Ukraine's presidential campaign comes to the United States (11/14/04)

Ukraine's presidential campaign comes to the United States

by Yaro Bihun
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

WASHINGTON - The Ukrainian presidential run-off election campaign came to the U.S. capital last week when an advisor to Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych sought to convince the U.S. press and policy-makers that a Yanukovych victory would be a good thing for Ukraine and its relations with the West.

Over three days, November 8-10, Eduard Prutnik campaigned on Mr. Yanukovych's behalf with journalists at the National Press Club, with business and government representatives at the Cosmos Club and the Nixon Center, and at some individual meetings as well. The aim of the visit, he said in an interview with Voice of America on November 9, was to explain the economic and other successes of the Yanukovych government so that his victory in the run-off with Viktor Yushchenko on November 21 would not come as a surprise.

The visit did not generate much attention in the media or elsewhere. U.S. and other Western news outlets did not report on the visit, except for an "Embassy Row" piece in the Washington Times, the capital's "other" newspaper, which he visited separately. There were brief Ukrainian-language reports on VOA and Radio Liberty broadcasts, but they were aimed at the Ukrainian and not the American audience.

There was one press report, however, that may well have more serious reverberations back home.

Luba Shara, a Washington-area journalist who writes for Ukrainska Pravda, the Internet newspaper in Ukraine made famous four years ago by the murder of its editor, Heorhii Gongadze, used her report on Mr. Prutnik's appearance at the National Press Club to shed light on the large amounts of money spent over the past two years for the services of American public relations and lobbying firms with the intent of establishing and improving Mr. Yanukovych's image in Washington. Her research showed that five firms were paid in excess of $1 million since May 2003.

As she explained in her report, the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) of 1938 requires that all companies and individuals engaged in lobbying and PR efforts for foreign governments, organizations and individuals, must register with the Justice Department's FARA Registration Unit. She found that such contracts were signed with Venable, LLP; Potomac Communications Strategies, Inc.; Creative Response Concepts; DB Communications, LLC; and Jefferson Waterman International. Ms. Shara pegged the exact amount of expenditures thus far at $1,041,396.50. In all but the last contract, she points out, Mr. Yanukovych's image was the intended beneficiary, and two other people instrumental to the transaction: Mr. Prutnik and Alex Kiselev, a Ukrainian immigrant businessman now living in the Washington area who handled the payments to the firms.

In the last deal, for $120,000, signed with Jefferson Waterman International in August, the principal is Mr. Prutnik himself and not Mr. Yanukovych, and Mr. Kiselev, again, is the agent. The intent of the contract, as described by O'Dwyer Publications on its Internet site, is to assist "the principal in developing relations with American think-tanks, journalists, academics and former U.S. officials interested in Ukraine." JWI was involved in Mr. Prutnik's visit.

Mr. Prutnik was Mr. Yanukovych's deputy when he was chairman of the Donetsk Oblast, where he held other important political positions as well. He was also named to the boards of directors of Ukrtelecom, Oshchadbank and the Export-Import Bank of Ukraine. Mr. Prutnik is in his early 30s.

Mr. Kiselev, who emigrated from Odesa to the United States in 1992 and is now in his mid-30s, has been visibly involved with U.S.-Ukrainian commercial relations for a number of years. Two years ago he was one of the organizers of the first U.S.-Ukrainian Informational Technology Conference sponsored by the Embassy of Ukraine. Then he headed Eurosoft International Inc. Today he is a partner in North Atlantic Securities, located in Scarborough, Maine.

Also participating in the meetings of last week's visit as well as in the Embassy-sponsored IT conference in 1992 was Kempton Jenkins, president of the Ukraine-U.S. Business Council, who also serves as counselor at Jefferson Waterman International.

As Ms. Shara noted, the Prutnik-Kiselev campaign on behalf of Mr. Yanukovych has a negative side as well. On the eve of the Ukrainian presidential election in October, Mr. Kiselev was featured in a story in the Washington Jewish Week. Mr. Yanukovych's "U.S. strategy counselor" was leading a delegation of former congressmen to monitor the election. He suggested that Mr. Yanukovych would be a strong president, while his opponent, Viktor Yushchenko had "a spotty record in minority rights."

Mr. Kiselev also expressed his concern that "Yanukovych is not getting a fair hearing in the states, complaining that Ukrainian diaspora groups that lobby in this country and support Yushchenko came following World War II and lived in Ukrainian areas where many residents were Nazi collaborators."

As Natalia A. Feduschak reported in the Washington Times on November 2, while most international observers criticized the conduct of the October 31 election, the group of ex-congressmen, which was organized by Mr. Kiselev, found the vote to be free and fair, as did observers from Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Ms. Shara concludes her report by raising a number of questions, among them:

Since the PR and lobbying contracts are for the personal benefit of Mr. Yanukovych and not that of Ukraine or its government, where does Mr. Yanukovych, who claims not to even own a car, get the money to pay American PR firms hundreds of thousands of dollars?
How are these funds channeled to Mr. Kiselev, who pays the American firms?
And who financed the Kiselev-led trip to Ukraine by former U.S. congressmen to observe the October 31 election?

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