Trump's Call For Investigations Finds New Support Among Russian Allies in Ukraine
“For this pro-Russian party, the first thing is to create a split between the United States and Ukraine,” says Bohdan Yaremenko, a senior lawmaker for the ruling party in Ukraine. “We don’t know if this party is fully incorporated into the Russian foreign policy, or just coordinating with them. But we have no doubt this party is linked to Russia.”
Joining the calls for investigations have been two other members of Boyko’s political party: Oleg Voloshyn, who previously worked in Ukraine’s embassy in Moscow, and Nestor Shufrych, a longstanding defender of Russian interests in Ukraine.
In an interview with TIME on Thursday, Voloshyn echoed the Republican talking point that Clinton received help in 2016 from the Ukrainian government. “It was election interference, pure and simple,” he says. “When the liberal media tell me it’s a conspiracy theory, I say, ‘How do you know?’ There has been no investigation. Without an investigation, how can you say that [Ukrainian President Petro] Poroshenko did not help Hillary? I know that he did.”
Current and former advisers to Poroshenko, who was in power from 2014 until this May, have repeatedly dismissed the allegations as absurd. They also warned that, as Trump seeks re-election in 2020, Russia could seek to use its allies in Ukraine to undermine Trump’s rivals.
“Through its puppets in Ukraine, Russia is doing everything it can to keep the focus on this scandal,” Konstantin Eliseev, who served as the top foreign policy adviser to Poroshenko throughout his tenure as President, told TIME on Friday. “Until November of next year, this issue will dominate relations between the U.S. and Ukraine, and that will play into Russia’s hands,” he adds.
Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, voiced similar concerns during her testimony before the impeachment inquiry on Friday.
Ever since U.S. intelligence agencies exposed the Kremlin’s effort in 2016 to help the Trump campaign, President Vladimir Putin has tried to shift blame for election-meddling onto Ukraine. “Classic for an intelligence officer to try to throw off the scent and create an alternative narrative that might get picked up and get some credence,” Yovanovitch said, referring to Putin.
