Cassette Scandal

The scandal started on 28 November 2000, in Kyiv, when Ukrainian politician Oleksandr Moroz publicly accused President Kuchma of involvement in the abduction of journalist Georgiy Gongadze and numerous other crimes.

He also played selected recordings of the President's secret conversations for journalists, supposedly confirming Kuchma's order to kidnap Gongadze.

In 2002, the governments of the United States and other countries became more deeply involved after one of the recordings revealed the alleged transfer of a sophisticated Ukrainian defence system Kolchuga to Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

Moreover, widely publicized conversations depicted Kuchma as a rude and spiteful person, using profanity and speaking Surzhyk, a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian languages.

In September 2003, Ukrainian troops joined U.S.-led invasion forces in the Iraq War, which was widely perceived as an effort by Kuchma to improve relations with the West.

Commenting on the scandal and Melnychenko's actions in particular, Kuchma persistently claimed they were a result of foreign interference, but never accused any specific country.

In 2004, Volodymyr Tsvil, a Ukrainian businessman who assisted Melnychenko in his escape, publicly accused him of not revealing certain details of the case and trying to sell the audio archive to Kuchma's aides.

[4] A Ukrainian district court ordered prosecutors to drop criminal charges against Kuchma on 14 December 2011 on grounds that evidence linking him to the murder of Gongadze was insufficient.