHILE ANTI-KUCHMA OPPOSITION REMAINS UNCONVINCED. Ukrainian opposition activists have dismissed Kroll's findings, saying it was a public-relations exercise to lend credibility to Kuchma's statements of innocence ahead of parliamentary elections next year, Reuters reported on 25 September. "Their task was to clear Kuchma and they fulfilled it. There was no investigation; they did not find any new facts. They just discussed existing theories," Yuriy Lutsenko, one of the leaders of the Ukraine Without Kuchma movement, told the agency. Michael Cherkasky, Kroll's chief executive, said his firm interviewed dozens of witnesses, including Kuchma, his chief of staff Volodymyr Lytvyn, and some top politicians. The firm, however, failed to meet with Melnychenko, with former Interior Minister Yuriy Kravchenko, or with former Security Service head Leonid Derkach, whom Melnychenko charged with complicity in the murder of Gongadze. ("RFE/RL Newsline," 26 September)

COUNCIL OF EUROPE URGES NEW PROBE INTO GONGADZE'S DEATH. The Monitoring Committee of the Council of Europe considers it advisable to recommend that Ukraine initiate a new investigation into the Gongadze case with the participation of international experts, Novyy Kanal television reported on 25 September, quoting the Monitoring Committee's rapporteur on Ukraine, Hanne Severinsen. Former presidential bodyguard Melnychenko has reportedly agreed to testify before an investigation commission with the participation of international experts. ("RFE/RL Newsline," 26 September)

When Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov met with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell last month in Washington, the two officials had more in common than might have been immediately apparent. Like Powell, Ivanov, 56, has a lower profile in the Russian cabinet than that of the national security advisor, who is now defense minister, Sergei Ivanov. Like U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, Sergei Ivanov has a closer personal relationship with his boss, Russian President Vladimir Putin, than the more seasoned foreign policy expert, Igor Ivanov. Like Powell, Ivanov has been increasingly marginalized in the foreign policy-making front -- so much so that rumors of Ivanov's imminent departure have been circulating for more than a year. But if Ivanov's future is anything like his past, he is likely to stick around, if for no other reason than because his superiors have apparently always valued have someone like him around, an extremely loyal workaholic.

In September 1998, when Foreign Minister Yevgenii Primakov was unexpectedly tapped by then-President Boris Yeltsin to be prime minister, Primakov turned to his most loyal deputy, Ivanov, to continue his policies at the Foreign Ministry. Ivanov's connection with Primakov had begun much earlier -- in the early 70s -- when Ivanov worked as a young researcher at the Institute for World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), where Primakov was then deputy director. Ivanov worked at IMEMO after graduating in 1969 from Morris Thores Institute for Foreign Languages, where he studied Spanish and English. After a few years at IMEMO, Ivanov joined the Foreign Ministry in 1973, where he has remained ever since. He spent his first 10 years in the diplomatic service in Madrid, starting out as a trade specialist. He returned to Moscow in 1983 and spent the bulk of the "Gorbachev years" in Moscow. In 1991, when Primakov took over as head of KGB's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Ivanov became ambassador to Spain.

After just two years in this position, Igor Sergeevich returned to his hometown, Moscow, to begin one of the most important phases of his career as first deputy foreign minister. It was during this period as first deputy foreign minister that Ivanov oversaw "all diplomatic matters, knowing literally every person and each paper clip of each document," according to "Nezavisimaya gazeta" on 15 September 1998. Ivanov distinguished himself with his administrative and organizational talents and his long hours, working 14-15 hours a day. According to "Who is who," Ivanov served Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev as loyally and faithfully as he did his mentor, Primakov, who was not tapped to head the Foreign Ministry until 1996.

After Ivanov was elevated to head the ministry in which he had labored for so long, some analysts have commented that he has floundered and the ministry itself has drifted in part because of Ivanov's lack of leadership. "Kommersant-Vlast" suggested on 29 September 1998 that then-Prime Minister Yevgenii Primakov believed Ivanov would be an excellent foreign minister because he could be relied upon to implement Primakov's agenda. According to the weekly, Ivanov had shown his "absolute loyalty to the chief and an absolute absence of ambition." During his "debut" as foreign minister, Ivanov gave a speech before the UN General Assembly on 23 September, hewing closely to the foreign policy line laid out by his predecessor, Primakov.

During Ivanov's tenure, the Foreign Ministry has suffered a number of blows to its prestige and status. In the Balkans, the Defense Ministry -- not the Foreign Ministry -- has taken the lead in setting policy. In June 1999, Ivanov told the world press that a Russian military deployment to Pristina airport was a "mistake" and troops would be removed. But the troops stayed on, and Ivanov had to reverse himself. More recently, the Foreign Ministry reportedly failed to predict the defeat of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in last fall's elections and failed to establish contacts with the Yugoslav opposition. And in what was taken by some as a sign of his lack of faith in the Foreign Ministry, Putin tapped a non-career diplomat, Viktor Chernomyrdin, to be his special envoy to Kosova. More recently, he named Chernomyrdin to another important diplomatic post, Russian ambassador to Ukraine.

Last April, "Obshchaya gazeta" predicted that Ivanov's tenure as foreign minister would be over mid-May following his return from another trip to Washington. Ivanov, though, has survived to lead another trip to Washington. And while his new colleague at the Defense Ministry, Sergei Ivanov, feels confident enough to adopt a tone at times more hawkish than his president, Igor Ivanov appears to be simply and faithfully following orders. And for Vladimir Putin, that may be enough. (Julie A. Corwin)

UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT VOWS TO FIGHT TERRORISM. Leonid Kuchma on 29 September said today's terrorists are followers of the Nazi genocide policy and pledged Ukrainian support for U.S. efforts to build a global antiterrorist coalition, Interfax reported. Kuchma made this statement during the official commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the Holocaust massacre at Babi Yar near Kyiv, where the Nazis killed between 100,000 and 200,000 people of primarily Jewish origin during the occupation of the country. Kuchma unveiled a monument to the estimated 40,000 Jewish children killed at Babi Yar. JM

UKRAINE, U.S. FINALIZE DETAILS OF U.S. TRANSPORT FLIGHTS. Kyiv and Washington on 28 September agreed on details regarding the use of Ukrainian airspace by American military transport planes (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 26 September 2001), Interfax reported, quoting Mykola Palchuk from the Ukrainian armed forces' General Staff. Palchuk said U.S. aircraft may fly over Ukraine at an altitude of no less than 9,100 meters and use three military air fields and several air corridors. "[The U.S. planes] may leave us in any direction and use the corridors for return flights," Palchuk said. JM

PROSECUTORS REFUSE TO INVESTIGATE KUCHMA OVER JOURNALIST'S DEATH. The Prosecutor-General's Office has rejected a demand from Lesya Gongadze, the mother of murdered journalist Heorhiy Gongadze, to launch a criminal investigation into whether President Kuchma and other top officials were involved in his murder, AP reported on 28 September. In a letter to Lesya Gongadze, Deputy Prosecutor-General Oleksiy Bahanets said investigators have already looked into allegations made by former presidential bodyguard Mykola Melnychenko about Kuchma's complicity in the murder and found them to be false. JM

TWO SENTENCED FOR KILLING POPULAR UKRAINIAN COMPOSER. The Lviv Oblast Court on 28 September found Dmytro Voronov and Yuriy Kalinin guilty of the premeditated murder of popular Ukrainian composer Ihor Bilozir and sentenced them to 15 and 12 years in prison respectively, Interfax reported. Bilozir died in a Lviv hospital on 28 May 2000 after being beaten by Voronov and Kalinin, who did not like his speaking and singing in the Ukrainian language while in a cafe. Bilozir's death provoked violent anti-Russian protests in Lviv and exacerbated to Ukrainian-Russian ethnic tensions in western Ukraine. Voronov and Kalinin were also ordered to pay 50,000 hryvni ($9,430) in compensation to Bilozir's family. JM