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© Associated Press
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov at the official opening of the Turkish Stream in Turkey.
The Embassy of the Russian Federation reacted with criticism to the participation the day before of Jessica Kim, Permanent Legal Advisor of the United States Embassy in Bulgaria, during a virtual conversation organized by the Atlantic Club.
In one of his rare public appearances, he said that Bulgarian leaders must “maintain the bargain, the effort and the will” to cure corruption. “Accountability begins with Bulgarian leaders, in all parties, at all levels, who support the principle that no one is above the law, including themselves,” he said.
Today, the Russian embassy in Sofia announced on its Facebook page that it had heeded the statement “on the inability and lack of political will of the Bulgarian authorities to tackle corruption in the country.”
Surprisingly for diplomatic practice, a third country takes a position regarding Bulgaria’s bilateral relations with another country, and Jessica Kim’s statement is unofficial.
“The accuracy and relevance of the blunt comments on issues sensitive to Bulgarian society, especially on the eve of the parliamentary elections, raises great doubts,” the Russian statement said.
Kim’s statement said, among other things: “Measures to undermine the independence of the judiciary have weakened Bulgaria’s ability to prosecute high-level corruption.” Commenting on the Report of the European Commission on the Rule of Law, Kim first pointed out the problem of the Attorney General’s liability. The rest are the composition and function of the SJC, the lack of independence of the judiciary, the low public trust in anti-corruption institutions, the lack of independent media, problems related to the mutual restriction of power..
The Russian embassy called this “mentoring statements, as always without concrete evidence, which de facto cast a shadow over both politicians and officials of the judicial system of the Republic of Bulgaria.”
© facebook.com/rusembul
The message then says:
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The issue of high-level corruption still exists even in the “most democratic” countries of the world (we will not remember, for example, some stories from the “Ukrainian dossier” of the current US leadership). Smells hypocritical, right? truth? ”
For those familiar with the context of such words, it is clear that in this case the embassy spoke directly about President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who was a board member of a Ukrainian gas company.
In mid-December, his father’s acquisition team issued a statement to Hunter Biden that he was being investigated by federal prosecutors for possible tax violations. “I take this issue very seriously, but I am convinced that a professional and objective examination will show that I have dealt with these things in a legal and proper manner, including the use of professional tax advisers,” he added.
The Russian embassy position is one of the last in the tenure of Ambassador Anatoly Makarov, who is expected to be replaced in February by Eleonora Mitrofanova, whose appointment was signed by President Vladimir Putin on January 15.
What is the “Ukraine dossier” and who published it?
The appearance of the term “Ukrainian file” in the post of the Russian embassy also deserves special attention. This typically means the 2018 campaign by Rudolf Giuliani, a personal attorney for President Donald Trump, to give the impression of Biden’s corruption long before he entered the race for the White House.
This is exactly what is happening in the months when the scandal, called by Democrats the “Ukraine dossier” and impeachment proceedings for Trump on charges of abusing his position by lobbying (including threatening to suspend aid federal to Ukraine) to a head of state on the other hand. This is the young President Volodymyr Zelensky, to find compromising information about Biden and the Ukrainian prosecution to complete the investigation against Hunter. The House of Representatives decided that the president should be removed from the White House for this, but in the Senate dominated by Republicans, the process ended in just a few days with the refusal to make such a decision.
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A key place in this mirror “archive” of Giuliani began playing recordings distributed in 2020 by Ukrainian MP Andriy Derkach, who allegedly overheard Joe Biden speaking with former President Petro Poroshenko and arguing that US aid to Ukraine depends on if she would dare to investigate Burma. , in which Hunter Biden participated.
The distributor of the records (in a version of which it is not possible to know whether they were tampered with and falsified and taken from the nabu-leaks.com site with an unknown owner) is the MP Andrey Derkach – Graduated from the Academy of the Federal Security Service of Russia and dealer of sensations, which in Ukraine for years almost no one takes seriously.
The other person along the Derkach lanes is Konstantin kulik – In 2019, a high-ranking prosecutor (responsible for international cooperation) was fired, who affirmed in the first press conference that he confirmed the authenticity of the recordings.
© Reuters
Trump-sanctioned “sources”
On January 11, 2021, the last days of President Trump’s term, both Ukrainians were sanctioned by the Washington administration for trying to interfere in the US presidential elections. In the message, Derkach is directly named “Russian agent”.
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- “Since at least 2019, Derkach and his four associates have been working with US media outlets, US-based social platforms, and influential Americans to spread misleading allegations that there are no grounds for officials to current and former Americans are involved in corruption, money laundering and illegal political influence in Ukraine, “the text reads on behalf of Finance Minister Stephen Mnuchin.
Kulik is said to have formed an alliance with Derkach and the other two on the list “to spread false accusations of international corruption.”
Alexander Onishchenko – a fugitive from the Ukrainian judiciary due to corruption allegations – is cited as the source of “copies of edited sound recordings allegedly of conversations between former Ukrainian and American officials and that Derkach circulated between May and July 2020 to discredit officials Americans and Influence American Elections. “
Andrey Telizhenko Another of the sanctioned former third-class diplomats has organized meetings between Derkach and the Americans to spread false accusations of corruption in Ukraine.
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Two companies are also sanctioned: NabuLeaks (the same one Derkach claims to have learned about the recordings from) and Era-Media Ltd.. The United States Department of the Treasury identifies them as fraudulent companies to promote Derkach’s false claims.
“Derkach has been the de facto owner of Era-Media affiliated companies since the 1990s. Derkach recently created the NabuLeaks platform to engage the National Anti-Corruption Office of Ukraine (NABU), established in 2015.” (…) Derkach has also used a network of media professionals and assistants from these companies, supporting his campaign of influence, targeting false and baseless narratives and undermining investigations into corruption in Ukraine and the United States, ”said the communicated two weeks ago.
