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GEOPOLITICS, "BORYSFEN" AND RESCUE OF “FAINA”

Mikhail FRENKEL | Issue: 04/244, April 2013

In order to understand and realize its real place in the world, a country can’t ignore the study of global geopolitical trends. Therefore, I think, it's good that recently in Ukraine began working Independent Analytical Center for Geopolitical Studies “Borysfen Intel.”

Today the “Jewish Observer” is visited by the President of the Center, Lieutenant General Victor Hvozd.

— Victor Ivanovich, maybe to start our conversation you could tell us about some interesting case from your work in the Intelligence?

— You must remember how a few years ago the ship “Faina” was captured by Somali pirates off the African coast. On board there were a large number of weapons that Ukrainian defence enterprises were sending to their business partners. The situation was very serious, because apart from the danger to lives of the crew, there was a possibility that modern weapons could fall into the hands of terrorists. That is why, our Intelligence Services then had a very serious and difficult task. We managed to fulfil it. And today we can tell how it was done. All ended well thanks to our strict cooperation with colleagues from the USA, UK, Israel and Russia. As well as to the ability to use any contacts, without which it is difficult for an intelligence officer to succeed. It turned out that one of our employees had studied in England, together with a guy from Kenya. And by the time when the incident with “Faina” occurred, that person had already been serving as the Chief of Kenyan Intelligence. Exactly thanks to operational capabilities of African colleagues, we were able to reach people who were standing behind the kidnappers and to conduct successful negotiations with them. So, with the help of colleagues from different countries, we managed to solve the problem. Both, the people (and that is the most important thing), and the cargo were rescued…

— How was the idea of ​​creating your Center born? How was it put to life?

— The idea of ​​our Center had been maturing for a long time, but when it got ripe, the decision was made quickly, as it is often the case in the Army. The main problem was technical — workplace for employees, computers and such like. I was well aware that in our state to expect help from someone was useless...

As to the main reason for creating, it was a banal one: suddenly, after a serious, responsible position, where often I had to use my knowledge of several foreign languages, to have significant relations not only in Ukraine, but also in the world, and simply being fit, it turns out, nobody needs you… If we consider that in the past nearly three years, my working day began at seven thirty in the morning and ended at midnight, and I lived without weekends, it is easy to understand my condition: all of a sudden I had so much free time!

I want to say that in twenty years of independence of our country a true personnel disaster has become a tradition — with each change of the Government, hundreds of professionals are thrown into the street, and in there place are appointed “insiders”.

It does not matter that they often do not have the necessary training. The main thing is that they “belong”. I was “lucky” to have experienced such “cleansing” twice. For the first time — in 2004, when Yushchenko headed the state. To be fair, he was wise enough to soon return to the Presidential Secretariat middle managers on whose shoulders all work usually rests. And then thanks to Vladimir Pavlovich Gorbulin, was created, I believe, strong enough in terms of professionalism, General Directorate of Security and Defence Policy.

However, with the election of Yanukovych, the old story happened again. I was promised that I would not stay out of work, but ... So, at bitter moments remembering the saying “All that does not kill us, makes us stronger”, I decided to create an analytical centre because its philosophy and content of work differ very little from what I had to do all my adult life: collection and processing of information, preparation of analytical product. The only difference is that today we use only open sources. Which, as you know, contain 90 % of information. We just have to extract it. The problem is not where to take it, but to have the knowledge and experience, as they say, to separate the wheat from the chaff. Here we come to the most important- human resources, which have become analytical potential of our Center. They are former Intelligence officers, diplomats, military journalists who did not betray their calling. They did not go, for example, to the market to sell or somewhere else, but got engaged in the work needed by the country, often to the detriment of their financial interests and family ...

— What is the main task of your studies?

In the Administration of the President of Ukraine

— In the enlightenment — in the first place. The motto of our Center was not chosen accidentally — “Praemonitus, praemunitus” — “Forewarned — forearmed.” Our analytics is aimed primarily at people dealing with foreign policy, economy, security and defence, as well as at scientific environment. Why — geopolitics? Simply because experts on domestic policy are so numerous, that the society cannot understand: in which direction to go?

Taking into consideration seriousness of the present economic situation in our country, when the main mass of citizens, absorbed in thoughts of a piece of bread, so to speak, care neither about shows nor about the foreign policy priorities of Ukraine on the geopolitical chess board, — so it is very important not to overlook this aspect. Actually there are no serious analytical centers in the country. Moreover, the Ukrainian information space has long been, to put it mildly, occupied by some of our neighbors that, to our envy, lead very actively their own game, especially in the regions densely populated by their tribesmen. The problem is that in Ukraine there was actually no its own geopolitical school, because there was no state. Such a difficult burden we are trying to shoulder.

— What experts are working in your Center? What are their qualifications?

— I would say, first of all they are practicians. There are many experts nowadays. I have already said that they are so “universal”, that can comment on anything you like — from the state of affairs in housing and communal services of Zhmerinka to deployment of the US Missile Defense System in Europe ... In our Center everybody does what he devoted his life to. For example, Vadim Volokhov, Middle East Programme Manager, had spent six years in Iran, then in Afghanistan. Can express himself, and (most importantly) write in Farsi. Sometimes I note that he thinks as a man of the East ... Another example: Bohdan Sokolovsky — a scientist, nuclear physicist, who had spent many years in diplomatic service, the former Representative of the President of Ukraine on international energy security. He is a respected man in expert circles in Ukraine and abroad.

We have one and only criteria of selection — a person must be a professional in his field and, of course, a patriot of his country. I consider them true elite, because they work, believe me, at the call of the heart. They do their best to really be useful to their Motherland, their people. After all, frankly speaking, their work does not bring them any material gains. They do not flash across TV screens (for this we have to pay a lot of money, or “to sing an ordered song”) ... But thanks to the Internet, international conferences and personal contacts, we are able to form a professional point of view on the events that happen and will be happening in the world.

— As far as I know, among your experts, former intelligence officers are not few. What are their objectives? Maybe former intelligence officers, as well as former security officers, do not happen?

The mission in the Balkans

— In a country that has held and is active in international politics, there are no former intelligence officers. Take Israel, for example. My colleague, with whom I established friendly relations, the former Chief of Military Intelligence AMAN, Major-General Amos Yadlin, after the resignation is now Head of the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University. Worthy candidate, a professional with a great life luggage, he heads an authoritative institution. I am sure that under his leadership the Institute for National Security Studies will be an efficient structure. I also know many Israeli Military Intelligence officers, who are now working successfully in the Foreign Ministry of the country, in companies such as Israel's military-industrial complex “Tadiran”, “Elbit” and others. This is what I call a state approach to former Intelligence officers! In this case, we may say that intelligence officers are never former ones.

But in our case, this “formula” can be applied with some degree of conditionality, because the backbone of the analytical Center are former Military Intelligence officers with a great professional and life experience, who though work for their country, but already on a “private front.” And organize themselves. But in this we're trying to find its charm. On the one hand, it's more complicated than service for a “sovereign”, because all organizational questions fall on your own shoulders — from the creative process to logistics. On the other hand — you get a great pleasure from self-realization. And, importantly, you can see that planted by you grains begin to grow. After all, every day more and more people come to us and express a desire to cooperate. And this is worth a lot!

— Are your researches, estimates and forecasts interesting to the state bodies?

Chief of the Military Intelligence of Ukraine

— Honestly, so far we have not got proposals to cooperate from government bodies. But we know exactly that our materials are interesting to people, they are read attentively and studied (we keep track of the number of visits to our website where we put analytical materials), and some structures use them in their work. We do not mind it, we are only glad. The main point is that our materials are useful.

But here it is necessary to take into account that we have been working for six months so far. And from the experience of the Centers in the United States, Europe, Russia, we know that promotion lasts for at least two years. So for us everything is still ahead, if some cataclysm does not happen, because you understand that we are not in vacuum. The construction of our state continues, and needless to say that no one in this complicated world is waiting for us with open arms. Therefore, only hard work, consensus of politicians, mobilization of the society, establishment of fair and equal opportunities for all citizens of Ukraine, regardless of skin color, language, religion, respect for and exercising of laws, traditions, and a desire to make the life of every Ukrainian comfortable and safe, can save our country and give it its rightful place in the world. But we must realize that the road is long, and miracles in this world do not happen, and the road has to be walked…

— Do your studies include the situation in the Middle East?

— Naturally. After all, no one will be able to lay down the geopolitical puzzle of the world, without taking into consideration the events in the Middle East. Speaking geopolitically, strategic importance of the region today is the cornerstone in terms of both, international security and world economy.

More so, attempts to unleash this tightened knot of problems are making (so far unsuccessfully) both, the mighty of this world and the countries of the region. Ukraine directly feels its breath. On the one hand, our country is interested in economic cooperation with Middle Eastern countries. On the other — Ukraine cannot help worrying about processes taking place in that region: not stopping for decades so-called “frozen conflicts”, ongoing military conflicts, the rise of Islamic extremism in countries swept by the “Arab Spring”, activation of confrontation among countries in struggle for regional leadership, and finally, the Iranian nuclear program, which has put the region on the brink of another major war. And all this is near the Black Sea-Caspian region, which includes Ukraine.

By the way, some of geo-politicians state that Ukraine belongs to three civilization habitats: the Western part of Ukraine — to the Western civilized community, the Eastern part of it — to the Eurasian one with Russian dominant in this part of the territory, and, finally, the Southern region of the country and the Crimea — to the Mediterranean civilization. And it's right next to the Middle East region. Therefore, this issue is very important to our Center.

I have read researches of your experts on Iran. How real is, in their view, the danger for the world if the ayatollahs get nuclear weapons?

To my mind, the word “if” can be removed. Iran theoretically does have nuclear weapon. Tehran's experts know how to make a bomb; they have both, the technologies and the full cycle of uranium enrichment. With the assistance of North Korea, Iranians, most likely, have tested it. So the situation is, frankly speaking, very serious.

— You mentioned North Korea. Very recent events on its borders with southern tribesmen show that the world is in a constant threat. And what is especially frightening, a nuclear one.

With the legendary Intelligence officer Eugene Bereznyak — “Major Vykhor” (Whirlwind) and his wife

— Unfortunately, that is so. And for this reason such a great concern in the world causes possibility of Iran’s getting nuclear weapon.

Recently, in Almaty and Istanbul were held meetings of a group of international mediators trying to persuade the Iranians to give up making their nuclear weapons. However, as expected, a breakthrough in the talks did not happen, because for many years, the negotiators, let’s say Russia and the United States, Germany and China, had quite different interests in this issue.

— But this problem has to be settled. After all, nuclear weapons in the hands of people calling for the destruction of other nations and peoples, is a very dangerous thing.

— That's right. Of course, we may dwell forever on the Ayatollahs being not so fanatic in reality, as they shout about it, and at the last moment will reverse. But, I think, in any case, it will be better for the world if nuclear weapon does not fall in their hands.

— Do you have contacts with Israeli experts and your former colleagues?

— Yes, of course, we have such contacts. But as they say, there are never too many contacts. For us is important communication with colleagues helping us make more accurate conclusions and forecasts, based on analytics that we have. We have not bad contacts with similar Centers in Romania, Georgia, Poland, the United States, directly with John Kennedy’s School of Government of Harvard University.

— How do you see this cooperation in the future?

— We need to understand that, despite the fact that in the world really exist de jure borders, de facto — because of the information revolution and globalization — these borders are of formal nature. What today can be seen in the “world wide web” cannot be called other than information chaos. But to experts it is clear that this is only the visible side of what is called “chaos”. In fact, this process is controlled. They are all fighting there with one another: states, corporations, individuals. Due to this the Internet has turned into, so to speak, a cesspit, I apologize for such a comparison...

We must make a great effort to get to a true, unpreconceived source. I see this as a mission of such analytical centers, or, as they are called in the west, — think tanks, which have an important place in the hierarchy of non-governmental organizations.

Here is an example. Recently, during an International Conference in Bucharest, Romania, I met with a former employee of the Romanian Secret Services Corneliu Pivariu, who, after retirement in 2006, headed the INGEPO Consulting Company, dealing with geopolitical studies. He publishes “Geostrategic Pulse” bulletin. We agreed that at the level of non-governmental think tanks we will organize an interesting and rewarding project to destroy historical myths, which, to put it mildly, still work anti-constructively in relations between our two countries both, at the official level and at the level of households. And this is important. In general, the field of activity is huge, from education to science. I would like your readers to discover on the Internet our site bintel.com.ua and get acquainted very attentively with our activities. Materials available there will be interesting both, to mature people, and those who are just gnawing granite of science, preparing themselves for international affairs profession. We are going in the second half of the year to organize an interesting contest, the terms of which will be available on one of the pages of “Borysfen Intel’s” site.

The conversation was led by Mikhail FRENKEL