Friday, May 11, 2007

Spectre of assassination

Chief of the Presidential Secretariat's service responsible for matters concerning the activities of the law-enforcement agencies, Valeriy Heletey, today melodramatically announced that assassination attempts against Yuliya Tymoshenko, Yuriy Lutsenko, and Davyd Zhvaniya are being considered by 'certain forces', as a means to destabilize society.

Heletey said there are documents confirming this in the hands of the pres's secretariat. They will now be handed over to the security service - the SBU.

The alleged 'hit' against Tymoshenko was being prepared by 'criminal circles' linked to several 'radically directed political forces'. He complained that 'kriminalni avtorytety'are returning to Ukraine after a long absence, having received guarantees from 'certain politicians'.

These stories have been knocking around the net for a while now. Several days ago the pro-presidential 'Ukraina Moloda', whose editor is an old chum of the pres's, ran a story entited, "No politician - no crisis?"

Apparently a conversation between two men whose voices are very similar to those of Yanukovych and Andriy Klyuev took place, during which the 'physical removal' of Presidential Secretariat head Viktor Baloha, and leading opposition politician Yuriy Lutsenko was discussed. One says, "I forsee no other solution - Send for Shuvalov." The SBU source claims that Shuvalov is to bring four hired assassins with him to Ukraine.

Lutsenko himself said in an interview today that he is aware that he may well be the target of a hit.

This is all very vague and might all be 'black PR'. But in Ukraine such rumours cannot be disregarded entirely...

As someone dryly observed in the VR several months ago: "To reach the top in Ukrainian politics it helps if you've spent time in prison, or have been the target of an assassination...or both.."

Too near the truth to be truly funny..

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