UDAR Isn't Going After Firtash, but NF Is Going After Akhmetov

UDAR isn't going after Firtash, but NF is going after Akhmetov

While the Obolon court was deciding how to question Viktor Yanukovych, the Verkhovna Rada was considering a resolution to impose sanctions on the ex-president and his circle.

The vote ended in scandal — the measure failed; more than 60 BPP deputies did not vote. Ihor Kononenko promised journalists that this incident would be addressed at the next faction meeting.

Although there were rumors in the corridors that the vote had been deliberately failed.

INSIDER tried to figure out what happened.

And again about sanctions

The resolution to introduce personal sanctions was prepared by several People's Front deputies and presented in the chamber by the faction leader Maksym Burbak.

Against the backdrop of the president's decree banning Odnoklassniki and Vkontakte — which came as a surprise not only to Ukrainians but also to deputies close to the authorities — sanctions against the criminal leadership looked like another PR case.

But this was not some mirror-image stunt. The resolution was written back in November 2016. It was added to the agenda in April.

It was proposed to impose sanctions against 20 individuals, in particular:

Viktor Yanukovych;

his son Oleksandr;

former interior minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko;

his deputy Viktor Ratushnyak;

former prosecutor general Viktor Pshonka;

his son Artem Pshonka;

former prime minister Mykola Azarov;

Mykola Azarov's son Oleksiy;

former energy and coal industry minister Eduard Stavytsky;

former agriculture minister Mykola Prysyazhnyuk;

former health minister Raisa Bohatyriova;

former head of the Presidential Administration Andriy Klyuyev;

his brother, deputy Serhiy Klyuyev;

former head of the Security Service of Ukraine Oleksandr Yakymenko,

former education minister Dmytro Tabachnyk;

former revenue and duties minister Oleksandr Klymenko,

former first vice prime minister Serhiy Arbuzov,

owner of the VETEK group of companies Serhiy Kurchenko;

former Verkhovna Rada deputy from the Party of Regions Yuriy Ivanyushchenko;

oligarch Dmytro Firtash.

In January 2016 the EU lifted sanctions against most of them after a court decision and unfroze assets. Recently Interpol also refused to pursue them.

But one cannot say that yesterday's resolution solved that.

"Sanctions are a method applied to foreign citizens who cannot be reached under your own legislation, but there is suspicion that their actions harm your state. In Ukraine it’s ridiculous to fight your own citizens with sanctions; you need to open criminal cases against them and bring them to court. Sometimes you have to bow your head and explain that he stole so cleverly that we can't prove it. But sanctions do not solve that issue," one well-known Ukrainian lawyer explained to INSIDER.

Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, who was at an exhibition in the Rada during the lunch break, did not comment on the resolution. But sources in the GPU said there was no point to it, aside from the precedent of "dekulakization of everyone by everyone."

"We generally have a foolish habit of using a resolution to do what cannot be pushed through any lawful norm," added the interlocutor among the lawyers.

The resolution proposed that deputies approve and submit to the National Security and Defense Council proposals on applying personal sanctions "for creating real or potential threats to national interests, national security, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, and for aiding terrorist activities."

After the NSDC decision took effect, it would have to be forwarded to the competent bodies of the European Union, the United States of America and other states for their consideration of adopting similar sanctions. The NSDC would also have to develop procedures to ensure application of special economic and other restrictive measures.

During the discussion some deputies proposed expanding the list. Oleh Lyashko wanted to include Serhiy Lyovochkin. Anti-corruption committee chair Yehor Soboliev proposed adding Oleksandr Vilkul, Hennadiy Kernes, Lyovochkin himself, Viktor Medvedchuk and Rinat Akhmetov.

"They must be on this list," said the anti-corruption committee chairman.

Representatives of almost all factions publicly supported these sanctions. And Serhiy Sobolev of Batkivshchyna, who is replacing Yulia Tymoshenko while she is in the United States, even expressed outrage that the ruling team took so long to "produce" the resolution — only in the third year.

But when it came time to vote, only 202 green dots lit up on the board.

"Bloc of Petro Poroshenko" – 65, "People's Front" – 65, "Opposition Bloc" – 0, "Samopomich" – 21, Radical Party – 17, "Batkivshchyna" – 10, "Will of the People" – 0, "Party of Revival" – 0.

The speaker put returning to the question to a vote twice more, but the numbers were discouraging — 214 and 206.

"I don't understand how this can be, when the Ukrainian parliament proposes to impose sanctions against Yanukovych's top leadership, who destroyed all of us Ukrainian citizens and organized a war against Ukraine," Andriy Parubiy said in despair after the vote.

Despite legal questions about the proposed sanctions, they unexpectedly highlighted a political lineup that had begun to be forgotten — connections between certain deputy groups and oligarchs.

"Klychko, Klychko…"

When the results of the first failed vote appeared on the board, People's Front deputies began to whistle and chant "Klychko, Klychko."

A printout of the results made it clear why — indeed, some UDAR group deputies, including those usually associated with Dmytro Firtash and Serhiy Lyovochkin, did not press their buttons. Oksana Prodan, Maria Matios, Olga Belkova, Vitaliy Chepynoga, Nataliya Agafonova did not vote.

"Seeing the voting results, Iryna Herashchenko from the rostrum began shouting at Agafonova: Nataliya, you came in wearing a vyshyvanka, what are you doing?" one deputy told INSIDER.

A few minutes later Agafonova left the chamber and went for a walk in Mariinsky Park with Yuliya Lyovochkina. When INSIDER's correspondent met them, they were discussing a mutual acquaintance and her nannies.

Valeriy Patskan was also not in the chamber, and Ihor Pober did not press his buttons.

"I would have gladly voted, but at that moment I was in the administrative court," Valeriy Patskan shrugged. When the deputy entered the Rada it was already 13 o'clock, and they were voting by 11.

Oksana Prodan also told journalists that she was not in the chamber.

Photo by Bohdan Bortakov

UDAR's failure to vote forced their colleagues to recall not only that many in the group are connected to Firtash and Lyovochkin, but also the possibility they might leave the coalition.

They say Serhiy Lyovochkin gave them guarantees and money for that.

The UDAR members themselves said they had heard nothing about any exit, although they are unhappy with their status in BPP.

"What's that saying — three years waiting for a promised thing? And they still didn't get it," Klychko's associates say. The last time they were "screwed" was the vote for Valeriy Patskan as head of the Accounting Chamber. Then UDAR threatened not to vote on other bills, but the threat was never carried out.

"If they leave, where would they go? To Saakashvili and Sadovyi? But there 10 % on everyone, which means Klychko would bring in even fewer than with BPP," an INSIDER source in the president's team says.

Some UDAR members did vote — among them Pavlo Rizanenko, Dmytro Bilotserkovets, Yuriy Solovey.

Behind-the-scenes showdowns and obligations

The UDAR group is 20 deputies. 75 in BPP did not vote. Those who are not at all connected to Firtash. For example, Ihor Kononenko and Oleksandr Hranovskyi. Colleagues also blame Oleksandr Tretiakov's group for not voting.

"Did I miss it? The second and third times I voted, and the first I simply didn't hear," deputy Tretiakov explained to INSIDER.

Ihor Kononenko also insists he cast his vote. Only the Rada system didn't register it.

"From a political point of view the resolution 5350 is very important, and I personally voted for its adoption. The BPP faction will discuss the voting results at its meeting and, when this resolution is next considered on the floor, we will try to secure a larger number of votes from our faction," Kononenko told journalists during the lunch break.

The faction's gray cardinal also said some of his BPP colleagues had objective objections to the document. In their view, adoption of the resolution would play into Yanukovych's hands.

"I know the position of some lawyers, including from our faction, who did not vote. They believe this resolution will give former associates of Viktor Yanukovych a strong position in the European Court of Human Rights and will allow them to win cases in that court," Kononenko explained.

The People's Front took the failed resolution without much scandal. After all, 15 deputies of that faction were also not present in the chamber. Among them was Andriy Ivanchuk, who was at the Cabinet at the time.

"I appeal to coalition colleagues in the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko faction to hold an internal faction discussion so that finally we decide and next time support the resolution on the floor," said the document's author Maksym Burbak, promising that the People's Front would definitely reintroduce the resolution to impose sanctions against Yanukovych.

Although there is one unofficial version in BPP — today's failure is related to the fact that, as with special confiscation, BPP does not want to hand the cards to the People's Front.

Photo by Bohdan Bortakov

"Further, the formation of measures will be handled by Turchynov, well, and read Pashynskyi," one of the interlocutors in BPP said.

Meanwhile deputy Mustafa Nayyem caught his front-line colleagues on another circumstance.

"A third amazing absurdity crept into the sanctions list. By a strange coincidence the name of the main sponsor of the Party of Regions and of Viktor Yanukovych personally — Rinat Akhmetov — is not on the list," the deputy wrote on Facebook, hinting at a clandestine friendship between NF leaders and the oligarch.

"So, for some reason the authors of the resolution did not include this man in the document. And I guarantee that if Rinat Akhmetov were suddenly on the list, we would find that the entire Radical Party faction of Oleh Lyashko, the lion's share of the People's Front and an even larger portion of BPP would not be ready to vote for the resolution," Nayyem noted.

In a comment to INSIDER he promised to submit a resolution and include Akhmetov on this list.

Although deputies are unlikely to be interested in this matter in the coming weeks — they need to settle land and pension reforms, wiretapping for NABU and an anti-corruption court.

Otherwise in the fall the IMF will have nothing to demand.

And the deputies do not want to vote for anything on that list. Because it's not banning Vkontakte.

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