Alexander Pisaruk
The current leadership of the National Bank of Ukraine is forced to fend off constant attacks and criticism from the media regarding the hryvnia's depreciation and the collapse of the banking system. And it must be acknowledged that the criticism is justified. After all, everyone experiences the state's financial policy missteps firsthand.
In this context, I'd like to understand whether the government's leadership in general, and the NBU's leadership in particular, are truly fulfilling their responsibilities. Isn't a redistribution of other people's property—or, to put it simply, a "squeezing"—being carried out under the cover of the general economic downturn?
This is a complex issue. Firstly, because we must consider two essential factors: the increased costs of ensuring national security and defense, and the need to return to the state the ill-gotten gains that still belong to the former oligarchic elite. Secondly, it is necessary to assess the subjective nature of the actions of government officials: are they driven by a desire to fill an empty coffers, or are they plundering the plundered property for personal gain? Thirdly, we must understand to what extent the new representatives of state power are respecting the public interest while ensuring their own.
Unfortunately, only history can provide a definitive answer to these questions. Guided by recognized scientific methods of analysis, we can formulate assumptions or hypotheses regarding government financial policy.
The value of such a hypothesis is debatable. However, experience with the media shows that such hypotheses compel officials to respond: to respond, to refute, to explain. For this reason alone, political hypotheses have a right to exist.
We must take into account the subjective factor, namely the personality characteristics of top managers of government agencies, and cannot rely solely on dry data from economic analysis, since the latter deals with real economic operations and decisions, and not with imaginary equipment used to create the appearance of action and cover up dubious decisions.
The reason for writing this article was information received from state security officials that the main attack on Ukraine in today's hybrid war will be aimed at one of its weakest areas – the economy and banking system.
When asked about the specific mechanism for implementing this plan, we received a vague answer: through the actions of agents of influence, as well as through government officials connected to Russian businesses, which are completely controlled by the state.
We currently have no information about specific individuals involved with Russian intelligence services. However, as capable thinkers, we employed counterintelligence research methods, identifying promising individuals within the Ukrainian banking system who might be susceptible to recruitment, identifying potential grounds for their involvement, and identifying any actions they may have taken that were detrimental to the interests of our state.
Moreover, the history of intelligence agencies shows that such agents of influence are not the top officials of institutions, ministries, and agencies. They are political figures. Their tenure in office, ergo the ability to carry out the tasks of a foreign intelligence agency, becomes a factor of instability. But deputy heads...
Taking into account the above, having summed up all the signs, the first deputy head of the National Bank of Ukraine, Oleksandr Pisaruk, came to our attention.
The facts indicate that Alexander Vladimirovich worked for some time in Moscow as the head of the risk management department of the representative office of ING Bank Eurasia (from 2000 to 2001), where he established (or was established with) contacts with representatives of the Russian business elite.
This period is very interesting in Russian business circles. First and foremost, it was in early 2000 (December 30, 1999) that Vladimir Putin became Acting President of the Russian Federation. The early 2000s were a period of change in Russia's business elites. It was during this time that a new pro-Putin oligarchy replaced the old Yeltsin one, at the main state troughs. And most of them, like Vladimir Putin himself, hailed from the formerly all-powerful KGB (and, as we know, there are no former operatives).
Moreover, at that time, Bank Ukraina, A. Pisaruk's first job in banking, was on its last legs. The echoes of that scam still resonate today.
Another interesting parallel emerges: at Bank Ukraina (at the central office, of course, not the Mykolaiv directorate), Oleksandr Pisaruk worked with a highly odious figure: Volodymyr Satsyuk, a Ukrainian MP at whose dacha Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned, an associate of A. Volokov, a major general, the first deputy head of the Security Service of Ukraine (under I. Smeshko), and… an advisor to the director of the FSB of the Russian Federation, a lieutenant general of the FSB. After the Orange Revolution, Satsyuk fled to Russia with a sack of classified documents and a suitcase of cash, likely from the same bank.
Alexander Pisaruk's current contacts with Russians are still being investigated. But one thing is clear: they exist and are persistent.
The reader may accuse us of spy mania. However, one more point of analysis remains: A. Pisaruk's specific actions in his position, which may indicate his involvement in... For example, he is one of the individuals who shaped (and directly influenced) the state's monetary policy.
Readers will no doubt recall the situation when only certain banks, either close to the NBU's management or having reached agreements with them, were able to purchase foreign currency in interbank trading. One such bank, oddly enough, was Yuriy Ivanyushchenko's Yenakiyevo bank, Rodovid. It turns out that this bank, receiving refinancing from the NBU, is held in a special account.
The results of such control are astonishing: with 75% of the loan portfolio fulfilled (repayment of previously issued loans), the bank ended the year with a loss of UAH 300 million.
The National Bank had approximately 15 departments collecting reports, but you won't find any reports on Rodovidbank's foreign exchange transactions anywhere. Now, here's a riddle for a fifth-grade student: if the difference between the NBU's official exchange rate and the market rate was 3 hryvnias per US dollar (for example, when the official rate was 13 hryvnias, the dollar was selling for 16 hryvnias, and when the rate was 16,5 hryvnias, it was selling for 18,5 hryvnias), how many US dollars did Rodovidbank buy at the commercial interbank rate and sell at the official bank rate, if the total losses from these transactions amounted to 300 million hryvnias? The answer is 100 million US dollars.
Here's a question for older readers: who will bear the brunt of these losses? Our long-suffering budget, filled by the labors of taxpayers. And where will Ivanyushchenko's people direct the excess profits they've earned, amounting to $18 million (the same 300 million hryvnias)? Probably to the needs of the Ukrainian army and the Ukrainian people.
And for thoughtful readers, a question arises: how did the leadership of the National Bank of Ukraine, and in particular Oleksandr Pysaruk, as the former CEO of ING Bank, allow such transactions to take place? After all, given the NBU's restrictions on the purchase of cash currency (USD 220 per person per day), the number of people who purchased currency is approximately 82,500. If we take the minimum time it takes a bank teller to service one client for a foreign exchange transaction (5 minutes), the total transaction time would be approximately 7,000 hours (i.e., including cash register time, 2,3 years).
So maybe the hryvnia's collapse has no real economic basis? With such speculation, no amount of foreign exchange reserves would be enough.
We believe that in this case, we are not simply talking about unjust enrichment from currency speculation. After all, Oleksandr Vladimirovich could not have been unaware that such fluctuations would lead to a massive withdrawal of deposits from the Ukrainian banking system. Specifically, in 2014, Ukrainian banks experienced an outflow of deposits totaling $100 billion. This is the lifeblood of the economy. Trust in banks is the key to the stability of the national economic system. And in these conditions of the hryvnia's depreciation, any talk of trust is impossible.
So who benefits from this? Can such activity be considered harmful to state interests?
We leave the answers to these questions to your discretion, the thinking reader.
Author: Alexander Makidrov
Based on materials from: Politica-UA.com
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