Former Major of the State Security Department of Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma Mykola Melnichenko, who secretly recorded conversations in his office in 1998-2000, revealed the details of the “cassette scandal.” The interview with him was published by the “Strana.ua” edition.
Melnichenko said that in the course of his work he discovered “vulnerabilities” in the office of the head of state and insisted on the need to install alarms and video cameras there.
“I argued that in Kuchma’s office there are places where you can hide – the same closet. Someone from the state security officers can simply hide in the closet, kill the president and go out through other doors,” recalls the former guard.
However, the authorities told Melnichenko that he “went crazy”, and the major was “terribly hurt.” He climbed into the closet as an experiment. At this time, Kuchma entered the office, Melnichenko did not manage to leave and stood in the closet for half a day, during which he realized that the President of Ukraine was a “bandit from the high road.”
“These half days that I spent in the closet in Kuchma’s office turned my mind completely over. I realized who I serve and who is robbing the country. And after that I went into the office every day and left the recorder there,” – Melnichenko said.
The “cassette scandal” erupted in Ukraine in November 2000. The leader of the Socialist Party, Alexander Moroz, released the audio recordings, which he said were made in Kuchma’s office. On them, a man with a voice similar to that of the president was giving the order to liquidate the journalist Georgy Gongadze, who had been found dead shortly before. It turned out that the tapes were recorded by Melnichenko. He moved to the United States and received political asylum there.