Ukraine's Embassy in Canada opens amid staff controversy (12/27/92)

Ukraine's Embassy in Canada opens amid staff controversy

by Christopher Guly
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

OTTAWA - A dark cloud of controversy hangs over the Ukrainian Embassy to Canada, which officially opened here on December 1.

About a month earlier, two senior diplomats had been dismissed by Ambassador Levko Lukianenko. Former first secretary Eugene Kutcher, 37, who headed the mission, and Oleksij Rodionov, 39, who served as deputy for the past six months, were fired by Mr. Lukianenko on October 30.

At a December 1 news conference, attended by Mykola Makarevych, Ukraine's first deputy foreign minister, the ambassador said the two were released as a result of "personality differences" with the embassy. However, embassy spokesperson Borys Biliashivsky said the two had "broken the laws of Canada" and "didn't behave like diplomats."

Mr. Biliashivsky said the pair had been recalled to Ukraine's Foreign Ministry for consultations and never appeared. Instead, the two men remain in Ottawa, where they have applied for Canadian citizenship.

Among the accusations leveled at Messrs. Kutcher and Rodionov are charges of impaired driving and an incident in which they were taken into custody. Mr. Biliashivsky says Canada's External Affairs Department has been notified by the police. Yet, he did not know whether the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or City of Ottawa Police were involved. An External Affairs spokesperson declined comment.

Messrs. Kutcher and Rodionov, who assume they have already been dismissed from the Ukrainian foreign service, vehemently deny the charges. They claim their sole involvement with the police occurred following an October 1 traffic accident, in which both men's cars were involved. Neither was tested by a breathalyzer and both insist they were cleared of any responsibility in the mishap. No one was injured in the accident.

However, rumors of spying and backstabbing swirl around the dismissal. Both men believe that they were accused of spying on Mr. Lukianenko's activities in Canada.

"Who were we spying for...the Russians, the Japanese, the Chinese?" wondered Mr. Kutcher.

The ambassador, whose appointment to Canada is believed to be an opportunity for Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk to rid himself of a political opponent, hinted at his suspicions at the news conference. He said advocates of change in Ukraine continue to fight "conservative forces" back home.

Prior to his appointment at the Ukrainian Embassy, Mr. Rodionov had until recently served as Ukraine's charge d'affaires out of the former Soviet Embassy, where he was posted to the Ukrainian desk last year.

Mr. Kutcher arrived with Ambassador Lukianenko on May 22 from Kiev, where he worked as a parliamentary adviser to the Ukrainian government.

The two spent the summer working in a crammed office space, across the hall from the Ukrainian Canadian Congress Information Bureau in downtown Ottawa. During this time, Ambassador Lukianenko used the media to regularly praise the two diplomats' efforts in organizing Ukraine's mission.

In fact, Mr. Kutcher claims he was scheduled to become Ukraine's consul-general in Toronto.

Then, in early September, just before a Toronto family donated the current $615,000 downtown office building to the embassy, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry approached the skeleton staff at the embassy to explain the delay behind the opening. An official from Kiev later visited the mission.

It is believed that a letter directed to Kiev, under the signatures of Messrs. Rodionov and Kutcher, was intercepted before it was sent to Kiev. That incident appeared to create the chill between Mr. Lukianenko and his two staff members.

Other rumors have since circulated, including extortion of funds from the embassy; a real estate deal between Mr. Rodionov and Erast Huculak, who donated the building on that property a year ago; a regular bouts of drunkenness on the part of Messrs. Kutcher and Rodionov at embassy receptions.

Neither side was willing to discuss these allegations for the record. Ambassador Lukianenko did not return this correspondent's phone calls.

The final crunch came on October 30 when the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry faxed the ambassador a letter recalling Messrs. Rodionov and Kutcher. The Kiev office gave the two men 10 days to prepare to leave Canada. Mr. Lukianenko, they claim, gave them two.

Although one-way tickets from Ottawa to Kiev were purchased for both officials, neither used them. They have since been stripped of their diplomatic credentials, their apartments, their vehicles and their salaries. Mr. Kutcher said the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry required that the mission to Canada cover their wages until they leave the country. However, neither is prepared to travel to Kiev, where both expect to be detained for questioning.

According to Messrs. Kutcher and Rodionov, at a recent news conference in Kiev Ukrainian Foreign Minister Anatoly Zlenko, when asked about the two former staffers, said they had "mysteriously disappeared."

Ambassador Lukianenko's two former officials believe he briefed Ukrainian Foreign Ministry officials when he accompanied Canada's Governor General Ray Hnatyshyn during his trip to Ukraine in late September.

Mr. Kutcher says that he is now relying on social welfare to survive in Canada. His wife, Nina, and his 11-year old daughter, Irena, returned to Kiev on November 5, using his re-issued ticket. He has not spoken to them since.

Meanwhile, Mr. Rodionov remains with his wife, Olena, and his children, Konstantin, 10, and Olexander, 7, in Ottawa.

Both men have until May 1993 to obtain landed immigrant status before facing deportation.

But the two former diplomats refuse to make their struggle to remain in Canada a media event.

"I don't want to organize a public scandal," said Mr. Rodionov. He added, "The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry would never appoint criminals to serve as diplomats on behalf of the government of Ukraine."

Ambassador Lukianenko's new staff includes: Mr. Biliashivsky; Andriy Vessolovsky, who will serve as minister-counselor; Oleksander Shandruk, first secretary on trade/science and technology; and Yaroslav Asman, first secretary, consular section.

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