Wasting no time getting even..

Yuri Boiko [see photo] has been appointed Minister of Fuel and Energy in the new Yanukovych cabinet.

He was chairman of the State Gas Company 'Naftohaz Ukrainy' from February 2002 until just after the Orange Revolution, and was actively involved in the establishment of shady intermediary gas trading companies, including the infamous RosUkrEnergo.

The detailed and independent 'Global Witness' report, 'Its a Gas', published several months ago declares:

"Hair-raising details of Naftohaz's accounting practices..suggest that the company, run by Ihor Bakai and his successors, including Yuri Boiko, was a financial black hole run more for the interests of the elite that the state and its customers."

The report provides many details of Boiko's astonishing performance as 'Naftohaz' chairman.

When the new Ukrainian government of Viktor Yushchenko came to power in January 2005, one of the first acts of newly-appointed Prime Minister Yuliya Tymoshenko was to call for a criminal investigation into RosUkrEnergo, which she labelled a "criminal enterprise." Shortly afterwards, Oleksandr Turchinov, the head of the Ukrainian security service, the SBU, announced that a criminal case had been launched against RosUkrEnergo.

The investigation abruptly ended in mid-August 2005 when the toes of persons close to President Yushchenko were being trodden on. Days later Tymoshenko was sacked from her post of PM.

After Turchynov's removal as head of the SBU, the officer in charge of the investigation of RosUkrEnergo, Andriy Kozhemyakin, was transferred from the case to other duties. [From RFE/RL]

Today, just a day after the new Yanukovych cabinet was formed, Yuliya Tymoshenko, in a radio broadcast, revealed that criminal cases are being opened against Turchynov and Kozhemyakin, both of whom are now BYuT VR deputies.

Signs of things to come?

I wrote yesterday about reports that possible exposure of alleged links between the Yushchenko family and Naftohaz may have been used to 'help him make up his mind' and go with Yanuk for PM.


"All rich people in Ukraine made their money on Russian Gas" - Ihor Bakai, 1998