Medvedchuk, Poroshenko meeting regularly and secretly, media say

Viktor Medvedchuk,
among the heads of Ukraine’s leading Russian-oriented parties, has been
regularly visiting the Presidential Administration building in secret in recent
months, also meeting with the president at his home, according to the Skhemy
(Schemes) news program, produced by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Its
journalists have been monitoring the president’s meetings for the last four
months, during which attempts were made to hide the presence of Medvedchuk’s
automobile retinue. In the last week of October, for example, Medvedchuk and
Poroshenko met with each other twice, once in the administration building and
once at the president’s home. “In this situation, it’s best for the president
to come out and clearly explain what they’re talking about,” said journalist
Maksym Kamenev. “He has positioned himself as a patriot, yet these contacts
with Medvedchuk create great dissonance.”

In response to the
Skhemy report, the Presidential Administration released a statement
acknowledging the meetings, denying any business ties between them and
stressing Poroshenko has been meeting with Medvedchuk to discuss the situation
with war prisoners from the war in Donbas. Medvedchuk serves as the special
representative of the Security Service of Ukraine on releasing war prisoners at
the Trilateral Contact Group in Minsk. The president expressed his discontent
with the process of releasing prisoners being delayed by the Kremlin and met
with Medvedchuk “exclusively to move this issue from its standstill.” The president
doesn’t share Medvedchuk’s political views and is willing to meet with anyone
to free Ukrainian prisoners, the statement said. As the Skhemy report pointed
out however, the prisoner exchange process has already been blocked by Russia,
according to Iryna Gerashchenko, among Ukraine’s leading negotiators at the
Minsk talks.

Zenon Zawada: It’s quite suspicious for someone
as closely related to Russian President Putin as Medvedchuk to be meeting so
intensely and intimately with Poroshenko, even at his own home. Putin is
godfather to Medvedchuk’s daughter and Medvedchuk has promoted Putin’s policies
in Ukraine for more than a decade. Medvedchuk is also political council chair
of the newly launched Opposition Platform For Life party, which is fielding Yuriy
Boyko as its presidential candidate.

As the Skhemy report
acknowledged, Boyko is Poroshenko’s ideal opponent in the second-round runoff
of the presidential elections. So all this implies that the president could be
colluding with Boyko and Medvedchuk to cooperate during the elections, and even
provide for Poroshenko’s re-election (in exchange for business preferences
afterwards).

In all, this news report hurts the president’s image. It lends more
credence to suspicions that Poroshenko has secret agreements with Putin
(possibly through Medvedchuk), and that Poroshenko is colluding with Boyko and
Medvedchuk for the elections to prevent Tymoshenko from becoming president.
Tymoshenko’s campaign is sure to use the Skhemy report to continue arguing that
it’s truly Poroshenko who has closer ties to the Kremlin than she does.