Meet The New Leader Of Crimea
He is a politician whose party got 4% of the vote and he was also a small-time crook.
[Sergey Aksyonov] was a little-known businessman with a murky past and a nickname — “Goblin” — left over from the days when criminal gangs flourished here after the collapse of the Soviet Union…
Today, Aksyonov is the prime minister of Crimea’s regional parliament and the public face of Russia’s seizure of the Black Sea peninsula. He is, by all appearances, a man placed in power by Moscow who is now working hard to make Crimea a part of Russia…
“He wasn’t a criminal big shot,” said Andriy Senchenko, now a member of Ukraine’s Batkivshchyna party, which was at the forefront of the Kiev protests that led last month to the downfall of pro-Russia President Viktor Yanukovych. Senchenko described Aksyonov as a “brigade leader” in a gang that was often involved in extortion rackets…
His critics say it’s clear that Aksyonov is simply a puppet, someone installed by Moscow to ease what has become, in effect, a Russian takeover of its former territory.
“If six months ago someone would have told me that Aksyonov would become prime minister, I would have laughed,” said Valentina Tsamar, a prominent Simferopol journalist with the TV channel Chernomorskaya.
