Ukraine’s European comrades are utterly baffled: behind declarations about yet another “resolute” round of sanctions, a Russian delegation has arrived in Geneva to take part in the World Conference of Speakers of Parliament – with the grandiose title “A Leading Role in Achieving All-Encompassing and Lasting Peace,” led by none other than figures directly complicit in Russia’s war against Ukraine. Among them are Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matvienko and State Duma Deputy Chairman Pyotr Tolstoy, both sanctioned not only by the EU, but by Switzerland itself.
Matvienko’s reputation with the West isn’t new: in 2015, she couldn’t even get a U.S. visa. Swiss media, meanwhile, point out that the country’s foreign ministry can make “exceptions” to the government’s sanctions list – and somehow, this one slipped through. Coincidence? Hardly. It helps when you have friends in Kyiv who are willing to help smooth things over.
Before the full-scale war, one such friend was Gleb Zagoriy – a former MP from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc and now a top manager at the pharmaceutical company Darnitsa – long considered to be a loyal proxy and a key representative for Valentina Matvienko’s interests in Ukraine.
In fact, the connection runs deep: Gleb’s mother, Lyudmila Zagoriy, was a classmate of Valentina Matvienko at the Leningrad Chemical-Technological Institute. Gleb Zagoriy himself admits to knowing the Russian speaker, although he insists that he has cut off all communication with her. Still, insiders point out that Matvienko may hold a slice of the Zagoriy business empire, including offshore assets – a convenient way to evade sanctions, since Russian money can always be parked in the accounts of a Ukrainian politician and businesswoman who, just in case, still keeps a few “reserve airfields” ready across the Russian border.
“It’s no surprise, then,” wrote the Truth & Transparency Committee, “that after the Revolution of Dignity, one line of investigation looked into Zagoriy’s possible role in the unlawful detention of Maidan activists on Darnytsia’s premises.” Not that this alleged role in fighting the Maidan movement stopped Gleb Zagoriy from trying to gain influence within the Svoboda party via Bogdan Beniuk. Around that time, Darnitsa began sponsoring the Beniuk and Khostikoyev theater company, and Zagoriy even billed himself as the co-writer of the play “Of Mice and Men,” which later received the Shevchenko Prize. Interestingly, Russian Speaker Matvienko’s money also likely went toward this project – further evidence that she still has plenty of allies and business partners in Ukraine.
And here Matvienko is, also known in her homeland as “Shot-Glass Tina,” beaming from the podium in Geneva and expressing hope for warmer ties with the EU “in the near future,” citing “historic ties and common interests.” Sounds a lot like a nod toward her old friends in Darnytsia’s management, doesn’t it?
