Sunday, March 5, 2017

What is happening in Ukraine today is a result of the muddy and murky post-Soviet politics in Ukraine

The tragedy of Ukrainian politics. What is happening in Ukraine today is a result of the muddy and murky post-Soviet politics in Ukraine. To put it simply and up front, Ukraine today is what Russia would have been without its Putin moment. Power and wealth in Ukraine is in the hands of oligarchic robber barons and the mafia, and this “verhushka” or criminal elite has controlled both the “pro-EU/NATO opposition” and the pro-Russian Party of Regions (perhaps the most drab name for a movement one can think of). Imagine a dozen of Yeltsins vying for power and offering their services to anyone who offers them more plunder and continuous impunity. That’s exactly where the West saw its change and went for it with gusto. Thus, if one looks only slightly deeper, one cannot help being struck by the Machiavellian ease with which the various kapulets and montagues of the oligarchs have been as much passionate about their difference as they were changing camps and making business deals with each other. Oleksandr Turchynov, the new interim president of Ukraine, is closely tied not only to Yulia Tymoshenko, but also to Serhiy Tihipko. From 1987 to 1990, Turchynov served as head of the agitation and propaganda division of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Komsomol (Communist Youth League) Committee, which was led by Serhiy Tihipko Tihipko and Turchynov became political patrons of Leonid Kuchma (later 2nd president of Ukraine from 1995-2004), then head of Dnipropetrovsk-based Pivdenmash missile manufacturer. Kuchma and his entire team, including Tihipko and Turchynov moved to Kiev in 1992, after Kuchma was appointed Prime Minister. Both Tihipko and Turchynov were “political patrons” of President Kuchma. Later, in 1999-2000, Tihipko served as a minister of economics under Viktor Yushenko, the notorious hero of the Orange Revolution (4th generation warfare) and, as a result, the 3rd Ukrainian President. For a change, Tihipko then chaired the election campaign in 2004 for Viktor Yanukovich. In 2010, though, Tymoshenko, now the newly rediscovered and released “revolutionary” oligarch-tycoon, was offering Tihipko to become Prime Minister if she would win the election. A bit later on, in February of 2010, Tihipko stated that he would agree to become Prime Minister of Ukraine if President Victor Yanukovich offered him the post. In March of 2012, Tihipko merged his party, Strong Ukraine, with the pro-Russian Party of Regions. On the same day of the merger, Tihipko was unanimously elected Party of Regions deputy chairman and member of the Party of Regions political council. Since 2012, Tihipko took charge of the (non-existent) ideology of Party of Regions.
WikiLeaks documents mention Turchynov, then head of Ukraine's SBU, as having destroyed documents implicating Yulia Tymoshenko's alleged connections to organized crime boss Semion Mogilevich who runs the most powerful mafia organization in the world. At one point, Mogilevich held citizenship of four counries: Ukraine, Hungary, Russia, and Israel. These appear to have been reduced just to two: Israeli and Ukrainian. Just in the case of the Czech Republic in early 1990s, it is estimated that he made Czech taxpayers (and the state budget of the Czech Republic) lose $ 5 billion. Through YBM Magnex International Inc, the damage was greater still.
When it comes to Yanukovich, a naïve soul becomes shocked to whom so many Ukrainians gave their trust and on whom the fate of Ukraine depended in the face of the systematic and long-planned encroachment of NATO, fascists, and the GLADIO armies. As it turns out, Yanukovitch was a convicted criminal. On 15 December 1967, at the age of 17, Yanukovich was sentenced to three years incarceration for participating in a robbery and assault. On 8 June 1970, he was convicted for a second time on charges of assault. He was sentenced to two years of imprisonment and did not appeal against the verdict. On 11 July 2005, the office of the Donetsk Oblast Prosecutor charged Yanukovich with fraud, stemming from alleged irregularities in the way his convictions were expunged twenty years earlier. In 2006, a criminal charge was filed for the falsification of documents regarding the alleged quashing of Yanukovich's prior convictions after it was discovered that two documents had been forged. The signature of the judge in Yanukovich's case had also been forged as a charge of battery.
Yanukovich was granted several academic qualifications during his political career, however there seems to be little evidence to justify these. The President's site states that he is an Academic of the Academy of Economic Sciences of Ukraine, Doctor of Economic Sciences, and a Professor. In 1999, while in the position of vice head of the Donetsk Oblast Administration, not yet having completed his masters degree, received the honorary title of docent (lecturer) of the (nonexistent) Faculty of Automobile Transport at the Donetsk State Academy of Administration; a tertiary education establishment that specialised in Economics and Management. Students of the academy assert that such a faculty did not exist, nor do they remember Yanukovich reading any lectures.
It was reported in 2000 that Yanukovich received the academic credential of Doctor Habilitatus of Science. In order to receive this academic credential, in addition to his dissertation, Yanukovich needed to publish at least ten papers, prepare five students for their doctoral defense, and be actively involved in academic work. No evidence that he fulfilled these requirements could be found.
From December 2000 to February 2004, while in the position of Ukrainian Premier, Yanukovich reportedly headed the faculty of Innovative management at the Donetsk State University of management.[
In 2001, while Governor General of the Donetsk Oblast Yanukovich supposedly graduated from the Ukrainian Academy of Foreign Trade as a Master of International Law. However, very few of the then-enrolled students remember him in class, taking exams, or attending graduation. Yanukovich was further granted[by whom?] the titles of Professor in Economics.
The Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine's electronic catalog has a list of 23 publications, text books, and monographs with Yanukovich listed as the author. However, the library does not have any copies of the above-mentioned works. The Academy where they were prepared and apparently printed also has no record of the publications.
Yanukovich is also a "professor" of the International Academy of Sciences, Education, Industry and Arts, registered to a post office box in Mountain View, California.
In addition to his other academic credentials, Yanukovich has the military rank of major. However, there is no record of him serving in the military.
If, in March 2012, the net worth of Oleksandr Yanukovich, the older son of Yanukovich, was estimated to be at least $130 million, iIn early 2014 his personal assesses were already claimed to be over $500 million. How does one do that? According to Forbes, Oleksandr Yanukovich and his businesses won 50% of all state tenders.
Serhiy Arbuzov, once the youngest governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (2010-2012), was Yanukovich’s last prime minister (January-February 2014). When he came to chair Ukraine’s central bank. the older son of Yanukovich, Oleksandr Yanukovich, bought the All-Ukrainian Bank of Development from Arbuzov. Yet the chairperson of the bank remained Arbuzov's mother, Valentyna. At that time, a Ukrainian journal commented on this: “A small commercial bank controlled by the family of President Viktor Yanukovich plans to almost double its capital soon by injecting 100 million hryvnias through an upcoming private share placement. … he development comes days after the appointment of Serhiy Arbuzov, 34, a little-known banker with close connections to the Yanukovich family, as the governor of the National Bank of Ukraine on Dec. 23, 2010. Arbuzov’s mother, Valentyna Arbuzova, is the chairperson of the VBR board and is thought to be the key figure behind the bank’s increasingly aggressive expansion strategy.” http://www.ukrainianjournal.com/index.php?w=article&id=11780

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