Bric-a-Brac

[Rogue Valley]

President Zelenskyy has ordered a full Cabinet meeting within a week to decide on what to do about Ukroboronprom (Ukrainian Defense Industry).

There are ~135 different Ukraine defense contractors under the Ukroboronprom umbrella. Corruption is rife and many employees haven't been paid in months.

Zelenskyy also complained that their salaries are far too low which contributes to "brain drain" - Ukrainians seeking employment abroad.

He wants answers. Pronto. He's fed up with the entire mess. I suspect he will order Ukroboronprom contractors to become independent entities, able to bid on contracts.

Those that are insolvent will either be sold, shuttered, or rolled into a successful branch. And domestic defense orders will have preeminence over export orders.

In another twist, I hear that multi-millionaire Eric Prince (of Blackwater notoriety) is considering buying Ukraine's Motor Sich Company which is for sale.

The Trump administration does not want the Chinese to buy this high tech aviation firm. A Chinese businessman has already made an offer.

 

[Rogue Valley]

Yesterday Ihor Kolomoisky, the oligarch at the center of the PrivatBank saga and close friend of president Volodmyr Zelenskyy, stated that he thinks the EU/NATO will never fully accept Ukraine and so the country should go back to the Russian sphere and he can help facilitate this by extracting $100 billion from the Kremlin immediately.

I think this is sour grapes on the part of Kolomoisky, who is no doubt upset that the traditional government/oligarch corruption synergy that always got a wink-wink nod-nod no longer exists. He will not be getting back PrivatBank like he planned for pennies on the dollar after a stress test discovered the bank was missing $5 billion and was then nationalized to prevent its customers from taking a loss-bath. Kolomoisky won't be getting PrivatBank back under any circumstance.

 

[Rogue Valley]

Ukraine anti-corruption investigators (SAP) have detained the head of one of the main departments at the presidential office for allegedly demanding a $300,000 bribe. The official was arrested while taking half the amount from an individual as payment for assistance in getting a person appointed to a management position at the state-run Naftogaz oil and gas conglomerate. The suspect is a woman and has been working in the presidential office since 2005 for multiple administrations. A former deputy culture minister was also detained along with an unspecified number of other suspects that SAP alleged constituted an “organized crime group.” I'll post on this again as more details become available.

 

[Rogue Valley]

Ukraine anti-corruption investigators (SAP) have detained the head of one of the main departments at the presidential office for allegedly demanding a $300,000 bribe. The official was arrested while taking half the amount from an individual as payment for assistance in getting a person appointed to a management position at the state-run Naftogaz oil and gas conglomerate. The suspect is a woman and has been working in the presidential office since 2005 for multiple administrations. A former deputy culture minister was also detained along with an unspecified number of other suspects that SAP alleged constituted an “organized crime group.” I'll post on this again as more details become available.

Svetlana Kondzeli (above) head of the Department of Access to Information at the Office of the President, and the Deputy Minister of Culture, Victoria Lesnichy, were arrested on suspicion of fraud on November 12.

 

[Rogue Valley]

Anders Aslund urges Ukraine to escape oligarch Kolomoisky’s influence

I think it is best that the Zelenskyy government distance itself from Kolomoisky. The sooner the better.

 

[Rogue Valley]

"I am not a person who can pursue the strategy of 'friendship with Russia'."

So said Olena Zerkal, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine for European Integration, on why she is leaving her diplomatic post in the Zelensky government. She, as I and others have noted, strongly suspects there are pro-Russia elements in the Zelenskyy administration, including his Chief of Staff Andrey Bohdan who attended meetings in Russia with members of the corrupt and deposed Yanukovych government.

Ms. Zerkal won a court case earlier this year against Russia at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) regarding Russia's piracy on the high seas and the kidnapping of Ukraine sailors. She was currently also winning a court case at the Hague against Russia for environmental damages to Ukraine and Russia's persecutions of Ukrainians and Tatars in Crimea.

Zerkal said the final push for her to leave came last month when she was removed from the negotiations with Russia over gas supplies. She believes Russia doesn't want her on the Ukraine Foreign Ministry team because they know she won't bend to Moscow.

Her resignation will cause many in the West to take notice. I also do not trust Zelenskyy in regards to Russia. He is far too accommodating.

 

[Rogue Valley]

Mustafa Nayem

Former independent MP Mustafa Nayem has been appointed Deputy Director General of the State Concern "Ukrboronprom". (This is the behemoth of 85 defense companies that manufacture Ukraine's weapons). Mr. Nayem will report to the new head of Ukroboronprom, Aivaras Abromavichus. Born in Lithuania and married to a Ukrainian, from 2014-2016 Mr. Abromavichus served as Ukraine's 5th Minister of Economical Development and Trade. He is another highly respected reformist technocrat. This is excellent news. There have been many scandals at Ukrboronprom over the years the last one under the Poroshenko government. It actually needs to be split up and privatized.

 

[Rogue Valley]

There is an article published yesterday (in Ukrainian) that sheds new light on Zelenskyy's Chief of Staff Andrei Bogdan.

Apparently, he held positions in the Judicial branch (assistant judge) while he was also the CEO of a private legal firm. This is illegal.

Zelenskyy rolled out his Cabinet just before the April 2nd election, but not a mention of Bogdan to voters until after the election. Ze was hiding him.

 

[Rogue Valley]

Dr. Hill mentioned that Putin offered Venezuela (where 100 Russian troops are) for Ukraine.

As for the Normandy Four peace talks, Dr. Hill should replace Merkel and Macron.

They also don't care much what happens to Ukraine. Merkel is more interested in NordStream-2 which will attach Germany to Russia at the hip.

 

[Rogue Valley]

Lawyer Yevhenia Zakrevska has declared a hunger strike until prosecutions for the murder of 100+ civilians during EuroMaidan start taking place. In six years no Prosecutor General has filed charges against any of the Berkut (riot police) firing live ammunition. Now, the Zelenskyy government has allowed the special laws pertaining to these prosecutions to expire.

 

[Rogue Valley]

While drops in approval ratings of presidents are usual for Ukraine, Zelenskyy's 20% plunge in the first six months stands out from the rest.....

 

[Rogue Valley]

Trukhanov’s Free Rein Coming To End In Odesa?

Scandals and criminal charges are swirling around longtime Odesa Mayor Gennady Trukhanov. The corrupt Odesa court recently acquitted him in an extraordinarily speedy trial. But his other trials may take place at the new High Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine. Whether Trukhanov can weather the storms depends on whether mafia oligarchs Alexander Angert and Vladimir Galanternik can come to an understanding with Zelenskyy. If not, a city election is scheduled for 2020. Angert and Galanternik may simply run a new candidate to take the place of Trukhanov. Someone in their pocket to sign the paperwork. It's a shame that this beautiful cosmopolitan city of 1,000,000 is in the managerial grip of organized crime.

 

[Rogue Valley]

While drops in approval ratings of presidents are usual for Ukraine, Zelenskyy's 20% plunge in the first six months stands out from the rest.....

Zelenskyy's Support Falls by 21% in 2 Months - Poll

Ukraine President Volodmyr Zelenskyy

11/28/19
According to a recent poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, the positive view of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has fallen to 52% in late November. 19% of those polled have a negative attitude toward the president, the study says. According to the poll, 32% percent of Ukrainians don’t approve of Zelenskyy’s activities. “Within the fall, the share of those who favor Zelenskyy had been decreasing from 73% in September to 66% in October, and to 64% in early November and 52% in late November,” the poll results read. While the share of those who view Zelenskyy negatively increased from 7% in September to 19% in late November. Сompared to the beginning of November, the percentage of those who approve Zelenskyy's actions and statements had fallen by 10 percent – from 64% to 54%, and the share of those who disapprove had increased by 13 percent from 23% to 36%. The negative rating of Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk had also increased. Only 11% said that they view him positively, while 25% said that they have a negative attitude toward him – a 16% increase from September.

The poll also revealed that 51% think that the new government is not successful in their bid to resolve the conflict in the Donbas, while 40% think that the government is successful.

How Zelenskyy handles ending the war in eastern Ukraine will determine his fate. It's too bad the article does not explain why 51% think his Donbas policy has been unsuccessful. Not going fast enough? Or making too many concessions to Russia?

The difference here is acute.

 

[Rogue Valley]

Head Of Ukrainian President's Office Sues RFE/RL For Libel

Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Bohdan.

11/22/19
KYIV -- The head of Ukraine's presidential office is suing an investigative journalism program of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service for libel, the government says. A news release on the government's judicial web portal says the lawsuit was filed on August 20 in a Kyiv court to defend Andriy Bohdan's "honor, dignity, and business reputation." It names Ukraine's state-run public broadcaster UABC and three members of Skhemy (Schemes) as co-defendants: chief editor Natalka Sedletska, and journalists Maksym Savchuk and Valeria Yehoshyna. Skhemy is a joint project by RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service and the UAershy television channel, which belongs to UABC. There is no information on the essence of the claims, but the plaintiff is seeking to "refute false information," according to the judicial web portal. "At present, neither journalists nor the Radio Liberty editorial office have received the text of the lawsuit," said Inna Kuznetsova, chief editor of RFE/RL's Kyiv bureau. "Once it arrives, we will analyze it with lawyers and voice our position on Andriy Bohdan's claims." A preliminary hearing in the case is scheduled for September 19 at Kyiv's Shevchenko district court.

Bohdan was formerly billionaire Ihor Kolomoyskiy's personal lawyer. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is linked to Kolomoyskiy through the oligarch's ownership of Ukrainian TV station 1+1, which hosts the former comic and actor's comedy programs and hit sitcom, Servant Of The People, as well as through advisers and other resources. Bohdan has been the subject of Skhemy investigations in the past. In April, the program reported that before his appointment as head of the presidential office, Bohdan had secretly visited the Constitutional Court the previous month, according to the court's visitor logbook. At that time, there was legal debate whether Bohdan could head the presidential office because he was a senior official in former President Viktor Yanukovych's administration. A lustration law in effect bars senior Yanukovych-era officials from posts in future Ukrainian governments. Another Skhemy investigation found that Bohdan and Zelenskiy flew at least five times together starting in January from Kyiv to Tel Aviv, where Kolomoyskiy was residing at that time in self-imposed exile.

Borrowing a page from Donald Trump. File a lawsuit to intimidate investigative journalism and bury inconvenient facts.

Bohdan was the oligarch Kolomoisky's personal lawyer and also the lawyer for Zelenskyy's Kvartal 95 Productions. There is something odorous and onerous about these two.

 

[Rogue Valley]

Zelensky urges reduction in heating tariffs after his popularity drops

Zelenskyy's popularity dropped (-12 points in a month) because of more than heating costs. Also because of the Trump telephone transcript, distrust of him regarding the upcoming Normandy Four meeting with Vladimir Putin, disagreement among the population of him pulling back soldiers from some locations on the eastern front, and major disagreement over a proposed new law in Parliament that would open up Ukraine agricultural land to buying and selling (the opportunity for corruption here is high).

 

[Rogue Valley]

Carlson - Putin - Kennedy

Fox commentator Tucker Carlson has been busy doing Putin's dirty work. Last week Carlson said he supports Russia and argued that US/Western sanctions should be removed. "If it comes down to supporting Ukraine or Russia, I support Russia." Yes, that's Carlson tacitly supporting Russian aggression on the European continent. Makes one wonder if Putin laundered some dirty money for Carlson's $3.8 million 7,400 sq. ft. Washington D.C. mansion. It also makes one wonder if Carlson has any idea (or even cares) how many Russian journalists Putin has had murdered.

List of journalists killed in Russia - Wikipedia

Also busy doing Putin's dirty work is Sen. John N. Kennedy (R/LA). These days Kennedy is endlessly repeating in Congress and on television that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election. When challenged on this with facts, Kennedy stammers and says it needs to be looked into. An hour later, he's back at it again repeating Russian propaganda. When asked if he attended to a very recent briefing given to all Senators by the US intelligence community about Russian meddling into the 2016 election, Sen. Kennedy said that he wasn't briefed. A check reveals that Sen. Kennedy did not attend that intelligence briefing put on by the US intelligence agencies. He didn't bother to attend and goes right on doing Putin's work.

 

[Rogue Valley]

Lawyer Yevhenia Zakrevska has declared a hunger strike until prosecutions for the murder of 100+ civilians during EuroMaidan start taking place. In six years no Prosecutor General has filed charges against any of the Berkut (riot police) firing live ammunition. Now, the Zelenskyy government has allowed the special laws pertaining to these prosecutions to expire.

Ukraine’s MPs adopt belated measure to save Maidan investigation

12/4/19
The Verkhovna Rada (parliament) has adopted a crucial amendment to the Law on the State Bureau of Investigations, needed to ensure that investigations into crimes committed against Euromaidan activists do not fall into a black hole. It was the failure of the same parliamentarians to take this obvious step that prompted Maidan lawyer, Yevhenia Zakrevska to declare a hunger strike in protest on 21 November, the sixth anniversary of the Revolution of Dignity, as Euromaidan is now known. By 3 December, when the Verkhovna Rada finally met to vote on the amendment, Zakrevska had been joined by at least 10 other Ukrainians. The move is important but not by any means enough. The Advocacy Advisory Panel of lawyers representing the families of slain Maidan activists (Nebesna Sotnya, or the Heavenly Hundred) and Maidan victims point out that many further steps are needed. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had already expressed his support for the amendment and will hopefully not drag his heels on signing the bill into law.

As reported, there was no justification for the situation that has now arisen where, since 21 November, all Maidan investigations not already before the courts have effectively been suspended. It was known for two years that the prosecutor’s office was to lose its investigative functions, and that around half of the investigations would be passed to SBI. It was equally clear on 15 November that, if MPs refused to stay later than 15.00 and pass the amendments, that a break would be unavoidable. Six years after the beginning of the Euromaidan protests, only a very small number of cases have resulted in convictions. While in some cases this was due to the main suspects having fled to Russia where many ex-Berkut officers have received citizenship, in others the problem was seen as being obstruction by the police, the Prosecutor General’s Office and / or the courts. From the end of 2014 to 20 November 2019, it was the Department of Special Investigations that had retained the support and trust of Maidan victims and their lawyers. The battle to ensure that these investigations are not sabotaged is certainly not over.

Why did it take hunger strikes to force parliament to move on this?

I am truly baffled. No major Maidan prosecutions during 5 years of the very anti-Russian and hawkish Poroshenko presidency. The presidency of [the supposedly] new reformer Volodmyr Zelenskyy and his [supposedly] reformist Servant of the People super-majority parliament would not have done anything regarding Maidan prosecutions if not pushed by a growing hunger-strike protest.

Why have two successive administrations dragged their collective feet on bringing the individuals (a handful of Yanukovych officials and perhaps 50 Berkut/riot police) to justice that murdered over 100 civilians on Independence Square over the course of 2 days? This makes no sense to me. What could I - and everyone else - be missing?

 

[Rogue Valley]

No Russia Agreement, No Donbass, Warns Ukraine

12/5/19
A top Ukrainian presidential aide on Thursday said Ukraine would wall off the rest of the country from occupied territories if Russia failed to agree to a ceasefire and prisoner swap at a summit in Paris next week. If Russia doesn't want to agree to a deal "in this case we will be building a wall and life will go on," Andriy Yermak said at a forum in London. "We will be living unfortunately in a scenario of a frozen conflict." The leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany will meet on Monday for the first time in more than three years to try to end a conflict in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed forces and Ukrainian troops that has killed more than 13,000 people.

The Normandy Four Group featuring Volodmyr Zelenskyy, Vladimir Putin, Angela Merkel, and Emmanuel Macron is scheduled to meet again in Paris on December, 9.

This will be the initial such negotiations meeting for new Ukraine President Zelenskyy. Although they have spoken on the phone, Putin will no doubt be measuring Zelenskyy in this setting.

Yesterday, Ukraine's National Defense Security Council (NDSC) met for an extended period behind closed doors. No doubt discussing tactics and possible eventualities.

I expect Macron (with his Gaullist mindset) to pressure Zelenskyy to offer concessions to Putin. Zelenskyy has been warned in numerous large protests in Ukraine against capitulation to Russia.

Zelenskyy has already stated in interviews that he will be demanding the return of Crimea (Moscow has said Crimea is not open for discussion), the withdrawal of all Russian soldiers/mercenaries/agents and weapons back to Russia,
and the return of 410 km of Ukraine's border currently under Russian military control. Any new elections in the Donbas region will be held under the Ukrainian Constitution and election laws, and observed by international monitors.
Putin wants to see Ukraine federalized. Under this scenario, the formally occupied eastern oblasts could veto Ukraine's ascension into the EU and NATO. This idea won't fly.

 

[Rogue Valley]

Sergii Leshchenko: How Kolomoisky’s prosecutor fueled Giuliani’s conspiracies

Article above from Ukraine. Giuliani has embraced former Ukrainian prosecutors with reputations for corruption in seeking to make baseless conspiracy claims to promote Trump's re-election in 2020.

(by my count, Giuliani has met with at least 5 Ukrainians of ill repute during the past 4 days in Budapest and Kyiv)

 

[Rogue Valley]

Ukrainian MP Nataliya Korolevska

The leaders of 34 military/war veterans organizations in Ukraine have demanded the removal of Nataliya Korolevska as Deputy Head of the Committee of the Verkhovna Rada responsible for matters of social welfare, support, and rights advocacy for war veterans. From the Donbas region, Korolevska entered politics in 2002 and supported Viktor Yanukovych in 2004. In 2012 she was expelled from Yulia Tymochenko's Batkivschyna (Fatherland) party. She was investigated in 2015 for funding Donbas separatism. She was re-elected in 2019 as a member of the Opposition Bloc. The military veterans organizations say she was active in forming the LNR (Luhansk Peoples Republic), publicly voices her clearly pro-Russian positions, and advocates for the lifting of sanctions against the Russian Federation. They demand her removal from her parliament assignment asap. Like today.

 

[Rogue Valley]

Ukrainian Police Detain Suspects Over 2016 Killing Of Journalist Pavel Sheremet

Pavel Sheremet at a radio station in Kyiv in October 2015.

12/13/19
Ukrainian police have detained five suspects in connection with the killing of the prominent journalist Pavel Sheremet three years ago. Sheremet's killing in a car bomb blast in predawn Kyiv underscored concerns of a climate of impunity for attacks on journalists and others who challenge the authorities, and the government has faced persistent criticism over the perceived lack of progress in solving the case. Addressing reporters in Kyiv on December 12, top Interior Ministry and national police officials said that the suspects include a couple -- Vladyslav and Inna Hryshchenko, who took part in supporting Ukrainian armed forces in fighting Russia-backed separatists in Ukraine’s east -- as well as a musician and former special operations combatant, Andriy Antonenko; a pediatric surgeon who helped troops in the east as a volunteer, Yulia Kuzmenko; and a military physician, Yana Duhar. Deputy national police chief Yevhen Koval said the suspects had aimed to destabilize the “social and political situation in Ukraine” with the high-profile murder. Interior Minister Arsen Avakov told reporters that the investigation isn’t closed and several “sub-variants” of the murder motive are being investigated, including Russia’s possible involvement. Avakov said the arrests follow a “difficult and persistent” investigation, which yielded results he described as “shocking.” “The public should understand the difference between patriotism and treason,” Avakov said.

Sheremet, a Belarusian-born Russian citizen who had made the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, his permanent home, was leaving his apartment to head to the studio where he hosted a morning radio program when an improvised explosive device planted under the vehicle he was driving exploded on July 20, 2016. Koval said Antonenko and Kuzmenko were accused of planting the explosive device under Sheremet’s car. He said investigators had relied on video footage from surveillance cameras and other evidence. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Prosecutor-General Ruslan Ryaboshapka, who were present at the December 12 press conference, expressed thanks to the national police and the Interior Ministry for their “good work” in investigating the high-profile killing. Zelenskiy commended police for their work but added that questions remain. Sheremet was stripped of his Belarusian citizenship in 2010 while he was living in Russia, where he had moved in 1997 to avoid persecution following his reports criticizing Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka's government.

Questions remain indeed. Although the alleged active participants were arrested, no hint was provided of who ordered the assassination. Reminds me of the lethal acid attack on Kherson activist Kateryna Handzyuk and the shooting murder of Russian activist Boris Nemtsov. In both cases the perpetrators were arrested, but also in both cases the individuals who ordered the respective killings remains an unknown.

The arrests here appear to be an operation of Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, a holdover from the previous Petro Poroshenko Cabinet. Avakov is dirty. All of the arrested are staunchly anti-Russia. It was a month or so ago that anti-Russia nationalists in the JFO war zone gave president Volodmyr Zelenskyy a piece of their mind when he visited the Donbas town of Zolote (Golden) where Ukrainian troops were disengaging at his order.

Not defending any alleged individual but something here disturbs me. I'll explain.....

 

[Rogue Valley]

Yana (Jana) Dugar. Military physician attached to an airborne battalion in the JFO war zone.

The police say security cameras show that Yana Dugar cased the car of Pavel Sheremet two days before it exploded from a bomb......

Security camera stills. Police say this individual is Yana Dugar. I'm not so sure.

The journalist Sheremet was killed on July 20, 2016.

A disturbing piece of evidence casts doubt that the individual above is Yana Dugar.....

Above is an official Ukraine military printout of Yana Dugar's active duty status on certain dates

The entries imply that Yana Dugar was on active duty in the Donbas JFO war zone from June to October 2016.

If this is so, how could Yana Dugar case the auto of Pavel Sheremet in July in Kyiv?

Something doesn't add up here.

 

[Rogue Valley]

Correction to the above: Yana Dugar (Duhar) is a military medic/nurse, not a military physician.

 

[Rogue Valley]

Ukraine Deports Azerbaijani Opposition Blogger To Baku

Azerbaijan opposition blogger Elvin Isayev.

12/15/19
Ukraine has deported Azerbaijani opposition blogger Elvin Isayev, who is wanted by the Prosecutor-General’s Office, his country’s State Migration Service said in a news release over the weekend. The migration service’s press center stated on December 14 that Isayev had "violated Ukrainian migration laws" and was deported two days earlier. Upon arrival in Azerbaijan, he was placed in a pretrial holding cell on December 14 based on a Baku court ruling from August 22. The Azerbaijani government statement doesn’t say on what grounds he was arrested and what charges he is facing. His deportation comes ahead of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s two-day visit to Baku starting on December 16, during which he is scheduled to meet with President Ilham Aliyev. The Ukrainian government hasn’t commented on Isayev’s deportation.

He had lived in Russia since 1998 where as a blogger he criticized the Azerbaijani president and called him a “dictator,” while also writing about corruption in his home country. Isayev was granted Russian citizenship three years later. However, a court in St. Petersburg on August 26 ruled to strip him of Russian citizenship and expel him. Isayev was subsequently placed in a temporary jail for foreign citizens. His deportation to Azerbaijan in September was suspended based on an interim measure of the European Court of Human Rights called “Rule 39.” He moved to Ukraine that same month. Ukrainian media started reporting about Isayev’s disappearance in Kyiv, including a dead signal with the mobile phone he was using, on December 12.

Zelenskyy meets Ilham Aliyev on Dec. 16.

It is things like this that lead me to begin really disliking the Zelenskyy government. This certainly has the appearance of Azeri blogger Elvin Isayev being deported to Azerbaijan as a "gift" from Zelenskyy to Azerbaijan president Ilham Aliyev. It's no secret that torture is utilized in Azeri prisons. For the record here, I consider Aliyev a dictator (president since 2003) and extremely corrupt. He "owns" many companies in Azerbaijan and his family has over $3 billion stashed away in Azerbaijani banks (that his family owns).

 

[Rogue Valley]

Ukrainian Police Detain Suspects Over 2016 Killing Of Journalist Pavel Sheremet

Pavel Sheremet at a radio station in Kyiv in October 2015.



Questions remain indeed. Although the alleged active participants were arrested, no hint was provided of who ordered the assassination. Reminds me of the lethal acid attack on Kherson activist Kateryna Handzyuk and the shooting murder of Russian activist Boris Nemtsov. In both cases the perpetrators were arrested, but also in both cases the individuals who ordered the respective killings remains an unknown.

The arrests here appear to be an operation of Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, a holdover from the previous Petro Poroshenko Cabinet. Avakov is dirty. All of the arrested are staunchly anti-Russia. It was a month or so ago that anti-Russia nationalists in the JFO war zone gave president Volodmyr Zelenskyy a piece of their mind when he visited the Donbas town of Zolote (Golden) where Ukrainian troops were disengaging at his order.

Not defending any alleged individual but something here disturbs me. I'll explain.....

Ukrayinska Pravda's Sevgil Musaieva Cautious About Sheremet Murder Investigation

12/16/19
When Ukrainian officials announced the suspects in the murder of a journalist Pavel Sheremet on December 12, many questions arose. The briefing was held by interior minister Arsen Avakov shortly after the suspects of the murder of the Belarusian and Russian journalist who used to work in Ukraine were detained. The law enforcement argued that the suspects may have killed Sheremet in 2016 in order to destabilize the situation in Ukraine. All five people featured in the case –singer Andrii Antonenko (better known as Riffmaster), military volunteer Yuliya Kuzmenko, and nurse Yana Duhar – are veterans of the war with Russia or volunteers helping the military. Sevgil Musaieva, the editor-in-chief of Ukrayinska Pravda news site – where Sheremet worked – argues that there is little evidence to support the current accusations put forward by the investigators. “I'm most worried by the lack of answers to obvious questions: the motive of the paymasters, the assassins, who the paymaster is and how objective grounds are for the version that was voiced as the main one yesterday: that it was done to destabilize the situation in the country. Because in reality, the destabilization that was announced in the report of the investigative group did not happen,” Musaieva said in a Hromadske broadcast.

She didn’t find plausible that “a group of volunteers could have organized the murder of a famous journalist in order to destabilize the situation in the country “without a paymaster” and believes that it would be an “odd behavior” for a person involved in a high profile murder to come to court to support her alleged accomplices, as Yulia Kuzmenko did in another case involving Inna and Vladyslav Hryshchenko, who are two other people currently featured in the Sheremet case. Furthermore, Andrii Antonenko and Yulia Kuzmenko, suspected in planting the explosives, have been living in the spotlight. Musaieva herself was questioned by the investigators “long ago” and says she and her colleagues are “cautious” about the revelations. And since the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Arsen Avakov stated that only 6-7% of information has been released, Musaieva tends to “surmise and hope that the investigation has progressed a lot.”

As I noted in posts above, some things about this alleged conspiracy and murder don't pass the smell test. President Zelenskyy didn't take kindly to military veterans (all five arrested here were soldiers or volunteers at the front) reading him the riot act about two months ago as he was visiting a contested town in Donbas where he ordered Ukrainian troops to disengage and pull back. A female solder who gave him Hell on camera was later arrested on a charge of threatening the president. I don't trust Interior Minister Arsen Avakov at all. He is a holdover from the Poroshenko government. I think Zelenskyy retained him because Avakov probably knows what nasty secrets are in Poroshenko's political closet. Poroshenko is a political rival of Zelenskyy and has also been beating Zelenskyy up for being too accommodating to Moscow since the April election. I'll continue to keep an eye on this case.