Ukrainian Security Roundup 11 Jan-22 Feb 07
President Viktor Yushchenko has seen his control over security bodies further eroded over the last month. On 12 January, parliament appointed Volodymyr Radchenko as deputy prime minister with responsibility for defence, security and law enforcement. While Radchenko insisted he would not engage in politics, the appointment was seen as reinforcing Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych’s influence over uniformed agencies, and counterbalancing Yushchenko’s appointments to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the National Security and Defence Council (NSDC). Meanwhile, the parliamentary coalition also put forward a law to abolish the post of secretary of the National Security and Defence Council. A number of figures loyal to the president in the Interior Ministry and Prosecutor-General’s Office were replaced.
SBU
On 12 January, the acting SBU head, Valentyn Nalyvaychenko, pledged to continue the fight against illegal wiretapping. Nalyvaychenko said that the SBU had launched a criminal case over the illegal wiretapping of Constitutional Court judges and seized equipment for recording mobile phone calls. (Interfax-Ukraine news agency, 12 Jan 07)
The same day, Nalyvaychenko welcomed the appointment of Volodymyr Radchenko as deputy prime minister for defence, security and law- enforcement. He noted that, as a former SBU head, Radchenko is familiar with the SBU’s capabilities and problems. (Interfax- Ukraine, 12 Jan 07)
On 24 January, the SBU denied that it was investigating Transport Minister Mykola Rudkovskyy over his invitation to Turkmen opposition members to visit Ukraine in December 2006. The SBU head’s press secretary, Maryna Ostapenko, said it was up to the Foreign Ministry to assess whether Rudkovskyy’s actions threatened national security. She said the SBU had checked all the circumstances of the visit and sent the information to the Foreign Ministry. Rudkovskyy earlier alleged that the head of the presidential secretariat, Viktor Baloha, had ordered the SBU to open a criminal case against him. (Ukrayinska Pravda web site, 5 Kanal TV, 24 Jan 07)
The same day, Ostapenko said the SBU is concerned about the level of corruption in the tax service, in particular involving VAT refunds, and the failure of senior tax service officials to react to the SBU’s warnings about the need to deal with the problem. (Interfax-Ukraine, 24 Jan 07)
The secretary of the Kharkiv city council, Hennadiy Kernes, accused the SBU regional directorate of following him and tapping his phone after his bodyguards were reported to have detained a “suspicious individual” who turned out to be a SBU officer with special surveillance equipment. The regional SBU chief, Andriy Mukhatayev, accused Kernes of attempting to discredit the SBU, after it opened a criminal case over a mass disturbance that is alleged to have been organized by officials of the city executive committee. (Ukrayina Moloda newspaper, 24 Jan 07)
On 1 February, MPs Volodymyr Sivkovych and Ihor Mitroshkin of the Party of Regions, and Hryhoryy Omelchenko of the Yuliya Tymoshenko Bloc urged the Prosecutor-General’s Office to investigate alleged instances of the presidential secretariat illegally influencing the leadership of the SBU. “While the SBU chairman has not been appointed, an active process is under way to appoint deputy chairmen prompted by the presidential secretariat. People who have never had experience of working in the SBU are being appointed to senior positions in the SBU. They get the posts based not on their professional qualities but on their loyalty to the president’s team,” the appeal read. (Korrespondent.net web site, 1 Feb 07)
On 2 February, Nalyvaychenko denied that the presidential secretariat was influencing the SBU leadership. He insisted the SBU operates strictly in line with legislation, stays out of politics, and is guided by the interests of the state and the people in its activities, adding that key personnel appointments are in line with legislation and orders from the president, and are based on the principles of professionalism and decency. (Interfax-Ukraine, 2 Feb 07)
On 6 February, President Viktor Yushchenko asked parliament to approve Viktor Korol to the vacant post of SBU head. Korol is an MP from the pro-presidential Our Ukraine. Born in 1948, he worked as deputy interior minister and head of the criminal police in 1995- 96, and first deputy head of the tax police in 1996-98. (Interfax- Ukraine, 6 Feb 07)
In an interview with a weekly magazine on the current situation in the SBU, its first head, Yevhen Marchuk, criticized the appointment of people from the Interior Ministry to senior positions in the SBU. (Profil, 19 Feb 07)
On 9 February, the SBU said that, acting on instructions from the Prosecutor-General’s Office, it had detained a masseur, Yuriy Desyatskyy, who was wanted for questioning in connection with Yushchenko’s poisoning, in Dnipropetrovsk. Desyatskyy was released after questioning. (ITAR-TASS, 9 Feb 07)
On 22 February, parliament rejected Viktor Korol’s nomination to head the SBU. Yushchenko said he would resubmit Koral’s candidacy to parliament for approval. (Interfax-Ukraine, 22 Feb 07)
Interior Ministry
Interior Minister Vasyl Tsushko appointed Serhiy Popkov deputy interior minister and chief of the main staff and Serhiy Kopytov as deputy interior minister and director of the department for financial resources and accounting. Popkov, who served as deputy interior minister and commander of the Internal Troops from November 2004 till February 2005, is alleged to have ordered the use of force against protesters in Kiev’s Independence Square during the Orange Revolution. (UNIAN news agency, 11 Jan 07)
Mass dismissals of regional police chiefs began at an Interior Ministry collegium on 17 January, a Ukrainian TV channel reported. The minister reportedly asked almost all heads of regional police directorates to resign, and most did so. The ministry denied suggestions that the officers were sacked because they were appointed by the former minister,Yuriy Lutsenko, insisting that only professional abilities were taken into account. (Inter TV, 18 Jan 07)
On 19 January, the head of the Lviv regional police directorate, Vitaliy Maksymov, announced that he had been transferred to the same job in Transcarpathian Region. He said that his replacement would be Mykhaylo Tsymbalyuk, who previously headed the Rivne regional police directorate. Maksymov admitted some shortcomings in his work, especially when it came to solving murders. (Interfax-Ukraine, 19 Jan 07)
On 20 January, the head of the Crimean regional police directorate, Volodymyr Khomenko, said that he had been asked to resign by the Interior Ministry leadership at the collegium. He said that he refused to do so because Interior Minister Vasyl Tsushko and his first deputy Mykhaylo Korniyenko had assured him they were not unhappy with the performance of the Crimean police. (Interfax- Ukraine, 20 Jan 07)
On 25 January, Tsushko appointed new Interior Ministry directorate heads in Kiev, Sevastopol and 12 regions. Oleksiy Krykun was appointed chief of the directorate in Kiev. Earlier he headed the anti-smuggling department of the State Customs Service and the Interior Ministry directorate in Dnipropetrovsk Region. The former Kiev police chief, Vitaliy Yarema, resigned. Vasyl Biryukov will head the directorate in Sevastopol; Mykhaylo Vershnyak in Poltava Region; Volodymyr Havrylyuk in Ternopil Region; Anatoliy Naumenko in Luhansk Region; Valeriy Nonyk in Chernihiv Region; Mykola Pykhtin in Mykolayiv Region; Mykhaylo Tsymbalyuk in Lviv Region; Vitaliy Hrytsak in Khmelnytskyy Region; Henadiy Podroyko in Odessa Region; Vasyl Polishchuk in Vinnytsya Region; Ivan Proshkovskyy in Volyn Region; Ivan Stupak in Dnipropetrovsk Region; Oleksandr Shmytko in Zaporizhzhya Region. (Interior-Ukraine, 25 Jan 07)
On 2 February, Volodymyr Khomenko resigned as head of the Crimean police. Khomenko, who is a member of the pro-presidential Our Ukraine, said he was forced to resign because of pressure from the ministry’s new leadership and the ruling Party of Regions prevented him from working. (Black Sea TV, 2 Feb 07)
On 3 February, Anatoliy Mohylyov started working as head of the Crimean police directorate. He previously worked as head of the city police directorate in Makiyivka. (5 Kanal, 3 Feb 07)
On 21 February, the Crimean parliament appointed Anatoliy Mohylyov as chief of the local Interior Ministry directorate. (UNIAN news agency, 21 Feb 07)
Also on 21 February, the Cabinet of Ministers asked a court to nullify the president’s decree specifying a list of senior posts in military, law-enforcement and diplomatic bodies whose appointment must be agreed with the president. In particular, the cabinet considers unlawful the requirement that candidates for deputy interior ministers, heads and deputy heads of regional police directorates, heads of the Interior Ministry’s structural units, the president of the Interior Ministry’s higher education institution, and deputy commanders of the Interior Ministry’s internal troops should be agreed with the president. The Justice Ministry pointed out that the president’s decree is based on the constitutional norms according to which the president is commander-in-chief, although the police are not part of the armed forces. (Interfax-Ukraine, 21 Feb 07)
Defence Ministry
Defence Minister Anatoliy Hrytsenko has said that he can work in the government of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. Speaking in an interview with the weekly Vlast Deneg published on 19 January, Hrytsenko said, “I shall give Yanukovych his due – maybe he is several months late, but still he cleared up unfounded allegations against me and admitted my right to have and to defend my own opinion.” (Interfax-Ukraine, 23 Jan 07)
On 29 January, the head of the Defence Ministry’s main intelligence directorate, Oleksandr Halaka, said that the directorate had taken over from the SBU the task of conducting operations to protect Ukrainian nationals abroad. (ITAR-TASS news agency, 29 Jan 07)
Hrytsenko rejected reports in the Russian media that he had held talks with US representatives on cooperation in missile defence. “This statement is absolutely wrong. I have never expressed any initiatives regarding cooperation between Ukraine and the USA in the civil space rocketry and missile defence spheres,” Hrytsenko said. He also said that the ministry had not yet formed its opinion on the possible deployment of US missile defence bases in Poland and the Czech Republic. (Interfax-Ukraine, 30 Jan, 1 Feb 07)
On 7 February, Yanukovych demanded that Hrytsenko apologize to parliamentary speaker Oleksandr Moroz for alleging on 25 January that Moroz was lobbying the transfer of the property of the Odessa ground troops institute to the Education Ministry, since it is headed by a member of his Socialist Party. Hrytsenko said that he was responding to a groundless defamatory statement about him by Moroz, and he was ready to retract his words, if Moroz did so first. (5 Kanal, 7 Feb 07)
NSDC
On 11 January, Party of Regions MPs, Yuriy Miroshnychenko and Vladyslav Zabarskyy, submitted a bill on amendments to the law on National Security and Defence Council that would abolish the post of NSDC secretary. They also propose to transfer responsibility for support of the council’s work from the staff of the National Security and Defence Council to the presidential secretariat, and cancel budget financing for the council. The bill also includes a provision for the countersigning by the prime minister and the responsible minister of the president’s orders enacting the National Security and Defence Council’s resolutions. (Interfax-Ukraine, 12 Jan 07)
On 16 January, NSDC secretary Vitaliy Hayduk said the bill limiting the council’s powers was unconstitutional. He rejected suggestions that the council duplicates the functions of government bodies, insisting its remit includes quite different issues. He said it would be unreasonable to cancel the post of NSDC secretary. (UNIAN, 16 Jan 07)
During a working visit to the USA on 22 January, Hayduk discussed Ukraine’s energy security and WTO entry with senior US officials including National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and the vice- president’s national security aide, John Hannah. (Interfax-Ukraine, 23 Jan 07)
PGO
On 18 January, Prosecutor-General Oleksandr Medvedko appointed the former deputy prosecutor-general, Oleksiy Bahanets, prosecutor of Rivne Region. The former prosecutor, Leonid Orekhivskyy, was demoted to deputy prosecutor on his own request. From February 2005 to October 2006, Bahanets was the deputy prosecutor-general and the prosecutor of Donetsk Region. (Interfax-Ukraine, 18 Jan 07)
On 30 January, Medvedko said that two more suspects in the poisoning of President Viktor Yushchenko are being investigated. He said one of the suspects is a masseur. Medvedko also said that the Prosecutor-General’s Office is checking information from the former head of the SBU, Ihor Smeshko, that before the dinner at the country house of the former SBU deputy head, Volodymyr Satsyuk, Yushchenko had lunch with the management of the Fokstrot company. (Interfax- Ukraine, 30 Jan 07)
On 5 February, the PGO announced that Deputy Prosecutor-General Viktor Pshonka opened a criminal case over the tapping of parliament speaker Oleksandr Moroz’s telephones. The transcript of a phone conversation between Moroz and a foreign diplomat was published on the Internet in January. (Interfax-Ukraine, 5 Feb 07)
On 16 February, Volodymyr Haltsov was presented to staff of the Crimean prosecutor’s office as the new Crimean prosecutor. Haltsov headed the Crimean prosecutor’s office from December 2003 to February 2005. (Interfax-Ukraine, 16 Feb 07)
It was reported on 16 February that Haltsov had been restored to the post of Crimean prosecutor by a Kiev court. At the same time, the current prosecutor, Viktor Shemchuk, an ally of President Viktor Yushchenko, refused to resign. (Black Sea TV, 16 Feb 07; Pervaya Krymskaya newspaper, 16 Feb 07)
On 22 February, President Viktor Yushchenko appointed Shemchuk as his permanent representative to Crimea. (Interfax-Ukraine, 22 Jan 07)
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