Eurasia Daily Monitor

 March 11, 2009

NALYVAYCHENKO BECOMES UKRAINIAN SECURITY CHIEF AFTER TWO YEARS IN LEGAL LIMBO

The Ukrainian parliament on March 6 approved President Viktor
Yushchenko's nomination for Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) chief,
Valentyn Nalyvaychenko. Yushchenko's choice was backed by 230 votes in
the 450-seat unicameral body. Nalyvaychenko was supported by a coalition
of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's bloc (BYT), Parliament Speaker
Volodymyr Lytvyn's bloc, and the pro-Tymoshenko wing of Our
Ukraine-People's Self-Defense (NUNS), as well as its pro-Yushchenko wing
(Ukrainska Pravda, March 6).

This was a surprise vote decided by the BYT, which changed its mind
overnight after threatening to reject Nalyvaychenko. He had been
rejected by parliament several times in the past; but since Yushchenko
was adamant, Nalyvaychenko headed the SBU as acting chief since December
2006 when parliament approved the dismissal of his predecessor, Ihor
Drizhchany. It was probably Nalyvaychenko's unclear status that made him
especially loyal to Yushchenko who could have dismissed him as acting
chief of the SBU at any time, without consulting either Tymoshenko or
parliament.

Unlike his predecessor Leonid Kuchma, who had all the law-enforcement
agencies under his control, Yushchenko, weakened by the constitutional
reform of 2004-2006, can rely only on the SBU. The police are supervised
by Tymoshenko's ally Interior Minister Yury Lutsenko, while Prosecutor
General Oleksandr Medvedko and especially his deputies gravitate toward
the Party of Regions. In addition, the Supreme Court is chaired by Vasyl
Onopenko, another Tymoshenko ally.

By legitimizing Nalyvaychenko's status, Tymoshenko should make him more
institutionally independent from Yushchenko. It is interesting that
Yushchenko withdrew Nalyvaychenko's nomination on January 18 after
submitting it to parliament on January 16 (UNIAN, March 5). First Deputy
Prime Minister Oleksandr Turchynov, who is Tymoshenko's right-hand man,
opined that Yushchenko had recalled the nomination "in order to have a
powerless person and not to have an officially appointed head of the
SBU, as the SBU head should be appointed and dismissed by parliament"
(Ukrainska Pravda, March 4).

Yushchenko submitted Nalyvaychenko's nomination again on March 5, a day
after the SBU had stormed the premises of the Naftohaz Ukrainy national
oil and gas company and arrested customs official Taras Shepitko for
giving Naftohaz customs clearing for gas that had earlier belonged to
RosUkrEnergo. Tymoshenko protested against the arrest and the search,
which she alleged were organized to defend the interests of
RosUkrEnergo's co-owner Dmytro Firtash (Interfax-Ukraine, March 4; see
EDM, March 6). Russia's Gazprom, which owns 50 percent of RosUkrEnergo's
shares, authorized Naftohaz to take that gas from underground storage
facilities in lieu of payment for gas transit in 2009, according to
Tymoshenko. Firtash, however, insists that the gas belongs to
RosUkrEnergo and is destined for consumers in the European Union.
President Yushchenko backed the SBU's actions.

The raid on Naftohaz was apparently conducted when Nalyvaychenko was
away from Kyiv. It was supervised by first deputy SBU chief Valery
Khoroshkovskyi, an opponent of Tymoshenko's and reportedly a partner of
Firtash in the media business. Simultaneously with approving
Nalyvaychenko, parliament passed a motion urging Yushchenko to dismiss
Khoroshkovskyi for the raid and for arresting Shepitko
(Interfax-Ukraine, March 6). Shepitko was later released, and the BYT
explained its support for Nalyvaychenko's nomination by the role he
apparently played in Shepitko's release (Ukrainski Novyny, March 6).

BYT caucus leader Ivan Kyrylenko said, "We gave Nalyvaychenko a chance,
and we believe that as the legitimate head of the SBU he will be fully
controlled by and report to parliament." NUNS deputy Yury Karmazin
offered a different explanation for the BYT's change of heart. According
to Karmazin, Yushchenko was considering appointing Khoroshkovskyi as
acting SBU chief instead of Nalyvaychenko, so by appointing
Nalyvaychenko parliament prevented the appointment of a hard-liner
(Delo, March 10). Another NUNS deputy, Ksenia Lyapyna, an ally of
Yushchenko's, suggested that the BYT had changed its mind about
Nalyvaychenko because during its search at Naftohaz the SBU apparently
found certain documents compromising Tymoshenko's government
(www.liga.net, March 6).

It has been made clear to Nalyvaychenko that he could lose his post if
he does not distance himself from Yushchenko. In addition to requesting
that Nalyvaychenko dismiss Khoroshkovskyi, parliament also advised him
to change his personnel policy in general (Ukrainska Pravda, March 6).
Oleksandr Skybynetsky, a former SBU deputy chief and current BYT deputy,
gave more specific advice, saying that Nalyvaychenko should hire people
from the BYT. Nalyvaychenko is expected to report on his personnel
policy on March 17, and it is not ruled out that parliament will dismiss
him immediately if he does not heed Skybynetsky's recommendation (Delo,
March 10). The BYT is already prepared for that. Just several hours
after his appointment, four BYT deputies who ostentatiously did not vote
for Nalyvaychenko submitted a motion to parliament calling for his
dismissal (Ukrainska Pravda, March 6).

Before coming to the SBU, Nalyvaychenko had been a diplomat. He served
at the Ukrainian Embassy to Finland in the mid-1990s, was Consul-General
in Washington, D.C., from 2001 to 2003, and then served as Ambassador to
Belarus. It is interesting that in his official biography Nalyvaychenko
does not mention the fact that he graduated from the KGB school in
Moscow in the early 1990s (Ukrainska Pravda, March 6; Segodnya, March
10). Speaking in an interview with Ukrainska Pravda on February 17, he
admitted to having been "the last Ukrainian to be trained there."

-Pavel Korduban