ГУЛаг Палестины

contained in the three segments in blue:

Who is Leonid Wolf and what is behind

government action?

News Analysis

By STEFAN KORSHAK

Post Staff Writer

01 July 1999

In making wealthy businessman Vadim Rabinovich persona non grata on June 24, the

Ukrainian government created a mystery. By simultaneously announcing that it had

taken a similar action against Leonid Borisovich Wolf back in December, it created

another one.

The government linked Wolf to numerous unsolved contract killings. But it did not

specify the link between Wolf and Rabinovich, other than to name them in the same

press release announcing that both Israeli citizens are banned from Ukraine.

That leaves the public, as usual, out of the loop about what the twin actions mean

and what evidence the Ukrainian government is holding. While Wolf could not be

reached for comment, Rabinovich denied the Ukrainian government's allegations in a

June 30 news conference in Tel Aviv.

The unanswered questions are numerous: What led the Ukrainian government to bar

Rabinovich from the nation for five years? What are his ties to Wolf? What evidence

links Wolf to murders?

The ban on the two men also raises larger questions about government motives: Coupled

with the pending embezzlement charges against former Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko

and an aide, is the Ukrainian government finally getting tough on corruption? Or is

it simply being unfair to successful businessmen who happened to fall out of favor?

Those questions in turn raise the most unpredictable question of all: What's next?

The official State Security Service (SBU) press release appears straightforward:

"Today Ukraine's Security Service, according to materials in its possession and in

the interests of Ukraine's national security, has forbidden the entrance the citizen

of Israel Vadim Zinoviovich Rabinovich, (passport numbers) from entering Ukraine for

the period of five years beginning 24 June 1999, for causing especially serious

damage to the Ukrainian economy.

"Moreover, on 17 December 1998, the SBU closed the right of entrance into Ukrainian

territory to Israeli citizen Leonid Borisovich Wolf, who is considered a member of a

professional organized criminal group, which is suspected of carrying out contract

killings in the Odessa, Kyiv, and Dnipropetrovsk regions."

The relationship between Rabinovich and Wolf was not spelled out, nor was the reason

why the Ukrainian government chose to announce the decisions in the same news

release. Who is this Leonid Wolf?

A search of Ukrainian media archives for the last 10 years turned up nothing.

Ukraine's SBU and Ministry of Internal Affairs flatly declined comment, as did

Israeli Embassy spokesmen.

However, according to Kyiv law enforcement and Odessa business sources, Wolf is a

Ukrainian native who was born in the 1940s. He emigrated to Israel in the late 1970s

and became a citizen there.

By the early 1990s, the sources said, Wolf was playing a key role in developing

Ukraine into an international smuggling hub. His business activities were said to

include shipping, oil trading, narcotics, export of weapons, chemicals, metals, and

agricultural commodities - sometimes in cooperation with Soviet-era mobsters,

sometimes with the assistance of local officials.

Wolf first came into contact with Vadim Rabinovich in Israel in the early 1990s, one

Ukrainian police source said.

One of Wolf's important business associates, the police source said, is one of the

former Soviet Union's most notorious alleged criminals, Grigory Luchansky. That, if

true, could be the link between him and Rabinovich.

Luchansky was born in the 1940s, possibly in Latvia, according to several sources

contacted by the Post. He became a career KGB officer and served overseas in a

variety of posts. By the mid-1980s, Luchansky set up and ran Vienna-based Nordex, a

KGB-owned and operated business designed to launder money for overseas intelligence

operatives.

Nordex's primary trading partner in Ukraine was government-owned Ukragrotekhservis,

U.S. Congressman Dan Burton alleged during congressional hearings in April 1997.

Burton identified Rabinovich as Luchansky's key Ukrainian lieutenant, serving in a

variety of capacities including, until 1995, Nordex vice president.

Rabinovich has stated repeatedly that he severed relations with Luchansky in 1995 due

to Nordex's poor international reputation. He has consistently denied participating

in any criminal activity while he worked for Nordex.

An April 1997 Time magazine article identified Luchansky as "the most pernicious

unindicted criminal in the world."

Luchansky's trading activities in the former Soviet Union encompass weapons, oil,

narcotics, natural gas, chemicals, precious metals, fertilizers, agricultural

commodities, and consumer goods.

Other Luchansky enterprises reportedly include prostitution, drug manufacture,

racketeering, influence peddling and fixed privatization auctions.

Nordex grossed $2 billion in 1994, investing some of its income in enterprises