Deeper look into Ukraine Ministry Leaks

Article Submitted by Email, Author : Yulia Drozd It’s not a secret that activation of Ukraine-EU relations is accepted by Russia as a challenge and in turn Moscow uses whole arsenal of counter-campaign tools – from public diplomacy to informational support of anti-European tendencies in Ukraine. On October 28th came the news that Anonymous hacked the mail box of Ukraine’s embassy to Azerbaijan. In general it’s not the first such case for the last two weeks. The systems of Greece’s Foreign Ministry and Ministry of economics of Poland were hacked too. But in terms of Russia’s above-mentioned policy towards Ukraine a few documents seem to be very interesting. The first one is a letter to the ambassador of Ukraine to Azerbaijan from the foreign affairs committee of the Seimas of Lithuania. On September 19th as a result of shelling two EULEX cars (EULEX is a deployment of European Union police and civilian resources to Kosovo) in Northern Kosovo a Lithuanian national, customs officer, died. Such information has was never published or announced. Even more, Ukraine’s foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara, who is also current chairman-in-office of the OSCE, sharply criticized the incident and said he investigation is needed to bring to justice those responsible for it. That’s it. Not a word about a Ukrainian’s involvement to the incident. While the “concern” came precisely from Lithuania on one hand, it’s logical since the victim is a Lithuanian national but then on the other hand, a key Ukraine-EU summit will take place in Vilnius. So, there is an associative array: EU representative murder – Ukraine – Vilnius. It’s not difficult to guess to whom it harms most of all. Then, among the leaked documents there is also a letter of someone Muhammed Jumma to the president of a Russian company LUKOYL Vagit Alekperov. In the document as of May 19th 2013 Jumma writes that together with his partner Prince Valid Tawajiri he has established in Saudi Arabia a company that provides a broad range of services. Among all the rest (by the way here is a misprint in the text of the document – the name Saudi Arabia and KSA abbreviation are mentioned in one sentence) mr. Juma is complaining about “substantial degrading of relations with Ukrainian partners” in terms of cooperation with the Ukrainian government and lack of support from its part. Here comes the name of Ukrainian company Naftogaz. The response to Juma came from the Russian industrial investment fund and here start the  snags. Firstly, the response comes as of May 18th 2013 that doesn’t comply with the chronology. Secondly, there is a mark “confidential and private”, which isn’t usually put on such documents. Thirdly, the whole text is explanation of why mr/ Juma’s relations with Ukraine degraded so much. Namely because ‘Naftogaz chief Yevgeny Bakulin is”. Those who will study the leaked documents because of particular interest to Ukraine probably wont even remember all the details of this nonsense, but once again the tags “Ukraine”, “Naftogaz”, “Bakulin is sick” “Incapable of conducting business affairs” remain. Again minus 50 points to Ukraine’s image. In the archive from the allegedly hacked mail box there is also a number of typical documents of the embassy, like logistic reports, respective requests for transit permission, CVs, way-bills, marriage registration certificates and so on. Probably it’s an “entourage” aimed at creating the impression of the authenticity of the documents. In the context of current complicated trade and economic relations between Ukrainian-Russian relations such informational actions are probably another lever of pressure aimed at damaging Ukraine’s image in general, affecting positions of Ukrainian large businesses, undermining European lobby and enhancing the Russian one. This article was submitted via email by Yulia Drozd