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July 6, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 6
ed after February 2014, Lovochkin has continued his political career with impunity, despite having served at the heart of Yanukovych’s regime for four years.
Post Yanukovych’s ousting, Manafort may have attended top-level Ukrainian political meetings where the oligarchs decided who would govern.
On March 25 he flew out of Vienna to Kyiv. His visit to Vienna had coincided with a crucial meet- ing between Petro Poroshenko and Vienna-based Firtash in that city. Lovochkin had also attended the meeting at which Firtash agreed to back Poroshenko for the post of president, rather than former boxer Vitaly Klichko, effectively crowning Poroshenko president.
In November 13, 2014, as details of a new gov- ernment were being hammered out after the parliamentary elections, the flight data records that Manafort flew from Kyiv to Nice, France, on a private jet with Ihor Tarasiuk, the business part- ner of Poroshenko’s first deputy chief of staff, Yuri Kosiuk. Tarasiuk denied taking the flight to bne IntelliNews, although he confirmed the personal data provided was correct.
Manafort’s Ukraine engagements actually in- creased following Yanukovych’s ouster in February 2014. In March to June 2014, he spent a total of 27 days in Ukraine, whereas during the four preced- ing Euromaidan months, November-February 2014, Manafort only visited Ukraine three times for a total of nine days.
According to the Mueller indictment, Manafort was engaged as lobbyist for Lovochkin’s new party Opposition Bloc, widely regarded as funded by Firtash. This explains Manafort’s long stays in Ukraine during the post-Maidan election cam- paigns, according to the flight data: one week prior to the presidential elections in May 2014, and one month prior to the parliamentary elec- tions in October 2014.
week stay in Ukraine through to October 27, 2015. This period coincides with the campaign for regional elections, which cemented Lovochkin’s Opposition Bloc as a dominant force across south and east Ukraine. Only months after the close
of electioneering in conflict-wracked Ukraine, Manafort was electioneering in the US, on behalf of the controversial candidate for the world’s most powerful office.
Maidan mystery
Manafort’s flight data sheds no light however on his relationship, if any, to the Euromaidan revolu- tion. Euromaidan was triggered by events in Kyiv on the night of November 29, when police vio- lently dispersed a small demonstration of pro-EU students who were protesting after Yanukovych refused to sign the Association Agreement. The violence prompted a huge demonstration occupy- ing the heart of Kyiv on December 1.
All we have are cryptic messages exchanged be- tween Manafort’s daughters, one of whose phones was hacked in 2016. Manafort confirmed the hack and corroborated some of the messages to Politico.
According to messages between the sisters dis- cussing Manafort’s actions in Ukraine, it was Manafort’s idea “to send those people out and get them slaughtered. Do you know whose strategy that was to cause that Revolts [sic] and what not [...] As a tactic to outrage the world and get fo- cus on Ukraine.” Manafort’s daughter called her father’s money “blood money.”
The remarks were made by those privy to the deepest secrets of Manafort’s personal life. They evoke the suspicion that Manafort manipulated the Maidan protests and the police violence to influence international opinion.
The appearance of the Manafort messages in 2016 reignited speculation in Ukraine that none other than Lovochkin instigated the attack on the students’ demonstration on November 29, 2013, to trigger outrage against Yanukovych.
Manafort’s flight data concludes with a four-