Kravchuk now presidential envoy to TCG
Ukraine’s first President Leonid Kravchuk has agreed to take the post of presidential envoy in the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) on resolving the armed conflict in the country’s east. The 86-year-old Mr. Kravchuk announced his decision on July 31, two days after another former Ukrainian president, Leonid Kuchma, quit the post. Mr. Kravchuk was president of Ukraine in 1991-1994 and was one of three Soviet leaders who signed the document on dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991. Mr. Kuchma, who ran the country between 1994 and 2005, served as Ukraine’s presidential envoy in the TCG, consisting of representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) from 2014 to 2018. After Volodymyr Zelenskyy was inaugurated as president in May 2019, Mr. Kuchma returned to the group, which has been involved in negotiations on finding a peaceful solution to the conflict between Russia-backed militants and Ukrainian armed forces in the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk. (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service)
Ukraine seeks justice in talks with Iran
Ukraine has reiterated its determination to bring Iran to justice for the downing of a Ukrainian airliner shortly after takeoff in Tehran during talks on compensation over the January air disaster that killed 176 people. Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba told journalists in Kyiv on July 31 that talks with an Iranian delegation were “constructive” and that Tehran’s readiness for the negotiations to establish the circumstances of the tragedy, bring the individuals responsible for it to justice, and pay compensation was an important move. “Iran has agreed to fulfill all of its obligations under the international aviation conventions to which it is a party. This means that we can build the relevant work constructively,” Mr. Kuleba said. He reported that the sides agreed upon a framework for the negotiation process, which will be held on several levels, with investigators, technical experts and lawyers communicating “to determine all the circumstances, including legal and technical nuances.” He added, “At this point the amount of the compensation remains unclear. The amount cannot be established right away as all involved factors must be considered when establishing it,” noting that if it becomes apparent that Iran is delaying the negotiation process, Kyiv will be ready for an “alternative scenario to ensure the payment of compensation by other possible means.” He did not elaborate. Iran has admitted that its forces downed the Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) passenger jet on January 8, saying they mistook it for a missile amid heightened tensions with the United States. All 176 people on board, including 57 Canadians, were killed. Data extraction from the jet’s black boxes is being carried out in Paris. Canada’s Transportation Safety Board said on July 23 that the download and preliminary analysis of the cockpit voice and flight data was finished, though the investigation continues. (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, with reporting by Ukrayinska Pravda and gordonua.com)
FBI raids Ukrainian tycoons’ offices
The FBI has raided the Cleveland and Miami offices of U.S. companies owned by powerful Ukrainian tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky, whose media company informally backed Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s successful presidential bid in 2019. “I can confirm that we are at both locations,” FBI Special Agent Vicki Anderson-Gregg said in an August 4 telephone interview with RFE/RL from Cleveland. She said she could not discuss the details of the investigation as the case “is under seal right now.” Ms. Anderson-Gregg said that no one had been detained in the raid. Mr. Kolomoisky and his Ukrainian partner, Hennadiy Boholyubov, control several companies run out of Miami that own U.S. real estate as well as steel and alloy plants. U.S. media reports in April 2019 and May 2020 said that the FBI was investigating Mr. Kolomoisky for money laundering. However, the FBI never confirmed those stories. Messrs. Kolomoisky and Boholyubov – billionaires who own energy, metals and media assets in Ukraine – are among the most influential businessmen in the country. The tycoons returned to Ukraine from self-imposed exile a month after Mr. Zelenskyy won the presidential election in a landslide in April 2019. Mr. Kolomoisky’s 1+1 channel aired the TV comedy series produced by Mr. Zelenskyy’s production company. Mr. Zelenskyy appointed Andriy Bohdan, Mr. Kolomoisky’s former lawyer, as his first chief of staff before replacing him in February. The president’s reported close ties to Mr. Kolomoisky have been a concern for Ukraine’s Western partners, who have tied financial and political support to Kyiv to reforms that reduce the influence of tycoons. The United States does not have an extradition agreement with Ukraine, meaning the tycoons will likely never face prosecution in a U.S. court even if the Department of Justice were to bring charges against them. RFE/RL could not immediately reach Mr. Kolomoisky or Mr. Boholyubov for comment. The confirmation of the FBI investigation follows on the heels of a civil lawsuit filed against the tycoons by Ukrainian lender PrivatBank in Delaware in May 2019. Messrs. Kolomoisky and Boholyubov owned PrivatBank until December 2016, when Ukraine nationalized it after the tycoons failed to inject capital to stabilize the lender during a severe economic downturn. PrivatBank claims the men laundered $780 million into the U.S. financial system through a series of bogus loans issued to companies they control. The tycoons then used the money to acquire commercial property, ferroalloy plants and specialty steel companies in the United States – along with several Cleveland office buildings – without ever returning the money, the bank claims. PrivatBank has dubbed the alleged fraud the Optima Schemes because the U.S. assets were largely controlled by companies with the name Optima. The bank is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution. The Optima businesses are run out of Miami by the tycoons’ U.S. business partners, Mordechai Korf and Uriel Laber. A spokesperson for Messrs. Korf and Laber declined an RFE/RL request for comment about the August 4 raids. Special Agent Anderson-Gregg confirmed the FBI agents were at the Cleveland office of Optima Management, which oversees the tycoons’ local real-estate investments. Optima Management is located inside One Cleveland Center, which is one of the local commercial buildings owned by the tycoons. (Todd Prince of RFE/RL)
Lukashenka challenger headed for Kyiv
A critic of Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka who last month fled the country along with his children after his and others’ candidacies were rejected for next week’s presidential election has reportedly left Russia for neighboring Ukraine. A spokesman for Valer Tsapkala said on August 2 that the 55-year-old politician and founder of a prominent high-tech park in Minsk – who was seen by some as a serious challenger to the 26-year incumbent Lukashenka – was on his way from Moscow to Kyiv. The spokesman, Alyaksey Urban, did not provide details or say why Mr. Tsapkala, who fled amid rumors of his imminent arrest, preferred the Ukrainian capital to Russia. The announcement comes seven days before Belarus’s August 9 vote, which has already been marred by dubious disqualifications and an unprecedented scale of detentions and other persecution against a backdrop of a pandemic and pro-democracy protest. Add to that a fresh accusation by Mr. Lukashenka that Russian mercenaries were detained while purportedly trying to destabilize Belarus ahead of the election, and it shapes up as one of the most alarmingly volatile elections of Mr. Lukashenka’s authoritarian tenure. More than 1,100 people have been arrested since campaigning began, including politicians, organizers, and journalists. Human rights groups and other critics have accused Belarusian authorities of fostering an atmosphere of “fear and intimidation” ahead of the vote, including by banning independent observers from polling stations and threatening to deploy troops to put down any protests. Officials have barred aspiring candidates like Mr. Tsapkala and popular vlogger Syarhey Tsikhanouski, whose wife, Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, entered the race after her husband was jailed following his announcement that he would also seek the presidency. The Central Election Commission dismissed Mr. Tsapkala’s application on July 14 after apparently rejecting around half of the 160,000 signatures that accompanied his application to run. Mr. Tsapkala appeared on Russian TV 10 days later to say he’d fled out of concern for his safety after prosecutors visited his children’s school and “reliable sources” told him he was going to be arrested. Mr. Tsapkala’s wife, Veranika, is reportedly still in Belarus. Ms. Tsapkala, along with Maryya Kalesnikava, a coordinator of the campaign of another excluded presidential aspirant, former Belgazprombank head Viktar Babaryka, joined forces to support Ms. Tsikhanouskaya, who unlike Messrs. Tsapkala and Babaryka was registered as a presidential candidate. Ms. Tsikhanouskaya reportedly sent her two children to an EU member state out of concern for their safety after receiving threats ahead of the election. (Current Time)
Hostage taker detained in Kyiv
Ukrainian police detained a man who held a woman hostage in a Kyiv bank for hours, threatening to detonate an explosive device that he said was in his backpack. Police managed to detain the man after allowing him to talk to journalists inside Kyiv’s Universal Bank. Officials confirmed after the man was detained that he did in fact have explosives. Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Anton Herashchenko identified the perpetrator as Suhrob Karimov, a 32-year-old Uzbek citizen. The man said that he is “a holy spirit” and “ordered” to “arrest all presidents of the world.” It was Ukraine’s third hostage incident in recent weeks. In the first such incident, a man in Ukraine’s northwestern city of Lutsk on July 21 held 13 people hostage inside a bus with a firearm and explosives for 12 hours before he was apprehended by security forces. The perpetrator was later identified as 44-year-old Maksym Kryvosh, a native of the city of Dubno and a resident of Lutsk. A few days later, a criminal suspect brandishing a hand grenade forced a senior police officer to drive him for hours through the countryside, chased by police. More than six hours after the pursuit began, the man left his hostage in the car and fled into a forest. Authorities located that suspect a week later and shot him dead on August 1, state media reported. (RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, with reporting by AP, Reuters and DPA)