Kompromat and backstabbing..

Petro Poroshenko responded quickly to Yuliya Tymoshenko's accusations [of which I wrote yesterday], in a lengthy TV interview last night. Perhaps the most sensational of her accusations against him had been the claim that Poroshenko was co-operating with deputy Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin to open a criminal case and sanction the arrest of Oleksandr Turchynov, BYuT #2, and former head of the SBU, and Andriy Kozhemyakin, a former SBU adviser, at the time of Tymoshenko's premiership.

Turchinov may have been using his position to destroy or 'dark-hole' evidence on Tymoshenko's 'dim and distant past' which could be used against her and others some time in the future, as well as collecting potential kompromat on her enemies.

Abdymok has blogged in great detail on these matters and how RosUkrEnergo and its shady beneficiaries [some close to Yushchenko] were being investigated by Turchinov and Kozhemyakin. Turchinov in a resignation press conference on 15th September last year, claimed that the President himself had told him to 'back-off' with his investigations.

In his TV interview Poroshenko claims that when she was PM, Yuliya Tymoshenko,"arranged, at night, at her dacha, with the then Prosecutor General, Sviatoslav Piskun", to open a criminal case against him, apparently in a private agreement, and to submit appropriate arrest warrants.

Before and during the Orange Revolution, Yushchenko kept close ties with the then Prosecutor General Sviatoslav Piskun, and with the SBU [late night meetings with Smesko and Satsiuk?].

In a country like Ukraine, where 'blackmail and kompromat were used a tool of state domination', the people, who have the 'dirt on everyone' become most important and powerful. Yushchenko only fired the odious Piskun late last year - he will now be sitting in a PoR seat in the newly-elected VR.

An insight onto how kompromat has been used is described in an excellent article by Keith A Darden [Yale University], which although written several years ago, is still a most interesting read, and helps explain the methods Ukraine's leaders have used to try to discredit or get the better of one another. [In the article it's still many of the same names on the gas merry-go-round as now, I'm afraid.] But at least after the Orange Revolution there's a free press and media..

Coalition of democratic forces? It looks a long way away.. And grand coalition? Maybe a bit nearer?