Ukraine: New Interim Government; Too Many Familiar Faces

From: Pavlo Ivanchenko ([email protected])
Date: Wed Mar 05 2014 - 23:58:42 EST


They had better get their act together very quick and very soon.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/17753-ukraine-new-interim-government-too-many-familiar-faces

However, everything seems to point to the same people -- or others very much
like them -- holding onto power until the May election, and probably
afterward as well. For the moment, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko
(herself a wealthy "oligarchess") is being presented as the top contender,
due to her name recognition, her movie star looks, her "martyr" cache as a
just-released "political prisoner, and, perhaps most importantly, the fact
that members of her Fatherland Party and other allies now occupy many top
slots in the Parliament and the executive offices of the interim
government.

As mentioned above, Oleksandr V. Turchynov, an ally and member of her
Fatherland Party, is now Speaker of the Parliament and the acting chief
executive. Not mentioned in new stories about Turchynov's new leadership
role is the fact that he is also an erstwhile head of the Security Service
of Ukraine (SBU), which was a subsidiary of the KGB during the days of the
USSR. Also rarely mentioned is that in his youth he was in charge of
agitation and propaganda for the Komsomol (Communist Youth League) of
Dnipropetrovsk, one of Ukraine's largest and most important cities and
military-industrial centers. During the Soviet era it was one of the secret
"closed cities" that required special clearance to enter or leave. One of
his comrades (and boss) in the Komsomol was Serhiy Tihipko, mentioned
above, a fellow oligarch and political power broker.



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