Poroshenko, Yanukovych, Tymoshenko: how much do Ukrainian politicians pay American lobbyists

A few days before the US court hearing on the case of the ex-head of the election headquarters of Donald Trump Paul Manafort, the prosecution presented the court with several hundred pages of evidence collected against the political strategist.

Screenshot from CNN video

Some of them concern the work of Manafort on Ukrainian politicians, from 2005 to 2014, he worked for the Party of Regions and the government of Viktor Yanukovich, writes with the BBC.

However, Yanukovych is not the only Ukrainian politician who used the services of American lobbyists. We have collected data on several such cases that have occurred over the past few years.

Party of Regions and Paul Manafort

Reform of the Party of Regions and recommendations for getting rid of Yanukovych

In the summer of 2005, a few months after the Orange Revolution, the Manafort team conducted an all-Ukrainian public opinion poll, the results and conclusions of which the political strategist wrote a report. The document was sent to the Ukrainian billionaire Rinat Akhmetov. According to the survey, 60% of the middle and working class, 49% of the poorest segments of the population and 36% of ethnic Russians throughout Ukraine believed that the country was moving in the right direction. In his conclusions, Manafort at least a dozen times recommends that a businessman at any cost immediately get rid of Viktor Yanukovych, noting that the politician’s unpopularity rating is much higher than that of the Party of Regions, and any criticism from his mouth will not be heard because of his rejection of his personality as a whole and discredit his image during the events of the Orange Revolution.

Фото: Wikimedia Commons

At the same time, the Manafort team was actively preparing for the press conference of Viktor Yanukovych regarding the 100 days of his presidency. Among the questions that Manafort’s team has never found answers to are Yanukovych’s real estate in Mezhyhirya, the blocking of Kyiv streets due to the movement of his motorcade, as well as the possible cancellation of President Viktor Yushchenko’s decree awarding Stepan Bandera the title “Hero of Ukraine.” The list also included a question about the wreath that fell on Yanukovych while laying flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in May 2010.

Also Manafort prepared Yanukovych to a trip to Washington in 2010, a summit on nuclear security, during which the latter was to meet with Barack Obama. During the meeting, Manafort warned, the talk would be about relations with the European Union and the IMF, but Yanukovych should focus on his commitment to reform, the idea of ​​making Ukraine a full member of the European Community and a desire to build a stable democracy.

At the same time, Manafort and his American contractor Ted Devine agreed on the amount in 40 thousand dollars monthly for the presidential campaign 2010 of the year and a bonus if the campaign was successful in the amount of 40 thousand dollars, subject to a five-day trip to Ukraine.

Manafort and Klitschko

The Party of Regions and Yanukovych were not the only Ukrainian customers of Manafort. Three months after the shootings on Independence Square, Paul Manafort sent to his assistant Konstantin Kilimnik a multi-page presentation and a restructuring plan for the Kiev administration. It was intended for presentation to the mayor with the initials VK.

The local Kiev elections were held on 25 May 2014. They won Vitali Klitschko.

That is, as follows from the documents, Manafort could advise Vitaly Klitschko during his mayoral election campaign, and already in the position of mayor.

According to the plan of Manafort, two teams were to work in the metropolitan administration: the political consultant and the mayor himself.

The first phase of joint work, according to the documents, was supposed to last from May 20 to May 24. On May 24, the spin doctor sent an email with a presentation and plans for the first hundred days. The first steps included working with the press, creating a media base, preparing messages and speeches for the mayor, creating a “war room” for him, developing a campaign on social networks, blogging and writing editorials, and a plan for presenting the updated government.

The second phase of the plan covered the period from May 26 to June 21. It included press conferences, calls to European leaders and a schedule of events, working with networks.

Photo: Wikipedia

What Klitschko says

In a BBC News Ukraine comment, Vitali Klitschko admitted that in 2014, the Manafort company did offer its consulting services.

“Because the Manafort name was known in this area, conversations were held with them. They then prepared some presentation and test things,” said the mayor of Kyiv.

According to him, there were common points in these proposals, “nothing so archinic that we did not know.”

“Therefore, we can say that the cooperation that was proposed ended before it began,” concluded Vitali Klitschko.

Poroshenko, Manafort and Michael Cohen

However, after the escape of Yanukovych, Manafort went out not only to the Klitschko team, but also had contacts with the people of the current president, Petro Poroshenko. Witness in the case of Paul Manafort Ted Devine told the court that the political consultant partner Richard Gates offered him to work for President Petro Poroshenko, said The Washington Post. It is reported that for such services, Devine asked Manafort for a 10 fee of thousands of dollars per day. However, it is not known whether Poroshenko hired Gates and Manafort.

In addition, Donald Trump's personal attorney, Michael Cohen, secretly received at least 400 thousand dollars for organizing negotiations between President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko and Trump.

He writes about it with the BBC with reference to sources close to the people involved in this story.

The payment was allegedly organized by intermediaries acting on behalf of Petro Poroshenko. At the same time, Cohen was not registered in the United States as a person representing the interests of Ukraine, as required by American law.

The meeting of the two leaders was held at the White House last June.

Shortly after the return of Petro Poroshenko to home, the Ukrainian anti-corruption agency stopped investigating the activities of the former head of the election headquarters of Trump Paul Manafort.

In the administration of Petro Poroshenko, these statements were called blatant lies.

A senior official of the Ukrainian special services in the presidential administration of Ukraine spoke about what happened before Poroshenko’s visit to Washington.

Cohen was invited because the Ukrainian lobbyists and the Ukrainian embassy in Washington registered in the USA could not organize Petro Poroshenko for anything but a brief photo shoot with Trump.

Petro Poroshenko needed a meeting that could be presented as “negotiations.”

As told this senior official, Poroshenko decided to establish an unofficial channel of access to Trump.

The task was entrusted to the former aide to the president, who asked for assistance from a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada loyal to the president.

He, in turn, used his personal contacts at the Jewish charity organization Chabad of Port Washington, registered in the state of New York.

This chain eventually led to Michael Cohen, the lawyer and trustee of President Trump. Cohen paid 400 thousand dollars.

There is no reason to assume that Donald Trump knew about this payment.

Another source in Kiev told in the same details about this meeting, with the difference that, according to him, Cohen eventually received 600 thousand dollars.

According to lawyer Michael Avenatti, who studied the finance of Michael Cohen, the bank in which Trump's lawyer had an account sent to the Ministry of Finance reports of suspicious transactions, from which it appeared that Cohen received money from persons or organizations representing the interests of Ukraine.

At the same time, Cohen and two Ukrainians, who allegedly allegedly established an unofficial channel for Poroshenko, deny that this was the case.

A senior Ukrainian intelligence official also said that Cohen was helped by Felix Sater, a developer who was at one time Trump’s business partner. Sater's lawyer denied the allegations.

In June, President Poroshenko, 2017, going to a meeting with Trap, did not know how much time the US President would devote him.

The schedule of the White House was reported only that it will enter into the Oval Office, when Trump will hold a meeting with his staff.

This has been negotiated through official channels. Michael Cohen was paid to ensure that Poroshno had more time than a few awkward minutes of exchanging courtesies and handshakes, said a high-ranking source.

However, negotiations on this issue continued until late at night on the eve of the day on which the visit was scheduled.

Photo: Wikipedia

The Ukrainian side was unhappy, the source said, because Cohen had charged “hundreds of thousands of dollars” for something he seemed unable to provide.

Until the very last moment, the Ukrainian president was not sure that he would not be in a degrading situation.

“People in Poroshenko’s inner circle were amazed at how dirty this whole deal with Cohen was,” a source in Kyiv said.

Poroshenko desperately wanted to meet with Trump.

The head of Ukraine allegedly was confident that Hillary Clinton will win the elections and supported her in every way, even the leak of the “black box office” of the Party of Regions, which mentioned cooperation with Manafort, allegedly occurred with the permission of Poroshenko.

If this is true, then it was a catastrophic mistake: Ukraine supported the losing candidate in the American elections. Regardless of how the leak occurred, it was damaging to the winner: Donald Trump.

Therefore, Poroshenko, apparently, felt relieved when he, smiling broadly, welcomed Donald Trump in the Oval Office. Poroshenko boasted that he met with the American president before the Russian leader did.

A week after Poroshenko’s return to Kiev, the Ukrainian National Anti-Corruption Bureau announced that it had stopped the investigation against Manafort.

Yulia Tymoshenko and American lobbyists

Yulia Tymoshenko, who has already declared her desire to become the next president of Ukraine, pays tens of thousands of dollars to american lobbyists.

In early July, the US Department of Justice registered a letter sent to the department by the well-known American lobbying company The Livingstone Group. The letter contains a request for a meeting between the leader of the Ukrainian Batkivshchyna party, Yulia Tymoshenko, and US President Donald Trump.

The document is signed by lobbyist Bob Livingston, who notes that "former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko intended to come to Washington in mid-July to discuss expanding ties between the United States and her country."

“As you know, Russian aggression on Ukraine’s eastern border has been of increasing concern to the United States since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea in 2014. America responded by recognizing Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity by imposing sanctions against Russia until the country will begin to perform duties in accordance with the Minsk agreements. The United States is providing assistance to the Ukrainian military, including small weapons and a Javelin anti-tank gun,” the letter says.

The lobbyist notes that “Russian aggression continues to be the main problem for both the security and economy of Ukraine,” and to consolidate the country’s independence, protection from external political influence is necessary.

Next we are talking about the meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin on July 16 - according to the author of the letter, Mrs. Tymoshenko is ready to arrive at the meeting of the presidents, “if it is useful.” Livingston assures the addressee that the meeting with Yulia Tymoshenko will be pleasant and promises to provide information about everyone who may come to the United States with her.

The meeting between Tymoshenko and Trump was held during the National Prayer Breakfast, which takes place every year in Washington.

Tymoshenko at the Prayer Breakfast Screenshot with video

American publications quoted Jeff Birnbaum, president of BGR Public Relations, a lobbying company, who said that Tymoshenko was waiting for him at the toilet to talk to Trump.

“During the Prayer Breakfast, Tymoshenko waited for Trump in the hallway near the toilet, hoping to catch him and shake his hand. There was no real meeting. The president shook hands with many people and, obviously, Tymoshenko was one of them,” Birnbaum said.

Who ordered the service?

The counterparty and customer of The Livingstone Group's services is Innovative Technology & Business, the document from which was signed by Sergey Krasnitsky, Managing Manager. According to the terms of the contract, concluded on June 28, 2018, with a validity period of one year, the client must pay the lobbyist company $ 50 thousand monthly. According to the terms, the customer paid 100 thousand for the first two months at the time of signing the contract. After the expiration of the term, the contract can be extended by mutual agreement of the parties. The agreement also states that the company does not guarantee the results of its representation services.

Yulia Tymoshenko, in a comment to the Glavkom publication, stated that she does not know those who allegedly speak on her behalf and sign any documents. The politician promised to “look for these people, refute this information and demand that they refute it.”

“This is a special operation to discredit me, because the information is not true. I regard this as a fake,” Tymoshenko said.

Who is Bob Livingston

Former Louisiana State Rep. Bob Livingston and his company The Livingston Group made a name for themselves in the former Soviet Union as early as 2008-2009. It was then that Azerbaijan broke several lobbying treaties with it. This was due to the fact that The Livingston Group had lobbied in Washington for about three years and the regime of Hosni Mubarak, who signed an agreement on 1,1 million dollars a year with Livingstone and other congressmen.

This was not the first attempt Tymoshenko to meet with Trump.

In March, 2018, it became known that the former Prime Minister of Ukraine will pay monthly $ 65 thousand (or $ 780 thousand per year) for services of lobbyist Barry Bennetwho in 2016 worked as a senior adviser at Trump's campaign headquarters.

“Bennett Company Avenue Strategies Global LLC will provide services related to government relations, public relations and strategic consulting, including establishing contacts with members of the Trump administration and Congress on behalf of Tymoshenko, who was prime minister of Ukraine in 2005 and from 2007 to 2010,” the agreement says.

Bennett noted that Tymoshenko is a reformer who supports the West. His firm "helps her arrange trips to the US to meet with government leaders and so on."

В published contract says that Tymoshenko ordered services through the company Two Paths LLC,registered in the USA. Company represents Russian-speaking American lawyer Marlene Kruzhkov.

Bennett added that his company represents only Yulia Tymoshenko. In the event that she again works in a public office, his company will already indicate the batch as a client.

Marlene Kruzhkov is an attorney and lobbyist practicing in New Jersey. He was born in Odessa, from where at the age of six he moved with his parents to the USA, writes “Glavcom".

In February 2018, the lawyer Kruzhkov became the first Russian-speaking judge in a special court of the American Zionist movement. He was elected by the Assembly of the American Zionist movement, his candidacy was presented by the organization American Forum for Israel, which deals with Russian-speaking Jews of America. Kruzhkova was supported by Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

Circles is not a political consultant. The publication of the EU Observer calls him the representative of the Russian oligarchs in the United States. Until now, his main job was to represent the interests of Russian clients in America.

American lobbyists are hired not only by Ukrainian politicians, but also by organizations

The state enterprise Ukrinmash, which is part of the structure of the state concern Ukroboronprom, hired the American lobbying company Yorktown Solutions to represent its interests in the United States, writes “Ukrainian Truth”, Referring to data from the US Department of Justice.

American lobbyists are required to disclose information about their foreign clients in the framework of the FARA (The Foreign Agents Registration Act).

According to the contract, Yorktown Solutions, in the interests of the Ukrainian defense company, must “interact with Congress and committees, the Senate and the House of Armed Services, government agencies, the Department of Defense, Commerce and the US Presidential Administration, the media, organize interviews, publish articles, maintain and expand relations between US defense organizations and the Customer."

The contract was signed on March 21, 2018, and will last until the end of the year. Ukrinmash will pay $7 per month.

Ukrinmash is the first Ukrainian exporter to receive a license to export and import military and dual-use goods.

Фото: Depositphotos

The state of Ukraine also uses the services of lobbyists in the US

6 January 217 from documents on the website of the Department of Foreign Agents Registration (FARA) of the US Department of Justice became known that the administration of President Poroshenko hired the company BGR Group, founded by the former chairman of the US Republican Party Committee and Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, to lobby for Ukraine’s interests, writes “Ukrainian Truth".

The purpose of the BGR Group under the contract is to strengthen ties between the United States and Ukraine and to encourage American private entrepreneurs to invest in Ukraine.

As noted in the information provided by FARA, Ukraine will pay the BGR Group monthly 50 thousand dollars, at least until the end of 2017.

Later, the Secretary of the National Reform Council of Ukraine, Dmitry Shimkiv, confirmed that the country had hired American lobbyists to defend their interests.

“In order to promote the interests of Ukraine in the United States, attract American investment and inform US government and public institutions about the achievements and results of reforms in Ukraine, the National Reform Council, with the assistance of the Ukrainian Fund for Support of Reforms in Ukraine, engaged the American company BGR Group as consultants,” — he wrote on his page on the social network Facebook.

He added that the initiative is being held with the support of donors, without using public funds.

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