The international community, which has taken an interest in the Ukrainian elections, possibly imagines that the Kremlin views Viktor Yanukovych's criminal history as undesirable.  What needs to be recognized, though, is that the more compromised an individual is, the easier he is to control, such that the Kremlin particularly seeks to place in positions of power the criminal and the degenerate and the depraved.  The law-abiding and the virtuous are of lesser value as they cannot be blackmailed.  Also, the bright are less prone to obeying orders than the dull, such that any applicant for the position of dictator had better demonstrate the asset of stupidity if he wants a serious chance at the job.  Also, people who are amiable or charismatic are undesirable, as they are capable of finding support for positions that are independent of Moscow.

That is why the best dictator is one gifted with profound criminal roots, with limited intelligence, and with lack of appeal.

And that is why you support Leonid Kuchma's choice of Viktor Yanukovych as the next dictator of Ukraine — not because he is the best person for the job of President, but because his making the worst imaginable President makes him the best tool for Kremlin control of Ukraine.  And so it is not so much that the Ukrainian voter rejects Viktor Yanukovych because of his known criminal record, but it is more that the Ukrainian voter senses that Moscow has selected Viktor Yanukovych to rule Ukraine because of criminal roots which are more profound than is being publicly disclosed.

This is the essence of the Kremlin technique of compromat control, and the success it brings can be measured by what success the Kremlin has had ruling Ukraine, and by what success Russia has had maintaining an empire.




Lubomyr Prytulak

24.9.2004 15:26 MSK From criminal to Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich Deputies in the Ukrainian parliament, united in the Antimafia union, have demanded the Prime Minister and candidate in the upcoming presidential elections, Viktor Yanukovich, openly admit to his crimes.  The deputies asserted Yanukovich “not only committed robbery and bodily harm, but also tore earrings from people’s ears, tried to rape a girl, and stole state property”. From official sources it is known that Yanukovich was convicted in 1967 of robbery.  Three years later he received another camp term for severe beating.  On account of his convictions, Yanukovich did not serve in the Soviet army. The Prime Minister’s other adventures are less well-known. Documents concerning his participation in rape, and tearing earrings have apparently gone missing from the militia station where they were held.  Also missing are documents about a criminal case against Yanukovich in the mid 1970’s.  At the time he was director of a motor depot in the town of Enakievo, near Donetsk.  He was accused of large-scale theft of state property. In 1978, under the petition of cosmonaut Georgi Beregovy, the Donetsk regional court cleared Yanukovich on all counts.  Now there are no documents in the archives about any convictions against the Prime Minister.  Even Beregovy’s petition has gone.  At the Donetsk court it was explained to me that “in 1959 a decision was taken and signed by the deputy minister of justice and the chief of archiving at the Ministry of the Interior, according to which criminal cases resulting in a conviction of up to three years are stored for no more than six years”. The heads of opposition parties say that if Yanukovich becomes President of the Ukraine, he will have to meet, on an official level, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who vowed to “waste bandits in the outhouse”.  Putin would have the opportunity of wasting the leading criminal. At the same time the Prime Minister’s criminal past is playing a role in his election campaign.  For example, a billboard with a portrait of Yanukovich has been put up near the former Zvenigorodsky prison.  The Donbass militia have written “We are for Yanukovich”: this on a vehicle for transporting convicted prisoners.  In the Kremenchug criminal colony, where the Prime Minister spent his first stretch, a memorial with his image is to be made.  And a group of students at the Kiev state university and the Kiev pedagogical institute has asked the Prime Minister to advise the editorial council on “vocabulary of prison slang”.  In its appeal to Yanukovich, the student body wrote that his “rich criminal experience can give future editions rich colour.  You can interpret criminal lexica: in fact you belonged to the caste.  You were respected there, and even given the nickname Boar”. Viktor BARANOV, Ukraine News Agency PRIMA, 24-Sep-2004  www.prima-news.ru/eng/news/articles/2004/9/24/29521.html