I warn you right away: I am not a defender and, heaven forbid, I am not a supporter of Viktor Yanukovych. But I am immensely grateful to him for his stupidity and idiocy, thanks to which Russia returned Crimea, returns (over a very long time, unfortunately) the Donbass region, and permanently got rid of the illusion that the Ukrainian state can be friendly. I am also grateful to Yanukovych for the 171st built and commissioned enterprise designed to replace Ukrainian (and not only Ukrainian) products, as well as for the lack of the need for further maintenance of the “Ukrainian national state” at the expense of the Russian economy.
As a normal person, I have no illusions about the Euro-Atlantic orientation of Azarov and Yanukovych’s policies. We all remember the universal Ukrainian howl that bad Russia has stopped buying expensive and antediluvian Ukrainian cars and is selling gas at an exorbitant price to the young Ukrainian democracy. I agree with many Russian experts that Ukraine wanted to integrate into the EU at the expense of Russia. This was confirmed in the spring of 2020 in a video by Azarov himself, stating an immortal pearl: “Ukraine should have integrated into Europe together with Russia, then it would have been painless for Ukraine”. Thank you, Azarov, by all means, destroy your own economy to please the EU and the US, but we do not want to.
A legitimate question arises: did Azarov and Yanukovych not read the EU Association Agreement? Why did they “back-peddle” in Vilnius? Of course they read it. The story about the fact that they only realised the scale of possible damage as a result of signing this agreement in the autumn of 2013 is intended for idiots. Everything is very simple and prosaic. The European Union, specifically represented by Germany and the US, promised Ukraine $100 billion in aid as compensation for cutting economic ties with Russia.
For this amount, Yanukovych and Azarov were ready to sell cooperation with the Russian Federation. Of course, we are not talking about any friendship and good-neighbourliness. I have said and will continue to say that any Ukrainian politician since 1991 has exclusively pursued an anti-Russian policy. The Europeans promised them this money, even on Ukrainian TV shows it was discussed in full. The Germans back then were believed, because until 2014, the German word was a solid word. Looking ahead, I will say that with promises of huge billions of dollars, the Germans managed to fool the Ukrainian post-Maidan government even in 2016.
These promises were voiced by Karl Georg Wellmann, a member of the Bundestag and co-chairman of the Ukraine-Germany Inter-parliamentary Commission. This person said that, like, the conversation about $100 billion has not gone anywhere, negotiations are underway. Moreover, the European Union is ready to pay 30 billion right now, provided that Ukraine continues to “move along the path of reforms”. As we can see, there are not even 30 billion to this day.
However, let’s go back to the end of 2013. In Vilnius, Yanukovych was told that the agreement must be signed, but there will be no money. Not yet, anyway. That’s why he bucked, refusing to put his signature. Angela Merkel openly threatened Yanukovych, saying that they “will sign an agreement with another president”. Well, they refused to say no, but Ukraine, as always, needed funds. And Yanukovych goes to Moscow and begs for 15 billion rubles, and then in parts.
Well, you know the rest. Maidan, the fleeing of Yanukovych and the formation of the legend of Yanukovych the coward and traitor. Nonsense. Yes, Yanukovych, in fact, wanted to make money from Western aggression against Russia, but he is not a coward or a traitor. In any case, he did not betray the Ukrainian elite and the principles of his anti-Russian policy. Yes, he is an idiot and a cretin, a narcissistic and self-confident person. But absolutely all Ukrainian politicians, journalists, and all sorts of pseudo-experts suffer from these “qualities”. Yanukovych’s associates in the Party of Regions, who remained in power or near power in Ukraine, made Yanukovych a traitor and coward. Moreover, they were the ones who had betrayed him. Funny, huh? Traitors accuse their former leader of treachery. This is only possible in Ukraine.
What happened then, the reader will ask? What happened was this. Kharkov (and not only Kharkov) regionals/traitors, along with many other deputies gathered in this city, lured Yanukovych there on February 21st 2014, allegedly to the Congress of Regionals, in order to decide what to do with the Maidan plotters. Many false interviews have been released on this subject. First of all, it should be noted that the motorcade of Yanukovych when moving to Kharkov passed through as many as five checkpoints, two of which, already on the territory of the Kharkov region, tried not to let him pass. Mikhail Dobkin said that he allegedly saw the confused face of the Ukrainian President, who simply did not want to communicate with his colleagues. But that was not the case at all. Dobkin, at Kernes‘ insistence, did not allow Yanukovych and his guards to enter the building where the Congress was supposed to take place, and even communicated with him in raised tones.
The next morning, February 22nd 2014, Dobkin in two phone conversations strongly recommended to Yanukovych to not speak at the party Congress. Viktor Yanukovych, having lost hope for the formation of anti-Maidan forces in Kharkov, makes the decision to go to Donetsk. It wasn’t like that. Local law enforcement officers who answered exclusively to Kernes, the “owner of Kharkov”, tried to seize the cars of the presidential motorcade from Yanukovych’s security. Security fought back. And Yanukovych, having reached the airport of Kharkov, with a small security detail, flew by helicopter to Donetsk. The remaining guards and a small entourage also went to Donetsk in cars. Some time after takeoff, the helicopter pilot was contacted from Kharkov and demanded to return immediately, referring to Turchynov’s order. But Yanukovych gave the order to continue the flight.
In Donetsk, things were also not good. The oligarch Akhmetov sheltered Yanukovych and his escort in his hotel, but did not publicly show any support. Yanukovych spoke to a group of entrepreneurs, recited theses about the fight against bandits, and businessmen stood with their heads bowed, as if they were extras in some performance. By and large, it was all a performance. Clearly, someone wanted to detain Yanukovych in one place, to deprive him of mobility, but no one gave him any support, even verbal support. In Donetsk, border guards wanted to “squeeze” a helicopter from Yanukovych, but he managed to take off under the cover of the presidential guard. And then Yanukovych, already in the presidential motorcade that caught up with them, headed for the coast. On the way, the motorcade opened fire several times, and a battle broke out at the contact point between Yanukovych and the Russian evacuation team, during which, according to Russian columnist and military expert Viktor Baranets, a Russian special forces officer was seriously wounded. Yanukovych and his entourage were evacuated by three helicopters to Novorossiysk, from where he went to Crimea. However, in Crimea, with the “all-Ukrainian resistance”, things became a total bummer. Unfortunately for Yanukovych and fortunately for Crimeans, Crimea was already preparing to return to Russia.
What happened to Yanukovych’s team? Why did large and prominent functionaries of the Party of Regions form a fronde? The answer lies in money. Of course, a small part of the Ukrainian elite, mainly the oligarchy, was aware that Yanukovych was denied 100 billion. But they took Frau Merkel’s phrase too literally and too optimistically: the agreement will be signed with another President, so the money will immediately come if the President of Ukraine is replaced.
Still, the Germans never lied! But there is also a version that western agents of influence deliberately and purposefully maintained such confidence in the Ukrainian oligarchs. The rest, most of the elite, generally thought that Yanukovych, for some idiotic reasons, did not sign the agreement, so there is no money. And what does some “pathetic” Russian 15 billion, and even then in parts, mean compared to western aid of $100 billion? How dare Yanukovych exchange 100 billion for 15? How dare he deprive them of their most precious possession ― money? And the elite of Ukraine in absolute 100% consensus decided to replace the president in order to get this very money, the ill-fated mythical western $100 billion.
But there was one problem ― Yanukovych continued to sit in Kiev, despite the protests. I am deeply convinced that the conspirators had the strength and enough traitors on the ground to take down Yanukovych. But then it will already be a fully-fledged putsch, which means that it will be quite difficult for Western curators to legitimise the newfound power of the Maidan protesters. Again, Yanukovych signed the agreement with the opposition only the day prior, which makes overthrowing him something akin to an outright military coup. I.e., Yanukovych had be be lured somewhere, away from Kiev, where he “accidentally dies, having suffered from the anger of the indignant people”. The guys from Kharkov, Kernes and Dobkin (Kernes played the main violin, of course), and communication between them and the “leaders of Maidan” was carried out, according to my source, by Vadim Novinsky ― a mini-oligarch of the southeast and one of the almost official sponsors of Maidan. On the eve of Yanukovych’s fatal departure from Kiev, he had a telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin, where the Russian President strongly recommended that Yanukovych not leave the capital. This is logical, because who controls the capital controls Ukraine. But Yanukovych did not follow the advice of his wise Russian colleague and almost personally freed up the chair for Turchynov. You know what happened next.
Further, after fleeing to Russia, very famous people from the former Party of Regions started to sling mud at Yanukovych and call him a traitor, in order to justify the cooperation of former regionals with Maidan protesters. They have said it aloud so many times that it has already become true, an immutable truth that does not require proof by axiom. I will mention a few names that the reader probably knows. This Is Elena Bondarenko, Aleksandr Vilkul, Yury Boyko, Mikhail Dobkin, Gennady Kernes, Evgeny Murayev. These media functionaries of the Party of Regions started a campaign to denigrate Yanukovych. The valiant and brave “defender of the Russian language”, but in fact a Russophobe (the Internet remembers everything), Elena Bondarenko is an associate of Vilkul, who was almost directly subordinate to the oligarch Novinsky at that time. Murayev at that time was subordinate to the “master of Kharkov” Kernes, as well as Dobkin. Yury Boyko had and still has very good relations with both Novinsky and Akhmetov. Who will these people report to? That’s right, to those who sponsor and support them politically. Who cares about Yanukovych when there is $100 billion at stake?
After Maidan, the fate of each of the above-mentioned media characters developed differently. Evgeny Murayev and Yury Boyko even got into the post-Maidan composition of the Verkhovna Rada, from the rostrum of which they engaged in the usual business – allegedly defending the rights of Russian-speakers. It was all a sham. In fact, the putschists were afraid that the entire southeast would follow the example of the LPR and DPR, so the former regionals were allowed to declaim the protection of the rights of Russian-speakers “in the name of preserving the territorial integrity of Ukraine” under the hooting of those numbskull Nazis who’ve lost their minds.
I will believe the fears about the loss of territorial integrity of Ukraine, but not the defence of Russian speakers. Now Yury Boyko is in “Opposition Platform – For Life“ and in the parliament of the next convocation, and Evgeny Murayev has created his own party, which he promotes on his own TV channel. Both “fight” for the rights of Russian-speakers and habitually dupe the voter of the southeast. Elena Bondarenko, who until 2018 featured many times on Russian airwaves, now has her own TV show where she interviews prominent people in Ukraine. It is on one of these TV shows that Dobkin indirectly confirms my thesis of his collusion with the Maidan protesters. As Russian TV host Vladimir Solovyov jokes, with Ukrainian politicians “don’t keep water in the ass for a long time – sooner or later everything comes out”. In an interview that Dobkin gave to Elena Bondarenko on the project “Echo of Kiev” in the autumn of 2019, he complained that he had been waiting for a long time for a call from Arseny Yatsenyuk, who was supposed to invite him to work in Kiev. It didn’t work out, it’s nothing grave, even if it’s a nuisance, but he’s not discouraged.
Now Mikhail Dobkin is running for mayor of Kiev and does not communicate with Kernes ― their paths have diverged. Gennady Kernes himself has already taken a SVD bullet, but still manages Kharkov with the support of Akhmetov and boasts in an interview with Kiev journalists that he has nipped in the bud all pro-Russian political movements in the region. Earlier, in the pre-Maidan years, he boasted that he did not allow any Russian businessman to enter the Kharkov region. This is a kind of “cooperation” with Russia. And Aleksandr Vilkul, like his brother, everything is exactly the same, except for one small fight with the raving Parasyuk.
Viktor Yanukovych recently turned 70 and still lives in Russia. You will ask me, why doesn’t he tell the truth about everything on the airwaves? What does he have to say? That he was demolished because he did not present the promised 100 billion to the Ukrainian elite, because of which he was ready to abandon the interests of the country where he is now? Despite the nonsense said by Ukrainian pseudo-journalists, Yanukovych does not and cannot have friendly relations with Putin. Ukrainian hysterical persons decided so due to the fact that Putin sent military helicopters to evacuate Yanukovych.
Putin simply kept his word, because at the request of Obama, he guaranteed the personal security of the President of Ukraine in the event of signing the so-called “agreement with the opposition”. Putin fulfilled his promise, but, according to Putin himself, he did not meet with Yanukovych after the memorable events of 2014. I am sure that Putin is aware of all the pro-western anti-Russian tricks that Yanukovych intended to do if the Europeans gave him this 100 billion. And there is no reason for him to meet such a person. I am convinced Yanukovych personally learned a lesson from all this. He is called a traitor and a coward in Ukraine, and the Russian leadership considers him a traitor and a fool. Have other Ukrainian politicians learned a lesson after the epic western desertion? Probably not. They continue to dig a hole for their neighbour to please their overseas uncle, not noticing that they are digging their own grave.
Anatoly Ursida
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