BY
Following on from yesterday’s
entry regarding the arson at the Inter TV premises in Kyiv,
the repercussions will now begin to play out in various arenas.
It will now fall
to Sergei Lyovochkin, (a long time close associate of Inter’s owner Dmitry
Firtash), and the Opposition Block to enact the ire of Inter’s owner, who is
somewhat marooned in Austria as oligarch-in-exile. In the meantime
Inter’s faithful projection of (variations of) the Kremlin narrative suffered
only a temporary inconvenience.
Of course the rule of
law, as mentioned in yesterday’s entry, will be under the microscope. As
stated, those guilty of committing, and perhaps others responsible for the
commissioning this crime (should their deeds be more than preparatory)
will necessarily have to be subject to due process lest the appearance of
the Ukrainian State’s perceived weak grasp upon rule of law be perceived to get
even weaker – both internally and externally of Ukraine. Whatever
perceived justification may be put forward, justification does not equate to
legitimisation of the crime.
Also under the
microscope will be State ministries and State institutions. As Inter’s
Kremlin narrative became more robust, forceful (and perhaps incendiary) in
concert with the rhetoric and actions of The Kremlin over the past few months,
more calls for its licence removal were directed at the State licencing
authorities and regulators – who clearly did not remove Inter’s broadcasting
licence or have any tangible effect upon content delivery and associated
rhetoric – perhaps rightly, perhaps not.
Naturally after more
than two years of war with Russia, those that accept the Kremlin line have long
since accepted it, and those that recognise it for what it is have long since
dismissed it. The Kremlin narrative is now something of a Ukrainian domestic
sport insofar as spotting and debunking it, an academic exercise from which
genuine academic insight will undoubtedly emerge across several disciplines,
and also a source of comedy material.
In short, whatever spews forth from
Inter, long since stopped converting Ukrainians to the Kremlin cause.
It’s effectiveness at increasing the Opposition Block vote is therefore
also questionable. Perhaps it is a matter of simply maintaining both
narrative and voting constituency rather than any effective progression, or
perhaps a question of/display of loyalty by the owner to The Kremlin – The
Kremlin being the curator of a great deal of “kompromat” regarding the owner of
Inter.
Ukrainian media
regulators aside however, there are also going to be repercussions among the
political class.
Broadly speaking
President Poroshenko does not do “leadership”, but rather “management”.
He strikes deals (which is why nobody goes to jail) and attempts to keep
the elite fairly happy, or at least equally unhappy – something that
disenfranchises the voting constituency as his falling popularity demonstrates.
With appeals to the President to deal with the matter from the Opposition
Block to support Inter, and their political rivals to close it –
notwithstanding parliamentary appeals to the SBU and NABU by certain
politicians to investigate other politicians over ties and/or associations with
Inter, the President has yet another managerial task with voting implications
within the Verkhovna Rada.
It is the official
appeals to NABU and the SBU by certain politicians that are worthy of note –
not for their overt internal squabbling, but for within those official
requests to the investigative agencies are mentioned associations with Maria
Stoliarova a robust and vocal supporter of the occupied territories and
who was briefly a leading light at the very top of Inter, and a man called Igor
Shuvalov.
This entry will not
concentrate upon Maria Stoliarova. To be honest she is not that
interesting in the scheme of things. She came to note in 2014 and was
eventually removed from Ukraine and banned from reentry for 5 years – PNG’d.
The only thing that Maria Stoliarova did do of interest (rather
than doing interesting things) was invite Igor Shuvalov to Inter.
(Of the influential
women at Inter, or at Inter until recently, Anna Bezlyudnaya is far more
noteworthy. After all, Patriarch Krill does not give out Orders of the
Russian Orthodox Church to just any passing journalist, yet he did to Ms
Bezlyudnaya. It also has to be said that most people would not travel to
Moscow from Ukraine via Athens or Berlin every few weeks either, as she was
inclined to do. (A reader can probably hear the “red flags” being waved
by the spooks and ex-spooks following the above few lines.))
Unlike Maria Stoliarova,
Igor Shuvalov is a particularly interesting person – in fact in truth he is not
an interesting person, but rather he is a person of interest (which is an
entirely different thing).
For those that know
little about the workings of Ukraine behind the curtain, a few lines deserve to
be dedicated to Mr Shuvalov.
Mr Shuvalov has long been a discreet but permanent
part of the Sergei Lyovochkin political furniture. Mr Shuvalov is
also a Russian citizen and a product of his nation’s secret services – a
somewhat disturbing if unsurprising fact considering Mr Lyovochkin was
former-President Yanukovych’s Head of the Presidential Administration perhaps –
but Mr Shuvalov has a much longer history behind the Ukrainian curtain.
Mr Shuvalov arrived upon
the Ukrainian scene in (or certainly by) 1998 as a political consultant for
Viktor Pinchuk, son-in-law of then President Kuchma. Indeed then
President Kuchma granted Mr Shuvalov Ukrainian citizenship during the 2002 –
2004 period Mr Shuvalov was working with Viktor Medvedchuk (who is godfather to
one of President Putin’s daughters).
That Kuchma granted
Ukrainian citizenship was subsequently canceled by Presidential Decree when
Viktor Yushenko came to power.
Mr Shuvalov then began
what became a very long association with Sergei Lyovochkin – which needless to
say brought him into the close orbit of Viktor Yanukovych, Dmitry Firtash and
the very elite top tier within the now extinct Party of Regions.
Given the close and long
term association between Messrs Lyovochkin and Shuvalov, few will therefore be
surprised to find Mr Shuvalov has been instrumental in his “political
technologist” role behind the Ukrainian curtain in assisting political projects
sponsored by Mr Lyovochkin that go beyond the former Party of Regions and now
Opposition Block. The fingerprints of Mr Shuvalov can indeed be found
upon the formative days of the Radical Party too.
Twice since the fall and
ouster of the Yanukovych regime efforts began to remove Mr Shuvalov from
Ukraine. The first effort by the temporary leadership immediately
following the ouster fell between the cracks, and the second effort was
scotched by Mr Lyovochkin within the SBU ranks. (An indication of the
loyalty between the two men that surpasses any common cause/belief.)
With new official
requests from certain parliamentarians to NABU and the SBU to investigate the
ties of parliamentary colleagues to any alleged wrong-doings of Inter, and
specifically any interaction with the named Maria Stoliarova and Igor
Shuvalov, a reader may wonder just how many cans of worms, and over how many
years, investigations surrounding Mr Shuvalov would open.
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