Mykola Ivanovych Melnychenko (born October 18, 1966) was a

bodyguard A bodyguard (or close protection officer/operative) is a type of security guard, government law enforcement officer, or servicemember who protects an very important person, important person or group of people, such as high-ranking public offic ...

of Ukrainian former

president President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television *'' Præsident ...

Leonid Kuchma Leonid Danylovych Kuchma (, ; born 9 August 1938) is a Ukrainian politician who was the second president of Ukraine, serving from 19 July 1994 to 23 January 2005. The only president of Ukraine to serve two terms, his presidency was marked by demo ...

. He is also an officer of the State Security Administration of Ukraine. Between 1998 and 2000, Melnychenko allegedly recorded multiple conversations that took place in Kuchma's office before fleeing abroad with the secretly taped recordings. The publication of these recordings in 2000 caused a major

scandal A scandal can be broadly defined as the strong social reactions of outrage, anger, or surprise, when accusations or rumours circulate or appear for some reason, regarding a person or persons who are perceived to have transgressed in some way a ...

in Ukraine (known as the

Cassette Scandal The Cassette Scandal ( ; ), also known as Tapegate or Kuchmagate, was a Ukrainian political scandal in November 2000 in which Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma was caught on tape ordering the months-earlier kidnapping of journalist Georgiy Gong ...

), 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 Kidnapping or abduction is the unlawful abduction and confinement of a person against their will, and is a crime in many jurisdictions. Kidnapping may be accomplished by use of force or fear, or a victim may be enticed into confinement by frau ...

and

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse committed with the necessary Intention (criminal law), intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisd ...

of journalist

Georgiy Gongadze Georgiy Ruslanovych Gongadze (21 May 1969 – 17 September 2000) was a Ukrainian journalist who was kidnapped and murdered in 2000 near Kyiv. He founded the online newspaper ''Ukrainska Pravda'' along with Olena Prytula in 2000. He was born i ...

. The

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

government became involved after one of the records revealed the alleged transfer of an advanced Ukrainian

radar Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), direction ( azimuth and elevation angles), and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It is a radiodetermination method used to detect and track ...

system '' Kolchuha'' to

Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 until Saddam Hussein statue destruction, his overthrow in 2003 during the 2003 invasion of Ira ...

Iraq Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...

. Hundreds of other allegations are based on the recordings.

Biography

Mykola Melnychenko was born in the village of Zapadynka,

Kyiv Oblast Kyiv Oblast (, ), also called Kyivshchyna (, ), is an Administrative divisions of Ukraine, oblast (province) in central and northern Ukraine. It surrounds, but does not include, the city of Kyiv, which is administered as a city with special sta ...

(now outskirt of

Vasylkiv Vasylkiv (, , ) is a List of cities in Ukraine, city on the Stuhna, Stuhna River in Obukhiv Raion, Kyiv Oblast, central Ukraine. It hosts the administration of Vasylkiv urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. First mentioned in the 10th ce ...

) to a family of

coal miners People have worked as coal miners for centuries, but they became increasingly important during the Industrial Revolution when coal was burnt on a large scale to fuel stationary and locomotive engines and heat buildings. Owing to coal's strategic ...

moved from

Horlivka Horlivka ( ; , ), also known as Gorlovka (, ), is a city in Donetsk Oblast of Ukraine. Its population is Economic activity is predominantly coal mining and the chemical industry. The Horlivka Institute for Foreign Languages has a two-building ...

eastern Ukraine Eastern Ukraine or East Ukraine (; ) is primarily the territory of Ukraine east of the Dnipro (or Dnieper) river, particularly Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts (provinces). Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts are often also regarded as ...

. He graduated from the in

Kyiv Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

and became a

KGB The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...

communications protection In telecommunications, communications protection is the application of communications security (COMSEC) measures to telecommunications systems in order to: (a) deny unauthorized access to sensitive unclassified information Information is a ...

expert. In 1992, soon after the

collapse of the Soviet Union The Soviet Union was formally dissolved as a sovereign state and subject of international law on 26 December 1991 by Declaration No. 142-N of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Declaration No. 142-Н of ...

, Melnychenko started his career in

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

State Security Administration The State Security Service, also known by its original name as the Directorate for State Security, was the secret police organization of Communist Yugoslavia. It was at all times best known by the acronym UDBA, which is derived from the organiz ...

(formerly the 9th Directorate of the Committee for State Security (KGB)). Later, he joined President

's team of bodyguards and at the time of the scandal, Melnychenko held the rank of

Major Major most commonly refers to: * Major (rank), a military rank * Academic major, an academic discipline to which an undergraduate student formally commits * People named Major, including given names, surnames, nicknames * Major and minor in musi ...

. His main duty was to protect the President's office against possible

eavesdropping Eavesdropping is the act of secretly or stealthily listening to the private conversation or communications of others without their consent in order to gather information. Etymology The verb ''eavesdrop'' is a back-formation from the noun ''eave ...

. Melnychenko is divorced with one daughter.

The 'Cassette Scandal'

On November 28, 2000, Ukrainian politician

Oleksandr Moroz Oleksandr Oleksandrovych Moroz (born 29 February 1944) is a Ukraine, Ukrainian politician. He was the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada twice, from 1994 to 1998 and again from 2006 to 2007. Moroz is one of the founders and the leader of the Soci ...

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'. Days earlier Melnychenko had fled Ukraine to

Ostrava Ostrava (; ; ) is a city in the north-east of the Czech Republic and the capital of the Moravian-Silesian Region. It has about 283,000 inhabitants. It lies from the border with Poland, at the confluences of four rivers: Oder, Opava (river), Opa ...

in the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

, where he left several bags containing dozens of CDs storing thousands of

digital recording In digital recording, an audio signal, audio or video signal is converted into a stream of discrete numbers representing the changes over time in air pressure for audio, or Color, chroma and luminance values for video. This number stream is s ...

s. 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 Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Businesses *Digital bank, a form of financial institution *Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) or Digital, a computer company *Digital Research (DR or DRI), a software ...

dictaphone Dictaphone was an American company founded by Alexander Graham Bell that produced dictation machines. It is now a division of Nuance Communications, based in Burlington, Massachusetts. Although the name "Dictaphone" is a trademark, it has ...

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 In politics, a regime (also spelled régime) is a system of government that determines access to public office, and the extent of power held by officials. The two broad categories of regimes are democratic and autocratic. A key similarity acros ...

and "decided to document evidences of crimes" committed by the President. After the disappearance of

, 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

and received

political asylum The right of asylum, sometimes called right of political asylum (''asylum'' ), is a juridical concept, under which people persecuted by their own rulers might be protected by another sovereignty, sovereign authority, such as a second country or ...

there. His tapes were eventually made available to the United States

intelligence service An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security, military, public safety, and foreign policy objectives. Means of info ...

s and examined to determine their authenticity and content. The authenticity of the whole file of tapes remains officially unconfirmed. However, U.S.

forensic Forensic science combines principles of law and science to investigate criminal activity. Through crime scene investigations and laboratory analysis, forensic scientists are able to link suspects to evidence. An example is determining the time and ...

experts have officially analyzed the section of tapes concerning

issues and found it authentic. The Ukrainian authorities have issued an international

search warrant A search warrant is a court order that a magistrate or judge issues to authorize Police, law enforcement officers to conduct a Search and seizure, search of a person, location, or vehicle for evidence of a crime and to Confiscation, confiscate an ...

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 Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. It can be described as t ...

, analysis or

criminal In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definiti ...

investigation. Thus, he was unlikely to have information on the President's committing

judicial The judiciary (also known as the judicial system, judicature, judicial branch, judiciative branch, and court or judiciary system) is the system of courts that adjudicates legal disputes/disagreements and interprets, defends, and applies the law ...

ly 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

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

recorder will not 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 Montage may refer to: Arts and entertainment Filmmaking and films * Montage (filmmaking), a technique in film editing * ''Montage'' (2013 film), a South Korean film Music * Montage (music), or sound collage * ''Montage'' (EP), a 2017 EP by ...

". On the other hand, in 2002 Bruce Koenig, of the US forensic firm Bek Tek, a former worker in the

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

's forensic laboratory, examined the recordings and concluded that there were no signs of them having been doctored.

Events following the scandal

After he received asylum, Melnychenko started to become actively involved in

politics Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social sta ...

and

foreign relations Foreign policy, also known as external policy, is the set of strategies and actions a State (polity), state employs in its interactions with other states, unions, and international entities. It encompasses a wide range of objectives, includ ...

, making comments for

media Media may refer to: Communication * Means of communication, tools and channels used to deliver information or data ** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising ** Interactive media, media that is inter ...

and writing books based on his records. 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. On March 1, 2005 the criminal case against Melnychenko for "the disclosure of state secrets, abuse of office and using counterfeit documents" was closed. Melnychenko tried to run in the

2010 Ukrainian presidential election 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to s ...

but was not registered as a candidate because he did not pay the mandatory election deposit of 2.5 million hryvnya. On December 6, 2009 Melnychenko accused

Volodymyr Lytvyn Volodymyr Mykhailovych Lytvyn (, ; born April 28, 1956) is a Ukraine, Ukrainian politician best known for being Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, the Verkhovna Rada, Ukrainian parliament. Having previously served in that position from 2002 until ...

of ordering the murder of journalist

in 2000. A spokesperson for Lytvyn dismissed the claims as part of the

campaign. On July 29, 2011 the criminal case against Melnychenko originally closed on March 1, 2005 was reopened. In October 2011 an arrest warrant against him was issued for "evading investigation and preventing the establishment of truth".Prosecutors: Court orders arrest of former major Melnychenko

Kyiv Post The ''Kyiv Post'' is Ukraine’s first and most prominent English-language newspaper. It was founded in 1995 in Kyiv by American businessman Jed Sunden. In 2018, the publication was acquired by prominent Ukrainian businessman Adnan Kivan, foun ...

(10 November 2011) According to

Ukrainian press Since November 2015, Ukrainian authorities, state agencies and local government authorities are forbidden to act as founders (or co-founders) of print media outlets. According to a law that went into effect on 16 January 2022, all print media in ...

Melnychenko was living in the

at the time, while he claimed he was in

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

; he said he lived there because "there was a plan to physically exterminate me". In late March 2010 the investigation into Melnychenko was suspended because his location had not been established (Melnychenko himself claimed he was living in the United States). In October 2012, Melnychenko was briefly detained and then released by the law enforcement services of Ukraine.

Notes

References

External links