Inside Giuliani's Ukrainian Network

Rudy Giuliani associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman were arrested on federal charges in October for making hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal contributions to Republican campaigns. Parnas, a Ukrainian-born U.S. citizen, and Fruman, a Belarus-born U.S. citizen, guided Giuliani through Ukrainian political circles in an effort to connect him to former Ukrainian state prosecutors Yuri Lutsenko and Viktor Shokin. This was part of an effort to open an investigation of Joe Biden, President Donald Trump’s likely political rival, and his son, Hunter Biden. Giuliani also met repeatedly with Andreii Telizhenko, a former Ukrainian diplomatic staffer in Ukraine’s Washington embassy who promoted since-debunked conspiracy theories about Ukrainian efforts to meddle in the 2016 presidential election.

FILE — Rudy Giuliani, left, U.S. President Donald Trump's personal lawyer, has coffee with Ukrainian American businessman Lev Parnas at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., Sept. 20, 2019. (Reuters)

Lev Parnas, Businessman

Lev Parnas is a Florida-based U.S. citizen born in Ukraine. Parnas is one of the two associates of Rudy Giuliani, U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal laywer, who was arrested at a Washington, D.C.-area airport on charges of making hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal campaign contributions to pro-Trump candidates and political action committees. Along with his co-defendant, Igor Fruman, Parnas acted as a fixer for Giuliani, connecting him with former Ukrainian prosecutors and Viktor Shokin as part of a scheme to get Ukraine to investigate Trump’s Democratic political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, and Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, who once worked for a Ukrainian energy firm. Parnas is accused of giving money to former Republican Congressman Pete Sessions’ unsuccessful 2018 re-election campaign and then lobbying him for the removal of then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. Parnas has also worked in an unspecified capacity for Ukrainian gas mogul Dmytro Firtash, an associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin who has high-level ties in Russian organized crime. Currently based in Vienna, Austria, Firtash is fighting U.S. extradition to face a racketeering indictment. In recent months, Parnas was hired as a translator by Firtash’s U.S. defense team.

Igor Fruman, Businessman

Igor Fruman is one of two Soviet-born associates of President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani. Fruman, who is a U.S. citizen, helped arrange a series of meetings between Giuliani and Ukrainian prosecutors while lobbying for the removal of then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. Fruman was arrested at a Washington, D.C.-area airport on charges of making hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal contributions to pro-Trump candidates and political action committees. Along with his co-defendant, Lev Parnas, Fruman acted as a fixer for Giuliani, connecting him with former Ukrainian prosecutors and Viktor Shokin as part of a scheme to get Ukraine to investigate Trump’s Democratic political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, and Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, who once worked for a Ukrainian energy firm. Fruman ran an import-export company that shuttled goods between the U.S. and Ukraine. He is also the proprietor of a resort called “Mafia Rave” in Ukraine’s Black Sea city of Odessa, which is known as a regional locus for organized crime across Eastern Europe.

Yuri Lutsenko, Former prosecutor general of Ukraine

served as the Ukrainian prosecutor general from 2016 until August 2019, a few months after Ukraine’s new president took office. Earlier this year, Lutsenko made a series of allegations about the Biden family’s activities in Ukraine, and offered the Trump administration help to investigate the Bidens, but he recently walked the allegations back. He has been named in the whistleblower complaint that sparked the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump as someone who met with Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, at least twice this year. Lutsenko is now under criminal investigation in Ukraine for possible abuse of power, including allegations that he helped support illegal gambling businesses. Lutsenko has denied any wrongdoing. He was also accused of financial crimes in 2010 and was arrested. The European Union, however, argued the charges were politically motivated and he was pardoned in 2013 by then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Before becoming prosecutor general, Lutsenko served as minister of internal affairs and was a member of the Ukrainian parliament.

Viktor Shokin, Former prosecutor general of Ukraine

Viktor Shokin, one-time prosecutor general of Ukraine, was fired by then-President Petro Poroshenko at the urging of then-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and other Western leaders who viewed Shokin’s removal as essential to rooting out endemic corruption.

Andreii Telizhenko, Former Ukrainian diplomatic staffer

In 2016, Andreii Telizhenko, a former Ukrainian diplomatic staffer based in Ukraine’s Washington, D.C., Embassy, alleged in media reports that Ukraine’s then-ambassador directed him to collect dirt on Donald Trump and Paul Manafort, propagating a conspiracy theory that Ukraine’s embassy in Washington colluded with the Democratic National Committee to meddle in the 2016 U.S. election process. Telizhenko, who resigned from Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry prior to Zelenskiy’s ascent to office, met with Rudy Giuliani three times over the summer of 2019 to discuss the Obama administration’s foreign policy positions on Kyiv. Telizhenko also does political consulting work for wealthy Ukrainian-Russian developer Pavel Fuks, who is known for having negotiated a Trump Moscow project with the Trump Organization.

Advising and consulting

According to financial disclosures from his failed 2008 bid for the Republican presidential nomination, Rudy Giuliani, since leaving New York City Hall in 2001, made tens of millions of dollars consulting with elected officials, private clients and companies across the globe. While some of his pre-2008 contracts drew legal scrutiny, Giuliani’s consulting work for Ukrainian Mayors Vitali Klitschko and Gennadiy Kernes, along with speaking engagements for politically connected Ukrainian oligarch Pavel Fuks, have blurred the lines between his role as a private consultant and shadow emissary for a U.S. president, critics say.

FILE — Former world heavyweight boxing champion Vitaly Klitschko, left, and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani hold a news conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, May 13, 2008. Giuliani was invited to Kyiv by Klitschko to support his campaign for the city's mayoral post. (Reuters)

Vitali Klitschko, Mayor of Kyiv

Vitali Klitschko, a former professional boxer and the mayor of Ukrainian capital of Kyiv since 2014, hired Rudy Giuliani as a political consultant to advise his earliest bids for public office, which started in 2006. “Who would have guessed that the next chapter in Rudolph W. Giuliani’s life would involve political consulting for an election in Eastern Europe?” was the lead sentence of 2008 New York Times article that came just months after the one-time New York mayor dropped his 2008 presidential bid. After assuming Kyiv’s highest elected office, Klitschko, according to the Wall Street Journal, paid Giuliani $300,000 from muncipial coffers to help local officials return the capital still reeling from the Maidan Revolution to order. Klitschko has long said that Giuliani, with whom he maintains contact, has never charged him for consultations.

Pavel Fuks, Ukrainian-Russian developer

Pavel Fuks, a wealthy Ukrainian-Russian developer, is widely known for negotiating a Trump-Moscow project in 2006 with the Trump Organization. In 2017, Fuks hired a security consulting firm run by Rudy Giuliani, called Giuliani Security & Safety, to advise a lifelong friend and political ally, Kharkiv (Ukraine) Mayor Gennadiy Kernes. Kernes was once a leading figure in ousted pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions. In 2018, Al Jazeera reported that Fuks was involved in a scheme to buy stolen assets from that regime in the wake of Yanukovych’s ouster.

Gennadiy Kernes, Mayor of Kharkiv, Ukraine

In 2017, Gennady Kernes, mayor of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, secured Giuliani Security & Safety, a firm run by Rudy Giuliani, for cybersecurity consulting in a deal funded by Kernes longtime friend, Ukrainian-Russian developer Pavel Fuks. A one-hour meeting in Kharkiv between Kernes and Giuliani culminated in a two-hour sit-down with then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. Democrats have criticized Giuliani’s work abroad, which often involved meetings with foreign dignitaries that, they contend, blurs the boundary between his roles as independent consultant and U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer. Kernes was a leading figure in the Party of Regions, of which former Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych was a member.

FILE — Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, right, greets former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, left, in Kyiv, Ukraine, May 13, 2008. Giuliani and his firm, Giuliani Partners LLC, advised Vitali Klitschko, former WBO world champion, in his bid to become Mayor of Kyiv. (AP)

Financial backers

Rudy Giuliani has a long history of working with wealthy Ukrainian American business executives. Most prominent among them is Semyon “Sam” Kislin, who was one of Giuliani’s primary fundraisers during the former New York mayor’s earliest bids for elected office. Giuliani also appears to have ties to Ukrainian American billionaire Alex Rovt, who regularly donates to Republican and Democratic candidates in New York City politics.

Semyon “Sam” Kislin, Businessman

Semyon “Sam” Kislin is a longtime associate of Rudy Giuliani, U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer. Kislin is a businessman and philanthropist who is prominent in New York City’s large Russian émigré community. Born in the Ukrainian port city of Odessa during the Soviet era, Kislin, according to a 1999 report by the Center for Public Integrity, moved to New York in the 1970s and eventually made hundreds of millions of dollars as a commodities trader known for doing business with Eastern European mafia figures and infamous German arms dealer Babeck Seroush. He has donated tens of thousands to Democratic and Republican candidates since the early 1990s. As mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani named Kislin to the board of the city’s Economic Development Corp. in 1999. Kislin’s firm, Trans Commodities Inc., has been accused of laundering money for associates of former Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych. Despite multiple FBI probes, U.S. officials have never brought charges against Kislin. According to the Daily Beast, Kislin has referred to himself as “an old friend” of Trump, whom he once helped save from financial ruin. “Kislin began supplying mortgages to people who wanted to move their money out of the Soviet Union as the value of the ruble fell,” says a 2017 Bloomberg Businessweek report, explaining that one of the places wealthy people from the Soviet Union chose to invest their money was “Trump’s residential Trump World Tower in Manhattan.”

Alex Rovt, Ukrainian-American billionaire

Alex Rovt, a Ukrainian American billionaire, was reportedly investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller, who led the probe into Russia’s attempt to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Rovt was born during the Soviet era in what is now present-day Ukraine. Faced with charges for engaging in “capitalist activities,” Rovt fled the Soviet Union in 1985 for New York City, where he got a toehold in finance and, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, began investing in Eastern European agribusiness and fertilizer products, and later New York real estate. According to NBC, Rovt, who is prominent in New York’s Russian-speaking community, is one of the main financiers behind a Spruce Capital subsiduary that loaned $3.5 million in 2016 to Paul Manafort weeks after the disgraced lobbyist resigned as manager of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. In November 2017, Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, arrived in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on a business trip that ultimately culminated with unannounced meetings with then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. Giuliani arrived on a private jet owned by Rovt. It was in 2011 that Rovt sold the majority of his agribusiness and fertilizer holdings to billionaire Ukrainian natural gas mogul, Dmytro Firtash, who is wanted by U.S. officials on racketeering and bribery charges. NBC also says a co-founder of the Spruce Capital subsiduary “has partnered with Donald Trump on real estate deals.”