Famous Ukrainian investigative journalist Serhiy Leshchenko provides unofficial details that may be related to today’s deescalation in Kyiv: “During the last days, I received from three independent sources information that the companies of Ukrainian oligarchs in Switzerland are encountering difficulties. Their firms cannot get credit lines, and are asked to return, ahead of schedule, already given credits. In addition, for Metinvest [a large company co-owned by Ukrainian multi-billionaire Rinat Akhmetov], [the Swiss banks] started to cancel planned financing and to withhold payments. These are not even sanctions, but just reactions of bankers to the events in Ukraine. For Akhmetov and his 50 parliamentary deputies [in the Verkhovna Rada] it is time to decide whether they are with the people or with an erratic dictator under the ruins of whom his business empire will perish too.”

Source: Facebook stream of Serhiy Leschenko
Translation and commentary: Andreas Umland.

RELATED INFORMATION UPDATE:
KyivPost: https://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/money-in-swiss-banks-drives-kyiv-zurich-ties-110129.html

New York Deutsche Bank protest rally, January 31, 2014:
“Don’t Serve the Dictator of Ukraine!” – Ukrainians demand Deutsche Bank drop Yanukovych business.

As demonstrations in Ukraine took a deadly turn last week, with police killing three young people in Kyiv, and the passage and later repeal of legislation criminalizing dissent, the opposition has stepped up efforts to expose and dismantle the corruption that fuels the authoritarian regime of President Viktor Yanukovych. They say the proceeds of corruption are laundered via the international financial system through a network of shell companies and professional intermediaries.

Deutsche Bank is one of the intermediary banks used by the Ukrainian Bank of Development (UBD), owned by Oleksandr Yanukovych, son of the President, and the target of a January 31, 2014 protest in NY.

Supporters demand that Deutsche Bank refrain from conducting transactions linked to Yanukovych and UBD, in accordance with international anti-money laundering standards of the Financial Action Task Force and the USA PATRIOT Act. The younger Yanukovych trained as a dentist but his personal wealth
skyrocketed to $550 million after his father became president in 2010.

“We are telling Deutsche Bank to not serve criminals in power, who kill, kidnap and terrorize people in Ukraine,” said organizer Olya Yarychkivska. “Our message is: Stop helping the Yanukovych regime, do not launder their bloody money, save your reputation.” The protesters will deliver a letter to the bank, detailing their concerns and demands, and later deliver letters to the to German and Austrian missions to the UN.

Organizers are also demanding that the US impose targeted sanctions on Ukrainian officials who are linked to violence against protesters. On January 22, police shot and killed three men in the center of Kyiv where peaceful protests had been ongoing since
November 22. There are reports of other deaths, and brutal attacks on demonstrators, medical personnel and journalists. Video footage of police beating and stripping a young man has gone viral.

President Obama affirmed support for the people of Ukraine in his State of the Union address on January 28: “In Ukraine, we stand for the principle that all people have the right to express themselves freely and peacefully, and have a say in their country’s future.”
Let’s all support the protest against corruption of Yanukovych, Dictator of Ukraine, in NYC tomorrow!