All the Ukrainian mass media (except for those belonging to ex-president Leonid Kuchma’s son-in-law) very recently quoted the words Oleksii Pukach, sentenced to life in prison for murdering Heorhii Gongadze, said at the trial. In particular, asked by the judge if he accepted the announced sentence, Pukach said he would only accept it “when Kuchma and Lytvyn sit next to me in this cage.” And, just three weeks later, the National Aerospace University of Kharkiv (KhAI) solemnly awarded the former president of Ukraine the title of KhAI honorary professor. The ceremony, attended by the KhAI faculty and students, was held on February 21, 2013. On the same day, Leonid Kuchma personally handed honors degree diplomas to graduates and individual scholarships to undergraduate overachievers. There was a concert to crown the ceremony.
According to the KhAI leadership, Kuchma has been rendering financial aid to students for about seven years, since he established his Ukraine Foundation, and has been helping for many years to put KhAI projects into practice. The University leadership, many professors and students are saying they do not believe that the former president of Ukraine was implicated in criminal cases and, at the same time, ask not to mention their names in publications.
Vitalii Zaitsev, Doctor of Sciences (Engineering), Pro-Rector for Education, muses: “When Kuchma was the Pivdenmash manager, he fruitfully cooperated with KhAI. He worked with the Space Rocket Engineering School from 1980 or even earlier. And now we have our own department at Pivdenmash, where students take classes and do on-the-job training. We’ve been in touch with Mr. Kuchma for many years, and I personally do not believe that the president was implicated in the ‘Gongadze case.’ He does not need this, for he is an industrial executive, not a politician. Industrialists never do so because they don’t have the time. They work, fulfill plans, and produce the result. They are engaged in business, not in political intrigues.”
Master’s degree student Oleksandr Doroshenko thinks it is very important that Kuchma financially helped Ukraine’s most sophisticated higher educational institution. He is sure Ukraine’s former president deserves honorary professorship.
At the same time, a part of the Kharkiv intelligentsia took a dim view of the event, even though The Day’s interviewees believe that it is better not to link the “Gongadze case” with “Honorary Professor” Kuchma. “Academic titles should be conferred on the people who deserve them as a result of research. And what is going on in Ukraine is profanation pure and simple,” historian Ivan Varchenko says. “In this country, some professors are unable to write their names properly, some academicians do not know how to formulate the provisions of their dissertations, and some do not even remember the title and subject matter of their ‘works.’ Kuchma’s honorary professorship is the continuation of this negative tendency.”
