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Not many foreign politicians receive such close attention from the American intelligence services as Ukrainian parliament member Andriy Derkach. He has the ambiguous honour of being mentioned twice in a short period of time by senior US national intelligence officials.

The first time he appeared on the security radar was when the director of the American National Center for Counterintelligence and Security, William Evanina, spoke about him in early August 2020. The Russian authorities "are using a number of measures" to denigrate former US Vice President Joe Biden and what they consider to be an "anti-Russian establishment," Evanina said in a statement.

As an example, he referred to the "pro-Russian Ukrainian parliamentarian" Andriy Derkach, who spread allegations of corruption - including through leaked phone calls to "undermine the candidacy of former Vice President Biden and the Democratic Party.”

Evanina did not question the authenticity of the taped ‘phone calls. He called them “leaked phone calls.” At the time, the presidential campaign was in full swing and Joe Biden was about to be approved as a presidential candidate at the Democratic Party convention.

The second mention of Derkach was more recent in a statement by the new head of the department Avril Haynes. This time the despatch was more dramatic: the report issued by the US Director of National Intelligence's office explicitly stated that the Russian leadership authorised and conducted "influence operations aimed at denigrating the candidacy of President Biden and the Democratic Party, as well as supporting the former president Trump, undermining public confidence in the electoral process and exacerbating the socio-political division in the United States.”

The report emphasised that the Russian leadership "controlled the activities of Andriy Derkach, a Ukrainian legislator who played a prominent role in Russia's efforts to influence elections."

The report stated that Derkach, allegedly “has connections with Russian officials, as well as with Russian special services.” The report did not cite specific evidence in support of this statement.

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Why did the Ukrainian deputy annoy the US establishment so much? He himself answered this question in an article published on the Ukrainian website “Strana”.

The site turned to Andriy Derkach for comment. He said that the materials published by him did not interfere in the US elections - they were about corruption in Ukraine and the external control of Ukraine.

"I have a question,” he said. “On what topic did American intelligence see the threat and facts of interference in the US elections? On the topic of international corruption, when Poroshenko removed from their posts people who prevented “Burisma” from bringing millions of dollars to the Biden family for political "cover" and about which the financial monitoring of Latvia reported in 2016?

Or on the topic of external management, when Joe Biden asked Poroshenko to remove Prosecutor General Shokin? There is corruption in these topics, there is external management, but there is no interference in the elections. And it appeared in the report, because the mutually beneficial cooperation of the two top officials became known to the whole world,” Derkach said.

Another former high-ranking functionary, ex-Prosecutor General of Ukraine Shokin, in an interview with the American television channel OANN, said that Biden demanded his dismissal in exchange for $1 billion in US aid immediately after he he had issued a summons for interrogation to Hunter Biden, a member of the Board of Directors of the Ukrainian oil and gas company "Burisma" on the basis of payment orders received from the Latvian special services to Morgan Stanley Bank in the name of Hunter Biden.

It seems that there is a direct link between the release of audio materials that testified to Biden's influence on former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and the persecution of Derkach in the United States. However, neither Biden nor Poroshenko filed a lawsuit against Derkach for the allegedly false materials released by Derkach. Both Giuliani's and Derkach's films confirm the scale of corruption in Ukraine during the Poroshenko era, with they allege involved the active participation of the US Democratic Party.

In January 2021, new sanctions were introduced against seven citizens of Ukraine for communication with Andriy Derkach, who, according to the official statement of the Ministry of Finance, is an "active Russian agent" cooperating with the special services. Since 2019, according to US officials, Derkach and his associates have used American media, social media platforms, and American influencers "to spread misleading and unsubstantiated allegations that current and former US officials are involved in corruption, money laundering and illegal political influence in Ukraine.”

In addition, according to a statement from the US Treasury Department, all individuals who fell under the restrictions may have been involved in Russian interference in the US 2020 elections. The sanctions were imposed in relation to the deputy from the Servant of the People party Alexander Dubinsky, former Ukrainian officials Konstantin Kulik, Alexander Onishchenko, Andrey Telizhenko, as well as Dmitry Kovalchuk, Anton Symonenko and Pyotr Zhuravl. Also subject to restrictions were companies that own the Internet sites Era-Media, Only News, Nabuleaks and Begemot Media, which, according to the US authorities, ultimately belong to the "Russian agent" Derkach.

The persons on the sanctions list were interviewed by Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani for his film about corruption, filmed jointly on the One American News Network TV channel. So, what did the Ukrainian MP do to become the No. 1 enemy of the US President Joe Biden? Starting on 19 May 2020, Andrey Derkach held 6 large press conferences, at which huge volumes of compromising evidence on the top leadership of the American Democratic Party were presented. A main feature of the evidence were the tapes dating from 2016 which recorded Vice President Biden's conversations with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

Over two dozen telephone conversations between the leaders of the United States and Ukraine. Excellent audibility, shocking allegations of corruption, such as Biden allegedly giving direct instructions to dismiss Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin. Poroshenko obliged by replacing Shokin with Yuri Lutsenko.

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