Kuchma denies charges that Ukraine's intelligence services spied on opposition (02/29/04)

Kuchma denies charges that Ukraine's intelligence services spied on opposition

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - President Leonid Kuchma said on February 25 that charges made by a general in the Security Service of Ukraine (known by its Ukrainian acronym, SBU) stationed in Berlin who alleged that his intelligence service was spying on the Ukrainian political opposition, were absolutely baseless.

"I give my permission for Kravchenko to publish in the press all that he has in his possession. Believe me, he has nothing. This is all nonsense," stated Mr. Kuchma during a monthly press conference.

Mr. Kuchma's comments came in response to assertions made by SBU Gen. Valerii Kravchenko, the chief liaison officer between Ukrainian and German intelligence services in Ukraine's Embassy in Berlin, that he had documents in his possession to prove Ukraine had spied on members of its political opposition when they traveled abroad.

Gen. Kravchenko's allegations, made on February 18 in an interview with Deutsche Welle radio a day before President Kuchma met with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in Berlin, received extensive coverage in the German press.

Speaking after he had unexpectedly entered the Deutsche Welle studios, Gen. Kravchenko said on air that he had information on illegal spying by Ukrainian officials and secret documents in his possession to prove it.

"The head of the SBU, Ihor Smeshko, and the chief of the Central Intelligence Directorate, Oleh Synianskyi, in contravention of enacted legislation give their staff abroad orders to track representatives of the Ukrainian opposition, as well as members of government at the ministerial level and higher," said Gen. Kravchenko during the interview on German state radio, according to Dzerkalo Tyzhnia.

The Ukrainian news weekly also printed a telephone interview it had with the general in which he explained the orders more specifically.

"At first the order was to track Ukrainian delegations and then 'ministers and higher' to gather information about with whom they were meeting and for what reason. The most important matter was whether they were criticizing Ukraine and the current leadership and whether they supported the opposition," explained Gen. Kravchenko, who is currently in hiding in Germany.

Gen. Kravchenko said he would not allow the materials to be published in the press because they were classified "secret" and, therefore it was unlawful for him to do so. However, he said he was ready to turn the information over to the Procurator General's Office. He said he would trust them with several lawmakers as well, including Borys Oliinyk of the Communist faction, Ihor Yukhnovsky of Our Ukraine or National Deputy Mykola Tomenko, who heads the parliamentary Committee on Press Freedoms.

Mr. Kravchenko's statement came two days before President Kuchma signed a decree banning the assignment of SBU intelligence officers to Ukrainian government offices. Virtually all Ukrainian government ministries, departments, military installations, as well as embassies and consulates - and even banks - had intelligence officers assigned as security officers, a legacy of the Soviet Union and its KGB.

Many Ukrainian opposition newspapers speculated that the decree came as a result of Gen. Kravchenko's revelation. Dzerkalo Tyzhnia in its article on the matter stated that the lights of the SBU headquarters "were on all night" after the airing of the interview.

However, President Kuchma dismissed assertions that the decree was hastily prepared to minimize possible political reverberations, including those from the West, and called the two events coincidental.

"Such a decree cannot be prepared quickly. It takes a lot of time," Mr. Kuchma said in answer to a question during the press conference.

Gen. Kravchenko explained that he was acting from a sense of duty and responsibility, and the belief that the rule of law must be maintained in revealing the nature of some of his duties. President Kuchma, however, said the Ukrainian general had been disconsolate that he would not be able to stay abroad to earn the extra pay to which government workers were entitled.

Mr. Kuchma explained that Gen. Kravchenko had received special clearance for his current assignment abroad. It was his second such posting, which is generally not allowed, but at times given to senior officers nearing their retirement. According to the president the general received the special clearance through National Security and Defense Council Secretary Volodymyr Radchenko, then head of the SBU. Gen. Kravchenko wanted the increased pay officers working abroad received because he had previously received a government apartment but lacked the money to remodel it.

The president added that the general was ordered to return to Kyiv on February 11 for a review of his work performance after he had refused to take part in an investigation into a death threat against the Ukrainian president that was received before a trip to the German resort of Baden-Baden in December. Mr. Kuchma spent a month during the holidays at the sanitarium recovering from stomach surgery.

NSDC Secretary Radchenko confirmed in a statement to Interfax-Ukraine that Gen. Kravchenko, a personal friend, had called him from Berlin two weeks before the radio interview and had complained that after a "conflict with the head of the presidential guard when he was in Baden-Baden he had been recalled to Kyiv," and that he was not ready to return because he needed another year of work abroad to gather enough money for his apartment.

"There was no talk of any political problems to the effect that someone makes him track people," said Mr. Radchenko. "[The discussion] was simply of household problems."

In the Dzerkalo Tyzhnia interview, Gen. Kravchenko noted that he was ordered to return to Kyiv on February 13 to receive a security briefing on the upcoming visit to Berlin by President Kuchma. Fully aware that such preparations take place months in advance of a presidential trip abroad, he decided not to go, especially after friends in the SBU told him that upon his return he would be fired. The same day he appeared on Deutsche Welle radio, the SBU dismissed Gen. Kravchenko for failing to show up in Kyiv as ordered.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Markian Lubkivskyi said on February 24 that the ministry had officially informed the German government that Gen. Kravchenko was no longer an employee of its Embassy. He also noted that the Ukrainian SBU general had taken with him a government-issued cellphone and an automobile when he went into hiding.

National Deputy Yurii Karmazin told reporters on February 24 that he had requested that an ad hoc parliamentary committee investigate the allegations leveled by Gen. Kravchenko.

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