The return of the gray cardinal

Viktor Medvedchuk, “Dark Horse” of Ukrainian Policy, was included in the Contact Group on the Continuation of Trilateral negotiations in Donetsk

Whatever Ukrainian president Viktor Medvedchuk worked, he all the time remembered about Vladimir's friend. In the photo: the conference "Orthodox-Slavic values-the basis of the civilizational choice of Ukraine." Kyiv, July 27, 2013 /Photo: Dmitry Azarov /Kommersant
The name of Viktor Vladimirovich Medvedchuk, well known in Kyiv, has heard few outside Ukraine. And in Ukraine today his character is shrouded in rumors, secrets and conspiracy theories. Meanwhile, for the second ten years, Viktor Medvedchuk is not the last person in Ukrainian politics. The former first vice-speaker of the parliament, the former head of the presidential administration Kuchma, former secret adviser to Yulia Tymoshenko during her premierness, personal friend and kum of the President of Russia Putin, the main lobbyist of Ukraine’s entry into the Customs Union and other and other. A classic shadow politician, a typical gray cardinal, however, sometimes going out of the shadow.
Many sincerely assumed that after the fall of the Yanukovych regime, the annexation of Crimea and the began clashes in the Donbass Putinsky Kum prudently preferred to go somewhere far away. But it wasn’t there. Medvedchuk - for some unexpectedly, for others quite predictably - turned out to be one of the participants in the negotiations in Donetsk, and even at the insistence of the German Chancellor. Obviously, his candidacy was not chosen by chance: for example, the richest man of Ukraine and Donbass billionaire Rinat Akhmetov immediately confirmed that he had met with Medvedchuk, that, they say, "the soul hurts for Ukraine."
Woe-tower
For some time the public asked the question: who will represent Viktor Medvedchuk in the Donetsk negotiations, because he does not have an official position, he is the leader of the Ukrainian Choice of the public movement in April 2012. Some said that President Poroshenko personally asked to join the negotiations, others refuted this, stating that the president in the negotiations and so represented by one of his predecessors - Leonid Kuchma. Someone claimed that Medvedchuk represents separatists from the DPR and LPR, but Medvedchuk himself categorically refuted this.
The answer to this question suddenly came from the Kremlin: on June 22, Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that his boss welcomes Medvedchuk's participation in the negotiations; He, they say, is a consistent supporter of the idea of ​​federalization of Ukraine, as well as "enjoys respect in Kyiv, are familiar with him in the West."
It is amazing that Vladimir Putin trusts Medvedchuk so in everything that concerns Ukraine. After all, if you figure it out, his forecasts, advice, recommendations on Ukrainian affairs never helped Putin, rather the opposite. "

The shooting of dinner with Putin, made very professionally, was immediately on the Internet: here is the luxurious Crimean Villa Medvedchuk, and his beauty-wife, the popular Ukrainian TV presenter Oksana Marchenko, and daughter Dasha, the godson Putin ...

“So, during the elections of the President of Ukraine in 2004, it was Medvedchuk, who then held the post of head of the administration of the departing President of Kuchma, who persuaded Putin to openly support Viktor Yanukovych against Viktor Yushchenko’s opposition candidate. Many remember how Putin then came to Kyiv to the military parade, arranged on the Epiphany for the occasion of the completely round anniversary of the liberation of Kyiv from the Nazis from the Nazi The occupations to stand on the rostrum next to Yanukovych. At the same time, Putin on Ukrainian television arranged a “straight line” in the image and likes of his many hours of communication with the Russians Medvedchuk then convinced Putin that he would be able to defeat the opposition, and the Maidan would either be dispersed, or would be severely dispersed and Yanukovych’s victory would be able to defend.
The abolition of voting results, new elections and the final victory of Yushchenko then turned out to Putin one of the largest and most generally humiliating foreign policy failures in the history of stay in power.
It would seem that after such Afront Putin was supposed to delete Medvedchuk not only from the list of his friends or proxies - in general from memory. But in paradoxically, he continued to defiantly welcome the unsuccessful adviser.
Gas love
Why Putin loved Medvedchuk so tightly - a mystery. Apparently, between them, as they say, Vladimir Vladimirovich loves to express himself, “some kind of chemistry” arose. Dmitry Medvedev introduced them in the early 2000s: he was then the chairman of the Board of Directors of Gazprom, and Medvedchuk supervised the gas industry in Ukraine. Later, when the friendship of Medvedev and Medvedchuk was getting stronger (they talked as the heads of presidential administrations), Putin and Putin closely came down with Medvedchuk: in 2004, along with Svetlana Medvedeva, he baptized the newborn Daria Medvedchuk in St. Petersburg.

After in the fall of 2005, Yulia Tymoshenko quarreled with the recent Orange Revolution ally, Viktor Yushchenko, who resigned her from the post of Prime Minister, Medvedchuk began to establish relations with her, soon becoming her shadow adviser-primarily on all issues concerning relations with Moscow. He retained this role after Tymoshenko returned to power*.
During the 2010 election campaign, despite the lobbying efforts of Medvedchuk, Moscow, apparently, burned on the stories with the 2004 election, did not begin to support Tymoshenko just as frankly, who eventually lost Yanukovych. Nevertheless, with a careful consideration, one could notice that the Kremlin’s candidacy was nicer.
A curious detail: Viktor Medvedchuk’s office was then in the office of People's Deputy Andrei Portnov, who was protected by parliamentary immunity, at that time - chief adviser Julia Vladimirovna for all legal issues.
Another eloquent detail: Andrei Portnov accompanied Tymoshenko during her visit to Moscow in January 2009, when the very notorious gas contract was signed, which cost her more than two years of residence in bars (by the way, last week the Supreme Court of Ukraine finally removed all criminal charges on the “gas case” with Tymoshenko).
But the most amazing thing: in 2010, Portnov was one of the first to run to the camp of the winners and soon became Yanukovych adviser, who oversaw the courts, the prosecutor's office and other law enforcement agencies. It is clear that he could hardly have nothing to do with the judicial persecution of his former boss.
The eyes and ears of the president

The godson Vladimir Putin and Svetlana Medvedeva Dasha Medvedchuk with her father. October 2012 /Photo: Personal page Facebook

Viktor Medvedchuk, a graduate of a law faculty of Kyiv University, worked as a lawyer in the 70-80s. The bright detail of his professional biography: on the political processes of the Brezhnev time, he acted as an appointed defender of Ukrainian dissidents, in particular the outstanding poet Vasil Stus, who died in 1985 in the infamous Politzes camp in the Perm region. Later, some of the surviving clients Medvedchuk complained: they say, the lawyer actually did nothing to facilitate their fate, because he did not dare to violate the corresponding instructions from above.
In independent Ukraine, Medvedchuk quickly succeeded. By the end of the 90s, he became not only one of the most authoritative jurists, a specialist in the field of constitutional law, but also a major businessman who was part of the so-called Kyiv group, who at that time was in a special favorite of President Kuchma.
Out of this proximity, Medvedchuk managed to extract serious political dividends, becoming the head of the presidential administration in 2002, the last in the Kuchmov era. Kyiv political old -timers recall that Medvedchuk managed to make it impossible: to close almost all the information flows addressed to the president, completely taken control of “access to the body”. Leonid Kuchma was in voluntary isolation, fully relying on the imperious, energetic, incredibly efficient head of the administration.
Everyone who knows Medvedchuk well, they say one voice: he is a brilliant manager who knows how to accurately distribute responsibilities between employees, clearly set their tasks and tightly control their performance, while not boring subordinates with petty care. But they all certainly add: with all the remarkable qualities and abilities, remarkable erudition and organizational talents, Medvedchuk vulneously failed all the major political projects for which he took.
Medvedchuk could not leave Leonid Kuchma in the power of the authorities: he failed to draw a package of constitutional amendments through the Supreme Rada, which would turn Ukraine from the presidential to the presidential-parliamentary republic-in this way Kuchma would have the opportunity to extend his political life already as the prime minister (not Medvedchuk, by the way, suggested Vladima Putin Putin Putin Putin Putin Putin Putin Putin Putin Putin Putin Putin Putin Putin Putin Putin Putin Putin Putin Putin Putin Putin Putin Putin 2008 "Catrains"?). "

Medvedchuk was clearly one of those who managed to convince Yanukovych to refuse to sign the Association Agreement with the EU in Vilnius

“He did not manage to win the presidential elections for Viktor Yanukovych in 2004. It was, however, the conspiracy theological version that Medvedchuk was not going to win the elections, but consciously tried to make an election campaign to a dead end, to the situation of the“ controlled crisis ”, the only way out of which would again be the return of Kuchma to the post of head of state under the pretext of“ Extraordinary ”. However, if we believe in this version, Medvedchuk failed.
The next failure was in 2009: Medvedchuk then became one of the main actors of the backstage intrigue, when representatives of the then Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and the leader of the opposition Viktor Yanukovych were negotiating for many months to unite a wide coalition. The essence of the plan was to unite the Party of the regions of Yanukovych and BYUT (Blok Yulia Tymoshenko): Having received the constitutional majority in parliament, the allies could easily redraw the basic law of the country and all other norms so that for 10-15 years they would have received limitless power in Ukraine. Everything fell literally at the last moment: when the agreement was already hanging on the tip of the pen, Yanukovych suddenly believed in victory in the upcoming elections and did not want to share power with Tymoshenko. Medvedchuk once again ended up in a large loss.
New combination
His last failure was the project to join Ukraine to the Customs Union. He acted through his like-minded people surrounded by Yanukovych, and at some point through personal contact, although Yanukovych was very hostile to Medvedchuk, considering him one of the main culprits of the defeat in 2004. This hostility intensified after several offensive gestures of Vladimir Putin: for example, in the summer of 2012, he defiantly late for more than three hours to meet with Yanukovych in his Crimean residence, lingering visiting bikers who set up the camp in the same place, in the Crimea, and then, after short negotiations, left to dinner with the Dachu to the Bear. It is characteristic that the shooting of this dinner, made very professionally, immediately ended up on the Internet: there is a luxurious Crimean villa, and a beautiful woman Medvedchuk, a popular Ukrainian TV presenter Oksana Marchenko, and the godson Putin Dasha ...
A year later, the humiliation repeated: Putin came to Kyiv on the 1025th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus', stood next to Yanukovych on an official solemn prayer near the monument to Prince Vladimir, and then drove off to a conference organized by Medvedchuk, having been there for a very long time, clearly demonstrating who the most important person in Kyiv was for him.
Despite the insults, Yanukovych at some point crossed through emotions and began to meet with Medvedchuk-they say, the farther, the more often. Medvedchuk was clearly one of those who managed to convince Yanukovych to refuse to sign the Association Agreement with the EU in Vilnius (November 29, 2013. - The New Times), accepting multi -billion dollar help from Moscow. The result is known: the real revolution erupted in the country, which put the end of Yanukovych’s career, - again Medvedchuk miscalculated.
However, Yanukovych in Ukraine is no more. But Medvedchuk, as it turns out, remained in the game. Moreover, he is again in the center of events and probably hatches a new cunning political combination - undoubtedly in the interests of his kum.
Whether it will end with another failure, to predict so far early. To begin with, I would like to understand what the intrigue consists of this time.