NSDC: Slander and Psychological Pressure Transformed to a Farce

The National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine states that another slander campaign in the mass media regarding NSDC Secretary Yevhen Marchuk and some other NSDC employees has begun in connection with the decision taken by the NSDC on measures to activate cooperation between Ukraine and NATO.

In a press release issued on July 2 the NSDC explains that Mr. Marchuk’s statement made shortly before was a reply to the questions from information agencies “regarding slanderous materials recently published in certain media outlets, mentioning his name and other NSDC staff workers.” Interfax-Ukraine states that Mr. Marchuk called actions of the organizers and executors of this mudslinging campaign political denunciation in the spirit of 1930-40s. The NSDC also notes that “On June 14 and 21, 2002, the chief editor of Hrani web site Viktor Vorotnykov published materials accusing the NSDC secretary and two staff workers of heinous crimes: state treason, espionage, being accomplices to espionage, smuggling arms and importing them to belligerent countries embargoed by the United Nations Security Council.” “Such slanderous materials,” the statement says, were released by a number of mass media outlets. “Such absurd attacks and psychological pressure on the NSDC secretary and staff take place, as a rule, after every major decision taken by this organization (on evading paying many billions in taxes by so-called joint ventures, fraudulent practices in the sphere of railroad transport, illegal privatization of strategically important enterprises, or violations in the sphere of communication and customs),” the NSDC declares. The statement also notes that “yet another attempt to discredit [the NSDC] has turned into a farce.”