Name? Andrii Derkach
Westphalian identity? Ukrainian
Age? 52
Why is he in the news? Derkach, an independent member of Ukraine’s parliament, released recordings of private phone calls between former U.S. vice president Joe Biden and former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko.
Why do we care? Apparently, even a pandemic won’t stop foreign interference in a U.S. presidential election (intended or not…)
Why should you care? Because of the timing of the release of these recordings. Biden is now the presumptive Democratic candidate for November’s presidential election and as such, has been beating Trump in many of the latest polls. In response, it seems Trump has resorted to many of the same tactics used in the 2016 election vs. Clinton: fake news spurred on by foreign interference.
Who else cares? The Ukrainian government. While Derkach was technically acting independently, his actions still reflect and can be associated with his government. Derkach will most likely not be impacted greatly by his actions but the government he works for stands to lose U.S. support if his actions are considered interference in U.S. domestic affairs.
Any further comments? Interestingly, Derkach has former links to a pro-Russian faction as well as Russian intelligence. He attended the Dzerzhinsky Higher School of the KGB in Moscow and his father served as a KGB officer before becoming the head of an independent Ukraine intelligence service. For these reasons, many (in the U.S. and Ukraine) believe the release of the recordings by Derkach to be a Russian provocation set to tarnish Ukraine and drag the country into the U.S. presidential campaign; ruining the support Ukraine receives from the U.S. Thus, Ukrainian president Zelensky is understandably a bit more concerned than President Trump who has already escaped an impeachment regarding these and similar recordings.
