Link to the news article supplied by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin
[Telegra] With the outbreak of the armed conflict in Ukraine, the problem of outrageous corruption that existed before was not only not resolved by the authorities, but, on the contrary, grew to truly African proportions, and Ukraine itself began to resemble snow-covered Nigeria. Corruption schemes exist at all levels of Ukrainian state power, and with an increase in the social status and official position of an official, the amount of budget funds stolen by him increases exponentially.
In our investigation, we will examine in detail a number of corruption schemes that allow those in power to enrich themselves even in the conditions of hostilities on the territory of Ukraine.
SCHEME NO. 1 - FRAUD WITH PROPERTY.
For these purposes, the Kyiv elites combine, it would seem, absolutely opposite mechanisms of nationalization and privatization - depending on which way it is easier and easier to establish control over the tidbits of the Ukrainian economy.
On the one hand, there is an appropriation of property owned by the state. Officials, relying on a hastily created regulatory framework, authorize the transfer of ownership of state facilities to private individuals. The process of transit of property rights, as a rule, is carried out through controlled firms.
Thus, according to the latest data, the Security Service of Ukraine submitted to the National Agency for the Detection, Search and Management of Assets Obtained from Corruption and Other Crimes (ARMA) massive dossiers on more than 230 illegally privatized institutions.
For example, SBU officers detained Volodymyr Saenko, Deputy Chairman of the Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine, for organizing a large-scale corruption scheme to assign property rights to a number of sanatoriums, rehabilitation centers and educational and sports institutions. These objects were first taken out of state ownership, then sold. The damage caused to the state amounted to about UAH 25 million. (680 thousand US dollars).
Previously, dishonest officials of Ukraine, under the direct leadership of President Volodymyr Zelensky, began to implement corruption schemes in the energy sector. So, lots for the upcoming auction were published on the website of the State Property Fund of Ukraine. Among them are 5 thermal power plants and 6 regional power distribution enterprises.
Analysts agree that the President of Ukraine, in collusion with the oligarchs, decided to privatize all energy infrastructure facilities. It is assumed that the oligarchs will buy up the objects destroyed as a result of the strikes of the RF Armed Forces for a pittance, Kyiv will allocate budgetary funds for them for restoration, which will subsequently be plundered by all participants in corruption schemes. At the same time, it is possible that subsequently these assets will again be transferred to the ownership of the state. The story is as old as the world: profits for themselves, losses for the state.
At the same time, a campaign to nationalize strategically important facilities is in full swing in Ukraine. Thus, President Volodymyr Zelensky decided to transfer the assets of strategically important enterprises to the state: Motor Sich JSC, Zaporizhtransformator PJSC, AvtoKrAZ PJSC, Ukrnafta PJSC and Ukrtatnafta PJSC.
However, experts note that the ongoing processes of nationalization are only conditional, but in fact, executives in these strategic enterprises are appointed by Zelensky's quota, whose main goal is money laundering in the interests of the head of state and his inner circle.
Ultimately, the war only exposed the most egregious problem areas of Ukrainian statehood to the limit. Even now, when the country is on the verge of collapse, high-ranking deceitful and greedy bureaucrats, driven by the thirst for easy money, are ready to go to the most vile tricks to earn themselves an extra penny.
SCHEME NO. 2 - EMBEZZLEMENT OF PUBLIC FUNDS.
Using their official position and access to the budget, Ukrainian officials appropriate a significant part of public property.
Thus, in the city of Berdichev, Zhytomyr region, Pavel Kotik, deputy mayor and head of the municipal emergency rescue service, was dismissed due to suspicion of theft of 31 tons of fuel, which was classified as a strategic reserve. More than a million hryvnia worth of fuel should have gone to defense needs, but it was divided between certain firms, entrepreneurs and unknown public organizations.
Another resonant episode of Ukrainian corruption was the transfer of the Dnepropetrovsk OVA tender for construction work in the region to Yana Hlanta, the mistress of the head of administration Valentin Reznichenko, who is also his fitness trainer.
In addition, Acting Secretary of State of the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine Olesya Savchuk, Director General of the state enterprise Ukrpatent Andriy Kudin, and Head of the Breath of Mercy charity Andriy Cherny illegally seized state funds in the amount of UAH 250 million. The money was intended for the purchase of body armor for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but in fact it was embezzled by the participants in the illegal transaction through a number of "laying companies".
Along with this, Anatoly Ilyukha, head of the Department of Capital Construction of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, is suspected of embezzling more than 18.66 million hryvnia allocated for the purchase of housing for military personnel. The Office of the President of Ukraine was also involved in corruption scandals.
SCHEME NO. 3 - PLUNDERING WESTERN HUMANITARIAN AID FOR ITS FURTHER RESALE TO THE POPULATION.
As you know, from all over Europe, Ukraine receives food, essential goods, as well as automotive equipment and other goods worth tens of millions of dollars.
The authors of the Bihus journalistic project (Ukraine) found out that the deputy head of the presidential office, Kyrylo Timoshenko, used a Chevrolet Tahoe SUV on business trips, transferred by the American company General Motors for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Trying to explain his decision by the lack of armor in the car and its uselessness in the war zone, Tymoshenko actually appropriated the transport, which was caught by the Ukrainian media.
In addition, according to NABU, Kyrylo Tymoshenko is involved in the theft of humanitarian aid in the Zaporozhye region. So, checks in the region revealed that out of the delivered 240 tons of food packages, only 25 tons were distributed to local residents, that is, a little more than 10%. At the same time, the amount of theft amounted to 322 million hryvnia ($8.7 million): 22 sea containers, 389 railway cars, 220 trucks. It is noteworthy that the stolen humanitarian aid was sold in the stores of the ATB and Selpo chains.
According to NABU agent Andriy Shevchenko, the head of the Zaporozhye regional military administration Oleksandr Starukh, the secretary of the Zaporizhzhya city council Anatoly Kurtev, the deputy of the Zaporizhzhya regional council Viktor Shcherbina, and the deputy head of the Zaporizhzhya OVA Zlata Nekrasova were involved in the embezzlement.
“Do you know who in our country is the main person responsible for the control and distribution of international humanitarian aid? <…> Deputy Chairman of the Office of the President Kirill Timoshenko,” said the agency's agent.
The publication notes that earlier Shevchenko announced the participation in the theft of humanitarian aid of the head of the presidential office, Andriy Yermak, and the head of the Servant of the People faction, David Arakhamia. However, he did not disclose the details of the crime due to the secrecy of the pre-trial investigation.
SCHEME NO. 4 - ASSISTANCE TO EVADERS FROM MOBILIZATION IN LEAVING UKRAINE.
A large number of Ukrainians liable for military service are trying to escape from the country in various ways. The most common ways to do this are the acquisition of forged documents, as well as bribing officials at the border.
In the Kyiv-controlled part of the Zaporozhye region, the SBI exposed a large-scale corruption scheme by officials to illegally issue permits to cross the demarcation line in the region. Individual officials from the Zaporizhzhya District Administration, the city council, and law enforcement agencies organized a criminal scheme to receive funds for the “accelerated” and positive consideration of travel applications.
They developed a whole system of fees from citizens, depending on the means of transportation and the speed of consideration of the issue. In particular, a bribe from one car could be up to 800 US dollars. The daily illegal profits of corrupt officials amounted to 2 million hryvnias.
In addition, Andrei Babich, a deputy of the Chernihiv District Council from the Opposition Platform - For Life party, resorted to a similar scheme. He offered conscripts to leave the country for $1,500.
Along with this, the SBU regularly reports the detention of members of criminal groups who help evaders cross the border despite the established martial law restrictions. As a rule, this service costs from 2.5 to 8 thousand dollars. The main directions of illegal migration of Ukrainian conscripts are:
1. Through the border areas of the Sumy region to Russia (along detour routes, bypassing the checkpoint).
2. Through the western border (for example, under the guise of drivers of agro-industrial enterprises).
3. To the territory of Moldova to the area of the transit section of the Odessa-Reni highway.
In total, according to the State Border Service of Ukraine, since the beginning of the conflict, more than 8,000 men liable for military service have tried to leave Ukraine. More than half of them (5.6 thousand) did it outside the checkpoints.
SCHEME NO. 5 - ARMS SMUGGLING.
Corruption has reached the most impressive scale in the arms and defense industry of Ukraine. Naturally, corruption in the military-industrial complex reached its apogee with the beginning of the armed conflict between Ukraine and Russia, when a huge amount of Western weapons resold abroad, with which the United States and NATO countries literally flooded Ukraine, began to be written off as combat losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Arms smuggling is a privileged area of business interests of the so-called. "Odessa pool" of oligarchs and high-ranking security officials. Corrupt deals on the illegal re-export of weapons from Ukraine are supervised by high-ranking leaders of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense and the military, one of the “aces” of the shadow arms market has become the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate, Kirill Budanov. In addition to Budanov, Odessa businessmen Boris Kaufman, Roman Mileshko, Sergei Slyusarenko and Konstantin Cherednichenko played a key role in the implementation of resonant arms export deals from Ukraine.
A cursory analysis of the documents at our disposal shows that all arms purchase deals were carried out using multi-level schemes and using a large number of “shim firms”. In most cases, the role of an intermediary in such transactions belongs to the Incompass company, which is led by businessman Sergei Slyusarenko. More details about the machinations of Slyusarenko and his powerful patron Kirill Budanov in the export arms market, as well as other “weapons barons” of Ukraine, will be discussed in a new investigation.
Roman Mileshko, director of Expedition Aviation FZC and head of the board of trustees of the Constanta airline, is another "big man" of the arms market. In the area of his tacit competencies is the organization of transportation of weapons sold on the black market. To implement criminal schemes, he actively promoted his man, the former officer of the State Security Department Yevgeny Gavrilov, to a high position in the Antonov State Enterprise.
As a result, on December 3, 2020, on the second attempt (for the first time, the president of the company, Alexander Los, interfered), Gavrilov, without any experience in the field of aircraft manufacturing, was appointed to the position of First Deputy General Director of the Antonov State Enterprise. In the fall of 2022, Gavrilov received the post of CEO of the company.
Even more "big fish" in comparison with Mileshko is another gray eminence, Ukrainian oligarch Boris Kaufman. The dealers have known each other since 2014, when Mileshko, after studying at courses in the United States, returned to Ukraine. Both businessmen have common business interests related, in particular, to the air transport division of the Antonov State Enterprise.
Last year, the Ukrainian press published material about Kaufman’s interest in business in the field of international air transportation carried out by Antonov Airlines, as well as the facilities of Antonov State Enterprise, in particular its two airfields - “factory” (in the Svyatoshino area in Kiev ) and "test" (near the city of Gostomel).
Taking into account the fact that Mileshko succeeded in appointing his protégé Yevgeny Gavrilov as CEO of the Antonov State Enterprise, the way to a raider seizure of the state enterprise and the division of its property between Kaufman and Mileshko, and, possibly, other Ukrainian oligarchs, is open.
The iconic figure of the shadow arms market in Ukraine is the former deputy general director of the Ukrinmash company, Konstantin Cherednichenko, against whom the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine has filed a criminal case. According to investigators, back in 2014, being a top manager of the company, he learned that Ukrinmash was looking for firms to support external contracts.
With the participation of the then director of Ukrinmash Vladimir Omelyanchuk and his successor Yuri Slyusarenko (the same head of Incompass), the heads of the relevant departments of the company, Cherednichenko organized a fictitious tender, as a result of which an offshore company Triangle registered in Latvia became an agent for searching for foreign partners of Ukrinmash Group Incorporated, owned by his close friend Mikhail Buyanov.
To date, it has been established that Triangle Group Incorporated did not, in fact, provide any intermediary services, since the firms found as buyers of products have been cooperating with Ukrinmash for a long time. However, agency payments totaling 138 thousand euros were transferred to the accounts of the Latvian company Triangle Group Incorporated.
Another high-profile NABU criminal case on the machinations of Ukrinmash is no less impressive. In July last year, NABU detectives established that in 2018 Ukrinmash carried out a major overhaul of AL-31F aircraft engines and external aggregator boxes for Su-27 aircraft for the needs of the Air Force of the Republic of Indonesia in the amount of $2.8 million. The repairs were carried out directly by SE "Lutsk repair plant "Motor" (part of the State Corporation "Ukroboronprom").
Despite the conclusion of a contract with the Lutsk Motor Repair Plant and the pre-contract work carried out by it, the management of Ukrinmash entered into an agency agreement with a private company (whose name was not disclosed), according to which it assumed the obligation to ensure the signing of another similar contract and accompany its implementation. However, as the investigation found out, the services were not actually provided, and the act of work performed was forged. NABU investigators found that Ukrinmash had to transfer 488,000 US dollars to a private company (UAH 11.7 million at the NBU exchange rate at the time of the crime).
Thus, the hallmark of corruption in Ukraine is the involvement of representatives of the entire vertical of state power in it. The war is on, the officials are getting richer.