Selenski’s confidant becomes the new ambassador in Bern

Everything has been signed on the Ukrainian side, but according to reports no official letter has arrived in Bern. Nevertheless, everything indicates that the recently dismissed Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Irina Venediktova, will soon become the new Ukrainian ambassador to Switzerland.

Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba confirmed in Kyiv on Wednesday that he had signed a corresponding application. In an interview with the semi-official news agency Ukrinform, Kuleba downplayed Venediktova’s appointment. She was competent and could “fill out the post effectively,” commented the Foreign Minister. “Her work with international partners over the past few months has shown that she finds her way on the international stage.”

In fact, Irina Venediktova was a welcome guest both in Strasbourg at the European Court of Human Rights and at the International Criminal Court in The Hague in connection with the downing of the Malaysian MH-17 passenger plane over the pro-Russian separatist area in summer 2014. At the same time, according to Ukrainian media reports, it was the lack of effectiveness in the fight against corruption that may have cost her the extremely influential post as Attorney General in mid-July.

Officially, their sensational dismissal by President Zelensky almost three weeks ago was justified in one of his nightly speeches to the nation with the collaboration of some public prosecutors with the Russian occupying forces in Donbas and southern Ukraine. Selenski justified the surprising step with the fact that it had to be ensured that the management of the public prosecutor’s office could not influence the proceedings against some subordinates. In his speech, Selenski spoke of more than 60 chief officials from the public prosecutor’s office and the secret service, who are being investigated for collaboration and even high treason, and this in more than 650 criminal investigations.

Along with Venediktova, the politically much more influential head of the secret service, Ivan Bakanov, a close childhood friend of the president, was suspended from his post in mid-July. Dark clouds had gathered over Bakanov for weeks after the southern Ukrainian city of Cherson, the surrounding area of ​​the same name and the strategically important freshwater canal on the Crimean peninsula annexed by Russia were conquered practically without a fight in the first few days after the Russian invasion.

Irina Venediktova was by no means accused of “high treason” at the time, only the headlines in the media seemed to concern both top officials. The domestic media mainly speculated about who exactly she must have messed with in the powerful presidential administration. In an interview with CNN, the Attorney General said at the time that she did not want to criticize the President. «My post is a political post and I am the 16th Prosecutor General of Ukraine in 30 years; That’s just the politics in Ukraine.” In the meantime, one has to assume that she already knew then that she was to move to Bern soon, because ambassador appointments in Ukraine are not a matter of a few days either.

Upgrade for Bern

For Bern, the appointment of a heavyweight like Venediktova as the future ambassador to Switzerland means an upgrade. So far, Kyiv has only been represented in Bern by an extraordinary ambassador from the days of Zelensky’s predecessor, Petro Poroshenko. In addition, Artem Ribtschenko, in his last regular year as ambassador, met with a lot of incomprehension with criticism of the “Swiss Solidarity” and Swiss aid organizations. Selenski left the dedicated diplomat in office in 2019 and reaped the fruits of this decision during Ignazio Cassis’ state visit in autumn 2021 and at the Ukraine reconstruction conference in Lugano in early July.

Ribchenko’s successor, as a full-fledged ambassador, will now be one of his closest political comrades-in-arms. The former civil law professor Wenediktowa joined Selenski’s team in 2018 as a legal advisor. In the parliamentary elections of summer 2019, the then 40-year-old political novice won a seat for the presidential party “Volksdiener”. She was promoted to the National Security Council, briefly headed the State Investigative Bureau, and in 2020 replaced Prosecutor General Ruslan Ryaboshapka, who was sacked for ineffectiveness. If Venediktova proves to be “not effective enough” in the fight against corruption in the judiciary, she too must be replaced, Zelensky warned at the time.

Times have changed now, Ukraine is at open war with Russia, which is firing missiles at civilian installations across the country and is not limited to just trench warfare in Donbas. Kyiv is interested in neutral alternatives to the previous Ukraine-Russia mediator Turkey. Irina Venediktova could be “effective” here with her cosmopolitan, winning manner and the diplomatic sensitivity already revealed in an interview with CNN.