We are all proud of our athletes' victories. For example, everyone remembers the thrilling feeling of pride at Oleksandr Usyk's recent knockout, or any other victory by our compatriots. And what can we say about the stadium support for our national football team at any match? We never miss an opportunity to highlight the Ukrainian origins of successful people, particularly athletes, or at least their tenuous connection to our country.
But for our officials, the desire for enrichment apparently overshadows all other feelings. Instead of protecting and fighting for their talented compatriots, the Ukrainian government is "selling" them to an aggressor state, while law enforcement agencies stubbornly remain inactive. This concerns criminal case No. 42014100000001273, which was opened back in 2014 and is being sabotaged in every way by Deputy Prosecutor General Yuriy Stolyarchuk, curator of the Main Investigative Department of the Prosecutor General's Office. And this is not to mention other corruption cases for which investigations have not even begun.
The Minister and his team
Ukraine's Minister of Youth and Sports, Ihor Zhdanov, has never had any direct involvement in sports, but positions himself as a professional manager. Apparently, for "professionals," the specific field of work isn't all that important. But still, how can someone with no connection to sports become a minister of such caliber? What achievements did a historian by education and a political PR professional achieve in earning this post? Or are youth and sports simply not important to our country?
This raises several more questions: what's more important—expertise or knowledge of the "schemes"? Personal loyalty or the authority of a person who knows the ropes, who has experienced firsthand the burden, extortion, injustice, negligence, and indifference of the bureaucratic machine toward sports in Ukraine? We'll save the answers for later.
So, who is this Ihor Zhdanov? He served in the army and is a historian by training. He began working for Leonid Kuchma, representing him at the Central Election Commission as a presidential candidate in 1994. He continued his career in Kuchma's Presidential Administration, worked for the National Security and Defense Council, and served as director of political and legal programs at the A. Razumkov Ukrainian Center for Economic and Political Research. Zhdanov also consulted for the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Combating Organized Crime and Corruption. After leaving politics under Leonid Kuchma, he represented Viktor Yushchenko and worked for the People's Union "Our Ukraine" party (later "Our Ukraine - People's Self-Defense"). Since 2008, Ihor Zhdanov has been president of the Open Policy think tank, and in 2014, he became a member of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine representing the All-Ukrainian Union "Batkivshchyna" party.
An important fact for our topic is that, in exchange for Batkivshchyna's 5,7% of the vote and its entry into the coalition, Yulia Tymoshenko was awarded two ministries—the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources and the Ministry of Youth and Sports of Ukraine. She then sold this quota to Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Vladislav Kaskiv. This, in principle, is the logical conclusion to the appointment of Zhdanov as Minister of Youth and Sports of Ukraine, replacing the infamous Dmytro Bulatov.
Besides his position as the "athlete" Bulatov's successor, Igor Alexandrovich inherited a well-honed scheme for embezzling funds and a number of officials responsible for the smooth operation of the corruption machine. First and foremost, this concerns Igor Gotsul (Arseniy Yatsenyuk's protégé), who, even under Bulatov, was remembered for his outrageous deals with budget funds and extortion of athletes. (Incidentally, after Bulatov's departure, he was one of the candidates for the ministerial post.)
Besides Ihor Gutsul, Ilya Shevlyak, also a former contender for the Ministry, is also a key figure in the Ministry's affairs. Shevlyak is also a former candidate for the position and has access to the Ministry as the head of the public association "Sports Committee." Shevlyak is associated with the aforementioned mastermind of investment deals, Vladislav Kaskiv, who, in turn, is close to the circle of the equally talented "chess player" Dmitry Firtash.
Zhdanov entrusted Ilya Shevlyak with the "care" of military-patriotic education for young people and the development of technical and military-applied sports. The minister spares no budgetary resources for this sacred cause, funding the activities of all sorts of dubious quasi-sports-oriented public organizations (for example, the Society for Assistance to the Defense of Ukraine) through various state programs.
Shevlyak is a long-standing figure in Ukrainian politics. While serving as a deputy minister in Viktor Yanukovych's cabinet, he unexpectedly became one of the leaders of the opposition force "Pora," which Vladislav Kaskiv successfully sold for a substantial sum. Later, as deputy minister for family, youth, and sports and chairman of the ministry's standing tender committee, Shevlyak earned a substantial sum just by installing artificial turf fields. Just imagine: 13,400,000 hryvnias were allocated for this project, and instead of expensive German turf costing 265 hryvnias per meter, cheap Chinese turf was purchased for 80-100 hryvnias per meter. Thus, approximately 4,000,000 hryvnias were spent, and 9,000,000 hryvnias were stolen with impunity.
It's also worth remembering Olena Pidhrushna, who served as Bulatov's and then Zhdanov's deputy until April 2015. She is remembered for organizing extortions from participants in state competitions (for example, in September 2014, athletes who refused to pay a bogus Federation were banned from participating in the Ukrainian Classic Parachuting Championships; in December of that same year, the Ministry of Youth and Sport established a "non-refundable financial aid" of 30 UAH per distance as a condition for admission to the Ukrainian Veterans' Track and Field Cup competition, etc.). Thus, to participate in state competitions organized by the Ministry of Youth and Sport and financed by the state budget, all athletes must pay non-refundable financial aid.
As they say within the Ministry, Zhdanov doesn't interfere much with the department's activities and only signs papers. But you must admit, this in no way absolves him of responsibility for everything that happens in his fiefdom. The Minister of Youth and Sports is also linked to the activities of pseudo-public organizations (whose names contain the phrase "federation of something or other," for example, the "Parachuting Federation of Ukraine"), through which budget funds intended for financing events for the military-patriotic education of youth and the development of military-applied sports are "laundered"; his deputies extort money from athletes (according to journalist Volodymyr Boyko, each athlete at every national competition must pay 2 hryvnias, and each team - 5 hryvnias; international competitions - $1); the appointment of "overseers" for each sport; the sale of sports titles; falsification of documents to provide tax benefits for allegedly held international competitions, and much more.
Reaction and actions of the GPU
In October 2014, the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine opened criminal case No. 42014100000001273 into the criminal activities of Andriy Vishnyak (Bulatov's former first deputy), Gotsul, and Pidhrushna, which was investigated by the Kyiv City Prosecutor's Office. Prokurorskaya Pravda previously reported on the twists and turns of this case, as well as the parachute scandal. At the time, the aforementioned Volodymyr Boyko openly blamed the dismissed Kyiv Prosecutor, Serhiy Yuldashev, for sabotaging the investigation.
Interestingly, before the criminal case was opened back in 2014, the prosecutor's office hadn't pursued any investigation for a long time. Then, Batkivshchyna MP Ihor Lutsenko took a keen interest in the case. His statement about the Kyiv prosecutor's inaction coincided with the active phase of the Yuldashev leak and the scandal between the Kyiv prosecutor and Oleksiy Baganets. The essence of the case is that the aforementioned Ministry officials entered into a criminal conspiracy with Volodymyr Gribanov, deputy head of the Society for Assistance to the Defense of Ukraine. Gribanov opened several fictitious companies imitating the names of sports organizations. Budget funds were transferred to the accounts of these organizations.
This activity was initiated under Dmitry Bulatov, but the current minister, Igor Zhdanov, continues it successfully.
Another Ministry scam was the claim that, according to the Tax Code of Ukraine, sports facilities that host international and national competitions, train national teams, or prepare reserve teams are exempt from land tax. A list of such facilities is compiled by the Ministry of Youth and Sports and approved by a Cabinet of Ministers resolution. This is noble. But what do we actually have? A number of facilities with such status and benefits exist, but in reality, they are leased to certain companies, and clearly not for sports purposes (for example, the Chaika and Lichanka airfields, among others).
The most interesting thing is that there are already around 40 court rulings on numerous criminal cases involving the Ministry of Youth and Sports, which Zhdanov and his company successfully, and most importantly, ignore with impunity. This leads us to conclude that extortion from athletes, the activities of business federations, shell companies, public organizations, the misuse of tax breaks, and so on, are a very profitable business, the profits from which are more than enough to keep the prosecutor's office blind, deaf, and incapacitated.
How much does an athlete cost the people?
Ukraine has a tradition of selling ministerial portfolios, leasing them out, appointing them for subsequent "working off," and so on, after all, the executive branch provides access to the budget, which can and should be carved up. Furthermore, each ministry has its own customs and rules for conducting business (selling land, positions, licenses, various business preferences, etc.). So, the Ministry of Youth and Sport has decided not to fall behind, but to be, so to speak, at the forefront of innovation, expanding its arsenal of means for personal enrichment and the total impoverishment (material and moral) of the country by deciding to "sell" athletes. Positions need to be worked off! The patrons—Tymoshenko, Yatsenyuk, and Kaskiv—are expecting dividends.
Thus, the Ukrainian Athletics Federation has granted Crimean athletes permission to transfer to the All-Russian Federation through an abbreviated process. These athletes include Vera Rebrik, a European javelin champion, Oleksiy Sokirskiy, an Olympic finalist, and five other athletes. For agreeing to the abbreviated process, the Ukrainian Athletics Federation received $170 from the All-Russian Federation.
The news of the "sale" of Crimean (Ukrainian) track and field athletes to Russia is unlikely to come as much of a surprise. However, while the Ukrainian government is verbally fighting the aggressor, declaring that "Crimea is Ukraine" and promising to return the peninsula, which was plundered, to the country, Zhdanov and Co. are demonstrating the true attitude and intentions of those in power through their actions. Why does Ukraine need talented athletes? Why does it need healthy people? Why does it need the country's image and prestige? Why should the younger generation follow anyone's example and emulate the achievements of their compatriots? Why should we sell them to a state with which we are at war and because of which we are losing the nation's best gene pool?
The question remains: does such a deal and allowing Crimean track and field athletes to compete in international competitions on behalf of the Russian Federation constitute de facto recognition by Ukraine of Crimea as Russian territory? Clearly, this blasphemous act is the result of all the actions of Ministry officials described earlier. After all, thanks to the "reform" of Zhdanov, Gotsul, Shevlyak, and others, the Ministry of Youth and Sport delegated state powers to phantom public organizations to develop sports, manage state budget funds, certify sports judges, qualify athletes, and, as we see, sell the best "examples." And the Ministry's response to all these complaints is very simple: "We have nothing to do with it. We have no right to interfere in the affairs of public organizations." Therefore, Gotsul, no longer the First Deputy Minister but the head of the public organization "Ukrainian Athletics Federation," performed a "good deed" and enriched himself and Zhdanov by $170. And the fact that Ukrainian sport has become significantly poorer doesn’t bother anyone.
The response of political strategist Zhdanov and swindler Gotsul
Meanwhile, "at the boss's castle"... Mr. Zhdanov, like an experienced political strategist, makes a "knight's move" and complains to the Prosecutor General's Office about his accomplice, oh, pardon me, the first deputy, and part-time head of the pseudo-public organization FLAU, Igor Gotsul, regarding Crimean athletes in Russia. Incidentally, "diverting attention" is a favorite tactic in Arseniy Yatsenyuk's Cabinet. Everyone remembers the story of the "chief corrupt official" in the government, former head of the State Emergency Service, Serhiy Bochkovsky.
Zhdanov states that "from a patriotic and moral standpoint, for me, as a minister and a citizen, the defection of individual Crimean track and field athletes, or any other Ukrainian athletes, to the Russian Federation is unacceptable. I consider such actions during Russia's armed aggression against our state to be treason."
The minister says the FLAU's decision is "politically contradictory." So, from all other perspectives, it's perfectly reasonable!? He claims it was only because of the public and political outcry that he ordered an internal investigation into First Deputy Minister Gotsul. Otherwise, if the public had remained silent, the minister wouldn't have paid any attention? Indeed, why should a minister defend national interests?
Gotsul also defends himself, claiming that after Russia's annexation of Crimea, the FLAU actively worked to keep Crimean track and field athletes in Ukraine, but their efforts were unsuccessful. He stated that various solutions were proposed, including relocation to mainland Ukraine, temporary housing, financial assistance, and so on. Perhaps they even offered a discount on fees?
The athletes themselves say they don't want to leave their homes in Crimea, and Ukraine hasn't offered them decent conditions. Let's also not forget the general state of affairs in sports, the lack of support, the extortion by officials and their "overseers," etc.
The ministerial statement also stated that 170 rubles in compensation will be used for good causes, such as training new sports stars and providing financial assistance to athletes from the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.
All would be well, but most experts (for example, Bohdan Yaremenko, Volodymyr Boyko, and many others) agree that the FLAU's decision constitutes de facto recognition of Crimea as part of the Russian Federation. And everyone involved must be punished. Among them, First Deputy Minister of Youth and Sports Igor Gotsul must resign. The Prosecutor General's Office should investigate corruption in the ministry, and Mr. Zhdanov must undergo a professional aptitude test, the results of which will determine whether he faces either an inglorious resignation or a "checkered sky."
What should I do? What to do?
What should be done in this situation? Of course, we need to contact law enforcement and demand an end to the chaos. But there's a catch. After all, cases have been opened (for example, criminal case No. 42014100000001273), and the Main Investigative Department of the Prosecutor General's Office, overseen by Deputy Prosecutor General Yuriy Stolyarchuk, is sabotaging the investigation.
One of the reasons for Stolyarchuk's behavior may be that, in addition to Bulatov, Zhdanov, Gotsul, Pidhrushnaya, Shevlyak, and others, the criminal case materials also mention Timchenko (Maxim Timchenko, CEO of Akhmetov's company DTEK). They also mention Kaskiv, Kernes, and Shapovalov (Kernes's right-hand man and a member of the Kharkiv Regional Council from the Party of Regions).
What can you say, these "respected" and "untouchable" people? According to Vladimir Boyko, Shokin was briefed on the actions of Zhdanov, Gotsul, and others, and his deputy, Stolyarchuk, was instructed to transfer case No. 42014100000001273 to another investigator and create a special investigative team. But so far, no results are in sight. And will there ever be any? Considering the nexus between the "old/new elite," the vast budgetary resources that need to be "appropriated" and put into pockets, and there's enough for everyone.
Thus, the looting of Zhdanov and his team, and the inaction of the Prosecutor General's Office, are leading to the systematic destruction of sports in our country and the de facto recognition of Crimea as part of the Russian Federation. The ball once again falls to law enforcement agencies, primarily the Prosecutor General's Office, which will either remain inactive as usual or finally begin to perform its functions, demonstrating the skill and real results of the "reformers'" work.
Based on the above, Prosecutor's Truth has several questions:
Why is the Prosecutor General's Office inactive regarding the corruption of Ministry of Youth and Sports officials, and will criminal case No. 42014100000001273 ever move forward?
— Will Shokin be able to insist that Stolyarchuk comply with his instructions to transfer the case to another investigator, and will the special investigative group he created produce any results?
— Will the public achieve justice and, at a minimum, dismissal, and at a maximum, criminal punishment for Zhdanov, Gotsul, and other “chief athletes”?
Subscribe to our channels in Telegram, Facebook, Twitter, VC — Only new faces from the section CRYPT!