Mykola Melnychenko

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(Major) Mykola Melnychenko (Ukrainian: Микола Іванович Мельниченко) was a bodyguard of the former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma.

Between 1998 and 2000 Melnychenko recorded numerous conversations that took place in the office of the Ukrainian leader before fleeing abroad with the secretly taped recordings. The publication of these recordings in 2000 caused a major scandal in Ukraine (known as the Cassette Scandal), which dramatically affected the country's domestic and foreign policy. Melnychenko's principal accusations against Kuchma (supposedly confirmed by the recordings) are the ordering of the kidnapping and murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze. The United States government became involved after one of the records revealed the alleged transfer of an advanced Ukrainian radar system Kolchuha to Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Hundreds of other allegations are based on the recordings.

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[edit] Biography

Mykola Melnychenko was born in Kiev Oblast to a family of peasants. He graduated from the Kiev Military Institute of Control and Signals in Kiev and became a KGB communications protection expert. In 1992, soon after the collapse of Soviet Union, Melnychenko started his career in Ukraine's personal protection agency (Upravlinnia Derzhavnoyi Okhorony—formerly the Ninth Directorate of the KGB's Ukrainian SSR branch and now a part of the SBU). Later, he joined President Leonid Kuchma's team of bodyguards and at the time of the scandal, Melnychenko held the rank of Major. His main duty was to protect the President's office against possible eavesdropping.

Melnychenko is married with one daughter.

[edit] The 'Cassette Scandal'

In November 28, 2000, Ukrainian politician Oleksandr Moroz publicly accused President Kuchma of involvement in the murder of Gongadze, naming Melnychenko as the source of information and playing selected recordings to journalists, starting the 'Cassette Scandal'. At around that time, Melnychenko left Ukraine covertly with his family, breaking an official prohibition on leaving the country.

Melnychenko claimed that he acted alone when recording the President's conversations and then publishing them abroad. According to Melnychenko, he put an amateur digital dictaphone under a sofa in Kuchma's office and was changing it every time he inspected the room. As the Major states, he was motivated purely by his disillusionment with what he perceived as the extremely corrupt nature of Kuchma's regime and "decided to document evidences of crimes" committed by the President. After the disappearance of Georgiy Gongadze, he supposedly decided to publish the recordings and protect his life. Then Melnychenko turned to his political sympathizer Oleksander Moroz for help, and received it.

Later, Melnychenko moved to the United States and received political asylum there. His tapes were eventually made available to the United States intelligence services and examined to determine their authenticity and content. The authenticity of the whole file of tapes remains officially unconfirmed. However, U.S. forensic experts have officially analyzed the section of tapes concerning Iraq issues and found it authentic.

The Ukrainian authorities have issued an international search warrant for Melnychenko, claiming that he is an 'important witness' and possible traitor of state secrets. However, no evidence of forced return or assassination efforts against Melnychenko were made public.

Many experts and journalists find Melnychenko's story highly questionable. In particular, they argue that:

  • It is not clear why or how exactly Melnychenko started the operation. Being a career tech agent, he has never been involved in any kind of intelligence, analysis or criminal investigation. Thus, he was unlikely to have information on the President's committing judicially proven crimes.
  • The means of recording described by Melnychenko seems odd, both in technical and operative terms. Indeed, it is impossible to record about 500 hours of conversations by simply changing amateur dictaphone once a day. Melnychenko's former commanding officers argue that even a very small device would be easily discovered during routine searches of the room conducted by several agents.
  • The original device(s) used for recording, as well as the full file of recordings, have never been presented to journalists or Ukrainian prosecutors. Besides, Melnychenko should have known that a recording copied from digital recorder won't be found authentic, making the whole idea of "documenting evidences" a nonsense.

Nevertheless, experts and politicians analyzing the recordings agree that at least some of them are real, judging by known voices, speaking manners and confidential details mentioned. A few politicians, including Kuchma himself, have officially claimed they recognize their own voices on the tapes. However, the President and his supporters have always denied the authenticity of the body of conversations recorded, calling them a "montage".

[edit] Events following the scandal

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After he received asylum, Melnychenko's behavior became suspicious. He started to actively interfere with Ukraine's politics and foreign relations, making partisan comments for media and writing books based on his records. Most importantly, the Major continues to refuse to reveal details of the recording process or at least to present the whole volume of tapes. Although the CD "albums" of records are distributed throughout the world, Melnychenko has not indicated whether he is still in possession of further material. Instead, as the critics argue, he is timing the publishing of information to coincide with certain political events. Analysts also claim that it is unusual that a number of Ukrainian politicians and statesmen, (including many well acquainted with Leonid Kuchma) have never featured in the recordings, for example, Yevhen Marchuk—a KGB General and former Prime Minister of Ukraine.

In 2004, Volodymyr Tsvil, a Ukrainian businessman and former KGB officer who supposedly assisted Melnychenko in his escape and further accommodation in the West, publicly accused him of not revealing certain details of the case.

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