Andrii Leonidovych Derkach (
Ukrainian: Андрій Леонідович Деркач; born 19 August 1967) is a Russian[3] and former Ukrainian politician and businessman who had been a member of the
Verkhovna Rada from 1998 to January 2020, serving seven terms, with several parties.[4][5] and was stripped of Ukrainian citizenship.[6]
In August 2020, U.S. counterintelligence chief
William Evanina identified Derkach as a key participant in
Russian efforts to harm
Joe Biden's candidacy in the
2020 U.S. presidential election.[7]United States intelligence community analysis released in March 2021 found that Derkach was among proxies of Russian intelligence who promoted and
laundered misleading or unsubstantiated narratives about Biden "to US media organizations, US officials, and prominent US individuals, including some close to former President Trump and his administration."[8][9] Trump's personal attorney
Rudy Giuliani met with Derkach in December 2019.[10]
In 2021, the United States Government accused Derkach of being a "Russian agent" and sanctioned him for
interference in the 2020 United States elections, and the Ukrainian government sanctioned him for spreading
Russian propaganda.[2] In June 2022, the
Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said that Derkach received funds from the Russian
GRU to create private security companies that Russia planned to use to capture Ukraine, and that
Prosecutor General of Ukraine had started a pre-trial investigation into his role.[11][12] In November 2023 Ukrainian police and prosecutors accused Derkach of treason.[13]
Derkach was born on 19 August 1967 in
Dnipropetrovsk,
Ukrainian SSR, the son of
KGB officer
Leonid Derkach, who headed the State Customs Committee and later the
Security Service of Ukraine intelligence agency from 1998 to 2003.[15][16] Derkach was fired in 2001 for his alleged
involvement in the murder of journalist
Georgiy Gongadze.[17]Ihor Smeshko, the head of Ukraine's
SBU (
Ukrainian: Служба безпеки України (СБУ)) from 2003 to 2005 who replaced Leonid Derkach, maintained a close relationship with the
FBI and kept close watch on the Derkachs.[15] In 2005, the report of an ad hoc committee formed via the Ukrainian parliament, primarily responsible for investigating the murder, concluded that Gongadze's murder had been organized; the primary conspirators remained identified as then-President Kuchma and his Minister of the Interior, in addition to Leonid Derkach, who, according to the committee, had been involved in the crime.[18]
Derkach attended the Kharkiv Higher Military Command Engineering School,[2] graduating in 1989.[citation needed] In 1989 and 1990, he served in the
Strategic Missile Force at the technical missile base of the Pervomaysk division; this division was under the command of the Strategic Missile Force.[2] In 1993, he graduated with a Ph.D. in law from the Dzerzhinsky Higher School of the KGB, (later renamed the
FSB Academy),[19][20] with a thesis titled "Organizing and Holding Meetings with Secret Agents".[21]
From 1994 to 1996, he served as deputy director of the Control Service of the
President of Ukraine. From 1996 to 1997 he was Advisor to the President of Ukraine on Foreign Economic Affairs.[15] In 1997 and 1998 he was First Assistant to the
Prime Minister of Ukraine. Derkach served as President of the national nuclear generating company
Energoatom from 2006 to 2007. He served as Director General of the State Concern "Ukratomprom" in 2007. From 2011 to 2013, he served pro bono as Chief Advisor to then
Prime Minister of UkraineMykola Azarov.[2] Despite no longer having an official role, Derkach remains involved in the management of Energoatom, making strategic decisions alongside Oleg Boyarintsev and Herman Galushchenko.[24]
In 2003, both Andrii and Leonid Derkach were implicated in numerous illegal weapons transfers to the Balkans, Asia and Africa including to
Iraq, the
Taliban,
al-Qaeda,
al-Shabaab, and
Liberia.[25] Derkach was implicated in the government's orchestration of the
Euromaidan assault by security forces on peaceful demonstrators in
Kyiv on 11 December 2013.[26][27]
Business holdings and interests
Germany's
Federal Agency for Civic Education reported in 2007 that Derkach and his father Leonid led The Derkach Group, one of the regional cross-industry holding companies formed in Ukraine following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Derkach Group had close ties to the political elite and attempted to influence politics through lobbying, corrupt networks, and illegal appropriations.[17][28] Derkach also headed a media company the "Ukrainian Press Group" (
Ukrainian: "Українська прес-група") consisting of four newspapers, a TV guide, and the website версії.com.[17]
According to Media Ownership Monitor Ukraine, Derkach "de facto owns" television channel TRK Era and Radio Era; officially the owner is his assistant Anton Oleksandrovych Simonenko while Derkach is listed as honorary president of Era-Media and head of the arts council of TRK Еra. Ownership data of the privately held company is not publicly available.[29] Radio Era was one of several radio stations, most prominently among them
Petro Poroshenko's Channel 5, that provided around-the-clock reporting from
Maidan Nezalezhnosti during the
Orange Revolution in 2004.[30]
According to anti-corruption watchdog organization
Chesno, Derkach and his associates illegally appropriated 42 hectares of protected lands valued at tens of millions of dollars.[31][32] Derkach also failed to declare his wife's stake in various of his business enterprises, as he was obliged to do under the Ukrainian law to prevent corruption.[33]
As of 2010 Derkach often lobbied for
Oleg Deripaska's Russia company
Rusal (formerly Russkiy alyuminiy) and has had ties to
Anatoly Chubais and Chubais' monopolistic electricity supplier,
RAO UES.[17]
From 2002 to 2006, he served as Deputy Chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament Committee on Fuel and Energy Complex, Nuclear Policy and Nuclear Safety.[2]
In
2014 Derkach was re-elected into parliament as an independent candidate again in District 159.[39] He won the district with 61.85% of the votes.[41]
From 2014 to 2016, he was Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Group "
Nation's Will".[2][42]
According to Ukrainian anti-corruption watchdog organization
Chesno, Derkach voted for the
"dictatorship laws", ten laws restricting freedom of speech and assembly, which were signed into law by president
Viktor Yanukovych in January 2014; nine of them were repealed by the Ukrainian parliament 12 days later.[2][43]
On 9 October 2019, Derkach alleged that
Joe Biden had been involved in an international
money laundering scheme with Ukrainian energy company
Burisma Holdings and US-based Rosemont Seneca Partners.[49][50] He claimed that Burisma's payments to four of its board members–including Biden's son
Hunter–which were neither secret nor illegal, were "a sinister plot involving" Ukraine's former president Poroshenko but his claims initially were mostly ignored in Ukraine and abroad.[51]Anders Åslund, senior fellow at the
Atlantic Council, itself a member of the pro-NATO
Atlantic Treaty Association, called Derkach "not credible" and a "professional disinformer".[52]
Meeting with Giuliani
On 5 December 2019, Derkach met with President
Donald Trump's personal lawyer
Rudy Giuliani in Kyiv to put together a corruption case against Biden's son Hunter, according to Derkach.[22][53][54] In May 2020, he released a portion of a phone call between Joe Biden and
Petro Poroshenko, the former president of Ukraine.[22][55]
Documentary: The Ukraine Hoax: Impeachment, Biden Cash, and Mass Murder with guest host Michael Caputo
During the summer of 2020, the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which was chaired by
Ron Johnson, held hearings into the relationships among
Burisma,
Mykola Zlochevsky, and the Bidens. Blue Star Strategies is a public relations firm that had worked for Burisma. A contractor with Blue Star Strategies,[b] Andrii Telizhenko (
Ukrainian: Андрій Теліженко) was likely to be subpoenaed for testimony during the United States Senate investigations but the Republican plan involving his testimony was cancelled just before he would have testified to the Senate because of his ties to Andrii Derkach.[69][70]
U.S. sanctions and investigations
On 10 September 2020, the
U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Derkach "for attempting to influence the U.S. electoral process," while also alleging that Derkach "ha[d] been an active Russian agent for over a decade, maintaining close connections with the
Russian Intelligence Services."[71][72] The sanctions include freezing all of Derkach's property interests subject to U.S. jurisdiction and prohibiting U.S. persons from engaging in transactions with him and with entities of which Derkach owns 50 percent or more.[20] On January 11, 2021, the Treasury Department sanctioned Derkach associates with Treasury secretary
Steven Mnuchin saying in a statement, "Russian disinformation campaigns targeting American citizens are a threat to our democracy. The United States will continue to aggressively defend the integrity of our election systems and processes."[73] The January 2021 sanctions also sanctioned the "former Ukrainian Government officials Konstantin Kulyk, Oleksandr Onyshchenko, Andriy Telizhenko, and current Ukraine Member of Parliament Oleksandr Dubinsky" as part of "Derkach's inner circle".[74] In May 2021
Facebook took a Ukrainian
influence-for-hire network offline which included Derkach.[75][76]
In April 2021, Forensic News reported that Derkach came under the scrutiny of prosecutors investigating
Russian interference in the
presidential election in 2020.[77]
In May 2021 the New York Times confirmed that prosecutors investigated whether Derkach and other Ukrainians "helped orchestrate a wide-ranging plan to meddle in the 2020 presidential campaign, including using Rudolph W. Giuliani to spread their misleading claims about President Biden and tilt the election in Donald J. Trump's favor."[78]
Legal action in Ukraine
In June 2022, the
Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said that Derkach received funds from the Russian
GRU to create private security companies that Russia planned to use to capture Ukraine, and that
Prosecutor General of Ukraine had started a pre-trial investigation into his role.[79][80] In November 2023 Ukrainian police and prosecutors accused Derkach of treason, membership in a criminal network including Oleksandr Dubinsky, nicknamed «Buratino» (Pinocchio) and Kostyantyn Kulyk, nicknamed «Ptychka» (Little Bird), created by the deputy head of the Russian GRU, Volodymyr Alekseev.[81]
Personal life
From 2010 to 2013 Derkach was a member of the Inter-Council Presence of the Russian Orthodox Church.[82][83]
In the fall of 2020, Derkach was president of the 18th Pokrov International Orthodox Film Festival, which promoted peace and friendship with Russia.[84]
In February 2021, he wrote a letter to
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew asking him not to come to Ukraine with a "plan of aggression" for the
30th anniversary of Ukrainian independence. Patriarch Warfield's visit to Ukraine did take place.[85][86] In addition, in the letter, Derkach asked Patriarch Bartholomew to take part in the new "Amman" and only then go to Ukraine with a "road map".[86]
Derkach fled Ukraine after Russia’s invasion in 2022.[87]
^Of the Clan of Dnipropetrovsk, the Derkach group of Leonid and his son Andrii are close to the
Leonid Kuchma group. The
Viktor Pinchuk group is a rival of the Derkach group. The
Yulia Timoshenko group is a rival of the Kuchma group. The fifth group is the
Privatbank group.[17]
^Ельцов, Олег (25 June 2001).
"Из жизни Деркачей. Часть 3. Зарвавшиеся" [From the life of the Derkachs. Part 3. Overcome]. Украина криминальная (Crime Ukraine). Archived from
the original on 3 July 2001. Retrieved 26 June 2021.
^Степанов, Иван (Stepanov, Ivan) (22 July 2000).
""Олигархи-Лампасники"" [Oligarchs-Lampasniks]. FreeLance Bureau (FLB) (in Russian). Archived from
the original on 2 September 2000. Retrieved 26 June 2021.{{
cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)
^"Case of Gongadze v. Ukraine". HUDOC - European Court of Human Rights. 8 February 2005.
Archived from the original on 13 December 2019. Retrieved 13 December 2019.
^Сочнов, Михаил (Sochnov, Mikhail) (28 November 2003).
"Либерийские дела Деркачей" [Liberian Derkach affairs]. compromat.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 26 June 2021.{{
cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)