«Ukrainegate»: Ukrainian interference in the US 2016 presidential election

From the first day of incumbency as president of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky found himself in troubled waters. Outgoing leader of the country Peter Poroshenko left for him not the rich but problematical heritage. And one of these problems is "Ukrainegate". This scandal differs from the American one of 1972-1974 and goes far beyond the national borders. It is about Ukrainian interference in the US 2016 presidential election and Hillary Clinton promotion. At that time I was in Kiev observing what had been happening and I had a very clear picture of events connected to the US 2016 election. The information that I had was filled by the facts from other sources: opened data bases, data leaks, hacker information and American and Ukrainian news media. In this investigation, my fair readers, I’d like to share with you all the facts that I gathered and the conclusions based on these facts.

USA – Ukraine.

Who needs who the most, why and for what?

The problem of "Ukrainegate" touches a rather simple, but an important question: what is the mutual interest between Washington and Kiev? I suppose Ukraine needs the USA for two reasons. Firstly, as a politico-military protector, a sort of a patron with a nuclear missile umbrella. Secondly, as a financial donor, giving currency injections that allow the country not to fall into the economical coma.

But what do the USA want from Ukraine in exchange? No matter how hurtfully it sounds for Ukrainians, but I can say for sure as an officer who worked for a long time in the Security Service of Ukraine: the USA need Ukraine as a geopolitical base, which answers their strategic purposes in global confrontation with Russia.

Americans prefer to make somebody else to "pull the chestnuts out of the fire" for them, in this case – Ukrainians. Washington wants to expand NATO right up to the Russian borders, to set a base on the territory of Ukraine and to regulate the intensity of a Donbass conflict. The United States gain from the extension of instability around Russia.

The USA are concerned about Ukrainian mineral resources and chernozem soil. The USA lobby production and sale of shale gas in the world energy market. According to preliminary estimates Ukraine has fairly good deposits of this type of mineral in Kharkov, Luhansk and Donetsk regions.

The chernozem soil is also a great property of Ukraine. That’s why during the Great Patriotic war Nazi invaders exported trains of chernozem soil from Ukraine to Germany. Nowadays Americans entirely control Ukraine and can carry out any experiments with genetically modified crops in its territory. An American company "Monsanto" already grows genetically modified corn on the fields of Ukraine

Moreover, a multimillioned country is a great sales area for American producers. This is not only about fast moving consumer goods, foodstuffs and home appliances. It is possible to sell out-dated armament, and Ukraine will buy it for credits given by the foreign financial organizations.

Consequently, the interest of the USA to Ukraine is conditioned by its strategically important geographic location, close to Russia and its transit status, natural resources and a big consumption potential.

But I’d like to draw your attention to one more fact in this investigation.

Peter Poroshenko demonstrated lack of political foresight by placing his bet on one of the US presidential nominees. Ukrainian authorities supported Hillary Clinton in public and even tried to help to drown Donald Trump.

Interests of both sides obviously didn’t match. Mr. Poroshenko had a panic fear of the win of the Republican candidate. Kiev though that it would lead to the change of the US policy concerning Russia which means the lifting of sanctions, the end of support of Ukraine and as a consequence to the failure of local powers. The Democrats were looking for the "heel of Achilles" of their opponent and were trying by any means to harm him. Finally they managed to achieve the resignation of Paul Manafort, chairman of the presidential campaign office of Donald Trump.

This story, which is now called "Ukrainegate", is a criminal collusion of Hillary Clinton’s office and Ukrainian authorities in the person of Mr. Poroshenko so that to prevent Donald Trump from winning the US election.

But the Ukrainian president played the wrong card.

At that time I was working in the central office of the Security Service of Ukraine in Kiev. I remember well that panic overwhelmed all the power structures of the country after the win of the Republican candidate. Some people from the central office of the States Guard told me that for several days the president administration was just paralyzed: they were waiting for immediate answer for the participation of Ukraine in attack on Mr. Trump. Many politicians deleted the posts that contained critics of Donald Trump from thei social media accounts. Everything turned out all right that time and the Kiev establishment thought that the scandal would not influence the relations between two countries.

But further events demonstrated that the head of the White House didn’t forget anything. He waited out all the attacks on him, and then began to seek after the truth building up «Ukrainegate».

After three years Ukraine returned to the radars of political in-fighting in the USA. Eternal conflict of the Democrats and the Republicans has gone out of the national borders and is pulling Ukrainian politicians deeper and deeper into this vortex.

The future of Ukraine will depend on its new president Vladimir Zelensky who will have to make a hard choice. But we’ll get to that later. And now I will tell you about this international scandal.

Operation on Manafort discredit

Paul Manafort had been working in Ukraine since 2004. He consulted the Party of Regions during the parliamentary elections 2006 and 2007, as well as Victor Yanukovich during the presidential campaign 2010.

The operation on Mr. Manafort discredit was planned carefully. To my mind the story line of this "play" is better to present as a chain of acts mentioning people involved in this collusion:

⦁ By order of Mrs. Clinton the then Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland sets a mission to the Ukrainian government in the person of the president Peter Poroshenko to gather damaging information on Mr. Manafort. The instructions are given through the ambassador of Ukraine in the USA Valeriy Chaly.

⦁ Mr. Poroshenko gives a task to his administration chief Boris Lozhkin to use Ukrainian force structures to carry out the instructions of the State Department. And then a multimove combination takes place.

On 27 May 2016 an ex-deputy chairman of the SBU Victor Trepak shows in public so called «spreadsheet» of the Party of Regions. These are financial documents that confirm «off-the-book» payments using an unofficial piggy bank. This evidence disappeared somewhere during the investigations of criminal cases against Victor Yanukovich, but it was not completely lost.

The SBU officers, who worked with Mr. Trepak, told me about the disappearing of many papers withdrawn in time of the investigation of the Party of Regions activity. I’m bringing into focus that Mr. Trepak held a high position in the Security Service. He was the first deputy director – the Head of Central Department of fight against the corruption and organized crime. Moreover he was a member of a special group of the SBU that was investigating violations of the Party of Regions, including economical crimes.

In April 2106 he was dismissed but he took the damaging information that as he thought he could use depending on the situation.

The appropriate moment came in May 2016 – the chief of presidential administration

Mr. Lozhkin gives Mr. Trepak the relevant instructions.

⦁ Mr. Trepak gives the materials to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (the NABU). The NABU chef Аrtem Sytnik orders to start the investigation on the received materials.

⦁ In August 2016 there was a stove-piping, damaging information on Mr. Manafort was published. For this purpose American handlers of the project used Sergey Leshchenko, a former journalist, a present member of the parliament of Ukraine. In addition he stated, that the chairman of the presidential campaign office of Donald Trump illegally got from the Party of Regions more than 12 million dollars for "advisory services".

Sergey Leshchenko had a role of a double agent. On the one hand, being a member of parliament of the Block of Peter Poroshenko he executed an order of his boss. On the other hand, he acted at the direction of Washington. The U.S. ambassador in Kiev Geoffrey Pyatt, who earlier controlled the activity of Mr. Leshchenko, ordered him to organize a campaign to discredit Mr. Manafort and other alike American proteges in Ukraine.

Officers of the 1st Office of the Department of counterintelligence of the SBU knew for sure that Mr. Leshchenko was recruited by the USA intelligence services. It was also known that during his education in the Stanford University in 2013 he got additional instructions.

The head of the 1st Office of the Department of counterintelligence Victor Get' once told me that after the Maydan a lot of papers that contained the information about the countermeasures to Western special services were burnt. Otherwise he would have caught Mr. Leshchenko long time ago.

And of course if there were some other powers in command the SBU would never give the access to the classified information to the detected foreign agent. But in 2014 the cooperation with intelligent agencies of the USA and the UK was no longer a crime in Ukraine.

⦁ After publishing of the papers of the "spreadsheet" of the Party of Regions and "exposures" of Mr. Leshchenko there was a scandal that forced Mr. Manafort to leave his position of the chairman of the presidential campaign office of Donald Trump.

Notice that Mr. Leshchenko appeared as a classical "waste tank" in this operation. He was given the role of a killer in this political removal of Mr. Manafort and real puppeteers were supposed to stay in the background.

In that context we should remind how Ukrainian security officials got the «off-the-book» of the Regionals. During the escalation on the Maydan in February 2014 there was an unjustified attack of the protesters on the office of the Party of Regions. The placement was destroyed, people died. During the long period of protests nobody payed attention to this place and this attack was unexpected and demonstrative. As almost all witnesses say, the attackers were interested in destroying server rooms and offices with documents. They were trying to grab papers even from the people that were fleeing away. It appears that the attack was organized beforehand and the real aim was the financial documents of the Party of Regions. The fact that people died – is only expanses for the customers on their way to a true democracy along the American lines… Afterwords these documents came to hands of honest officers of the SBU, specifically to Victor Trepak.

Certainly, publishing of the "black case" of the Party of Regions seriously damaged the electoral campaign of Donald Trump. But "spreadsheet" was not the only dirt for Mr. Trump and Mr. Manafort. The Democrats sent their agents to different directions and sources. And most of them met in Ukraine.

«Look for a woman», as the French say

In many cases a French phrase "cherhez la femme" ("look for a woman") explains many facts. Here is the story about damaging information, the Democrats and the interference which was initiated by a woman. Before the publication of "spreadsheet" an experienced democrat, of Ukrainian origin, Alexandra Chalupa started to look for the information about Trump’s neighborhood.

Later she admitted, that for this purpose she used her own network of sources in Kiev and Washington, that included investigative journalists, clerks and intelligence officers.

In times of the second presidential term of Bill Clinton Alexandra Chalupa worked in the White House as a communication secretary. After the defeat of the former Vice-President Albert Gore during the presidential election in November 2000 Chalupa went to work in the Democratic National Committee, and there she went to the position of senior political consultant. In 2004 – 2016 she got more than $410,000 from the budget of the party. Moreover, she worked in many senatorial and congressional election campaigns, consulting democratic candidates and heads of their campaign offices.

Let us go back to the beginning of 2016. She got the task from the office of Hillary Clinton and went to the Ukrainian embassy in the USA. On the meeting with Valeriy Chaly and his assistant Oksana Shulyar she managed to find common interests against Mr. Trump.

The employee of the Ukrainian embassy Andrey Telizhenko was assigned to help the Democrats. "Oksana told me to connect with Mrs. Chalupa in case I have any information or I know people who have it. They coordinated the investigation on Paul Manafort with Alexandra Chalupa and the office of Mrs. Hillary," Telizhenko said in the interview to Politico.

He claimed that the Democrats set certain and ambitious purposes, including «not only to discredit these persons. According to Alexandra Chalupa and media reports, the aim was to remove Donald Trump from the election race. They were going to hold a special session of a committee of the US Congress in autumn 2016 and to force Mr. Trump to withdraw his candidacy. That is what I was told».

Before the diplomatic service Andrey Telizhenko worked at the prosecutor’s office in Kiev and kept good relations with security agencies officers. To complete the job he used his contacts in the Intelligence Service, Police and Prosecutor’s Office. He managed to get some information that uncovered contacts of Mr. Trump with Russians.

He also found out a remarkable detail. Agents of a scandal company Fusion GPS, standing behind Christopher Steele and his «Trump Dossier», were also walking around Ukrainian civil and state structures looking for the similar information. But we will get to that later.

Mr. Telizhenko told journalists that he did not want to give the data directly to Mrs. Chalupa and gave it to Mr. Chaly: «I told him that what we were doing was illegal and it was unethical to do this as diplomats.» Mr. Chaly said that he will take care of everything. And he really did.

On April 26 on the Yahoo News website «surprisingly» appeared a story which was about a 26 million of dollars dial between Paul Manafort and a Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, connected with telecommunications provider in Ukraine. The author of the article was a journalist Michael Isikoff, who worked at that time with Alexandra Chalupa.

In two days both of them appeared on the closed meeting with 68 Ukrainian journalists, organized in the Library of Congress. They showed reporters this information and specified the direction of further search of the dirt on Mr. Manafort.

I want to mention that Mrs. Chalupa used Sergey Leshchenko as a source of information. They discussed the role of Mr. Manafort in Ukrainian politics. A member of Ukrainian parliament told her that American political consultant «closed his eyes to the corruption of politicians he worked on».

After the scandal about bonding of partial structures of the Democratic Party and campaign office of Hillary Clinton in June 2016, Mrs. Chalupa officially left the Democratic National Committee and continued gathering damaging information on Mr. Manafort and Mr. Trump as a private eye.

Connection between the US Department of Justice staff and «The Trump Dossier». And what has this got to do with Sergey Leshchenko?

As we already know, the Democrats ordered to find a discredit information on Mr. Trump and his entourage to several organizations. The Fusion GPS research company was one of them. In April 2016 this company employed Christopher Steel, former MI-6 intelligence agent, to draw up the «Trump Dossier». At that time he headed a detective office Orbis Business Intelligence. It is widely known.

Several Fusion GPS employees also took part in this project. They were commissioned with the analysis of travel and business activity of Trump’s children and also the search of discredit information on Paul Manafort. That brought Fusion GPS agents, including a certain Nellie Ohr, to Ukraine.

A few words about Nellie Ohr that will give you an idea of this person. Before Fusion GPS Nellie Ohr worked as Russia specialist in one of the Washington research centers who was connected with the CIA. It is an interesting fact that her husband Bruce Ohr was the assistant Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in 2016. He was also a member of a secret group of American officials who desperately supported Hillary Clinton. It goes without saying.

While questioning in the U.S. Congress Nellie Ohr reluctantly admitted that her informer in Ukraine was an odious parliamentarian Sergey Leshchenko.

«I remember… they mentioned a certain Ukrainian Sergey Leshchenko,» Mrs. Ohr said, when she was questioned about informers of Fusion GPS. «I don’t know who his informer was», she added.

«Did he provide Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS, with information? Or did he inform Jake Berkovits, a member of Fusion GPS staff, or them both?» – a congressman asked.

«I don’t know whether there was a difference. He was just a source of information of Fusion GPS», – Mrs. Ohr answered.

Moreover, Nellie Ohr said that Leshchenko provided Fusion GPS staff with the information on Manafort. She freely told her husband and officers of the U.S. law-enforcement agencies about her findings. At the same time Bruce Ohr kept in touch with the former British intelligence agent Christopher Steel and the head of Fusion GPS Glenn Simpson. Hence, he got abreast of the situation and monitored the progress of investigations, which is an unprofessional conduct at least.

When it became clear, Bruce Ohr was dismissed because of concealing his meetings with the author of Trump dossier.

Notice that in each of these episodes the name of Sergey Leshchenko is mentioned. And it does surprise me. Mr. Leshchenko is undoubtedly an American agent whose affairs get on well thanks to the U.S. Embassy. I am sure that the contacts of Alexandra Chalupa, Nellie Ohr and numerous investigative journalists with Leshchenko were not accidental. On the one hand, the Democrats suggested to them an idea where to look for the information and whom to ask about it. On the other hand, the Democrats dictated to Leshchenko what to say and to who.

One of mid-level chiefs of the 1st Office of the Counterintelligence Department of the Security Service of Ukraine who had dealt with the counteraction to NATO special services influence told me with grief in his heart: «We had heaps of discrediting evidence on Mr. Leshchenko: wiretapping recordings, secret-service data, surveillance. In vain. Our command doesn’t take action on this data. Not the command of the Department, I speak about the command of the SBU».

Proofs of Ukrainian influence on the US 2016 presidential election are enough for the court examination

Unfortunately, many Ukrainian politicians did not understand what they did when openly supported Mrs.Clinton, competing in attempts to humiliate Trump or to cover his name in mud.

Those who stood aside this political scandal tried to inform law enforcement authorities and residents of the country about the consequences of the rash steps the Ukrainian authorities.

In 2017 the people's deputy Andrey Derkach submitted a request to the prosecutor’s office that the criminal investigation of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine officials influence on the presidential election in the USA 2016 should be carried out.

«I think that the rash steps of the NABU officials do much harm to the Ukrainian-American relations. Ukraine appeared in the opinion of the USA as the unreliable partner. Top-level bilateral contacts were completely blocked for a while, and the mount of financial aid was significantly reduced», – Derkach claimed.

He added that in 2018 the USA previously planned to give Ukraine $570 million of assistance. But Trump's administration reduced it to $177 million, i.e. by 68.8%.

In June 2018 it became known that the U.S. Senate approved the defense budget for 2019 which provided allocation of a military aid to Ukraine of $200 million. In particular, in the bill in the section 1233 «Continuation of an Initiative of Support of Ukraine in Security field» is said that «for 2019 financial year $200 million are provided». But it is premature to celebrate, initially Washington was going to allocate to Kiev $500 million of military aid.

The problem was not only in loss of financing, but in deterioration in diplomatic relations between the USA and Ukraine. The Ukrainian diplomats were no longer taken seriously in the White House.

However the prosecutor’s office did not initiate the criminal investigation on Mr. Derkach’s demand till now.

The Ukrainian deputy Borislav Rosenblat decided not to apply to venal law-enforcement agencies and brought a similar suite to the court. In December 2018 Kiev's District Administrative Court found guilty the head of the NABU Artem Sytnik and the people's deputy Sergey Leshchenko of the unauthorized disclosure of documents of the investigation and the influence the US 2016 presidential election. The precedent is established. It is necessary to render the same verdict to other participants of this criminal conspiracy.

Another confirmation of the influence on the US 2016 presidential election was the audio recording of conversation of the head of the NABU Mr. Sytnik, published in March 2019. He admitted that he helped Mrs. Clinton in 2016.

Generally, the fact of Ukrainian interference in the US 2016 presidential election is considered to be proven. So, the US law-enforcement authorities should set their work. The FBI Director Christopher Ray has already declared in the Senate, that he "would be glad to examine" this issue.

How Ukraine financed Hillary Clinton

Mr. Manafort is only one of the participants of the drama called «Ukrainegate». The other story is connected with financial backing for Hillary Clinton by Ukraine. The distinctive feature is that during presidential race in the USA Kiev authorities provided the candidate of the Democratic Party not only with the political and information support, but also used the money given by the IMF so as to sponsor Mrs. Clinton.

According to my information, the investigation of the embezzlement of the IMF assets is still in progress in Ukraine. This money was received by the National Bank of Ukraine (the NBU).

This financial aid was intended for support of financial sector of Ukraine. Within this program the NBU allocated money to different Ukrainian private credit organizations. Their owners transferred the received amounts to offshore territories and then transferred kickbacks to the head of the NBU Valeria Gontareva and her patron Peter Poroshenko for whom she had worked in the investment company ICU earlier.

The following Ukrainian banks were involved in this criminal scheme: Tavrika, Pivdenkombank, Avtokrazbank, Misky komertsiyny bank (Konversbank), Finrostbank, Terra Bank, Kiivska Rus, Vernum Bank, Credit Dnipro, Delta Bank and others. Money was transferred from Ukraine to offshore companies through the Austrian bank Meinl Bank AG.

Two credit institutions Credit Dnipro and Delta Bank. received the largest amounts of assets. These banks are closely connected with one of the richest Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk. He is the son-in-law of the former president of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma. The Ukrainian billionaire supported close ties with the former representative of the IMF in Ukraine Jerome Vacher. One of the members of the board of directors of Credit Dnipro was the former managing director of the IMF Dominique Strauss-Kahn. These dear sirs were certainly informed of financial transactions of their Ukrainian friends. Therefore it is possible that it was an international group which embezzled money from the IMF tranches.

At the following stage the credits from the IMF were transferred to offshore companies Melfa Group LTD (Belize), Tandice Limited (Cyprus), Tosalan Trading Limited (Cyprus), Agalusko Investment Limited (Cyprus), Winten Trading LTD (Cyprus), Silisten Trading Limited, Nasterno Commercial Limited. It was found that these companies were also connected with Victor Pinchuk.

This is not the whole story. The most part of money form Pinchuk offshore companies were transferred to Victor Pinchuk Foundation. And then «the laundered money» was transferred to Clinton Foundation. Since 2012 within nearly five years the family of the former US President received more than $29 million were transferred. The largest tranches from Victor Pinchuk Foundation to Clinton Foundation were carried out in 2015 and 2016. It is an «amazing coincidences» that at this period Hillary Clinton stood for the presidential post.

It is obvious that this criminal scheme was carried out through the mediation of the head of the National Bank Gontareva and the assistance of the Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk and the President of Ukraine Peter Poroshenko.

Nepotism and corruption of Joe Biden in Ukraine

Curiously enough, Ukraine can become source of the compromising data on the high-ranking American officials again. But this time the possible Trump’s opponent on the US 2020 election Joseph Biden can be jeopardized.

Ukrainians remember the statement of Joe Biden, then the Vice President of the United States. On January 27, 2016 he openly demanded to dismiss the Prosecutor General of Ukraine Victor Shokin, threatening to block otherwise the financial aid for the country from international organizations:

«I told them: We will not give you $1 billion. They say: But you do not have such powers, you are not the president, and the U.S. president said that he would give us money. I answered: Call him. I tell you that you will not receive $1 billion. I looked at them and said: I'm leaving in six hours: if the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. He was fired and replaced by a suitable candidate», said Biden with pride.

The American official motivated his unprecedented and impertinent requirement with the fact that the anti-corruption activity of Mr. Shokin is supposedly insufficient and inactive. In fact Mr. Biden had another reason.

The matter is that the Ukrainian prosecutor's office initiated investigations concerning Nikolay Zlochevsky, the major shareholder of the gas producing company Burisma, a former minister of ecology and natural resources of Ukraine during Victor Yanukovich presidency. As long as he held this high position, Mr. Zlochevsky made decisions to whom to provide access to Ukrainian mineral resources and its extraction. After the change of the power in February 2014 Mr. Zlochevsky fled away from the country.

Despite his escape, Burisma successfully continued to extract hydrocarbon in Ukraine in two main oil and gas fields – Carpathian and Dnepr-Donetsk basins. The companies within the Burisma Group controlled over 25% of the market of the gas industry of Ukraine. And the directorate of the company and also the high-ranking American official did not like the close attention of the prosecutor's office to Burisma’s affaires.

Why would the US Vice-President be so concerned about a Ukrainian firm? Nothing surprising: «coincidentally», since April 2014 a board member of Burisma holding is Hunter Biden, Joseph Biden's son.

Thus, Joe Biden was directly interested in successful development of Burisma. According to banking records in the USA, Hunter Biden’s American-based company Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC received from Ukraine regular transfers into one of the accounts usually more than $166,000 monthly from spring 2014 to fall 2015 (in total more than $3 million). At that time Joseph Biden just held a post of the US Vice-President and was in charge of relations with Ukraine.

Alongside Biden Jr. the Board of directors Burisma included the ex-president of Poland Aleksander Kwasniewski and the former head of the anti-terrorist center of the CIA Joseph Cofer Black. This international group covered all possible frauds of the gas producing company.

After Victor Shokin's dismissal the criminal case against Burisma was delegated to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine which was already strictly controlled by Washington. On the eve of the last visit of Joe Biden to Kiev on 16 January 2017 this investigation was closed down.

Mr. Shokin, former Ukrainian Prosecutor General, said a lot about this issue.

The SBU colonel Aleksander Danilevsky who held position of the deputy chief of the head of the Counterintelligence Department of economy protection at that time, could say many interesting information about Burisma. The First and the Second Offices of the Department were in charge of the counterintelligence protection of oil and gas complex and coal industry.

In 2014-2015 Danilevsky regularly received reports about the violations of the law by Burisma. The officers of the Department reported about criminal cases initiated against

Mr. Zlochevsky. And after Biden's interference all activities on Burisma issue were quickly dropped.

Dilemma for Zelensky

In three years later Ukraine can get at the epicenter of political in-fighting in the USA again.

Hurling back attack of his opponents in the USA, Donald Trump could intend to right a wrong and reasonably reproach the Democrats with the unfair play against him during the presidential race 2016.

Moreover, the US president has a good opportunity to document corruption acts of Joe Biden and other members of the Democratic Party. The contacts of the Democrats in Ukraine could be an excellent cause to initiate a new investigation and even appoint another «Mueller». Indeed, Trump's office will take advantage of the opportunity.

The Republicans need evidence of all persons, involved in «Ukrainegate» provided within the American justice. It means interrogations in the FBI and the Ministry of Justice of the USA. The Democrats are, on the contrary, interested in concealing these evidence. The undermining of the authority of Biden, Clinton, Nuland, Pyatt and even of a pawn such as Chalupa will inevitably lead to reputation losses for the Democratic Party and can cast doubt on the victory of the Democrats on the presidential 2020 election.

It turns out that the newly elected president Zelensky is in extremely difficult situation. He and his entourage have no connection with the corruption scandal described above. But some persons involved in this case have already changed their policy and tried to enter his team. For example, Sergey Leshchenko.

If Mr. Zelensky wants to improve the relations with the Republicans, he should bring

Mr. Leshchenko to the American justice. The direct appeal for this was the cancel of the visit to Ukraine of Trump’s personal representative Rudy Giuliani. He gave Mr. Zelensky unambiguous indications that his office included persons who were enemies

of the US president.

But the expulsion of Leshchenko could seriously undermine Zelensky political reputation among the Democrats who traditionally actively supported the post-Maydan authorities. His reputation among Ukrainians will also be damaged: the president brings Ukrainian citizens to the justice of foreign country.

What will Mr. Zelensky chose? Time will show.

Anyway, Sergey Leshchenko is at a deadlock. The Republicans need him to receive evidence. They remember him organizing rallies in front of the building of the prosecutor’s office by request of the Democrats and the U.S. Embassy and standing for the administration of the NABU and demanding Victor Shokin's dismissal.

The democrats want to silence Leshchenko. It will be better do it once and for all. Mr. Leshchenko will come to a bad end, as all Ukrainian and American politicians, involved in «Ukrainegate».

Notice that these issues did not arise in a vacuum. This is the direct consequence of the betrayal of national interests and Ukrainians treachery by politicians who came to power of blood in February 2014 and who defected to the enemy in the global confrontation.