A letter requesting action against Dubinsky surfaced in White House documents amid the Burisma and Zlochevsky scandal

A letter requesting action against Dubinsky surfaced in White House documents amid the Burisma and Zlochevsky scandal

The White House released archives of correspondence about Burisma and materials concerning Andriy Telizhenko. One of the documents contains a request regarding Dubinsky, but its connection to sanctions has not been 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 posted two archives: correspondence about the Ukrainian gas company Burisma and materials about former Ukrainian diplomat Andriy Telizhenko. They include assessments by U.S. officials, requests from company representatives, and documents on visa and financial restrictions.

President’s adviser William Scharf authorized declassification or release of the documents on 13 October 2026. Some of the letters were already marked 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 confidence in Washington’s anti-corruption appeals. The diplomat argued that Ukrainians perceived a contradiction between those appeals and the vice president’s family’s ties to the company’s owner.

The diplomat thought Washington should raise the matter privately with the vice president. In the letter he also described contacts by Blue Star Strategies and attempts to rehabilitate 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 had 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 attempts by U.S. officials to shield Burisma from inquiries. 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 had closed the case.

George Kent criticized Hunter Biden’s work at the company but did not testify that Joe Biden intervened in the investigation on its behalf.

On 26 September 2017 a representative of the McCain Institute at Arizona State University contacted the U.S. embassy about a two-week training program for Ukrainian prosecutors. The proposal was routed through Blue Star Strategies 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 General Prosecutor’s Office was to pay for training its staff. The ambassador asked him to prepare those reservations for a response to the institute.

On 6 October 2017 a member of the embassy warned that an arrangement between Burisma and the General Prosecutor’s Office could damage the McCain Institute’s reputation. Diplomats did not object to training the prosecutors, but they had concerns about the proposed funding.

George Kent also described a failed U.S. and U.K. effort to return about 23 million dollars belonging to Mykola Zlochevsky that had been frozen in British accounts. In his account, actions by the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office helped unfreeze the money.

According to the diplomat, at a February 2015 meeting the then first deputy prosecutor general Anatoliy Danylenko told him the amount of a possible bribe to close the case — 7 million dollars. The memo relayed that conversation; it does not contain confirmation that any 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 with memos about Mykola Zlochevsky. Whether those inquiries resulted in a visa being issued is not clear from the documents.

In correspondence from 2016 a member of the embassy noted that Mykola Zlochevsky had sent letters to Ambassadors Marie Yovanovitch and Jeffrey Payette and insisted on his innocence. A 2017 memo contains Burisma’s statement about the closure 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 reference to Oleksandr Dubinsky appears in another packet — the 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 earlier, before the COVID-19 pandemic, had traveled to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

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 contain an instruction from the entire faction.

The U.S. imposed sanctions on Oleksandr Dubinsky on 11 January 2021, at the end of Donald Trump’s first administration. The Treasury Department’s official notice cited participation in a Russia-linked foreign influence network that the department associated with Andriy Derkach as the basis.

According to the U.S. Treasury, 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 executive order on foreign interference in elections. They involved blocking property within U.S. jurisdiction and a general prohibition on transactions by U.S. persons.

The request concerning the deputy preceded the sanctions. What role it played in the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) decision is not explained in George Kent’s letter.

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 prosecutor’s office leadership.

According to the Republican majority report of two Senate committees in 2020, Blue Star Strategies contracted Andriy Telizhenko in 2016–2017 and sought his help again in the summer of 2019. That same company represented Burisma’s interests.

The Senate report’s authors used his materials and defended his reliability as a source. U.S. agencies at the same time were checking whether he was spreading material from a Russian influence operation.

What the FBI knew about the recruitment attempt

An FBI report dated 23 August 2020, compiled from 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 the proposal during a personal meeting.

The document also notes that after participating in the Ukrainian revolution of 2014 the former diplomat was barred from entering Russia. The information was provided by a member of another law enforcement agency; the report does not offer independent confirmation of these circumstances.

The World Intelligence Review of 10 February 2020 gives a different assessment: false and unverified claims by Andriy Telizhenko fueled a Russian influence campaign aimed at an American audience. Analysts said he might have aided it unwittingly. In a separate memo the agency said it did not know whether he was aware of acting as an intermediary for the Russian government.

These documents do not establish that he knowingly worked for Russian intelligence. At the same time, the FBI account of his refusal to be recruited does not disprove analysts’ concerns about the effects of his activities.

How the U.S. visa was revoked

On 8 September 2020 an employee of the FBI’s foreign influence unit alerted the State Department about Andriy Telizhenko’s planned trip to the United States. He prepared an internal memorandum requesting revocation of the visa. The next-day correspondence already discussed the revocation and approval of the decision by leadership.

State Department correspondence dated 7 October 2020 clarifies that 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 associated with Andriy Derkach who were planning to travel to the U.S. less than a month before the election. Under his proposal, they would have to re-prove the purpose of their trip.

One analytical memo relays Andriy Telizhenko’s reaction in September 2020. He considered the visa revocation politically motivated, denied the relationship with the deputy as described by the American side, and hoped to restore his right to enter the country.

On what the sanctions were based

Financial sanctions against Andriy Telizhenko were imposed separately on 11 January 2021, along with sanctions on Oleksandr Dubinsky and other individuals. The U.S. Treasury said the former diplomat organized meetings between Andriy Derkach and Americans to spread false claims about corruption in Ukraine. The department classified this activity as foreign interference in elections.

In OFAC’s evidentiary memorandum the agency cited FBI materials, media publications, and Senate documents. The conclusion that Andriy Telizhenko belonged to Andriy Derkach’s team was made by comparing an intelligence report on plans for a Russian operation with publications about that team’s composition. That is an OFAC conclusion based on a body of materials, not a direct identification of the former diplomat in the intelligence report itself.

In a separate section of the memorandum Andriy Telizhenko’s objections are quoted: he distanced himself from Andriy Derkach and said he did not know Derkach’s background. 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 on both procedures and the assessments U.S. agencies used to justify them.

The correspondence about Burisma records diplomats’ reservations, while materials about Oleksandr Dubinsky and Andriy Telizhenko discuss restrictions and their bases.

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.