Election financing of Pro-Putin Opposition Platform party revealed

The primary sponsors
of the Opposition Platform For Life party during the second quarter, when the
parliamentary election campaign was taking place, was revealed by the Chesno
Western-financed NGO on Sept. 4 on its website. Its main sponsors were former Yanukovych
Presidential Administration Head Serhiy Lyovochkin, his sister Yulia, Kyiv
entrepreneur Hryhoriy Surkis, his niece Marina, State Customs Service veteran
Taras Kozak, his brother and entrepreneur Bohdan Kozak, longtime member of
parliament Nestor Shufrych and several dozen entrepreneurs affiliated with
Zaporizhia entrepreneur Oleksandr Ponomariov. Viktor Medvedchuk, the head of
the party’s political council and Russian President Putin’s confidante, offered
UAH 1.6 mln in financing, of which UAH 1.3 mln was returned. The information
was drawn from official party filings from the second quarter. No Russian
sources were listed, despite allegations.

Specifically,
Ukrainian President Zelensky implied the Opposition Platform For Life party has
received its elections financing from Russian sources during an interview with
the 1+1 television network broadcast on Aug. 31. “There are big questions on
where money came from for financing the party, financing the channels,” he
said, referring to Medvedchuk’s control of at least two major television
networks. “We have answers: amounts of cash, from where and what country they
receive all this. And this will be a very loud story, which will end poorly.”

Serhiy Lyovochkin, Yulia Lyovochkina, Hryhoriy Surkis, Taras Kozak, Nestor Shufrych,
Oleksandr Ponomariov and Viktor Medvedchuk all gained seats in parliament.
Lyovochkin and Yuriy Boyko, the head of the Opposition Platform party, have
been business partners for more than a decade with tycoon Dmytro Firtash in Ukraine’s natural gas transit
business. They played key roles in the Yanukovych administration, and the
defunct Party of Regions, before abandoning the embattled president at the
start of the EuroMaidan protests. Three years after his flight from Ukraine,
Yanukovych accused Lyovochkin and Firtash of provoking the EuroMaidan protests
behind the scenes.