Head over to Neeka's Backlog. She's got a link and discussion of a Melnychenko's Radio Free Europe interview in which he talks about the recent bombshell NYT article. http://vkhokhl.blogspot.com/2005/01/radio-libertys-ukrainian-service.html. My thanks go out to Robert Mayer of Publius Pundit, for putting me on to this great posting. His blog has been neglected on my links for quite some time now. I've now reorganized those links to have an international politics section, since some bloggers seem able to get tasty bits of international politics from all over all the time.
Melnychenko sees this as well placed Ukrainian politicians influencing the NYT. I'm skeptical. But one thing I didn't connect in my head: Smeshko, the lead SBU guy who is the hero of the little drama, and who apparently went to the US for the interview, has a really good reason to try to talk himself up. He's the "head of the Ukrainian Secret Services, at whose house Yushchenko ate just before coming down with the dioxin poisoning. [Correction: I was wrong it wasn't Smeshko's own house. it was the house of his former Deputy Chairman, Oleksandr Satsyuk. Sorry.]