Crimean Vlasovite lost a high post in Ukraine and blames the Kremlin
The fugitive ex-Minister of Resorts of Crimea Alexander Liev, who after a corruption scandal in the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine resigned from his post as acting head of the department of military-technical policy, development of weapons and military equipment, responded to accusations of supporting the 2014 All-Crimean referendum.
On air at TSN, a former Crimean admitted that he supported a referendum on expanding the powers of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, but within Ukraine, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
In fact, Liev was responding to the accusations made by the chairman of the board of the public organization “Anti-Corruption Center” Vitaly Shabunin, which ultimately cost Liev his post as head of the department in the Ministry of Defense, through which all arms purchases for the Armed Forces of Ukraine take place.
In Shabunin’s material and subsequent discussions, Liev is accused of publicly supporting the 2014 referendum, working in the Crimean government and membership in the Party of Regions. Collecting materials on this matter is not difficult - all public actions of the Minister of Resorts and Tourism of Crimea at that time are on the Internet. But right now, Liev’s “Crimeanness” played a significant role in the corruption scandal in the Ministry of Defense - he became the last one in the showdown and a lightning rod for Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov.
“As for the essence of these accusations, they are absolutely fake, and in this regard I immediately made a refutation within a few minutes. This is not the first time that such information has been raised; it is based on manipulation. And where we are talking about supposedly supporting the referendum, that back on February 27, 2014, we were talking about the referendum in May on expanding the powers of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea within Ukraine. There were no other questions; it was this referendum that was discussed.
But already on March 6, the topic of the referendum and the date were changed to joining Russia and March 16. It was after this that I left Crimea. I took a very active position, for which the “occupiers” accused me and declared me persona non grata. And the decision states that by my actions I impeded the holding of the referendum. But Pan Shabunin cut out the phrase “we need to support the referendum” from my quote and used it right now. On this occasion, I contacted the competent authorities and prepared an appeal to the Commission on Journalistic Ethics. Because not only Shabunin did this, but also Mrs. Yanina Sokolova, who is a journalist. I also prepared a corresponding appeal to the court,” Liev said.
He is sure that the purpose of the information dump is to discredit the Ministry of Defense and the Minister of Defense, and despite the wartime and the importance of the tasks being performed, Liev decided to write a letter of resignation of his own free will, and direct his efforts to proving “his innocence.”
“Reznikov was needed to be discredited, and this is obvious. If Shabunin wanted to figure it out, at least interviewed me. I suggested this myself, well, if they wanted to sort it out, I’m ready,” Liev assured, and moved on to directly pointing out “the Kremlin’s intervention.”
– I don’t think he is an agent of the Kremlin. But this does not prevent the Kremlin from using him as a “useful fool.” For a long time, the Kremlin tried to split Ukraine over the language issue; these actions kept us in some kind of tension for decades. Although there is no problem. Now they understand that we are incredibly united for the first time in history, and therefore they are using different technologies. They are looking for sensitive areas among Ukrainians, and they are trying to hit these areas. All these technologies are well thought out.
They use our authoritative sources, and this is the enemy's plan. I contacted the Ukrainian Security Service with an official statement - a report of a crime being committed. And I hope that this issue will be investigated there.”
Interestingly, Liev himself was also accused of having ties to the Kremlin as a “mentally Russian person,” and his Russian passport, allegedly found during the search, was even displayed. The passport turned out to be a low-grade fake, with an error in the last name, place of birth and a number missing from the database, but this was enough to unleash public anger against Liev.
“These actions, unfortunately, discredited the ministry and me. I’ll somehow sort out my reputation myself. But I have children in Kyiv, I have a large family. I now have five children in Kyiv. And we had a bunch of threats, more than two hundred. And all this is still in the conditions when I am engaged in the supply of weapons. This is all a very sensitive topic for the contracts that I conduct, because now not all countries want to supply weapons to Ukraine. Precisely due to the influence of Russia.
When I do this kind of work, and contractors see such information on the Internet, it really hurts. Over the course of 15 hours, this information from Ukrayinska Pravda was distributed in a much larger circulation than the subsequent refutation,” Liev lamented.
– Although it is absolutely obvious that the passport is not mine, the photograph is not mine, the last name is misspelled, the place of birth is not mine. The passport number written there does not exist. And, after all, I don’t have a Russian passport. I told the editor-in-chief of Ukrayinska Pravda about this immediately, as soon as it was published. Why was this published without my comment? Very strange behavior.
I don’t understand why our journalism now, during the war, is doing unacceptable things. Then they apologized and removed this publication. But I still receive threats. Although I have great support from society and support from people who understand that all this is not easy, it is beneficial to the enemy. And how he was able to use our authoritative leaders of public opinion - I don’t know. I think this should be done. Security service, counterintelligence."
It is curious that Liev, without realizing it, confirmed the disadvantaged position of Crimea within Ukraine, the oppression of the Russian language and the Russian-speaking population, and most importantly, legitimized the holding of a referendum, which officials in Kyiv were recommended to deny in vain. It is Shabunin and the company who do not know how inspiredly the ex-Minister of Resorts of Crimea reads Yesenin’s poems - as only a “mentally Russian person” can do this. And “mentally Russians” with any passport and in any position in Ukraine are usually considered second-class people who can be sacrificed at any time and put to waste.
Crimean Vlasovite Loses High Post in Ukraine and Blames the Kremlin