At the age of 72, a Russian political scientist originally from Odesa, Hleb Pavlovsky, whom Ukraine accuses of being involved in the poisoning of ex-president Viktor Yushchenko, has died, reports “Ukrainian Pravda”.

Pavlovsky was known as the Kremlin’s key political strategist during President Vladimir Putin’s first term, founding the Fund for Effective Politics, an organization that developed the election strategy for the future Kremlin leader’s first campaign.

The Ukrainian press writes that in the first half of the 2000s, Moscow bet on the coming to power of the pro-Russian fifth column in Ukraine and the expansion of its economic influence in the neighboring country, especially interested in the victory of Viktor Yanukovych in the presidential elections in the winter of 2004.

“Putin demanded from the then president of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchyma, to ensure the election of Yanukovych by any means. “Russian political scientists led by Pavlovsky and, as can be assumed, groups of security forces were sent to Kyiv,” writes “Ukrainian Pravda”.

What is known about the poisoning of Viktor Yushchenko

Pro-European presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko is believed to have been poisoned with dioxin by Ukrainian special services. In 2009, in one of the interviews, he said that the testimony of three men who were at the dinner during which he was poisoned was important to complete the investigation, but they were in Russia.

One of them, Volodymyr Satsyuk, was refused extradition by Moscow due to the fact that he had both Ukrainian and Russian citizenship. He, a former deputy head of the SBU in Kyiv, returned to Ukraine in 2012, unsuccessfully trying to start a political career.

Satsyuk was able to return to Ukraine after authorities in Kyiv canceled an arrest warrant issued in his name after Viktor Yanukovych won the 2010 presidential election.

Yushchenko, who won the elections in the winter of 2004, underwent 24 operations after the poisoning attempt, which radically changed his appearance in just a few months.

In 2005, the Ukrainian television Channel 5 announced that the General Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine had received a video recording of a telephone conversation in which Russian special services allegedly reported that the idea to poison Yushchenko belonged to Hleb Pavlovsky.

Pavlovsky, one of the old propagandists of Russia

The Odesa political scientist denied the suggestion that Yushchenko was poisoned, rejecting this information shortly after it appeared in the Ukrainian press.

“This is a rather petty lie of the TV channel, which works in the mode of propaganda and counter-propaganda,” Pavlovsky said at the time.

“Ukrainian Pravda” also reminds that immediately after Vladimir Putin’s speech at the NATO summit in Bucharest in 2008, to which the Russian president was invited, Russian propaganda began a campaign of intimidation against Ukraine.

The “Russian Journal” publication, which was overseen by Pavlovsky, even published a war plan against Ukraine called “Operation Clockwork Orange.”

The NATO summit, which took place in our country in 2008, returned the attention of international public opinion after the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in the context of which France and Germany opposed the expansion of the alliance at the expense of Ukraine and Georgia, a measure approved by former US President George Bush.

Russian mass media initially reported on Pavlovsky’s death on Monday.

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