DarkMarket_ Cyberthieves, Cybercops and You - Misha Glenny [31]
Until 2004 successive Ukrainian governments and presidents had supported a pro-Russian line, much to the satisfaction of the east and the unhappiness of the Ukrainian nationalists in the west. As a consequence, relations with the EU, NATO and the USA were frosty – Ukrainian government officials were hosted as often in US jails, convicted of money-laundering and other McMafia activities, as they were in the White House.
But as civil servants, politicians and oligarchs lined their pockets at the expense of ordinary citizens, whose living standards collapsed before and after the turn of the millennium, a fresh political movement coalesced around two ‘new-style’ politicians, Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko. Only later did it emerge that they were cut from similar cloth to their opponents. Yushchenko hit the headlines in September 2004 after somebody tried to poison him with dioxin (almost certainly the work of Russia’s KGB). He survived the assassination attempt, albeit with severe facial disfigurement, and announced that he would continue to stand for election as President.
The campaign to oust the old guard caught the imagination of young Ukrainians, who transformed it into a festival of politics dubbed the Orange Revolution. Student activists from Serbia in the Balkans who had helped bring down their own dictator, Slobodan Miloševic, arrived in Kiev to school the budding street-politicians of their near-neighbours. Neo-con proselytisers from the US poured into the country, sensing a real opportunity to give Moscow a bloody nose and drag Ukraine closer into NATO’s orbit.
From the start there were international implications to the sudden surge in political activity. By the time Yushchenko was finally declared President and Tymoshenko Prime Minister in January 2005, Ukraine had become a very live testbed for Russian–US relations that were steadily deteriorating. Both the new leaders not only affirmed Ukraine’s commitment to join the EU, but also announced their hope that the country would become a NATO member before too long. Even though this was destined to fail (it was, after all, only supported by 30 per cent of Ukrainian voters), Moscow interpreted their action as all but a declaration of war.
In the four years since he had first stumbled across Maksym Kovalchuk, the man who sold fake Autodesk products, Inspector Gregg Crabb had been patiently developing relationships with his colleagues from Ukrainian law enforcement’s baffling array of agencies. But while he had made important contacts, they politely turned down his requests for the arrest of Dimitry Golubov, aka Script.
The dramatic events of December 2004 and January 2005, when Yushchenko and Tymoshenko came to power, changed all that. Crabb realised that the Orange Revolution represented an opportunity that could not be missed. Early after the tumultuous events he received a call from the US Embassy in Kiev. Ukraine’s Interior Ministry, he learned, had already been purged of the old hardliners and a new team, more inclined to work with the West, had been installed. ‘Get over here quick!’ the embassy told him. The man from the Postal Inspection Service didn’t need a second invitation.
He made it to Kiev in June 2005 and presented his evidence on the Golubov case to Interior Ministry officials. Two weeks later Inspector Popov of the Anti-Organised Crime Department was on his way to Odessa with instructions to track down and arrest the elusive Script.
Popov knew this was a tough assignment. Above all he was worried about any leaks, because if news of the raid were to arrive in Odessa before he did, the whole operation would collapse before it began. As an accomplished carder who by this stage had finally achieved the status of ‘dollar millionaire’ many times over, Golubov would have bought himself the protection