#2
Ukrainian Tornado battalion members accused of rape, torture, abductions in Donbas

KIEV, September 30. /TASS/. The Chief Military Prosecutor's Office of Ukraine has completed the prejudicial investigation of grave crimes in the area of Kiev's military operation in Donbas that eight Tornado special purpose police patrol company officers are accused of, the Office reported Wednesday.

"The Chief Military Prosecutor's Office of Ukraine has completed the prejudicial investigation of some episodes in the criminal proceedings regarding Tornado special purpose police patrol company officers," the Office said.

Eight police officers from the Tornado company are suspected of committing a wide range of grave and especially grave crimes in the zone of Kiev's military operation in the territory of the Luhansk Region in the period from December 2014 to June 2015.

They are charged with establishing a criminal group, abuse of office, rape, abductions, torture, resistance to authority and theft.

The Prosecutor's Office said the episodes have been "proven."

Earlier, the eight police officers suspected of these crimes were arrested.

The prosecution will ask the court to sentence the eight police officers to maximum prison terms, Ukrainian Chief Military Prosecutor Anatoly Matios said on the 112 Ukraina TV channel.

Matios also said that a psychiatric examination of the suspects showed that they were sane.

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 #3
Ukrainecomment
https://ukrainecomment.wordpress.com
September 24, 2015
HOW SERIOUS A THREAT IS THE FAR RIGHT IN UKRAINE? VIEWS FROM KYIV

The danger of extreme nationalists in Ukraine has gradually been getting more serious attention in the western press, with words like "extreme right," "neo-Nazi" and "skinhead" belatedly replacing euphemistic labels for the most radical political and paramilitary organizations. But it took the brutal killing of three unquestionably patriotic Ukrainian National Guardsmen during protests outside of the Verkhovna Rada to create some kind of consensus about the scale of their threat.

Many news outlets have doubtless been reluctant to give any credence to one of Moscow's key justifications for launching its separatist project in eastern Ukraine. The presence of extreme Ukrainian nationalists and neo-Nazis in the revolutionary vanguard of Maidan was cited by Putin as reason to annex Crimea ("Sevastopol will never be Banderovsky"), and tacitly for arming and reinforcing the Donbas rebels as well.

For too long too many western observers have played a logic game: if we can find demonstrable exaggeration by the Russian press of the fascist threat in Ukraine, then everything the Russians (or anybody else) says about that threat must be false.

This works very well, because the Russian press is prone to fakes, spin and hysteria. And so the fact that are not actually bands of Ukrainian neo-Nazis hunting down Russian speakers on the street has allowed many observers to disregard the unconcealed role of radical nationalists in politics and national security.

And so it is especially important to hear Ukrainian perspectives about the far right, especially from pro-unity, anti-separatist commentators. Such sources have no interest in exaggerating the role of the radicals, and much motivation to downplay it. So reading their honest, alarming words was a wakeup call for us.

Several mainstream Ukrainian media deserve credit for reporting on the radicals from the very start,  especially the popular daily Vesti. For this the paper became a target of masked "activists" who trashed its offices and publicly destroyed large quantities of the paper. But Vesti's (mostly unfair) reputation among many Ukrainians as "mouthpiece of the Kremlin" meant that its warnings often fell on deaf ears. But today more and more Ukrainian media are covering this topic, especially the hip news website Bukvy.com, which has impeccable anti-separatist credentials.

In this post we present excerpts from two Bukvy articles. The first is a searing critique of the site's own liberal readership for having legitimized the radical political party Svoboda during the Maidan protests. The second lays out in detail how Russian neo-Nazis have found a place in Ukrainian volunteer battalions and even national politics by positioning themselves as uncompromising enemies of Putin's regime.

---

Hostages of Svoboda
Lelik Krakowsky
Original: http://bykvu.com/home/mysli/7531.html

Today it's easy to talk about the political death of Oleg Tyagnibok [head of the radical nationalist party Svoboda, accused of inciting the killings of National Guardsmen outside the parliament on August 31], but somehow forget that not all that long ago Svoboda had 40 seats in parliament. That's just slightly more than the most radical of today's radicals, Lyashko [head of the Radical Party], holds right now.

The fact that Svoboda is composed of Nazi activists or those who are ready to work in solidarity with them, sponsor them and position them in municipal politics was known by absolutely everyone. Nonetheless, Svoboda's electorate was wider than those who hold these far-right views. Amongst its voters were office plankton [Russian term for cubicle dwellers] who had little understanding of politics but who gobbled up the memes put out by our media.

It was understood that the Svobodovtsi were neo-Nazis, but society handed them responsibility for the struggle for our civil rights. Even though, a priori, neo-Nazis have no concept of civil rights. But that didn't worry anyone.

This all shows that our society isn't capable of thinking adequately, and reacts only to media propaganda. And the media, in turn, can tell the electorate anything: "Yanukovich is a thief," "Yuschenko is the president," "Putin is a crab," "Everbody to Maidan!" And it works.

It is popularly thought that Maidan was a people's protest. The people came to the Veche [popular assembly] and threw Yanukovich out. But in truth Yanukovich wasn't overthrown by the people, but by the corpses of dozens of dead activists.

The participants of those violent days think that society supports them. But imagine what would have happened if the media had oriented itself on journalistic standards and the Criminal Code when it reported on the bloody events of Maidan, which assumes punishment for both sides of the conflict, the Berkut [riot police] and titushki [anti-Maidan hired thugs] along with the activists. Then Yanukovich wouldn't have had to flee.

We understand that these deaths were profitable and played into the hands of the opposition, including "Svoboda". Maidan without press propaganda would have ended exactly as the demonstrations ended by Svoboda and Lyashko's Radicals outside the Verkhovna Rada on August 31 [arrest and opprobrium for the radical perpetrators].

Let me say something that won't be popular. Despite my loathing for the far right I never really wanted to see any of them get seriously punished, let alone get sent to jail...The guilt for the tragedy outside the Rada is with propaganda and the attempts by some media and political consultants to justify criminality.

People like Gumeniuk [the Svoboda protestor who allegedly threw the grenade], don't understand that...those representatives of the media who established the positive image of Maidan are today in power, and they aren't inclined to share it with anyone: if Gumeniuk had been a hero on Maidan, today in the eyes of Ukrainska Pravda or Gromadske TV [media outlets popular amongst Maidan protestors] he's a criminal.

Neither Tyaginbok, Lyashko nor Mosiychuk [a notorious radical MP and battalion leader] will face criminal charges for the grenade thrown outside the Verkhovna Rada. They didn't even organize it's throwing. [According to the authorities] the grenade was Gumeniuk's personal initiative. He returned from the warzone where, possibly, he lost friends and possibly he was plagued by a comprehensible sense of the injustice of it. Maidan was not finished for him.

---

The adventures of Russian neo-Nazis in Ukraine
Boris Gonta
Original: http://bykvu.com/home/mysli/8311/priklyucheniya-rossijskikh-natsistov-v-ukraine.html

The reason Russian nationalists came to Ukraine

It's not a secret that the Nazi movement in Ukraine is less radical than that of Russia. The level of xenophobic crimes didn't even approach that of our eastern neighbor. Although that didn't stop Ukrainian neo-Nazis from concealing their Russian compatriots who were fleeing arrest. The Ukrainian security services chose to ignore the problem and did nothing to neutralize the situation. In general, feeling themselves more comfortable in Ukraine these Russian neo-Nazis connected their political future with her.

Despite the propaganda of Ukrainian patriotism, bordering on banal Russophobia and radical Ukrainian nationalism, for a long time there was no particular contradiction between the Nazi movements in Ukraine and Russia. They are all united by racism, Nazism and the fashionable radical subculture. In the political arena, Russian nationalists have long been trying to enter via legal nationalist organizations - the Movement Against Illegal Immigration, "Slavic Union" et al., However, the radicalism of their rank and file activists, participating in numerous murders and attacks on foreigners, made such a scenario impossible.

The Russian authorities have opened real criminal cases against some radicals, which were interpreted by nationalists as political persecution, hindering them from establishing "Russian order on Russian soil..."

The possibility of realizing their political ambitions came to fruition on Maidan when, due in no small part thanks to the Ukrainian authorities and intelligence agencies an image was created of the patriot ready to do anything to fight the "dictatorship Yanukovych." The fact that the views of the neo-Nazis taking an active part in Maidan had nothing to do with its declared values of liberalism, freedom and democracy, was generally not acknowledged. By the time of Maidan almost all of the neo-Nazi movement had settled in "Praviy Sektor."

There is a stereotype that Russian neo-Nazis supported Putin's "Novorossiya" project and are enthusiastically fighting in the Donbass against the Ukrainian armed forces. However, this is not entirely true. Russia nationalists supported Maidan from the very start and propagandized it within Russia.

Many Russian nationalists saw in Maidan what they couldn't find in Russia: the opposition was open to dialogue with neo-Nazis, and in society a sympathy towards representatives of the far right took root. In the eyes of ordinary inhabitants, sympathizing with democratic Maidan, no one but the radical nationalists was prepared to face down "Berkut" and really fight with the "Yanukovich regime."

In Maidan Russian nationalists saw not the striving of Ukraine to membership in the European Union or to norms of liberal governance, but the chaos of revolution, opening opportunities for radical right forces. In the opinion of Russian nationalists, Maidan should have spread to Russia and accomplished the overthrow of Putin.

The nationalists saw how much these goals would be advanced by global communications, weapons and military experience - all of which they receive in the Anti-Terror Operation [Ukraine's military campaign], fighting on a par with Ukrainian nationalists against the separatists and regular troops of the Russian Federation.

In December 2014 the creation of the so-called "Russian Insurgent Army" (RPA) was announced. In fact the project was late, because the neo-Nazis had already found the opportunity to fight in the ranks of the Donbass "Azov" and "Right Sector" battalions. The creation of the RPA is symbolic in that it included members of the organization "Black Committee", which is accused of organizing and implementing the terrorist attack by the Verkhovna Rada of August 31.

In Ukraine, the Russian nationalists received full support and solidarity, since they were perceived as fighters against the Putin regime. In turn, they viewed Ukraine as a fertile ground for the spread of their influence. In particular, in January 2014 the odious representative of "intellectual Russian nationalist" Egor Prosvirnin arrived in Ukraine and tried to establish working relations with his Ukrainian "colleagues".

After the annexation of Crimea Prosvirnin defended the policy of the Kremlin and officially severed ties with Ukrainian right forces. However, the network of Russian nationalists associated with him continues to be involved in political and public life in Ukraine.

The "provocation" beneath the walls of the Russian Embassy and its members

On July 25 beneath the walls of the Russian embassy in Kiev a rally was organized in support of so-called Russian "political prisoners". Despite the fact that the organizers and active participants of the demonstrations were Russian nationalists from the "Azov" battalion, the Ukrainian media did not report that amongst the protestors were followers of far right movements. The demonstration gained prominence only because of a supposed "provocation": unknown persons tried to compromise the organizers, hinting that they were Nazi sympathizers. However, it later became clear that their participation in the rally was directly connected to the fact the "political prisoners" in question were members of the neo-Nazi movement in Russia.

Among the organizers of the protest was a well known figure, Russian nationalist Roman Zheleznov, known by the nickname of "Zyukhel".

According to some Ukrainian journalists Zyukhel is a political refugee. Officially he fled Russia because he supported Praviy Sektor from the start of Maidan. Namely in connection to his sympathy for PS he was excluded from the Russian organization "Restruct" which carries out pro-Kremlin social projects connected with fighting illegal immigration, pedophilia and narcotics.

Zyuhel was part of the Nazi movement WotanJugend, and also was involved in the movement NSWP. NSWP initiated another neo-Nazi project: Misanthropic Division (MD). Roman "Zyuhel" Zheleznov is a member of MD.

The Misanthrophic Division project is directly related to Maidan and became a reason for the schism within the Russian nationalist movement in February 2014. Russian nationalists divided into those who positively regarded the revolutionary events in Ukraine and those who categorically rejected them, taking off to fight for a Russian Crimea or Donbass. However, all those who that that the ideas of MD could be brought to realization later fought in the ranks of Azov in the Donbass.

But even after the schism Russian radical nationalists did not change their views or swear off Nazism, racism and xenophobia, regardless of which side they were fighting for in the Donbass.

Russian nationalists see opportunities in this war, and their conflicts between themselves focus only on who made the more correct decision in the name of the future of Russia and the Russian people. They don't discuss Ukraine and its particular civilizational choice, they are supporting Ukraine opportunistically. Those who ended up in Ukraine and supported Maidan saw in it an extension of the struggle with the Putin regime and today cannot express their religious or imperial ambitions. Those who supported the "Novorossiya" project are freed of that necessity to conceal their views.

Ilya Bogdanov, the Misanthropic Division and the Petro Poroshenko Bloc

In Facebook there is a user named Ilya Bogdanov. He is just the sort of Russian nationalist described above, who settled in Ukraine due to this ideological view: total hatred of the "Putin regime" that is destroying the Russian people.

Hatred for Putin inspired him to head off to fight for Ukraine in the ranks of Praviy Sektor. Judging by his page on Facebook, Bogdanov managed to fight in Pesky and the Donetsk Airport, where we received internet fame. Interestingly, he had earlier sought to destroy the Russophobic systems "from within" by joining the FSB, and even took part in the Counterterrorism Operation against Chechen Mujahidin fighting for independence of the Caucasus.

Bogdanov is also a member of the Misanthropic Division. However, despite the fact that all of its members who came to fight for Ukraine are (or were) soldiers in Azov, Bogdanov was not accepted by that batallion. In his words, Azov regarded him with suspicion as a member of the enemy security agency. Thus, Bogdanov was forced to join Praviy Sektor instead.

Despite his active participation in the ATO, Ilya Bogdanov had difficulty receiving Ukrainian citizenship. He frequently wrote about this on his Facebook page. But this spring those problems suddenly ceased. "Unknown persons" helped Bogdanov receive citizenship. At first it was not known who helped this Russian neo-Nazi and FSB veteran, but soon it became clear - Bogdanov announced that he was committed to take part in upcoming municipal elections in the Petro Poroshenko Bloc.

Facebook post by Russian "political emigrant" and neo-Nazi ideologue Ilya Bogdanov, announcing his candidacy for the district council of Kyivo-Svyatoschinsky district in Kyiv in Petro Poroshenko's "Solidarnist" bloc. The image at left shows his candidate's mandate. From bykvu.com

Poroshenko does not hold authority amongst radical nationalist youth, especially amongst those who took active part in the war. Poroshenko is guilty for Ilovaisk, Debaltsevo and other military disasters. Namely he, in the opinion of nationalists, bears the full weight of responsibility for all problems in the ATO. And so the agreement of Bogdanov to participate in elections in the Petro Poroshenko Bloc looks, at the very least, strange.

In the beginning of October, 2015 in Kyiv a convention is planned for the "Russian Center," an organization of "Russian political emigrants." It should not surprise that beneath this attractive phrase are hiding typical Nazis, members of various Russian neo-Nazi organizations. We will only add that amongst the organizers we note Ilya Bogdanov, who is running for office in the Petro Poroshenko Bloc... and Roman Zheleznov, former member of Restruct, the Misanthropic Division and WotanJugend.

Russian nationalists in Ukraine are trying to establish structures for their political influence, which should function on the political situation in Russia. Exiled nationalist try to find a place in the volunteer battalions, liberal political parties and NGOs. But in order not to lose their originality and to enhance their influence, maintaining themselves as a monolithic political force, they continue to stick together. Despite their organizational divisions. For instance, despite the obvious political competition between the Azov Battalion and Praviy Sektor, the Russian nationalists fighting for these two groups remain close, because in truth nothing divides them. They have their common interest - the realization of the Russian nationalist project.

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#4
16,000 Ukrainian troops defect Donbas with weapons, prosecutor says

KIEV, October 5. /TASS/. Some 16,000 Ukrainian soldiers have defected from the zone of military operations in conflict-riven eastern Donbas - many carrying weapons, the country's chief military prosecutor said on Monday.

"We have investigated 16,000 criminal cases regarding defectors who have left the zone of military operations, and a significant part of them defected with weapons," Anatoly Matios told reporters.

The Interior Ministry has launched a search for all those missing, but no more than 1,000 had been located over the past year, he said.

Deputy head of Ukraine's armed forces mobilization department Colonel Alexander Pravdivets has reported that during a sixth wave of call-up almost 27,000 conscripts, around 50% of the total, had dodged army service.

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 #5
AFP
October 2, 2015
Ukraine local polls postponed to ensure 'undisputed' vote
By Fran Blandy and Ania Tsukanova

Paris (AFP) - The leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany agreed to delay contentious local elections in Ukraine to ensure that they meet international standards, despite fighting having all but stopped in the country's separatist east.

Peace appears closer than ever in the 17-month conflict, which has plunged relations between Moscow and the West to post-Cold War lows, with the latest ceasefire called last month having largely been observed by both pro-Russian rebels and Ukrainian forces.

However, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko warned at a summit in Paris that Russia still had "plenty of work to do" before economic sanctions that have bitten hard can be lifted.

Rival elections planned by Kiev and the Russia-backed rebel regions have also proved a major sticking point in implementing a peace deal agreed in Minsk in February.

French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel addressed the press after the summit, saying the leaders had agreed that a rebel vote planned in the east on October 18 could not go ahead.

"We don't want elections to take place in eastern Ukraine that do not respect the Minsk deal," Hollande said.

He said there was a need for "time to draw up a law, an electoral law that perfectly conforms" to international standards.

Hollande said that only 90 days after such a law is voted in could the planned local elections take place, meaning the Minsk deadline of December 31, 2015 for the vote had to be pushed back.

He said it was on the security front that the peace deal "has made the most progress", and added that light weapons would be withdrawn from the frontline in eastern Ukraine beginning on Saturday, in another step towards peace.

But in a blow to Poroshenko, Hollande called for "amnesty" and "immunity" for all election candidates, including the rebels.

'Positive development'

After repeated violations of previous truces, the latest ceasefire has been strictly observed.

The warring sides this week agreed to withdraw weapons of less than a 100-millimetre calibre from a buffer zone between their forces beginning Saturday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman later hailed the start of the weapons withdrawal as a "positive development".

Hollande said the leaders had called for a similar process for the withdrawal of heavy weapons and for European monitors to be afforded "safe and free access across Ukrainian territory up to the border" with Russia.

The separatist rebels launched an uprising in March 2014 after Russia annexed Crimea, seeking to similarly break away from Kiev after a pro-EU government took power there.

Ukraine and the West accuse Russia of covertly supporting the rebels with troops and weapons, a claim Moscow denies.

The rebels, who now seek greater autonomy within a united Ukraine, want to hold local elections on their own terms, which include barring all pro-Kiev candidates and holding the polls on separate days to those planned in the rest of Ukraine.

Friday's summit began in Paris with a series of one-on-one meetings between Putin and Hollande and Merkel that also focused on Russia's intervention in Syria, before they gathered for coffee on a sunny terrace of the Elysee Palace.

However there was still a discernible chill in the air over the conflict which has left more than 8,000 dead and risks being overshadowed by Russia's dramatic intervention in the Syrian war.

Ukrainian officials fear that by making himself an important player in Syria, Putin is hoping to leverage a better deal on Ukraine -- particularly an easing of sanctions.

Neither Merkel or Hollande touched on the issue of sanctions, which are due to be reviewed at the end of the year. It is unclear whether this would be delayed by the postponed local elections.

However Poroshenko said: "We went through each clause of the Minsk accords, and I can say that Russia still has plenty of work to do."

He said if the rebels refused to cancel their elections, the punishing measures could be "strengthened".

Poroshenko said: "The war will end when the last piece of Ukrainian land is freed."

 #6
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
October 3, 2015
Parties satisfied with latest talks on ending Ukraine conflict
Russian observers are voicing cautious optimism after another round of talks between the leaders of Russia, Germany, France, and Ukraine aimed at resolving the Ukrainian conflict. The issue of local elections in the Donbass remain the main stumbling block on the path to finding a political solution to the crisis in eastern Ukraine.
Alexey Timofeychev, RBTH
 
Four-way talks in Paris on resolving the conflict in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine appear to have yielded progress on carrying out the implementation of the peace accords signed in Minsk in February, in particular regarding the issue of local elections, which has threatened to derail the peace process in recent months.

One of the main issues on the agenda at the meeting between the leaders of Russia, Germany, France, and Ukraine, which took place in the French capital on Oct. 2, was local elections in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk "people's republics" (DNR and LNR) of the Donbass. The two entities broke away from the central government in Kiev in spring 2014 after rebels took control of key cities and buildings.

A war between government forces and the pro-Russian rebels is now over 18 months old, though the ceasefire agreed in Minsk, which for months was practically ignored, now appears to be holding relatively firm. Russia, which is widely suspected of providing the rebels with military support, officially denies any role in the conflict.

For the time being, both unrecognized republics plan to hold their elections separately from the rest of Ukraine, a step to which Kiev is categorically opposed since it says this contravenes the terms of the peace agreements signed in Minsk.

According to the Minsk accords, regional elections must take place in line with Ukrainian law and be held on the same day nationwide - Oct. 25. However, the two rebel republics have declared that they will hold votes on Oct. 18 (in Donetsk) and Nov. 1 (in Lugansk).

As German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande said at a news conference (both Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko left the Élysée Palace right after the talks), elections in the rebel regions should be postponed and held under Ukrainian law.
However, Russian experts stress that the interests of the rebel regions are nevertheless expected to be taken into account too.  

Elections likely to wait for reform

As Hollande explained at the post-meeting news conference, the elections scheduled for October and November in the Donbass will "probably" not be held yet, but advised Kiev to adopt a new law on elections that would permit the votes to go ahead, after discussing the issue with the DNR and LNR.

There should also be an amnesty that would allow rebel representatives to take part in the polls. Voting in the Donbass should take place 80 days after the Ukrainian parliament adopts a law on elections and under OSCE observation.

Angela Merkel also pointed out the link between the elections and the necessity of the adoption of a law by Kiev on the special status of the Donbass and constitutional reform.

The same was noted by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov in his summary of the meeting. Peskov also said that participants in the talks had noted positive changes as regards the withdrawal of light weapons from the line of contact, which began at midnight on Oct. 3.

Merkel said that there is "a hope that despite the delays in implementing [the Minsk agreement], steps have been made" and that the four leaders can be pleased with the outcomes of the meeting.

However, in view of the slow pace at which negotiations have proceeded so far, the implementation of the Minsk accords may have to be extended till 2016, although previously it was expected that the set of measures envisaged in the agreements would be carried out by the end of this year.
 
Progress being made

According to Andrei Suzdaltsev, deputy head of the world economy and politics department at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, participants in the meeting noted progress in the implementation of the Minsk accords (Hollande said that the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine was "largely holding") but at the same time pointed out that neither side was fully compliant.

Suzdaltsev pointed out that this meeting was notable for the fact that Russia was not openly criticized by the other parties: "No threats posed by Russia [were mentioned]. That is to say that formally there was no anti-Russian context," he said, at the same time adding that the discussion must have been tough since Putin did not stay for the news conference.

However, Mikhail Alexandrov, an expert with the Center for Military and Political Studies at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, warns that it is also possible that the deal on Donbass elections reached at the talks could be used to foil the voting scheduled to take place in the DNR and LNR.

Even after the elections in Donbass have been canceled and the elections bill has been submitted to the parliament in Kiev, the bill may be blocked over protests by parliamentarians instigated by Poroshenko himself, said Alexandrov, citing as an example the difficulties that all draft laws on the Donbass to date have come up against in the Ukrainian parliament.

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 #7
Kyiv Post
October 3, 2015
Leaders agree to postpone Minsk deal implementation and Donbas elections
By Oleg Sukhov

The leaders of Ukraine, France, Germany and Russia agreed late on Oct. 2 at a meeting in Paris to postpone the implementation of the Feb. 12 Minsk ceasefire deal beyond the end of 2015.

They also agreed to delay elections in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine's Donbas and hold them under Ukrainian law.

The agreement comes as fighting dies down in eastern Ukraine and as Russia shifts its attention to Syria, where on Sept. 30 it launched airstrikes against rebel groups to support dictator Bashar al-Assad.

The talks in Paris were held between Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Hollande said that France would not change its position on Ukraine because of Russia's military operation in Syria.

The elections scheduled by Donetsk-based Russian-separatist forces for Oct. 18 and by Luhansk-based ones for Nov. 1 must be postponed, Hollande said.

"On the election issue, it will take longer. We don't want elections to get held in eastern Ukrainian territories under conditions that would not respect Minsk," he said.

"It's therefore likely, even certain now, that - since we need three months to organize elections - we will go beyond the date that was set for the end of Minsk (process), that is to say (beyond) Dec. 31, 2015."

Hollande said that the elections should be held within 80 days after Ukraine passes a law on elections in Russian-occupied areas of Donbas.

In March Ukraine passed a law giving Kremlin-held areas of Donbas broader autonomy and stipulating that it should be introduced after elections are held there under Ukrainian law. In August, the Verkhovna Rada also approved in the first reading constitutional amendments that envisage such autonomy.

All candidates in the elections must be given immunity from prosecution, while Kremlin-backed separatists should be amnestied, Hollande said.

After the elections, Russian troops must be withdrawn from Ukraine, and Ukraine should regain control over its border with Russia in the parts of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts where it does not currently have control, he added.

Russia will hold talks with Kremlin-backed separatists on holding elections in Donbas, Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Another agreement reached in Paris is that Ukraine will start withdrawing weapons with a caliber of less than 100 millimeters from the frontline on Oct. 3, Poroshenko said. The withdrawal must be carried out within 41 days, he said.

Military equipment with a caliber of more than 100 millimeters has already mostly been withdrawn.

Poroshenko also said that monitors of the Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe would get access to the entire Russian-occupied territories of Donbas.

Meanwhile, Putin promised to make sure that a Ukrainian officer of the 81st brigade taken prisoner by Russian-separatist forces was released, according to Poroshenko.

The next meeting of the four leaders is to take place in November.

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#8
AFP
October 5, 2015
Ukraine insists Russia must cede border by end of year
By Dmitry ZAKS

Kiev (AFP) - President Petro Poroshenko has stressed that Ukraine must regain control of its eastern border by the end of December even if full implementation of a February peace deal with Russia is delayed until 2016.

The Western-backed leader was seeking to clarify his stance in view of remarks by French President Francois Hollande at a media event held after a summit meeting on the crisis in Paris on Friday.

Poroshenko told Ukrainian television late Sunday: "The border is a key component of our sovereignty and we are not going to compromise over it."

Hollande had said after talks that also included Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel that he saw no way the February deal could conceivably be implemented by its end-of-year-deadline.

The main sticking point is the date of local elections in Ukraine's eastern separatist provinces of Lugansk and Donetsk.

The shaky truce deal says Russia must cede the entire 400-kilometre (250-mile) stretch of Ukraine's porous eastern frontier the day after those polls are held.

But Hollande told reporters there was insufficient time "to draw up a law, an electoral law that perfectly conforms" to international norms.

He added that the planned elections could take place only 90 days after such legislation is put in place.

The Donetsk insurgents intend to hold their polls on October 18. Their neighbours in separatist Lugansk have their own vote scheduled for November 1.

Rebel leaders have issued no formal comments about Hollande's remarks.

Syria shadow

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in Moscow on Monday that "the possibility of shifting (the February deal's) deadline was a matter of secondary importance."

"The most important thing is to accomplish what both sides pledged to do," Interfax quoted Lavrov as saying.

The Donetsk militia have already begun preparations for their elections -- a vote that will exclude any person or party that backs Kiev's plans to one day join the European Union and the NATO military alliance.

Ukraine's 18-month revolt has killed more than 8,000 people -- most of them civilians -- and driven about 1.5 million from their homes.

Putin denies backing the insurrections and calls Russian soldiers captured in the war zone off duty or vacationing "volunteers".

The Kiev media widely interpreted the first faceoff between Putin and Poroshenko in nearly nine months as ending with a resounding victory by Russia's increasingly confident and militant head of state.

"The negotiations saw Russia win because its version of the peace deal was confirmed," the Ukraine's RBC financial news site wrote in an opinion piece.

The Paris talks were heavily overshadowed by Russia's sudden military intervention in Syria -- its longstanding Middle East ally and home to its sole foreign sea base.

Washington and Brussels insist they will not offer concessions to Putin on Ukraine in order to reverse Russia's apparent refusal to distinguish between jihadists and Western-backed opponents to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Merkel's chief of staff Peter Altmaier told a German daily last week that "we are not vulnerable to blackmail on Ukraine".

But Andreas Umland of the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation in Kiev said a "change in attitude" was apparent in the European Union approach toward Ukraine.

And Ukrainian political analyst Yevgen Magda accused Merkel and Hollande -- both staking their political reputations by forcing the warring sides to agree to the deal's terms -- to "find a way to prolong the agreement and save face".

The Paris talks were followed by Kiev and the Lugansk fighters announcing the start of a smaller arms withdrawal from the "line of contact" splitting rebel lands from the rest of Ukraine.

But the pull-back agreement was reached days before the Paris negotiations and cannot be directly attributed to either Merkel or Hollande.

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 #9
Moscow expects feedback from Donetsk, Luhansk regarding new dates for local elections

MOSCOW, October 5. /TASS/. Moscow is still waiting for a feedback from the Donetsk and Luhansk republics regarding organization of local elections on new dates in compliance with the agreements the Normandy Four reached in Paris, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told TASS on Monday.

"Results of the talks in Paris were commented by the president's Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov, and I can confirm once again, that we are satisfied with the negotiations," Lavrov said. "We are convinced the discussion has removed for all the parties whatever misunderstandings (despite what they may have told their media later on), and made it clear what should be carried out fully."

A possible new date for Minsk-1 is secondary, and the most importance is what should be done.

"Besides dates for the elections, a key importance is a special status for Donbas, and in the parameters agreed on paper; there is no escaping those," the foreign minister said. "That should be permanent, not for a year or two - this is written clearly in the Minsk [accords]."

Lavrov commented on the provision about the amnesty.

"Amnesty has been discussed, and it is connected to local elections," he said. "France's president suggested and the German chancellor supported, the election dates should be appointed so that to make sure observation of all other items of the agreement's political part."

Since Donetsk or Luhansk were not represented in Paris, the Russian president as a mediator promised to inform them on that complex approach.

"The Russian president has ordered to discuss with representatives of the republics whether it would be possible to have the elections on new dates," he said. "We are expecting a feedback now."

The Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine comprising senior representatives from Russia, Ukraine and the European security watchdog OSCE on February 12, 2015, signed a 13-point Package of Measures to fulfill the September 2014 Minsk agreements. The package was agreed with the leaders of the Normandy Four, namely Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine.

The Package of Measures, known as Minsk-2, envisaged a ceasefire between Ukrainian government forces and people's militias in the self-proclaimed republics in Donetsk and Luhansk. The deal also laid out a roadmap for a lasting settlement in Ukraine, including local elections and constitutional reform to give more autonomy to the war-torn eastern regions, as well as pardon and amnesty to adopting a law banning punishments for deeds related to the events in Donbas.

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#10
Bloomberg
October 5,2015
Ukraine Is Being Told to Live With Putin
By Leonid Bershidsky

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has long had trouble understanding that the Western support of his government is conditional. Now the leaders of France and Germany have told him that in no uncertain terms: The ceasefire agreement for eastern Ukraine has just been recast to put the onus on Poroshenko, rather than on Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Going into Friday's negotiations with French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Putin in Paris, Poroshenko was looking belligerent. He had just delivered a hard-hitting speech at the United Nations, entirely devoted to Russia's depredations against his country.  His interior minister, Arsen Avakov, was boasting that the Ukrainian National Guard had "finally" received U.S. sniper rifles and anti-tank grenades.

Ukraine's Other War

French diplomat Pierre Morel, who has been in close contact with Moscow and the Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine, prepared a plan for the Paris meeting of the four leaders to approve. According to Morel's proposal, Ukraine would need to pass a special law setting out rules for the local elections in the rebel-held areas of Ukraine. That was a cunning way to defuse a time bomb planted under the Minsk cease-fire deal reached last February. Back then, Russia and its proxies agreed to an election under Ukrainian law by the end of the year, but they were clearly not prepared to hold it under the current legislation, which doesn't differentiate the rebel areas from all the others in Ukraine. They were threatening to hold their own polls in mid-October, something that might cause the war to reignite.

Poroshenko, however, swept the French diplomat's suggestion aside as "Mr. Morel's personal opinion." He was going into the meeting to demand Russia abide by the Minsk ceasefire, cancel what he called "fake elections" and return control of Ukraine's eastern border to Kiev by the end of the year.

He underestimated the determination of France and Germany to get the Ukrainian matter out of the way in the most efficient manner possible. After five hours of talks in the Elysee Palace, the Morel plan was imposed on Ukraine in a form more beneficial to Putin. First, Ukraine must design the special election law in consultation with Moscow and the separatists. Then, it will have to pass it and amnesty the separatist leaders so they can run for local legislatures. In 80 days' time, after the passage of the law, the election should be held. Then, if international observers declare it acceptable, Ukraine is supposed to regain control of its border with Russia. Hollande told reporters after the talks that wasn't likely to happen this year, because of the need to draft the legislation and properly prepare the election.

This is a slap in Poroshenko's face. It's almost politically impossible for him to push a Moscow-approved election bill through Ukraine's parliament. Poroshenko has had trouble getting the legislature even to approve a tame constitutional amendment allowing for a special status of the rebel-held regions; riots broke out outside the parliament building during the vote and police suffered casualties. Trying to sell election rules favorable to Moscow might mean the breakup of Ukraine's ruling coalition and perhaps snap elections likely to produce a parliament less favorable to Poroshenko.

"Paris has once again confirmed that in defending Ukraine's national interests Ukrainians have no allies but themselves," commentator Pyotr Shuklinov wrote bitterly on Liga.net. "Berlin and Paris decided to play the role of arbiters. Neither is willing to take decisive action to end the war in the center of Europe."

In addition to being granted an extension of the Minsk agreement, Putin will have the pleasure of watching Poroshenko squirm as he tries to water down the Morel plan -- or doesn't try hard enough to get the election bill approved. Any failure in that effort would give Putin a more or less permanently frozen conflict with which to distract Ukraine's resources and destabilize Poroshenko's government. And if the ball remains in Ukraine's court, economic sanctions against Russia may also be lifted -- Putin has made sure since last month that the war zone remains quiet.

At the same time, Poroshenko will be in trouble with Europe's leaders, who would become ever more suspicious of his intentions.

The way Merkel and Hollande see it, Poroshenko should be interested in working to reintegrate the rebel-held areas into Ukraine, which would mean contesting the election and, in case of an almost certain defeat, working with the winners. That's the European way of doing things; trying to enlist outside support to defeat the separatists is not, especially when Europe has plenty of problems of its own.

Poroshenko can count on meaningful support only if he shows a commitment to do difficult things that would bring Ukraine closer to Western governance models: Achieve tough political compromises and implement painful reforms. So far, the Ukrainian president hasn't delivered on either front.

His country is still hopelessly corrupt and gripped with infighting among oligarch clans, despite the government having created no fewer than five new anti-corruption bodies. In the absence of true deregulation and tax liberalization, economic growth remains elusive -- the International Monetary Fund has just lowered its growth forecast for Ukraine this year to a decline of 11 percent, from the 9 percent it predicted in June. The war the Ukrainian government is losing now is against mismanagement, overregulation and graft.

That's just what Putin wants. His bet in the eastern Ukraine local election, if it ever takes place, won't be on the rebel field commanders but on local oligarchs who ran the region before the 2014 "revolution of dignity." Through them, he will hope to exert both economic and political influence on Kiev. He can afford to wait; time is running out for Poroshenko, not for him.

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#11
Interfax-Ukraine
October 5, 2015
IMF worsens Ukraine's GDP fall forecast to 11% in 2015
 
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has once again revised its forecast for Ukraine's GDP in 2015 downwards, to 11% from 9% projected in June, the IMF said in a press release.

"Following a deep recession, macroeconomic stabilization is gradually taking hold. The exchange rate has been broadly stable, hryvnia deposits are rising, and inflation is receding. Gross international reserves, have increased to US$12.6 billion at end-August, and will be further boosted by a recently agreed swap arrangement with Sweden's Riksbank for $500 million. Despite these positive developments, in view of the larger than expected economic decline in the first half of the year, the mission revised down growth projections for 2015 to -11%. Growth is expected to reach 2% in 2016, supported by recovering consumer and investor confidence, improved export performance, and a gradual easing of credit conditions," the IMF said.

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 #12
www.rt.com
October 5, 2015
World Bank sharply downgrades Ukraine's GDP forecast

Ukraine's economy will contract 12 percent in 2015, according to the World Bank. This is an acute drop from similar estimates in April, when the Ukrainian GDP was predicted to fall 7.5 percent.

Inflation's going to hit 23.4 percent in 2016, considering a hike in property taxes and expectations from business, said World Bank economist in Ukraine Anastasia Golovach.

The World Bank expects the external debt of Kiev to reach 153 percent of GDP in 2015 and 134.2 percent in 2016.

It's also expected that the country's economy will grow one percent in 2016, said World Bank Country Director for Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine Qimiao Fan in Kiev on Monday.

"On the positive side, the devaluation is helping bolster net exports while further increases in tariffs together with fiscal discipline should create sufficient fiscal space to unlock government investment in the future. This, together with efforts to clean up the banking system and a gradual resumption of lending, is projected to set the stage for gradual economic recovery in 2016, with real GDP growth at one percent," states the report.

In early October, the IMF mission in Ukraine also downgraded its forecast on GDP from nine percent contraction to 11. Kiev expects the economy to decline 8.9%.

Deputy Governor at the National Bank of Ukraine Vladyslav Rashkovan said in September that in 2015 inflation would be 44-46 percent.

Also in September, Standard & Poor's downgraded Ukraine's credit rating from 'CC' to selective default 'SD' level after Kiev began restructuring its multibillion dollar debts and halted payment on a number of liabilities that will be restructured.

Ukraine is obliged to restructure the debt in order to get a $17.5 billion loan from the IMF. However, the deal could collapse, as Russia, one of Ukraine's biggest creditors, is refusing to accept a haircut on the $3 billion due in December.

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 #13
Human Rights in Ukraine
http://khpg.org
October 5, 2015
Journalists probing Security Service luxury cars detained and manhandled
By Halya Coynash

Two investigative journalists from the anti-corruption programme Skhemy: Corruption in Detail were accosted on Friday morning, Oct 2 outside Ukraine's SBU or Security Service and told to confess to being spies.  The incident has since resulted in an apology from the head of the Kyiv SBU and promises of a swift inquiry, which media lawyers have heard before, and view with scepticism.

The journalists from the joint Radio Svoboda and UTV-1 Skhemy programme are preparing a report on how SBU officers travel around in luxury cars which do not correspond to their official income.  According to the journalists, they had already been filming near the SBU premises for several days.  On this occasion they had just shown a press service employee their press ID when several individuals turned up and, without either identifying themselves or explaining their actions, began dragging the two men to SBU officers nearby.  Tkach wrote on Facebook that their video camera was damaged and they themselves treated roughly and "told to admit to spying".  Lazarevych later reported that he had seen two men, one in uniform, "attacking" Tkach, and tried to film this, while somebody else took hold of him, and attempted to wrench his video camera away.  They were dragged into a room, called spies and told to admit whom they were working for.

Tkach reports that they took Lazarevych's wallet away after turning it inside out. The journalists demanded in vain that the men identify themselves and that they be allowed to phone their lawyers.

They were both released within a few minutes with the SBU attributing the incident to increased security following the bomb blast outside the Odesa SBU on Sept 27.   Mykhailo Hluhovsky, head of the Kyiv SBU apologized and promised an internal investigation, suggesting that the security guards "may have exceeded their powers".  The journalists were also invited to see SBU head Vasyl Hrytsak who said that he had instructed a faster investigation - within 10 days, not a month.

What they are to investigate, however, is now in question since the video from the SBU CCTV footage given to Radio Svoboda does not have the relevant moments on it, though it does contain footage immediately prior to the incident and when the men were released.

Ludmila Pankratova, lawyer for the Regional Press Development Institute, told Radio Svoboda that the behaviour of the SBU employees clearly falls under Article 171 of the Criminal Code, i.e. obstructing a journalist carrying out his or her professional duties. She does not, however, hold out much hope of charges being laid, saying that cases involving high-ranking officials or their guards are most often left to fizzle out, and seldom reach the courts.  The statistics are telling: of 224 cases in the first 8 months of this year involving infringements of journalists' rights, only six were investigated by the Prosecutor General's Office and passed to the court.

This is not the first case where Skhemy journalists have come under attack while carrying out their work.

On May 22 this year a film crew was attacked in Kominternivske, near Odesa.  Journalist Maria Tymoshchuk and cameraman Maxim Lenko had gone to the office of Lemodo, a firm which recently won an Interior Ministry tender to provide vehicle number plates worth 70 million UAH.  The company is registered in the Odesa oblast, and up till this successful tender had never been engaged in such activities.  The 'office' proved to be more than modest and closed.  It was while they were trying to photograph the sign on the door that somebody ran up and smashed their video camera.

That attack came soon after Skhemy revealed details about the sumptuous lifestyle of Oleksandr Yershov, Acting Head of the Traffic Police.  The public saw photos and the price tags of all the cars the members of Yershov's family were driving, and the endless business class holidays his daughters had been on in the last 6 months.   The programme also highlighted obvious fiddles with the expensive cars and motorbike in fact driven bearing Interior Ministry number plates registered as being entirely different car models.

The scandal resulted in Yershov losing his post, one to which he had only recently been appointed by Interior Minister Arsen Avakov at the beginning of April.

This time the cars under scrutiny were driven by SBU employees.

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 #14
Moscow Times
October 5, 2015
Syria Won't Erase Putin's Ukraine Problem
By Paul Quinn-Judge
Paul Quinn-Judge is senior adviser on Ukraine and Russia at International Crisis Group, the independent conflict-prevention organization.

Speaking to American talk show host Charlie Rose in a segment that aired last weekend, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered his own recipe for wise leadership: identify problems in time and react accordingly.

Viewed through the prism of events in eastern Ukraine, this looks very much like retrospective wisdom. After more than a year of improvising a policy in Donetsk and Luhansk, Putin seems to be looking for a way out. Syria is helping, for now at least, by drawing attention away from Ukraine. But he cannot wish the problem away.

Indeed, Putin's task on the ground in Ukraine is becoming more complicated. If Russia really wants to pull out, it has to wind up a small but stubborn political local leadership and a quite large militia structure of at least 20,000 fighters that it has generously equipped with artillery and heavy armor.

It will discover, if it has not done so already, that separatist leaders have developed their own, usually corrupt, interests, and may not go quietly, and that fighters, abandoned to their own resources, may turn to crime.

Putin will also eventually have to clear up with the separatist entities the situation along Russia's own border, which has turned into a flourishing center for contraband. For now, managing Russian domestic opinion may seem easy. But the day is approaching when Putin will have to explain to his own people why the glorious revolution in the east turned into what most would call just another bardak. A mess.

The Kremlin has begun to take action in the last few months, stepping up pressure on its allies in the east. There have been changes in the separatist leadership. Obstreperous military commanders have been squeezed out. More recently the second-ranking leader of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) - Andrei Purgin, firmly opposed to compromise with Kiev - was abruptly arrested and detained by Donetsk's Ministry of State Security (MGB).

Separatist leaders say reorganization of the Donetsk military forces has replaced local warlords, Cossacks and others, with regular officers. The large units that reported directly to top leaders - DPR head Alexander Zakharchenko, or Security Council secretary Alexander Khodakovsky - have, in theory at least, been subordinated to a regular military structure. Its real leadership is unknown, but probably Russian.

During a recent meeting in Donetsk with a senior security official, my host paused to take a call. He listened impassively to a long report from a clearly shaken local commander, then hung up. Our Russian military minders are "screaming" at one of our artillery positions for responding to Ukrainian shelling, the official explained. "If we fire back, we get into trouble. If we don't, morale plummets," he remarked. Such complaints are sometimes accompanied by warnings that ammunition and supplies may be cut.

It should be easy for Moscow to control its far smaller clients. Russia arms, feeds, and funds the breakaway areas. Only two Donetsk leaders have even a modicum of independence, another member of the leadership told me recently. (Make that one now: Soon after our conversation the second of the two leaders was arrested.) "The rest of us," he said, "handle "technical issues." Separatist leaders obediently attend negotiations in the Minsk format, but they cannot even change the punctuation of any statements, he said.

Already in May 2014, Russia seems to have decided it would not incorporate eastern Ukraine into Russia militarily. Putin likely received convincing intelligence reports that incorporating the east would be much messier and more complicated than Crimea. "They ran out of ideas for us over a year ago," one leader constantly says.

Meanwhile, the Russians failed to organize a political or administrative structure, losing time in what looked like a permanent holding pattern. They treated us like "a suitcase without a handle," another leader remarked. "It's useless, but you can't bring yourself to throw it out."

During this time of constant improvisation in the Kremlin, some of the new local leaders were busy. Powerful criminal groups sprung up with both local political clout and serious firepower. A thriving cross border trade sprang up, with guns, drugs, consumer goods, scrap metal and coal crossing both the border with Russia and the line of separation between separatists zones and the rest of Ukraine.

Little of what is happening now is a surprise to the separatist leadership. Rank and file have been suspecting for months, if not longer, that Putin was preparing to dump them. A month or so ago I asked leaders in Donetsk whether such a scenario was possible. One answered with a long and circuitous speech that boiled down to: "Yes." Andrei Purgin, cautious and still very supportive of Russia, sidestepped slightly, saying: "This is a complex and slippery question." He did not rule it out, though.

Another problem, one of the subtler analysts in the leadership remarked, is that for the past year hardliners and moderates in the Kremlin have not reached any consensus about what to do next. "At times the military aid tap would flow abundantly, and we felt something was going to happen," one recalled. "Then it dried up again, and we were told to implement the Minsk agreement. The towers of the Kremlin were fighting against each other," he said.

The political confusion and competition in Donetsk is thus a reflection of the struggle in Moscow, and it is not slowing down. When I asked which side Putin was on, the analyst demurred. In fact Putin might not be on either side. He may well be where he often is: in the middle, trying to work out which way to go. Military success in Syria may help him by pushing Ukraine off the headlines. But it will not solve the problem he created in eastern Ukraine - and perhaps in the long run at home.

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 #15
Business New Europe
www.bne.eu
October 5, 2015
KYIV BLOG: US-style cops win points in Ukraine's regions while other reforms drag
Sergei Kuznetsov in Lviv

After the successful launch of a new patrol force in Kyiv in July, the Ukrainian authorities have begun rolling out the initiative in the country's regions. But while the new-look cops are receiving a cordial welcome, they are still the only visible result of the government's much trumpeted anti-corruption reforms.

Trained by American instructors, dressed in US-style uniform and driving Japanese-made Toyota patrol cars, the new force hit the streets in the cities of Odesa and Lviv in August, followed by Kharkiv in late September. Hundreds of new officers were chosen from thousands of candidates via a recruitment process that was open to all applicants who met certain criteria.

"Look into the eyes of those individuals who believed [in the idea of a new police force], who went through a tight selection process and put on the uniform. There is a desire to help [the people] in their eyes," Andryi Sadovyi, mayor of the western city of Lviv, tells bne IntelliNews. 400 new police officers began work in Lviv on August 23, and in late September another 140 new recruits were sworn in.

Training and deployment processes are currently being extended to other cities, including Kyiv-controlled areas of the Donbas, the country's industrial heartland. According to Arsen Avakov, Ukraine's interior minister, police there "will be slightly tougher, but twice as polite".

The new patrol police force is designed to replace the militsia inherited from Soviet times, which is associated with corruption and generally not trusted by society. By the end of the year, new police forces should appear in all major cities, totalling about 10,000 officers. The recruitment, training and deployment of criminal police and investigative services are due to start thereafter.

Georgia-born Eka Zguladze, the deputy interior minister, is responsible for these reforms. She already has experience in successfully transforming the Georgian police under the presidency of Mikheil Saakashvili, when the old staff was almost completely replaced by new police officers.

"In Georgia, the police was completely changed for a good reason. A weed is very difficult to take away - if the roots remain, it will grow again. That's why you need tough action," Sadovyi says.

Other reforms falling apart?

The new patrol police is gaining public support and enjoys popular trust, which is clearly demonstrated by the significantly increasing number of requests for police help in the cities where it has already been deployed. According to recent public surveys, the new police have 85% support in Kyiv, while only 5% of the city's residents trust the old militsia, Avakov told journalists during a trip to the south-western city of Chernivtsi on October 3.

However, it looks like the main reason for this initial success is that the new force is very often the one and only visible sign of anti-corruption reforms in the country so far.

Especially worrying is the fact that not only is the fight against 'everyday' corruption  undergoing severe delays, but most attempts to stifle 'high-level' corruption are struggling to take off, despite considerable pressure from Ukraine's Western backers and multinational donors.

The Anti-Corruption Bureau, the country's main anti-corruption institution, was officially created in April but has yet to actually begin operation. The main obstacle preventing the body from starting work is an inability to select and appoint a head of the anti-corruption department at the Prosecutor General's Office. This department should control the Anti-Corruption Bureau's activities.

"We cannot conduct an investigation when there is no prosecutor overseeing our investigation," Artem Sytnik, the head of the Bureau, said in September in Kyiv. "If we fail in the launch of the Bureau, the start of the reform process will also fail. If there is no fight against corruption, Ukraine will not exist within a year and a half or two years".

According to recent statements by officials of Ukraine's justice ministry, the head of the anti-corruption department at the Prosecutor General's Office is expected to be  appointed by the end of November, and the Bureau may start its operations by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, Western nations appear to be losing patience with current Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin. Geoffrey Pyatt, the US ambassador to Ukraine, criticised "the failure of the institution of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine to successfully fight internal corruption".

"Rather than supporting Ukraine's reforms and working to root out corruption, corrupt actors within the Prosecutor General's Office are making things worse by openly and aggressively undermining reform," Pyatt said during his visit to Odesa on September 24.

Shokin was appointed in February after his predecessor, Vitaly Yarema, resigned amidst accusations that he had failed to investigate landmark crimes, including the murder of Euromaidan protesters in 2014 and the corruption schemes of former president Viktor Yanukovych and his allies.

"In defiance of Ukraine's leaders, these bad actors regularly hinder efforts to investigate and prosecute corrupt officials within the Prosecutor General's Office," Pyatt added, according to the text of his speech published by the media office of the US embassy in Kyiv. "They intimidate and obstruct the efforts of those working honestly on reform initiatives within that same office."

"We will not run away"

In the first two months of operation, just 28 persons were fired from the new Kyiv police, which currently numbers 2,000 officers, Avakov told journalists in Chernivtsi on October 3. "We had expected a dropout rate of around 10-20%, not so few,"  the minister said, adding that the same situation is being observed in Lviv, Odesa and Kharkiv.

"There is no corruption in the [new] patrol police, and there will not be, because we will fight fiercely against corruption among the police. Everybody knows that," Yuri Zozulia, the 26-year-old head of the new Lviv police, tells bne IntelliNews. "When I talk with my subordinates, I even do not touch the issue of [possible] corruption."

Zozulia's is a meteoric rise if ever there was one. In the summer he was still a lance-sergeant after joining the new Ukrainian police in Kyiv and gained rapid prominence for issuing traffic violation citations to such high-ranking persons as Serhiy Melnichuk, a lawmaker and former commander of Ukraine's Aidar military battalion, and Hryhoriy Surkis, the vice-president of the European Union of Football Associations (UEFA). Zozulia is shortly due to receive the fast-track rank of colonel in his new capacity as Lviv police chief.

Meanwhile, Sadovyi recalls the night of February 19 last year, dubbed 'The Night of Anger', when thousands of Lviv residents led by far-right activists stormed buildings occupied by law enforcement agencies in response to the first killings of Euromaidan protestors in Kyiv. As a result of these events, a significant number of weapons was seized in Lviv, and their fate remains unknown.

"The representatives of security forces fled then, because they were afraid that they would be beaten. Interestingly, each of them knew what they would be beaten for," the mayor said, hinting at the corruption of the old militsia and other law enforcement agencies.

"We will not run away [in case of similar events] because we are doing the right thing, acting in accordance with the law," Zozulia said in relation to last year's events. "And we know what we stand for. First of all, we stand for the peace and security of residents."

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 #16
Human Rights in Ukraine
http://khpg.org
October 5, 2015
Not so new police: protesters and journalists detained in Kharkiv oblast
By Halya Coynash

Two journalists and a number of protesters were detained on Friday Oct 2 near the Bohodukhiv Oil Depot in the Kharkiv oblast.  Unlike the detention of journalists outside the SBU [Security Service] building in Kyiv which elicited a formal apology, the police version of events simply ignores the presence of journalists.  Since the account given by the journalists is backed by video footage, it is to be hoped that the Interior Ministry investigates the incident.

Two journalists from the Kharkiv office of the civic journalist initiative Hromadske TV report that they were invited to cover a protest against allegedly illegal oil processing at the Bohodukhiv Oil Depot.  The protesters believe that the oil is being brought from areas under Kremlin-backed militant control.  The relatively small number of activists present were demanding a stop to the processing and a meeting with the Director.

The journalists - Serhiy Moskalenko and Viktor Pichuhin - say that within 3 minutes, 8-10 cars with police number plates turned up with uniformed officers getting out of them.  On the video, a person not wearing a balaclava, appears to be talking quite peaceably to the police.  He asks the person in plain clothes and apparently wielding authority why the police are allowing such 'lawlessness'.  The officers can be seen trying to search the protesters' van.  Seemingly because the latter objected, they were forced to the ground.  The journalists say that the men were detained and forced into a police van, with one of them hit on the head.  Despite the fact that Moskalenko was wearing a press jacket, and both men clearly state that they are journalists, Moskalenko and Pichuhin were also taken away in the police van.

Pichuhin says that he was given no explanation as to why they'd been detained.  The police tried to question them, but he refused to answer any questions without access to a lawyer and explanation as to why they had been detained.  They were told that they had resisted the police, yet he points out that there is a video which shows that that was not the case.  They were then told that they'd been detained to establish their identity, but this was also more than unconvincing since both men were press badges.  They were finally released after writing explanations.  Pichuhin says that they were held for about 45 minutes in the police van, and then another hour and a half in the police station.

The journalists plan to make a formal complaint and point out that they have video footage demonstrating that the officers obstructed them from carrying out their legitimate work.

The police version of the events seen on the video is quite different.

According to the press service statement, "a group of young people in balaclavas obstructed the vehicle entrance to the enterprise, threatening its employees with reprisals and then resisting the police. The police detained the young men, removing a baseball bat, knives and a gas canister.  A criminal investigation has been initiated over unlawful use of weapons.

The report states that the director of the oil depot asserted that a group of around 10 people had offered "cooperation" for remuneration, threatening that if this was refused, they would block the oil deport, prevent its work, destroy its property and raw material.  

"After receiving a refusal, the unidentified men, claiming to be fighting unlawful business, and with the use of a car without number plates, blocked the entrance to the oil depot, threatened the employees and administration with physical violence, expressing the intention to illegally enter and seize the depot".

This highly ambitious plan by the alleged group of 10 (less are visible on the video) prompted the director to call the police who sent out a very large contingent.

The report states that "while establishing the circumstances and the unidentified individuals' purpose, the latter refused to identify themselves and give any explanation for their activities, behaved in a provocative manner, did not react to the repeated demands and comments of the police officers and continued their unlawful actions".

The police report asserts that they tried to take the men to the police station to establish their identity, but the men refused and began showing resistance.  At this point "in accordance with the Law on the Police", physical force was used to get the men to the police station in order to draw up administrative protocols.

The police claim to have found quite some arsenal from personal searches, and a search of the vehicle.  The list provided is as follows: a wooden baseball bat; a machete knife; balaclavas; folding knives; other knives [ножи-пики], state number plates from another vehicle and a gas canister 'Teren'.

The police report states that the "offenders" are Kharkiv residents aged from 18 to 25 and that an investigation has been added to the Register of Criminal Investigations under Article 263 § 2 of the Criminal Code (unlawful use of weapons, ammunition or explosive devices).

There is no mention of the two journalists.

The stories are widely divergent and the video therefore of particular relevance  www.hromadske.tv

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 #17
Fort Russ
http://fortruss.blogspot.com
October 4, 2015
Azarov: Poroshenko's UN speech humiliated Ukraine
RT
http://russian.rt.com/article/119618
Translated for Fort Russ by J. Arnoldski

"Nikolay Azarov: Poroshenko's speech at the UN summit was poor in meaning and content"

The former Ukrainian head of state commented on his Facebook page on the speech of Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko at the UN summit on global developments. RT is publishing the material under the heading of "personal opinion":

"Never before have I felt such shame from the humiliation of Ukraine after listening to Poroshenko's speech at the UN General Assembly. In the entire history of the UN, never have our representatives given a speech so empty and poor in thought and content, completely false statements, and disgraced the country, one of the founders of the UN. In fact, Poroshenko didn't bother to remember this at the anniversary session.

Yanukovich could in the spur of the moment confuse Akhmatov with Akhmetovaya, but his official speeches were always carefully prepared, and were always given thought and calibration.

In order to not be unfounded, I will briefly cite some "gems" from Poroshenko's speech.

How can one understand such a phrase: "Reduce the poverty level three times, however, due to the Russian aggression, we expect this indicator to fall"?

Does anyone understand what he meant? Will poverty be reduced or not? If understood according to UN criteria, the overwhelming majority of the population lives below the poverty line, and the people has not been confronted with any mythical Russian aggression, but that of Poroshenko and co. with their insatiable avarice and greed. Two years ago, we held quite an average position in line with UN criteria, but now we are among the poorest countries.

Each day, Poroshenko and co. say that "the war costs $5 million." Interesting recognition. Firstly, there is theoretically no war, but an ATO. Secondly, and most interesting which should attract the attention of "ATO participants": each day, Poroshenko spends $50, or more than 1000 hryvnia, on one ATO serviceman. There have been no active combat operations since the Debaltsevo cauldron, so we start to ponder, where are these huge sums? In whose pockets? And this is based on the balance that on the front line there are now 100,000 participants, but really there are significantly less.

Here's an interesting statement: "improve the maternal health care system." What did he mean by this? A further reduction and cancellation of allowances for child birth? So work in this direction is already being actively conducted. For a year and a half, not a single maternity home, not a single perinatal center has been constructed. The "criminal authorities" were actively engaged in this and actually reduced child mortality. But today's "Europeans" don't even bother to provide hospitals with medicines and vaccines. They're running around the world begging, and Russian aggression is to blame here?

One more promise of Poroshenko - improving the quality of education - fits well with Yatsenyuk's project to cancel free higher education...

Of course, most of the speech was dedicated to the Russian aggression which has allegedly led to "the deaths of thousands of people and the destruction of critical infrastructure." Here, Poroshenko even shed a few tears. It's as if Turchynov didn't send tanks to Donbass and Poroshenko didn't give the order to bomb cities and other residential areas with multiple-launch rocket systems, howitzers, planes, and other weapons. It's as if Poroshenko didn't specifically order the destruction of pipelines, power lines, substations, water lines, and bridges.

His moaning about a possible environmental disaster due to the saturation of Donbass with harmful materials is so hypocritical if one remembers the attacks on underground storages and chemical plants with "Tochka-U" ballistic missiles in Gorlovka and Donetsk. It is necessarily scary knowing that these people in power have tremendous arrays of arms at their disposal.

When you read the text of this speech, it seems that it was written by foreigners who do not deeply know the essence of Ukrainian problems, and wrote it quickly, hastily, to please certain listeners. Their goal, apparently, has been achieved: Ukraine has been humiliated and received empty promises."

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 #18
Consortiumnews.com
October 3, 2015
US Tax Dollars and Ukraine's Finance Minister
By Robert Parry
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s.

Special Report: Though touted as the face of reform inside Ukraine's post-coup regime, Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko enriched herself at the expense of a U.S.-taxpayer-financed investment fund - and USAID now says it's missing some of the audit records detailing Jaresko's dealings, reports Robert Parry.

The U.S. government is missing - or withholding - audit documents about the finances and possible accounting irregularities at a $150 million U.S.-taxpayer-financed investment fund when it was run by Ukraine's Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, who has become the face of "reform" for the U.S.-backed regime in Kiev and who now oversees billions of dollars in Western financial aid.

Before taking Ukrainian citizenship and becoming Finance Minister in December 2014, Jaresko was a former U.S. diplomat who served as chief executive officer of the Western NIS Enterprise Fund (WNISEF), which was created by Congress in the 1990s with $150 million and placed under the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to help jumpstart an investment economy in Ukraine.

After Jaresko's appointment as Finance Minister - and her resignation from WNISEF - I reviewed WNISEF's available public records and detected a pattern of insider dealings and enrichment benefiting Jaresko and various colleagues. That prompted me in February to file a Freedom of Information Act request for USAID's audits of the investment fund.

Though the relevant records were identified by June, USAID dragged its feet on releasing the 34 pages to me until Aug. 28 when the agency claimed nothing was being withheld, saying "all 34 pages are releasable in their entirety."

However, when I examined the documents, it became clear that a number of pages were missing from the financial records, including a total of three years of "expense analysis" - in three-, six- and nine-month gaps - since 2007. Perhaps even more significant was a missing paragraph that apparently would have addressed an accounting irregularity found by KPMG auditors.

KPMG's "Independent Auditors' Report" for 2013 and 2014 states that "except as discussed in the third paragraph below, we conducted our audits in accordance with auditing standards generally accepted in the United States of America," accountant-speak that suggests that "the third paragraph below" would reveal some WNISEF activity that did not comply with generally accepted accounting principles (or GAAP).

But three paragraphs below was only white space and there was no next page in what USAID released.

Based on the one page that was released for 2013-14, this most recent audit also lacked the approval language used in previous audits, in which KPMG wrote: "In our opinion, the consolidated financial statements ... present fairly, in all material respects, the consolidated financial position of Western NIS Enterprise Fund and subsidiaries." That language was not in the 2013-14 analysis, as released by USAID.

The KPMG report for 2013-14 does note that "The [audit] procedures selected depend on the auditors' judgment, including the assessment of the risks of material misstatement of the financial statements, whether due to fraud or error. ... An audit also includes evaluating the appropriateness of accounting policies used and the reasonableness of significant accounting estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the financial statements."

That page then ends, "We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our audit opinion." But the opinion is not there.

After I brought these discrepancies to the attention of USAID on Aug. 31, I was told on Sept. 15 that "we are in the process of locating documents to address your concern. We expect a response from the bureau and/or mission by Monday, September 28, 2015."

After the Sept. 28 deadline passed, I contacted USAID again and was told on Oct. 2 that officials were "still working with the respective mission to obtain the missing documents."

Yet, whether USAID's failure to include the missing documents was just a bureaucratic foul-up or a willful attempt to shield Jaresko from criticism, the curious gaps add to the impression that the management of WNISEF fell short of the highest standards for efficiency and ethics.

A previous effort by Jaresko's ex-husband Ihor Figlus to blow the whistle on what he considered improper business practices related to WNISEF was met by disinterest inside USAID, according to Figlus, and then led to Jaresko suing him in a Delaware court in 2012, using a confidentiality clause to silence Figlus and getting a court order to redact references to the abuses he was trying to expose.

Feeding at the Taxpayer Trough

Other public documents indicate that Jaresko and fellow WNISEF insiders enriched themselves through their association with the U.S.-taxpayer-financed investment fund. For instance, though Jaresko was limited to making $150,000 a year at WNISEF under the USAID grant agreement, she managed to earn more than that amount, reporting in 2004 that she was paid $383,259 along with $67,415 in expenses, according to WNISEF's filing with the Internal Revenue Service.

Among the audit documents that I received under FOIA, the "Expense Analysis" for 2004 shows $1,282,782 being paid out as "Exit-based incentive expense-equity incentive plan" and another $478,195 being paid for "Exit-based incentive expense-financial participation rights." That would suggest that Jaresko more than doubled her $150,000 salary by claiming bonuses from WNISEF's investments (bought with U.S. taxpayers' money) and sold during 2004.

Jaresko's compensation for her work with WNISEF was removed from public disclosure altogether after she co-founded two related entities in 2006: Horizon Capital Associates (HCA) to manage WNISEF's investments (and collect around $1 million a year in fees) and Emerging Europe Growth Fund (EEGF), a private entity to collaborate with WNISEF on investment deals.

Jaresko formed HCA and EEGF with two other WNISEF officers, Mark Iwashko and Lenna Koszarny. They also started a third firm, Horizon Capital Advisors, which "serves as a sub-advisor to the Investment Manager, HCA," according to WNISEF's IRS filing for 2006.

According to the FOIA-released expense analyses for 2004-06, the taxpayer-financed WNISEF spent $1,049,987 to establish EEGF as a privately owned investment fund for Jaresko and her colleagues. USAID apparently found nothing suspicious about these tangled business relationships despite the potential conflicts of interest involving Jaresko, the other WNISEF officers and their affiliated companies.

For instance, WNISEF's 2012 annual report devoted two pages to "related party transactions," including the management fees to Jaresko's Horizon Capital ($1,037,603 in 2011 and $1,023,689 in 2012) and WNISEF's co-investments in projects with the EEGF, where Jaresko was founding partner and chief executive officer. Jaresko's Horizon Capital managed the investments of both WNISEF and EEGF.

From 2007 to 2011, WNISEF co-invested $4.25 million with EEGF in Kerameya LLC, a Ukrainian brick manufacturer, and WNISEF sold EEGF 15.63 percent of Moldova's Fincombank for $5 million, the report said. It also listed extensive exchanges of personnel and equipment between WNISEF and Horizon Capital. But it's difficult for an outsider to ascertain the relative merits of these insider deals - and the transactions apparently raised no red flags for USAID officials, nor during that time for KPMG auditors.

Bonuses, Bonuses

Regarding compensation, WNISEF's 2013 filing with the IRS noted that the fund's officers collected millions of dollars in more bonuses for closing out some investments at a profit even as the overall fund was losing money. According to the filing, WNISEF's $150 million nest egg had shrunk by more than one-third to $94.5 million and likely has declined much more during the economic chaos that followed the U.S.-backed coup in February 2014.

But prior to the coup and the resulting civil war, Jaresko's WNISEF was generously spreading money around to various insiders. For instance, the 2013 IRS filing reported that the taxpayer-financed fund paid out as "expenses" $7.7 million under a bonus program, including $4.6 million to "current officers," without identifying who received the money although Jaresko was one of the "current officers."

WNISEF's filing made the point that the "long-term equity incentive plan" was "not compensation from Government Grant funds but a separately USAID-approved incentive plan funded from investment sales proceeds" - although those proceeds presumably would have gone into the depleted WNISEF pool if they had not been paid out as bonuses.

The filing also said the bonuses were paid regardless of whether the overall fund was making money, noting that this "compensation was not contingent on revenues or net earnings, but rather on a profitable exit of a portfolio company that exceeds the baseline value set by the board of directors and approved by USAID" - with Jaresko also serving as a director on the board responsible for setting those baseline values.

Another WNISEF director was Jeffrey C. Neal, former chairman of Merrill Lynch's global investment banking and a co-founder of Horizon Capital, further suggesting how potentially incestuous these relationships may have become.

Though compensation for Jaresko and other officers was shifted outside public view after 2006 - as their pay was moved to the affiliated entities - the 2006 IRS filing says: "It should be noted that as long as HCA earns a management fee from WNISEF, HCA and HCAD [the two Horizon Capital entities] must ensure that a salary cap of $150,000 is adhered to for the proportion of salary attributable to WNISEF funds managed relative to aggregate funds under management."

But that language would seem to permit compensation well above $150,000 if it could be tied to other managed funds, including EEGF, or come from the bonus incentive program. Such compensation for Jaresko and the other top officers was not reported on later IRS forms despite a line for earnings from "related organizations." Apparently, Horizon Capital and EEGF were regarded as "unrelated organizations" for the purposes of reporting compensation.

The KPMG auditors also took a narrow view of compensation only confirming that no "salary" exceeded $150,000, apparently not looking at bonuses and other forms of compensation.

Neither AID officials nor Jaresko responded to specific questions about WNISEF's possible conflicts of interest, how much money Jaresko made from her involvement with WNISEF and its connected companies, and whether she had fully complied with IRS reporting requirements.

Gagging an Ex-Husband

In 2012, when Jaresko's ex-husband Figlus began talking about what he saw as improper loans that Jaresko had taken from Horizon Capital Associates to buy and expand her stake in EEGF, the privately held follow-on fund to WNISEF, Jaresko sent her lawyers to court to silence him and, according to his lawyer, bankrupt him.

The filings in Delaware's Chancery Court are remarkable not only because Jaresko succeeded in getting the Court to gag her ex-husband through enforcement of a non-disclosure agreement but the Court agreed to redact nearly all the business details, even the confidentiality language at the center of the case.

Since Figlus had given some of his information to a Ukrainian journalist, Jaresko's complaint also had the look of a leak investigation, tracking down Figlus's contacts with the journalist and then using that evidence to secure the restraining order, which Figlus said not only prevented him from discussing business secrets but even talking about his more general concerns about Jaresko's insider dealings.

The heavy redactions make it hard to fully understand Figlus's concerns or to assess the size of Jaresko's borrowing as she expanded her holdings in EEGF, but Figlus did assert that he saw his role as whistle-blowing about improper actions by Jaresko.

In a Oct. 31, 2012, filing, Figlus's attorney wrote that "At all relevant times, Defendant [Figlus] acted in good faith and with justification, on matters of public interest, and particularly the inequitable conduct set forth herein where such inequitable conduct adversely affects ... at least one other limited partner which is REDACTED, and specifically the inequitable conduct included, in addition to the other conduct cited herein, REDACTED."

The defendant's filing argued: "The Plaintiffs' [Jaresko's and her EEGF partners'] claims are barred, in whole or in part, by public policy, and particularly that a court in equity should not enjoin 'whistle-blowing' activities on matters of public interest, and particularly the inequitable conduct set forth herein." But the details of that conduct were all redacted.

In a defense brief dated Dec. 17, 2012 [see Part One and Part Two], Figlus expanded on his argument that Jaresko's attempts to have the court gag him amounted to a violation of his constitutional right of free speech:

"The obvious problem with the scope of their Motion is that Plaintiffs are asking the Court to enter an Order that prohibits Defendant Figlus from exercising his freedom of speech without even attempting to provide the Court with any Constitutional support or underpinning for such impairment of Figlus' rights.

"Plaintiffs cannot do so, because such silencing of speech is Constitutionally impermissible, and would constitute a denial of basic principles of the Bill of Rights in both the United States and Delaware Constitutions. There can be no question that Plaintiffs are seeking a temporary injunction, which constitutes a prior restraint on speech. ...

"The Court cannot, consistent with the Federal and State Constitutional guarantees of free speech, enjoin speech except in the most exceptional circumstances, and certainly not when Plaintiffs are seeking to prevent speech that is not even covered by the very contractual provision upon which they are relying. Moreover, the Court cannot prevent speech where the matter has at least some public interest REDACTED, except as limited to the very specific and exact language of the speaker's contractual obligation."

A Redacted Narrative

Figlus also provided a narrative of events as he saw them as a limited partner in EEGF, saying he initially "believed everything she [Jaresko] was doing, you know, was proper." Later, however, Figlus "learned that Jaresko began borrowing money from HCA REDACTED, but again relied on his spouse, and did not pay attention to the actual financial transactions...

"In early 2010, after Jaresko separated from Figlus, she presented Figlus with, and requested that he execute, a 'Security Agreement,' pledging the couple's partnership interest to the repayment of the loans from HCA. This was Figlus first realization of the amount of loans that Jaresko had taken, and that the partnership interest was being funded through this means. ... By late 2011, Jaresko had borrowed approximately REDACTED from HCA to both fund the partnership interest REDACTED. The loans were collateralized only by the EEFG partnership interest. ...

"Figlus became increasingly concerned about the partnership and the loans that had been and continued to be given to the insiders to pay for their partnership interests, while excluding other limited partners. Although Figlus was not sophisticated in these matters, he considered that it was inappropriate that HCA was giving loans to insiders to fund their partnership interests, but to no other partners. ...

"He talked to an individual at U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in Washington D.C., because the agency was effectively involved as a limited partner because of the agency's funding and supervision over WNISEF, but the agency employee did not appear interested in pursuing the question."

In the court proceedings, Jaresko's lawyers mocked Figlus's claims that he was acting as a whistle-blower, claiming that he was actually motivated by a desire "to harm his ex-wife" and had violated the terms of his non-disclosure agreement, which the lawyers convinced the court to exclude from the public record.

The plaintiffs' brief [see Part One and Part Two] traced Figlus's contacts with the Ukrainian reporter whose name is also redacted: "Figlus, having previously received an audit from the General Partner, provided it to REDACTED [the Ukrainian reporter] with full knowledge that the audit was non-public. Also on or about October 2, 2012, REDACTED [the reporter] contacted multiple Limited Partners, informed them that he possessed 'documented proof' of alleged impropriety by the General Partner and requested interviews concerning that alleged impropriety."

The filing noted that on Oct. 3, 2012, the reporter told Figlus that Jaresko "called two REDACTED [his newspaper's] editors last night crying, not me, for some reason." (The Ukrainian story was never published.)

After the competing filings, Jaresko's lawyers successfully secured a restraining order against Figlus from the Delaware Chancery Court and continued to pursue the case against him though his lawyer has asserted that his client would make no further effort to expose these financial dealings and was essentially broke.

On May 14, 2014, Figlus filed a complaint with the court claiming that he was being denied distributions from his joint interest in EEGF and saying he was told that it was because the holding was pledged as security against the loans taken out by Jaresko. But, on the same day, Jaresko's lawyer, Richard P. Rollo, contradicted that assertion, saying information about Figlus's distributions was being withheld because EEGF and Horizon Capital "faced significant business interruptions and difficulties given the political crisis in Ukraine."

The filing suggested that the interlocking investments between EEGF and the U.S.-taxpayer-funded WNISEF were experiencing further trouble from the political instability and civil war sweeping across Ukraine.

A Face of Reform

By December 2014, Jaresko had resigned from her WNISEF-related positions, taken Ukrainian citizenship and started her new job as Ukraine's Finance Minister. In an article about Jaresko's appointment, John Helmer, a longtime foreign correspondent in Russia, disclosed the outlines of the court dispute with Figlus and identified the Ukrainian reporter as Mark Rachkevych of the Kyiv Post.

"It hasn't been rare for American spouses to go into the asset management business in the former Soviet Union, and make profits underwritten by the US Government with information supplied from their US Government positions or contacts," Helmer wrote. "It is exceptional for them to fall out over the loot."

When I contacted George Pazuniak, Figlus's lawyer, about Jaresko's aggressive enforcement of the non-disclosure agreement, he told me that "at this point, it's very difficult for me to say very much without having a detrimental effect on my client." Pazuniak did say, however, that all the redactions were demanded by Jaresko's lawyers.

I also sent detailed questions to USAID and to Jaresko via several of her associates. Those questions included how much of the $150 million in U.S. taxpayers' money remained, why Jaresko reported no compensation from "related organizations," whether she received any of the $4.6 million to WNISEF's officers in bonuses in 2013, how much money she made in total from her association with WNISEF, what AID officials did in response to Figlus's whistle-blower complaint, and whether Jaresko's legal campaign to silence her ex-husband was appropriate given her current position and Ukraine's history of secretive financial dealings.

USAID press officer Annette Y. Aulton got back to me with a response that was unresponsive to my specific questions. Rather than answering about the performance of WNISEF and Jaresko's compensation, the response commented on the relative success of 10 "Enterprise Funds" that AID has sponsored in Eastern Europe and added:

"There is a twenty year history of oversight of WNISEF operations. Enterprise funds must undergo an annual independent financial audit, submit annual reports to USAID and the IRS, and USAID staff conduct field visits and semi-annual reviews. At the time Horizon Capital assumed management of WNISEF, USAID received disclosures from Natalie Jaresko regarding the change in management structure and at the time USAID found no impropriety during its review."

One Jaresko associate, Tanya Bega, Horizon Capital's investor relations manager, said she forwarded my questions to Jaresko, but Jaresko did not respond.

Despite questions about whether Jaresko improperly enriched herself at the expense of U.S. taxpayers and then used a Delaware court to prevent disclosure of possible abuses, Jaresko has been hailed by the U.S. mainstream media as the face of reform in the U.S.-backed Ukrainian regime that seized power in February 2014 after a violent coup overthrew democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych.

For instance, last January, New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman cited Jaresko as an exemplar of the new Ukrainian leaders who "share our values" and deserve unqualified American support. Friedman uncritically quoted Jaresko's speech to international financial leaders at Davos, Switzerland, in which she castigated Russian President Vladimir Putin:

"Putin fears a Ukraine that demands to live and wants to live and insists on living on European values - with a robust civil society and freedom of speech and religion [and] with a system of values the Ukrainian people have chosen and laid down their lives for."

However, from the opaqueness of the WNISEF records and the gagging of her ex-husband, Jaresko has shown little regard for transparency or other democratic values. Similarly, USAID seems more intent on protecting Jaresko and the image of the Kiev regime than in protecting America tax dollars and ensuring that WNISEF's investments were dedicated to improving the lot of Ukrainian citizens.

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 #19
Newsweek.com
September 16, 2015
Former Economic Adviser to Reagan and Thatcher Hired by Ukrainian Government
By Mirren Gidda

Ukraine's Minister of Finance, Natalie Jaresko, has hired the prominent U.S. economist, Arthur Laffer, to advise her on tax policy.

Laffer, widely considered the father of supply-side economics, was a member of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board from 1981-89. He also advised former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on fiscal policy.

In a statement Ukraine's Ministry of Finance said Laffer will be working with them on tax reforms, "aimed to create a transparent and efficient tax system which should contribute to the increase of investments, economic growth and employment as well as improve the quality of public services for business and thus provide a powerful stimulus for the sustainable economic growth of our country."

As well as his political credentials, the economist is well-known for the creation of the Laffer curve which indicates the relationship between rates of taxation and government revenue. According to the model, at taxation rates of 0 percent and 100 percent, revenue earned is 0. Somewhere between the two points, according to Laffer, is the optimum tax rate that will bring about maximum revenue.

Laffer joins Slovakia's former Minister of Finance Ivan Miklos and economists Chris Wales and Robert Conrad as part of the international team advising Ukraine's Ministry of Finance.

The Ukrainian economy has suffered since fighting broke out between pro-Russian rebels and government forces in the country's east in April 2014. The conflict forced businesses to close and pushed up unemployment, driving the country into debt.

On August 27, Ukraine reached an agreement with its creditors that saw the country avoid a default. Ukraine's debt is currently held by a number of foreign investors. By far the largest is the U.S. investment manager Franklin Templeton which bought $7 billion worth of bonds between 2011 and 2014.After five months of negotiations, the creditors agreed that Ukraine's sovereign debt, estimated at $19 billion, would be cut by 20 percent. The country's debt repayments would also be frozen for four years.

Noticeably, Russia did not participate in Ukraine's restructuring deal. Kiev still owes Moscow $3 billion, due for repayment in December.

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 #20
www.rt.com
October 4, 2015
Ukraine: One day cock of the walk, the next a feather duster
By Bryan MacDonald
Bryan MacDonald is a journalist. He began his career in journalism aged 15 in his home town of Carlow, Ireland, with the Nationalist & Leinster Times, while still a schoolboy. Later he studied journalism in Dublin and worked for the Weekender in Navan before joining the Irish Independent. Following a period in London, he joined Ireland On Sunday, later re-named the Irish Mail on Sunday. He was theater critic of the Daily Mail for a period and also worked in news, features and was a regular op-ed writer. He has also frequently appeared on RTE and Newstalk in Ireland as well as RT.

Ukraine's moment in the sun is over. Its European suitors have moved on. Were their hearts ever really in it anyway?

"Mad Max: Fury Road" was this summer's hottest cinema blockbuster. The unhinged protagonist, Max Rockatansky, wouldn't have been out of place in the Ukrainian civil war. Even stranger characters have popped up there than George Miller's fictional anti-hero.

Personally, I was underwhelmed by Fury Road. It wasn't a patch on its 30-year old predecessor, "Beyond Thunderdome." In a famous scene from the 1980's classic, Tina Turner and Mel Gibson, as Max, discuss the latter's origins.

Turner's Aunty Entity asks: "What did you do before all this?"

"I was a cop, a driver," Max responds.

"But how the world turns. One day, cock of the walk. Next, a feather duster," the 'Simply The Best' singer shoots back.

Ukraine hasn't yet reached the depths of Miller's post-apocalyptic underworld. However, its no longer 'cock of the walk' when it comes to winning the attention of Western powers. The post-Maidan government has been lax with the reform duster too. Many Kiev observers now privately admit that corruption is now even worse than during the Viktor Yanukovich era. A smaller overall pot means the ruling classes need to, proportionally, steal more to fund their lifestyles.

On Friday, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko traveled to Paris where he met with the leaders of Europe's big three powers, Russia, Germany and France. Poroshenko has enjoyed unprecedented attention in Western countries since assuming office. That has all changed now.

What's love go to do with it?

Ukraine's descent down the slippery slope of irrelevance began about a year ago. Europe's leaders have tired of the failure to implement promised anti-graft measures. They are also exhausted from the sanctions war with Russia. Growing discontent amongst farmers is especially troublesome for Francois Hollande. In France, they are a powerful lobby group.

Last week in New York, a NATO media which once shamelessly promoted Poroshenko and hung on every word, pretty much ignored the president's United Nations' General Assembly speech. Even his walkout during Vladimir Putin's address was barely reported. The billionaire oligarch, Ukraine's answer to Willy Wonka, knows the game is up. However, the speed of it must be surprising to him.

On Friday, seasoned CIS-area correspondents knew that Ukraine was a sideshow at its own peace conference.

Some Russian sources claimed that Hollande and Putin didn't actually discuss Ukraine at all during their private talk. Only Syria.

Concurrently, Angela Merkel apparently conceded in Paris that Crimea will remain part of Russia, according to Alexei Pushkov, the head of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Russian Duma. He tweeted: "Important: After a meeting in Paris, Merkel for the first time admitted that Crimea won't return to Ukraine. That means the crisis is only about the east of the country." If you were a pro-EU Ukrainian, the only possible feeling is one of massive betrayal.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. The huddled masses of November 2013 at Kiev's Maidan Square had other intentions. They believed they were protesting for Europe, even though an offer of EU membership for Ukraine was never on the table. The students who attended the first rallies were also tired of the state-sponsored theft machine, which had dominated Ukraine since independence.

Sadly, that noble movement was hijacked by extremists, cheered on by NATO leaders, who adroitly exploited the tension to create a wedge between Ukraine and Russia. One group of criminal oligarchs from the east was replaced with a US-backed collection from the west. Can anybody now, honestly, say that 'Euromaidan' has improved the lives of ordinary Ukrainians?

We don't need another hero

While the average Ukrainian citizen now makes $150 a month, some elements in the elite have luxuriated in the chaos. President Poroshenko's income skyrocketed sevenfold, from 52 million UAH ($2.4 million) to 369 million UAH ($17.4 million), from 2013 to 2014. Last year, his Roshen chocolate company's profits increased nine-fold.

Note that state officials are prohibited from owning a business under Ukraine's constitution. Poroshenko continues to ignore this rule. The billionaire president of Europe's poorest country (per capita) is its wealthiest head of state. This isn't a sick joke - it's a fact.

Merkel knows this. Hollande does too. It's clear that they've had enough. At the same time that Maidan's biggest European cheerleaders, Sweden's Carl Bildt and Poland's disgraced Radoslaw Sikorski, were rejected by their own countries, support for Kiev has declined. Only pressure from Washington has forced Eurocrats to, half-heartedly, continue the sanctions war with Moscow.

Ukraine is not an existential issue for Europe. The majority of EU states can take it or leave it. Some are strongly opposed to Ukraine joining the union, such as Hungary and others enthusiastic, like the Baltic States. Then we have the British paradox. London's government has backed Kiev's alleged European trajectory. Nevertheless, at the same time, the UK appears to be on the way out of the EU itself. The British media passionately railed against the accession of Romania and Bulgaria. Do you really believe that they would give an enthusiastic welcome to 40 million even poorer Ukrainians?

While Ukraine doesn't matter, Syria has become a life or death matter for Brussels. It also has the potential to break Angela Merkel. Many Germans are opposed to the liberal immigration policy she has espoused. Eurocrats are united in their belief that in order for the continent to stave off a calamitous refugee crisis in 2016, stability must be brought to Syria before next May. Some even admit that another summer of mass immigration could bring the curtain down on the EU as it's currently constituted. Schengen is already creaking and tolerance for open-borders is wearing thin.

Western policy in Syria has failed. It's clear that the US was so focused on removing Bashar Assad that it, at best, allowed Islamic State to run amok. At worst, Washington may even have been backing the jihadists, as local Syrians told the Guardian this weekend. Meanwhile, Europe, Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon are dealing with a huge refugee crisis while America remains out of harm's way.

In Ukraine, the story is much the same. The EU is paying the price for Washington's geopolitical ambitions. There are now signs that Brussels' two leading powers have woken up. Sorry Ukraine, Europe just isn't that into you anymore.

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