Derkach took part in the negotiations – in the USA he is called an agent of the Russian Federation, and Artemenko – deprived of Ukrainian citizenship for Trump’s “peace plan” for Crimea.
Eric is the founder of the scandalous American PMC Blackwater Prince tried to negotiate about the creation of his private military campaign in Ukraine and about active participation in the “aviation defense”. In the negotiations, he was helped by people who are associated with Russia in the USA: ex-Nardeput Andriy Artemenko and the current one – Andriy Derkach.
What project was Prince trying to push through the Office of the President and what was the interest of the Russian special services.
WHAT HAPPENED. An influential publication Time published a large investigation, in which it is written that Eric Prince came to Kyiv in the winter of last year and conducted negotiations in three directions. These business plans have been confirmed by seven senior sources. The publication has at its disposal three documents that also confirm them.
The first is the creation of the Ukrainian Civil Defense Committee and the recruitment of veterans of the war in Donbas to it. The second is the construction of a plant for the production of ammunition. And the third is the unification of top aviation and aerospace companies in a consortium that “will be able to compete with Boeing and Airbus” and “bring $10 billion in revenues and investments.” Under Prince’s terms, this consortium was to include MotorSich.
Prince has been competing for MotorSich with China since November 2019. Here his personal interests collided with the geopolitical interests of the United States, which is concerned about the rapid growth of the Chinese military. According to The Wall Street Journalback in the fall of 2019, Prince personally inspected the company’s main plant and “was impressed by the level of technology”
.CERTIFICATE:
Prince is closely related to ex-president Trump’s entourage. He “used contacts in the White House to make big deals around the world,” writes Time. For nearly 25 years, he has been creating and using the PEC, “assembling armies in the Middle East and Africa, training commandos at his base in North Carolina, and deploying security forces around the world for the State Department and the CIA.”
In 2007, Blackwater PMC mercenaries fired on a square in Baghdad, killing 17 civilians and wounding 20 others, to clear the way for an American motorcade. In 2015, a court in the USA sentenced one of them to life imprisonment, three received terms of up to 30 years. US President Donald Trump pardoned convicts at the end of his term in 2020.
Against the backdrop of the scandal, Blackwater lost a $1 billion contract to protect American diplomats in Iraq. But it carried out a rebranding: it turned into Academi and is thriving.
On February 23, 2020, the Prince held a business dinner in Kyiv, to which the then freelance adviser to the president, Igor Novikov, was invited. Another meeting with Novikov took place in March – Prince’s partners wanted to know “who in the President’s Office is blocking the deal.”
In the summer of 2020, the Prince met with the head of the Office of the President Andriy Yermak. Yermak confirmed to the Time publication that such a meeting took place, but refused to comment in detail. But, according to the publication, after the meeting with Yermak, Prince’s Ukrainian affairs went faster.
OP allegedly even brought Prince to a law firm that works for the Ukrainian government. She developed a plan to remove MotorSichi from Chinese ownership. The operation was proposed to be canceled under the pretext that “the Chinese manage the plant badly.”
According to another plan, the takeover of the State Enterprise “Antonov” was planned. Together with MotorSich, it was supposed to enter the aviation consortium.
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT. On the part of Eric Prince, “two people connected with Russia” took part in the negotiations – his partners former People’s Deputy Andriy Artemenko and current People’s Deputy Andriy Derkach.
Artemenko back in 2017, he offered Trump a “peace plan” for Ukraine with the lifting of US sanctions against Russia. In it, it was proposed to hold a “all-Ukrainian referendum” on the transfer of Crimea to the Russian Federation on lease for up to 100 years. After the story with the peace plan, Artemenko was stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship, and in the United States he was interrogated by the team of special prosecutor Mueller. Artemenko said that he “worked with Prince in the field of air transportation, transporting everything from weapons to vaccines around the world.” Currently, he lives mainly in the USA and “calls Prince his boss”.
Derkacha in the USA is defined as an “active Russian agent”. According to the investigation, Derkach “worked in the aircraft industry of Ukraine after graduating from the elite KGB school in Moscow.” Sanctions have been imposed against Derkach in the USA for interfering in the elections. He is under investigation.
Both Artemenko and Derkach promoted Prince’s business in Ukraine.
“These are characters with very clear connections with the special services of Russia,” says Taras Zhovtenko, director of the Center for the Study of National Security Problems.
According to him, just as in the case of Manafort and the black bookkeeping of the Party of Regions, the Russian special services use their agents in Ukraine as “pads” to conduct business with those American figures with whom direct contact is risky.
“Typical practice for the special services of the Russian Federation. Russia is cultivating its intelligence capabilities among American special services. In order to hide from the US counterintelligence the presence of operational interest from the Russian side, they use Ukrainian politicians. As a whole network on the territory of Ukraine,” he explains.
Prince is very close to that circle of politicians in the Republican Party, which traditionally has many Putin sympathizers, he believes.
In 2017, as reported by the publication Washington Post, Prince secretly met in the UAE with a representative of Putin’s close circle. The purpose of the meeting was allegedly to establish a secret communication channel between the Kremlin and US President Trump. Prince’s press secretary then assured that “the meeting had nothing to do with President Trump.”
“I think that the Russians simply used Prince’s business interests,” Zhovtenko admits. After the scandal with Blackwater (the shooting of a peaceful square in Baghdad in 2007), he got into an unpleasant story, then rebuilt a new PMC, tried to negotiate through Trump that American soldiers in Afghanistan were replaced by his mercenaries.
“And when it didn’t work out, Prince decided to move into the niche of paramilitary projects in US partner countries,” he says. – To which he included Ukraine. And the Russians used his plans in order to expand the network of influence on American politics through him and their agency in Ukraine.”
WHAT’S NEXT. Prince’s 2020 plan did not take off in Ukraine. After Trump’s loss in the presidential elections, he has no chance for his PMC in Ukraine and for part of the Ukrainian defense industry.
“During the Biden administration, the US is unlikely to support Prince’s projects in Ukraine. Yermak says that the government intends to nationalize MotorSich, and private investors, including Prince, will be invited to participate in the tender,” the Time article summarizes.
There won’t be any Prince PMC in Ukraine, Mykhailo Samus, deputy director of the Center for Army Research, Conversion and Disarmament, is confident. “Yes, some people in the USA were interested in these projects. They did not find support in Ukraine. I think there were too many adventurous proposals, in particular regarding PMK and OPC,” he said.
Author: human rights defender Kostyantyn Kryvopust
