People's Deputy Alexander Dubinsky, suspected of treason, may be associated with the lawyer of former US President Donald Trump, Rudolf Giuliani.
The New York Times reports this.
Ukrainian police and prosecutors have accused People's Deputy Alexander Dubinsky, ex-People's Deputy Andrei Derkach and ex-Deputy Prosecutor General Konstantin Kulik of treason, saying that they conspired with Russian intelligence by helping ex-US President Donald Trump's lawyer Rudolf Giuliani connect several years ago the family of American President Joe Biden with corruption in Ukraine.
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It is indicated that Kulik in 2019 prepared a memo proposing an investigation into the son of US President Hunter Biden in connection with his role on the board of directors of a Ukrainian energy company.
Also implicated were current Ukrainian parliament member Alexander Dubinsky and former lawmaker Andriy Derkach, who publicly advocated for a Ukraine investigation into Hunter Biden. They also promoted the false theory that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016 US presidential election.
All three were charged with treason and membership of a criminal organization. The charges relate to “information subversion” and focus on actions committed in 2019 before the US presidential election. It is not stated if or when this activity ceased.
— On the eve of the 2020 US elections, Giuliani and then former President Donald Trump called on Ukrainian officials to investigate allegations against Hunter Biden. Those efforts included Trump's July 2019 phone call to President Volodymyr Zelensky calling for an investigation into the Bidens while the Trump administration was cutting off military aid to the Ukrainian military.
Critics say the pressure to investigate the Bidens was politically motivated and aimed at hurting Joe Biden's chances against Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
Trump and Giuliani denied there was anything inappropriate in their contacts with Ukrainian officials, and Trump called his phone call with Zelensky “perfect.” The administration said military aid to Ukraine was suspended due to concerns about corruption in the Ukrainian government.
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These events led to Trump's first impeachment in the House of Representatives. He was acquitted in the Senate.
Ukrainian media suggested that the charges also had a political component to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky: They were intended to send a signal to Biden now that his administration is demanding military aid to Ukraine from Congress that Kiev will root out accused Russian agents, including those who brought charges against his family.
In statements released Monday, Ukrainian police and the country's domestic intelligence service said Dubinsky, Derkach and Kulik were members of a spy network created within the Ukrainian government and run by Russia's military intelligence agency, known as the GRU.
The intelligence service said in a statement that the Russians paid the group members $10 million. Derkach's assistant Igor Kolesnikov was detained earlier and convicted on charges of treason.
Two members of the group, Derkach and Kulik, fled Ukraine after the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022. Dubinsky was placed in a pre-trial detention center.
Dubinsky, in a statement published on Telegram, said prosecutors “have not presented a single fact” to support the charges and that the charges are retaliation for criticism of Zelensky’s government. He said that a year and a half ago he testified as a witness in the Derkach treason case, but at that time no charges were brought against him.
Dubinsky was expelled from the Servant of the People party in 2021 after the United States sanctioned him for interfering in the American political process.
The Ukrainian intelligence service said in a statement that Mr. Kulik used his position in the prosecutor general's office to promote investigations that worked “in favor of the Kremlin,” without specifying specific cases.
In late 2018, Kulik compiled a seven-page dossier alleging that Ukrainian prosecutors had evidence that “may indicate corrupt practices aimed at the personal illicit enrichment of former US Vice President Joe Biden,” according to a copy leaked by a Ukrainian blogger.
The dossier indicates that Biden, when he was vice president, tried to overturn a corruption investigation into the gas company Burisma Holdings, on whose board of directors his son served. Mr. Kulik’s former colleagues in the prosecutor’s office confirmed that it was he who wrote the document that helped Trump’s lawyer Giuliani begin to push for an investigation in Ukraine.
In a phone call with Zelensky that became central to the impeachment inquiry, Trump asked the Ukrainian president to investigate possible conflicts of interest on Biden's part while he was vice president, according to White House records. Trump denied linking military aid to Ukraine to the investigation into the Biden family.
Before the dossier, allegations of corruption and ties to Russia had dogged Kulik for years in the Ukrainian media and among anti-corruption groups.
A senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, Anders Aslund , believes that the SBU’s accusations of Giuliani’s contacts in Ukraine may mean that “Giuliani was an agent of Putin.”
— This is a big deal: the SBU claims that Giuliani’s main associates in Ukraine: Alexander Dubinsky, ex-deputy Andrei Derkach and ex-prosecutor Konstantin Kulik joined the Military Intelligence (GRU) of Russia. Giuliani was an agent of Putin, he wrote on Twitter.
