Ties between Giuliani Allies and Ukraine Raise Concerns over Russian Interference in 2020 US Election

Ukraine's State Bureau of Investigation announced on Tuesday that a Ukrainian lawmaker, who had assisted Rudy Giuliani in tarnishing Joe Biden's reputation during the 2020 US presidential campaign, has been detained under suspicion of treason. The lawmaker, identified as Oleksandr Dubinsky by a source from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), is being investigated for engaging in information activities that favored the Russian Federation, aiming to destabilize and discredit Ukraine.

The SBU has implicated two former Ukrainian officials, Andrii Derkach and Kostiantyn Kulyk, in the pro-Russia scheme. Derkach and Kulyk closely coordinated with Giuliani and other allies of former President Donald Trump to spread false information about Biden and his family's activities in Ukraine during the 2020 campaign.

Previously, the US government sanctioned Dubinsky, Derkach, and Kulyk, accusing them of being affiliated with a "Russia-linked foreign influence network" that attempted to interfere in the 2020 election to support Trump and undermine Biden. The sanctions were announced during the final weeks of the Trump administration.

Giuliani visited Ukraine in 2019 with the intention of uncovering damaging information about then-candidate Biden and his son Hunter. Among the individuals he met with was Dubinsky. In addition, Giuliani had meetings with Derkach, who played a prominent role in a conspiracy-laden documentary released by the right-wing network OAN regarding the Biden family's involvement in Ukraine.

Kulyk, on the other hand, authored a dossier containing disinformation about the Bidens. This included allegations about Hunter Biden's position on the board of Burisma, a major Ukrainian energy company. Kulyk went on to conduct interviews with pro-Trump journalists and enlisted the help of former Trump lawyers to disseminate his message to US officials during Trump's initial impeachment proceedings.

The actions of the three Ukrainian officials accused of treason aligned with Trump's resistance to his impeachment. Trump endorsed their allegations, despite suspicions of their affiliation with Moscow. As House Republicans contemplate the possibility of impeaching Biden, some of the GOP's accusations against him stem from the discrediting tactics promoted by these Ukrainian officials. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) reported on Telegram that Derkach left Ukraine before the extensive Russian invasion last year, while Kulyk is currently in hiding abroad. Neither of them has been apprehended.

Giuliani traveled to Ukraine in December 2019 to meet with several Ukrainian officials in an effort to defend Trump against House Democrats' impeachment inquiry.

Leah Millis/Reuters

Anti-Biden information operations

Collectively, these advancements contribute to the preexisting accusations that members in Trump's inner circle collaborated with Russian agents to tarnish Biden, his opponent in the 2020 election. Both the US and Ukrainian governments have now confirmed the involvement of these three Ukrainian officials in the Kremlin's endeavors to disrupt the 2020 US election.

On Monday, the SBU unveiled a video of Igor Kolesnikov, a former parliamentary aide who has been convicted of treason, providing testimony. In his statement, Kolesnikov admitted to overseeing a Russian intelligence operation, coordinated by the GRU (Russian military intelligence), which involved Dubinsky and others. The objective of this operation was to undermine Ukraine's alliances and relationships with other nations.

In the video, Kolesnikov reveals that he had a meeting with a high-ranking GRU official in Moscow in 2019. During this meeting, he was instructed to carry out a series of information operations in the form of press conferences, totaling six, with the aim of discrediting the current government and undermining Ukraine's relationships with its strategic partners.

Following these instructions, Dubinsky and Derkach organized a sequence of news conferences that effectively spread false narratives about corruption within the Biden family in Ukraine. Additionally, they propagated an unfounded conspiracy theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 US presidential election to undermine Trump, despite the fact that it was actually Russia who attempted to influence the election in Trump's favor.

In the statement issued by the SBU, Kolesnikov declared that he provided updates to his Russian superiors following every news conference, and they utilized their resources to amplify the distribution of the press conference materials in both the media and on the internet.

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This involved translating the news conferences for international viewers. The efforts to disseminate the content in the United States proved successful: In August 2020, Trump shared a post on social media that contained a propaganda audiotape released by Derkach, as a means to discredit Biden.

In a statement posted on Telegram, Dubinsky refuted the accusations and asserted that the charges were politically driven. Dubinsky blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, for orchestrating a campaign to suppress him.

Dubinsky stated that Yermak-Zelensky's haphazard endeavors to apprehend and prohibit him from utilizing social networks are not solely linked to his critique of the president and his inner circle, but also aim to obstruct the dissemination of this information to international media. As for Derkach, he has previously refuted any involvement with the Kremlin, whereas Kulyk has not addressed the allegations publicly.