Yanukovych says he is clean, unlike the current government

Yanukovych and a handful of his cronies fled for Russia in February. He gave several press conferences at the beginning, but has kept himself out of the media limelight since June, when President Petro Poroshenko was inaugurated. 

In his latest interview Yanukovych said that new politicians in Ukraine had started this war, because they wanted to strengthen their power and shift people’s attention from the real problems.

He says the biggest responsibility lies with Oleksandr Turchynov, who was appointed acting president after Yanukovych’s escape, and “gave orders to use army against its nation.” 

“They almost squeezed people with APCs,” Yanukovych was quoted as saying.  

Yanukovych escaped from the capital on Feb. 21, the day he signed a peace deal with the opposition. Video footage recovered from his luxury mansion in Mezhyhirya, located some 10 kilometers north of Kyiv, showed that he had packed valuables for days before the escape.

But he told a different story of his escape to the Russian audience.

He said he was still in Ukraine on Feb. 22, but he understood that opposition leaders “wanted to kill me.” 

“My motorcade was shot several times and one of the guards was injured,” Yanukovych says. “That’s why I had to move to a place where security forces still remained faithful to the oath, and obeyed the chief commander.”

He recalled he had two options then: either to use all the legitimate powers to restore the constitutional order in Ukraine, or to leave the country. He insists, however, that his ouster was not constitutional. 

“There were neither a special committee, nor the resolution of the Supreme and Constitutional Courts. But the most obvious violation came with the fact that only 328 lawmakers voted for my dismissal with the required minimum of 338, or three-quarters of the total number of the deputies. This was the last step of the coup organizers – they just overthrew the constitutional order.”

Ukraine does not, however, have any legal procedures that require approval by three quarters of the parliament. Nor does it have a provision in case when an elected president flees the country, so the legal loophole was patched up by a vote by constitutional majority, or two-thirds, of parliament, which ousted Yanukovych and appointed Turchynov as an interim president on Feb. 22.

“I am not corrupt”

Yanukovych also denies any allegations of corruption. “Neither me, nor my sons were involved in the corruption schemes. And that’s why a new regime couldn’t prove it, there are no such facts,” he said in his interview.

After taking office, the new government estimated that around $100 billion had been stolen by Yanukovych and his cronies during their time in office. Dozens of criminal cases are being investigated in Ukraine. Most land acquired by Yanukovych to build his $1 billion Mezhyhirya estate has been claimed back through courts, which reversed shady privatization deals over the past 10 months.

But Yanukovych continues to insist that he is clean. “I don’t have and I’ve never had any accounts abroad. My lawyers have sent requests to more than 40 countries with the requirement to confirm or deny whether I have any assets there.”

Months have passed, he said, but not a single country confirmed that he has those assets.

Who is to blame for bloodshed during the revolution?

Yanukovych also offered some thoughts about the EuroMaidan Revolution, including conspiracy theories about its origins.

“You need to understand who benefited from the EuroMaidan events,” Yanukovych says. “I had no advantage of that.” He explains that he didn’t order the beating of the students protest on Nov. 30, which gave new determination and urgency to the revolution.

“It was a planned provocation in order to radicalize peaceful demonstrations. I had no evidence that it was organized by then chief of staff Serhiy Lyovochkin. But these suspicions have good grounds,” he says.

He says he did everything to punish those responsible when he found out more about the case. 

“I dismissed deputy National Security and Defense Council chief Volodymyr Sivkovych, Oleksandr Popov, former Kyiv city mayor, while Interior Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko dismissed Valeriy Koryak, former Kyiv city police chief. We needed time to investigate the situation, however, nobody wanted to wait then. Now I’d like to ask the new prosecutors office to investigate this case, because a year after that they didn’t give any answer.” 

Yanukovych says the new government has failed to investigate the killing of the “Heavenly Hundred” activists and police officers, because “they are afraid to tell the truth.”

“Do you remember those two young men who were supposedly killed on Hrushevskoho Street (on Jan. 22)? According to preliminary investigations, we had evidence that they had been killed in a different place. Their lives have been sacrificed to the coup technologies,” he says.

He is also outraged with the fact that little is known about police officers casualties.  

“As of February 20, some 20 police officers were killed and at least 130 were hospitalized with gunshot wounds – but there were almost no mentions in media about it. And they were standing there under fire and Molotov cocktails not for Yanukovych, but rather for Ukraine and the rule of law.” 

Meanwhile, Anton Herashchenko, a lawmaker of Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s People’s Front party and a former adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said on Nov. 18 that 15 police officers and 71 civilians have been killed in Kyiv during the bloody events of Feb. 18-21. 

Yanukovych also continues to deny that the police officers opened fire against the activists, despite massive photographic and video evidence. 

“During the tragic events of EuroMaidan Revolution, as a legitimate president I had all the grounds to use the force, I didn’t do that,” Yanukovych said.

Recipes for Donbas

The former president also suggested his view on how the war in Donbas has to be stopped. He says dialog will do it. 

“It is important that each side could influence the process. And the dialogue should lead to the elimination of economic problems and the resumption of economic relations in Ukraine,” Yanukovych was quoted as saying.

“It is especially important for Donbas people, who suffer from hunger, as well as for the entire country, which is on a brink of economic collapse,” he said.

Yanukovych also believes false patriots should stop financing so-called heroic volunteer battalions “that spur hatred among Donbas citizens. “They must be unarmed immediately, and this helps to lessen the radicalization attitude in the country.”

The status of these regions, he said, referring to self-proclaimed republics, must be determined and they should get more autonomy.

A further escalation of the conflict in eastern Ukraine will lead to a “greater split of the country,” according to Yanukovych.

However, Yanukovych believes Ukrainians will find a consensus and the country will become sovereign again “as soon as the new politicians will go.”

Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Goncharova can be reached at [email protected]