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A letter asking for measures against Dubinsky was found in White House documents
The White House released archives of correspondence about Burisma and materials concerning Andriy Telizhenko. One document includes a request regarding Dubinsky, but its connection to the sanctions was not established.
The White House published correspondence about Burisma’s contacts with U.S. institutions and documents about Andriy Telizhenko. Among them is a letter asking a Servant of the People representative to take measures against Oleksandr Dubinsky.
In October 2026 the White House website published two archives: correspondence about the Ukrainian gas company Burisma and materials about former Ukrainian diplomat Andriy Telizhenko. They contain assessments by U.S. officials, inquiries from company representatives, and documents on visa and financial restrictions.
President’s advisor William Scharf authorized declassification or release of documents in 13 October 2026. Some letters were already stamped UNCLASSIFIED. The corresponding stamps are preserved in the files on the White House website.
Hunter Biden and George Kent’s warnings
On 22 November 2016 George Kent, then deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, wrote that Hunter Biden’s role on Burisma’s board undermined trust in Washington’s anti-corruption calls. The diplomat believed Ukrainians saw a contradiction between those calls and the vice president’s family’s ties to the company’s owner.
The diplomat thought Washington should raise the issue privately with the vice president. In the letter he also described contacts by Blue Star Strategies and attempts to restore the reputation of Burisma’s owner, former ecology minister Mykola Zlochevsky.
In testimony to Congress on 13 November 2019 George Kent said that as early as February 2015 he warned staff in the vice president’s office about the risk of a conflict of interest from Hunter Biden’s work at Burisma.
At the same time he said he had not witnessed U.S. officials trying to shield Burisma from investigations. According to him, he and other U.S. representatives consistently supported reopening the closed probe into the company’s founder and holding accountable the prosecutors who dropped the case.
George Kent criticized Hunter Biden’s work at the company, but did not testify that Joe Biden intervened in the investigation on Burisma’s behalf.
In 26 September 2017 a representative of the McCain Institute at Arizona State University contacted the U.S. Embassy about a two-week training for Ukrainian prosecutors. The proposal was forwarded by a Blue Star Strategies representative and Vadym Pozharskyi from Burisma. The company was to pay for the program.
Marie Yovanovitch asked George Kent to assess the proposal. He objected to the funding: a company under investigation by the Prosecutor General’s Office was offering to pay for training of its staff. The ambassador asked him to prepare those reservations for a response to the institute.
In 6 October 2017 an embassy employee warned that an arrangement between Burisma and the Prosecutor General’s Office could harm the McCain Institute’s reputation. Diplomats did not object to training the prosecutors but had concerns about the proposed funding.
George Kent also described an unsuccessful U.S. and U.K. effort to return roughly 23 million dollars to Ukraine that belonged to Mykola Zlochevsky and had been frozen in British accounts. According to his account, actions by the Ukrainian prosecution helped unblock the funds.
The diplomat said that at a February 2015 meeting the then first deputy prosecutor general Anatoliy Danylenko named a possible bribe amount for closing the case—7 million dollars. The memo paraphrased that conversation; it does not provide confirmation that the money was actually transferred.
In January 2018 Blue Star Strategies requested a meeting with Marie Yovanovitch about a visa matter. Diplomats discussed it in correspondence alongside briefs on Mykola Zlochevsky. The documents do not indicate whether the requests resulted in a visa being issued.
In correspondence in 2016 an embassy employee noted that Mykola Zlochevsky sent letters to Ambassadors Marie Yovanovitch and Jeffrey Pyatt insisting on his innocence. A 2017 brief contains Burisma’s statement about the closing of proceedings and criminal claims against the businessman and the group’s operating companies.
At public hearings on 15 November 2019 the former ambassador said she had never met Hunter Biden and had not had direct or indirect conversations with him. She agreed that his position could create the appearance of a conflict of interest.
Who asked for measures against Oleksandr Dubinsky
A mention of Oleksandr Dubinsky appears in another packet—Telizhenko Declassified Documents. In a letter dated 7 October 2020 George Kent informed colleagues about a request from the deputy head of the Servant of the People faction, who previously, before the COVID-19 pandemic, had attended the CPAC conservatives’ conference.
According to the diplomat’s account, the faction representative asked that measures be taken against Oleksandr Dubinsky to weaken his influence on other parliamentarians. The interlocutor’s name is not given in the released fragment; the document does not include an instruction from the entire faction.
U.S. sanctions against Oleksandr Dubinsky were imposed in 11 January 2021, at the end of Donald Trump’s first administration. The Treasury Department’s official statement cited participation in a Russia-linked foreign influence network associated with Andriy Derkach as the basis.
According to the Treasury’s position, Oleksandr Dubinsky, together with Andriy Derkach, took part in press conferences that spread false narratives and discredited American candidates and their families. The sanctions were imposed under an order on foreign interference in elections. They involved blocking property within U.S. jurisdiction and a general prohibition on transactions for U.S. persons.
The request concerning the deputy preceded the sanctions. George Kent’s letter does not explain what role, if any, it played in the Office of Foreign Assets Control’s (OFAC) decision.
Andriy Telizhenko: work in Washington, visa revocation, and sanctions
Andriy Telizhenko worked at the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington and later became a political consultant. The FBI IIR report 4 212 6610 20 describes his service as third secretary at the embassy in 2015–2016 and earlier work advising Ukrainian officials and the prosecution leadership.
According to a Republican majority report of two Senate committees in 2020, Blue Star Strategies contracted Andriy Telizhenko in 2016–2017 and reached out to him for assistance as early as the summer of 2019. The same company represented Burisma’s interests.
The Senate report’s authors used his materials and defended his reliability as a source. U.S. agencies were simultaneously checking whether he was spreading material of a Russian influence operation.
What the FBI knew about the recruitment attempt
The FBI report from 23 August 2020, compiled using information current as of 20 February, describes attempts by Russian representatives to contact Andriy Telizhenko in the summer of 2019 via Facebook and personal contacts. According to that account, he blocked the Russian account and rejected an offer during an in-person meeting.
The document also notes that after participating in Ukraine’s revolution in 2014 the former diplomat was banned from entering Russia. That information was provided by an employee of another law enforcement agency; the report does not give independent confirmation of these circumstances.
The World Intelligence Review of 10 February 2020 offers a different assessment: false and unconfirmed claims by Andriy Telizhenko fueled a Russian influence campaign targeting an American audience. Analysts allowed that he might have aided it unwittingly. In a separate brief the agency said it did not know whether he realized his role as an intermediary for the Russian government.
These documents do not establish that he knowingly worked for Russian intelligence agencies. At the same time, the FBI account of his refusal of recruitment does not refute analysts’ assessments about the consequences of his activity.
How the U.S. visa was revoked
On 8 September 2020 an FBI foreign influence unit employee notified the State Department of Andriy Telizhenko’s planned trip to the United States. He prepared a memo requesting revocation of the visa. The next day’s correspondence already discussed the visa’s revocation and approval of the decision by a supervisor.
State Department correspondence from 7 October 2020 clarifies: the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv revoked the visa on 8 September, before the former diplomat’s trip.
On 6 October George Kent proposed preemptively revoking visas for people linked to Andriy Derkach who planned to travel to the United States less than a month before the election. He suggested they be required to re-establish their travel purpose.
One intelligence note recounts Andriy Telizhenko’s reaction in September 2020. He considered the visa revocation politically motivated, denied the kind of ties to that deputy as described by the U.S. side, and hoped to restore his right of entry.
What the sanctions were based on
Financial sanctions against Andriy Telizhenko were imposed separately—on 11 January 2021, together with sanctions on Oleksandr Dubinsky and other individuals. The U.S. Treasury said the former diplomat arranged meetings between Andriy Derkach and Americans to spread false claims about corruption in Ukraine. The agency classified this activity as foreign interference in elections.
In its evidentiary memorandum OFAC cited FBI materials, media reports, and Senate documents. The conclusion that Andriy Telizhenko belonged to Andriy Derkach’s team was reached by comparing an intelligence report about plans for a Russian operation with publications about that team’s composition. That is OFAC’s conclusion based on an accumulation of materials, not a direct naming of the former diplomat in the intelligence report itself.
A separate section of the memorandum includes Andriy Telizhenko’s rebuttal: he distanced himself from Andriy Derkach and said he did not know his past. OFAC rejected those explanations, citing other materials about their cooperation.
The visa revocation in September 2020 and the financial sanctions in January 2021 were separate decisions. The archive contains documents about both procedures and the assessments U.S. agencies used to justify them.
The Burisma correspondence records diplomats’ reservations, while the materials on Oleksandr Dubinsky and Andriy Telizhenko discuss restrictions and their grounds.
The released letters do not establish that Joe Biden protected Burisma from investigations or that the Servant of the People faction representative’s request determined the decision to sanction Oleksandr Dubinsky.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "У документах Білого дому знайшли лист із проханням вжити заходів проти Дубінського". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: ANTIKOR.
