Serhiy Leshchenko is a Ukrainian journalist and former member of parliament.
On Aug. 19, 2016, I convened a news conference in Kiev at which I revealed previously secret records of payments made by the former pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych to Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. (Yanukovych fled the country in February 2014 after he was toppled by our Revolution of Dignity, a popular uprising on the streets of Kiev.) The information came from the “black ledger of the Party of Regions,” which was obtained by an anonymous source in the burned-out ruins of the headquarters of Yanukovych’s party. Yanukovych had used the ledger to keep records of his illegal transactions. At that time, although I was a member of parliament, I continued to combine that position with my journalistic work, which is allowed by the laws of Ukraine.
