A new Russian propaganda agency has started up in Kyiv as part of the Kremlin’s fifth column of “soft power”
Leonid Kozhara is a board
member at the Institute of Peace. He is former Former Minister in the second
Azarov Cabinet, a one-time member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
and of Party of the Regions, and today in the “Socialists” Party
Under the guise of a “peaceful
resolution” to the war in the east, Russia continues to try to place its agents
of influence inside Ukrainian society. Its primary focus is on the information
arena and NGOs to promote messages along the lines of “World peace,” “Enough
bloodshed” and “Stop the civil war and the bloody ATO.”
And so, the capital of
Ukraine recently saw the launch of remarkably lively activity on the part of an
organization dubbed the “Peace Institute,” around which a crowd of overt and
covert agents of Russkiy Mir or Russian World quickly coalesced.
An investigation
showed that the Kremlin is directly behind this Institute and that funding is
coming from channels belonging to the Yanukovych “family.”
First signs
On February 29, 2016, the Peace
Institute first announced itself through a press conference entitled “Minsk
Accords. Way out or problem?” at one of the leading news agencies. The main
message was that the Donbas must be granted special status and that "an information
war was interfering in the work of the Minsk accords [sic].” Interestingly,
word of this press briefing was spread mainly by the Ukrainian branch of RIA
Novosti, an infamous Russian propaganda agency that continues to operate
completely legally in Ukraine today. Other than the staff of the Institute, the
briefing was attended by representatives of the OSCE and the Donbas SOS
volunteer organization, quite reputable individuals who were to provide a cover
for the real purpose of the event.
On April 18, a closed event
organized by this Peace Institute took place at the President-Kyivskiy Hotel.
The list of invited guests that The Ukrainian
Week was able to
obtain was revealing, although the organizers were very reluctant to make it
public. Among them were Jan Novoselskiy, the editor-in-chief of the infamous
Channel 17, one of whose employees, Dmytro Vasylets, was under arrest for
suspected cooperation with “Donetsk People’s Republic” terrorists; Kost
Bondarenko, a pundit who has worked for Serhiy Liovochkin, that is, Party of
the Regions, for years; Dmytro Rozenfeld, the former editor of another Russian
news source, RBK-Ukraina; Valeriy Lytkovskiy, advisor to the former Human
Rights Ombudsman under Viktor Yanukovych; anarchist Mykhailo Chaplyga; and
businessman Garik Korogodskiy. Others who were expected at this event included
Enrique Menendes, the leader of the Responsible Citizens NGO that cooperates
with Rinat Akhmetov. The group’s activists were recently chased out of the
occupied Donetsk by the militants because of the conflict with the oligarch.
Interestingly, the only two media that reported on this event were that same
Channel 17 and NewsOne, a channel belonging to Yevhen Murayev, a member of the
rump Party of Regions faction in the Verkhovna Rada, now called the Opposition
Bloc. Murayev himself is linked to former PM Mykola Azarov. The members of the
board and the founders of this NGO, which was legally registered in February in
the Dnipro District of Kyiv, were also present.
“Vladdy and the Peacemakers”
The head of the Institute is Maksym
Lenko, who is from Horlivka, Donetsk Oblast, and made himself a career as a prosecutor
in Donetsk Oblast when Yanukovych was in power. His peak came on September 2,
2013, when President Yanukovych appointed Lenko head of the Main Investigative
Administration of the SBU. Lenko served the Yanukovych Administration in faith
and truth in this position, and did not flee. Still, he was lustrated quite
early on, which did not hinder this worthy citizen from quietly taking the top
position in the Peace Institute and, since he had his own law firm, according
to The Ukrainian Week’s sources in the SBU, to help
clients beat the legal system through the agency of his firm.
The Institute has another prosecutor
from Donetsk Oblast on its board: Dmytro Moroz. He started out as a detective
in Donetsk and rose to be first deputy prosecutor of Donetsk Oblast by 2013.
His career included being prosecutor in one of the districts of Sevastopol as
well, over 2011-2012. Things were going along beautifully for Moroz until the
Maidan struck and in 2014 he was lustrated. Still, he did not remain jobless
for long.
Further, the deputy director is Olha
Malkina-Bohuslavska, the daughter of ex-Shepetivka Mayor Valeriy Malkin.
Malkina-Bohuslavska was known for having worked in a series of Ukrainian media
outlets and espousing far-left views. It is unnecessary to go into detail about
the Communist Party of Ukraine and its role in stirring up conflict in Donbas.
The new left is of greater interest now and is no slouch compared to the old,
especially the organization “Borotba” or “The Struggle,” whose members have
persistently supported the pro-Russian militants. Of course, when they came in
person to visit Donetsk, they found themselves taken captive, but that changed
little.
And so, Malkina-Bohuslavska has been
actively working with the terrorist mouthpiece NewsFront, for which she has,
among others, produced an interview with the wife of Pavel Gubarev, one of the
leaders of separatism movements in the Donbas. The interview focused on
investigations into “crimes” by Ukrainian military in DPR, setting up courts
and quasi-legislation in the pseudo-republic, and so on. She often visits
occupied Donetsk where she appears to have no problems getting around.
In terms of leftists, the founding
members of the Institute include Anton Rozenvayn, who at various times belonged
to different anarchist and marxist groups, is a known ukrainophhobe, and has
unconditionally supported the “separatist” side since the start of the Russian
war. He was also in charge of information policy at Novorossiya and Svobodniy
Donbass, two papers that are published in the occupied territories in
substantial quantities. He also writes articles for them with titles like
“Genocide in Horlivka.” His minders in DPR are such “activists” as Serhiy
Tsyplakov, a “deputy of the People’s Council of the DPR” and Yevhen Orlov, the
leader of the “Svoboda Donbassa civic movement.” Orlov himself is linked to an
ex-Party of Regions MP called Ghennadiy Bobkov, who has considerable influence
over the situation in ORDiLO. For a long time, Rozenvayn lived in occupied
Donetsk but traveled in and out of there into the rest of Ukraine without
hindrance because, so far, not a single criminal case has been opened against
him. Rumor has it that he is currently in the US, taking advantage of his old
contacts in the trotskyite grant community.
The founders of the Peace Institute
also include a number of opportunists who can always be found orbiting around
“Russkiy Mir” projects where an extra kopiyka can easily be pinched. One
example is Denys Zharkikh, who was fired from the Kyiv community paper
Khreshchatyk in 2007 for “lack of professionalism” according to his labor book,
after which he played at being an aide to Party of the Regions deputies. Or the
Vilenskiys, founders of the Arsis Academy of Intellectual Development and the
Ihor Vilenskiy Center for Ecral Analysis. Or the “philanthropist” Ilya
Bohomolov, founder of the supposed charitable organization called “International
Medical Aid,” which delivers humanitarian aid exclusively to ORDiLO.
There are also such individuals
among these “peacemakers” as Denys Zhukov, whose father is a steward for the
Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. One more board member who
deserves mention is the former FM in the second Azarov Cabinet, a one-time
member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and of Party of the Regions,
and today in the “Socialists” Party, Leonid Kozhara, a loyal footsoldier of
Yanukovych’s.
Whose banquet and who’s paying?
The Peace Institute has clearly
gathered a very diverse company under its roof, from Yanukovych-era prosecutors
and diplomats to turncoat leftists, old PR admen and unabashed bounders. What’s
brought them all together? Clearly, the goal to set up the latest propaganda
outlet, whose purpose is to indirectly influence the information flow in
Ukraine. And directly, for that matter, while taking advantage of funds coming
from Moscow.
The Ukrainian Week spoke with one of the representatives of this
Institute who left due to an internal disagreement and shared some details
about its current efforts. Funding for the Peace Institute is currently going
through Sberbank Rossiyi, the RF state savings bank, which continues to operate
freely in Ukraine. The funds come exclusively in the form of cash to personal
accounts so that the law cannot link anything to the Institute itself. These
funds supposedly belong to the disgraced Minister of Taxes and Revenues under
Yanukovych, Oleksandr Klymenko. But the process is being managed form Russia,
which still hopes to unload ORDiLO on Ukraine on its own terms: a separatist
Bandustan where Party of the Regions and terrorist ganglords will rule.
The recent plans of this
organization clearly designated two very “hot” propaganda dates for Russia: May
2 and May 9. May 2 is the day that Moscow’s agitprop raises again the fiction
of the “Odesa massacre organized by Ukronazis.” Memorial campaigns were
supposed to be held in Moscow and St. Petersburg, while the main propaganda
show was to become a provocation in Odesa. According to this source, the
Institute had prepared a special project called “The Wailing Wall” in Odesa,
where, as the idea went, “angry Odesites” were supposed to show up, with the
purpose of stoking aggression on the part of the patriotic population to
demonstrate the “terrifying nazis” who wouldn’t even allow people to “honor the
memory of the dead.” And this was to provide plenty of cud for Russian and
pro-Russian Ukrainian television viewers to chew on.
May 9 is the key date in the
modern-day religion of Russia. “The Immortal Regiment” was supposed to march
through Kyiv following the traditional route from Metro Arsenalna to the
Eternal Flame at Ploshcha Slavy, where, under the guise of honoring Ukrainian
veterans, the main soviet-kremlinist agitprop would be rubbed in once again and
every effort made to demonstrate how the “bearers of the true faith” have been
downtrodden by the “junta.” Interestingly, the source says that the lead role
in these projects was played by a former scandal-ridden MP from the Opposition
Bloc, Irina Berezhnaya, who became highly visible on Russian television for
repeating all the clichés of Kremlin propaganda and smeared Ukraine’s Armed
Forces.
Eventually, things didn’t go exactly
as planned. Representatives of the Institute spent all day of May 2 in Odesa.
But the police surrounded the Trade Unions’ building and Kulikovo Pole to check
them for explosives after they received anonymous notifications of the mining
in both venues. In Kyiv, the Immortal Regiment had a big march on May 9, with
thousands of people, some clashes with the police and a bunch of TV channels
filming all that.
One more project in the Peace
Institute’s plans is a charitable campaign called “Lifeline,” to provide
assistance to those living close to the frontline on both sides of the line of
contact. This is a timeworn tactic favored particularly by Rinat Akhmetov:
feeding the hungry people of ORDiLO in the expectation that, when Russia leaves
Donbas, locals will vote as the hand that fed them dictates.
Early fruit in the Garden of Evil
But perhaps the most important plans
of the Institute are led by former Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara. His
specialty is embassies, international organizations, consulates and so on. The
main goal here is to disseminate the Russian take on the war in the Donbas—and
to use the image of the respectable diplomat in this striped company to
legitimize the Institute. And to provide support for a legal challenge in
international courts against the supposed illegality of the Anti-Terrorist
Operation, protesting the April 14, 2014 Decree by the then-acting President
Oleksandr Turchynov launching the ATO. The challenge has supposedly already
been either filed or is about to be filed. Kozhara’s efforts appear to already
be paying off in spades: quite a few European embassy and consular staff showed
up at the closed event at the President-Kyivskiy Hotel.
The presence of Channel 17 along
with individuals representing nearly the entire range of pro-Russian forces
shows that the Kremlin has recovered from the current blows in the information
arena because of the war and has decided to go on the attack, consolidating its
agents within the framework of a number of NGO, charitable and media “gathering
points” that are all funded by the Yanukovych “family.” The Peace Institute is
clearly intended to be not just one of these but possibly the central point in
this network.
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