For the public, there are arrests, but in reality, there is a war over “schemes” in the Ukrainian maritime industry.
War between the top officials of the state.
On July 29, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) announced with great fanfare that it had served a notice of suspicion of committing a criminal offense on a senior maritime official—the head of the state-owned enterprise "Administration of Sea Ports of Ukraine." This person is Andriy Amelin.
According to the report, law enforcement officials established that in February and March 2015, the state-owned enterprise's management purchased fuel and lubricants from a private entity at prices significantly above market value. As a result, the Seaports Administration suffered damages amounting to 3,5 million hryvnias.
Pre-trial investigation as part of a criminal proceeding opened under Part 5 of Article 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. This refers to the misappropriation, embezzlement, or seizure of property through abuse of office, committed on an especially large scale or by an organized group (punishable by imprisonment for a term of seven to twelve years, with deprivation of the right to hold certain positions or engage in certain activities for up to three years, and confiscation of property).
Andrei Amelin is served with a notice of suspicion of committing a crime.
Unfortunately, yet another high-profile action by security officials directly subordinate to President Petro Poroshenko does not inspire optimism among experts in Ukraine's maritime industry.
And that's why.
According to Argument, before the notice of suspicion was served, influential Rada deputies "from transport" visited the Minister of Infrastructure. A difficult conversation took place, the contents of which were revealed only to a number of the main beneficiaries of the Revolution of Dignity (Poroshenko, Yatsenyuk, and possibly Avakov).
The minister immediately goes on vacation, and searches are launched at the AMPU, resulting in suspicion for A. Amelin, the head of the AMPU.
In principle, the AMPU is a completely corrupt institution, and the investigation has a lot to dig into. But how many qualified specialists, and those with an understanding of the nuances of the maritime industry in particular, are in the investigative apparatuses of the SBU and the Prosecutor General's Office? They can't solve the Gongadze case, and this one involves maritime law, international law... As a result, investigators have already targeted Odesa-based firms that have no connection whatsoever to the AMPU, and the investigation is completely blunt.
At the same time, the criminal activity of the AMPU's top management, amounting to billions in damages since its creation, is obvious. However, the SBU, the Prosecutor General's Office, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs are not opening cases for:
— the construction of a hotel, which has been spoiling the view of Odessa at the seaport for 10 years now (it stands empty);
— about the container terminal, where almost a billion dollars were poured, half of which was government money (it stands empty);
— by the fact that the staff in the central office of the AMPU is inflated (the average salary, including cleaners, photographers and window washers, is almost 35 thousand UAH);
— because millions are still being spent (since the end of 2011) on paying for the “salaries” of the honorary president of the Odessa port, Nikolai Pavlyuk…
It's also worth noting that A. Amelin is currently accused of a deal dating back to 2015, i.e., the purchase of fuel from the companies of "oil baron" Igor Yeremeyev, at the height of the "reformer" Minister Pivovarsky's "working out" the schemes of the formerly influential, now deceased, MP. Minister Pivovarsky was actually Yeremeyev's protégé, a result of a conspiracy between I. Yeremeyev, P. Poroshenko, and A. Yatsenyuk.
Obvious atrocities had been going on at the USPA since the Revolution of Dignity, but while Yeremeyev was alive, Yatsenyuk and Poroshenko turned a blind eye. They also had their own "schemes" in Ukraine's maritime industry. Yeremeyev's death relieved his high-ranking partners of their obligations; Minister Pyvovarsky was purged amid the commotion of Prime Minister Yatsenyuk's resignation. For some reason (probably Western pressure on this strategic issue for Ukraine's reforms), the young reformer Volodymyr Omelyan became the new Minister of Infrastructure.
But the progressive minister's hands are clearly tied: both Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk have placed their own people in key positions in the transport industry. Their sole purpose is to ensure income from criminal schemes in the industry for the Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk clans. The latter, in turn, have essentially replaced Yanukovych's "family" with their own "families."
Speaking of the situation surrounding the Ukrainian Danube Shipping Company, it's worth mentioning another hotspot in the maritime industry, one that has already caused serious friction between Minister Omelyan and the Yatsenyuk clan. This is the Ukrainian Danube Shipping Company.
The Chairman of the Board of PJSC Ukrainian Danube Shipping Company is Dmytro Barinov, initially a protégé of the People's Front. Barinov even ran for the Verkhovna Rada as a candidate for this political party, but failed to gain a seat. In mid-February 2015, he was removed from his position as the company's chairman following an investigation into alleged abuses of power. However, then-MP Anatoly Urbanskyi intervened on his behalf (read more about him in the article). Igor Urbansky and Sons: How to Eat Deliciously in Odessa), who later became the head of the Odessa regional council from the BPP, and, probably, Alexander Granovsky.
The influential intercession of the presidential "family" had a positive impact on Barinov's fate—he was reinstated in his position at the end of March 2015. However, the government's audit of the shipping company's financial and economic activities was never made public.
But in mid-November 2015, the SBU uncovered a corruption scheme at UDP: the company's top managers had entered into illegal contracts with commercial entities to lease vessels for intra-port transportation, which resulted in losses of over 2 million hryvnias between 2014 and early 2015. A criminal investigation was opened, the outcome of which remains unknown, but D. Barinov changed his political affiliation, becoming a member of the regional council, this time from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc.
Apparently, D. Barinov's change of political stance had no effect on his criminal inclinations. Details of yet another scandal involving the shipping company's director recently emerged. A quote from Serhiy Leshchenko's blog for Ukrayinska Pravda: "Kononenko and Avakov oversee the Ministry of Infrastructure, where corruption seems ineradicable. One story is telling: when the director of the Danube Shipping Company was summoned to the ministry and an attempt was made to fire him, he asked to use the restroom, from where he called the Minister of Internal Affairs. Afterwards, the Minister of Infrastructure was summoned to the Ministry of Internal Affairs."
Here's a quote on the same topic from Mikheil Saakashvili, head of the Odesa Regional State Administration, Misha: "The port administration is controlled by Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, while Ukraine's fiscal system is controlled by MP Vitaly Khomutynnik, head of the Revival Party. MP Deidei, who has four criminal convictions, calls me and the head of the port and, on behalf of the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, says that Latvians should not be allowed in. What does the Ministry of Internal Affairs have to do with the port in Reni? Why does a man with four criminal convictions even sit in parliament and allow himself to call me and discuss such matters with me?"
The mere fact that the Minister of Internal Affairs interfered in the work of another ministry merits criminal prosecution and the imprisonment of Arsen Avakov. We have written and will continue to write about the fact that the head of Ukraine's law enforcement agency—the Ministry of Internal Affairs—is a man with obvious criminal inclinations, whose actions fall under a whole host of articles of the Criminal Code.
But today we are not talking about him.
Why is the Minister of Internal Affairs so ardently defending the positions of the Yatsenyuk and Poroshenko clans in the Danube Shipping Company?
We will find the answer in the “recent history” of the UDP itself.
For the state, the Danube Shipping Company is a lost business, and the sooner the state gets rid of it, the less it will be "milked" by anyone and everyone.
The thing is, this business is a cash-based one. It's simply impossible to run it any other way in Ukraine. Especially at a state-owned enterprise, whose operations are insanely regulated: endless currency restrictions, nitpicking, wage and travel rationing, the impossibility of quickly purchasing fuel without approval, supplies, and spare parts—the main reason this business can't work without cash. Especially on the Danube, since the journeys are short, competition is fierce, and our crews see how they operate in Europe without all that Soviet-era regulation and either switch entire crews to Western vessels or start working for cash.
And this is where “Avakov’s eagles” are needed, i.e. “to cut cash.”
For example, when a captain brings back hundreds of documents from a voyage—reports on work on foreign rivers and ports—then you can, for example, demand that he translate the invoices in the report from Hungarian or Romanian into Ukrainian and "push" him so hard that he quickly hands over the euros he's prepared in advance. Thousands. Just to get the inspectors off your back. He's already prepared them!
This is the very same depreciation of the Soviet fleet, which continues to rely on bribes for all the years of Ukraine's independence. Tens of millions of euros annually—a source of corruption. This is why they not only semi-officially maintain numerous dollar and euro accounts in Europe in the name of the Ukrainian Presidential Property Fund, but also why they purchase real estate for offices in Europe, which then goes to "inspectors" to maintain this inexhaustible flow of "cash," today going to the NF coffers. Or to the coffers of those who will ensure the continued "transfer of the Soviet fleet's value" into "cash."
In principle, the Danube Shipping Company needs to conduct a complete audit of all its assets. But how can we account for the property already transferred abroad, the accounts holding hundreds of thousands of dollars and euros in Western banks "for the operational maintenance of the fleet," but also for quick access to the "cash" of the NF emissaries?
Throughout the entire transport sector, the People's Front's protégés have inflicted colossal damage on the state. It was Maxim Burbak (Read more about it in the article Maksym Burbak: How Chernivtsi residents sat on Donetsk's "golden toilet"), who had nothing to do with transport but was pushed into the Minister of Infrastructure by A. Yatsenyuk, in 2014 placed his people—"overseers"—in every possible state-owned enterprise and agency. Then M. Burbak went to parliament to "firm the schemes." This was already a prototype of Yanukovych's "family," only built along territorial and departmental lines. In April 2014, at his instigation, A. Amelin was appointed to the AMPU—essentially a shell company collecting money from the maritime industry.
At that time, the "Yatsenyuk family" needed to reduce the influence of the "Poroshenko family" on the industry, and the criminal "schemes" of Kaufman and Granovsky were already set up in the ports (Read more: Kaufman-Granovsky and their business interests: airports, vodka, cigarettes, banks, hotels) with cover from the BPP. And so, A. Yatsenyuk (who was allegedly acquainted with the Amelin brothers) appointed Andriy Amelin as head of the AMPU, completely groundlessly—from a legal standpoint—removing embezzler Yuriy Vaskov from his lucrative position.
Knowing all this background, it is hardly worth counting on Amelin to “crack” and give up all his accomplices, or more precisely, his bosses.
The most likely scenario for the "Amelin case" is that he will be forced out of his lucrative position under threat of criminal prosecution, and replaced by a protégé of the "Poroshenko family." The People's Front's cash flow will be transferred to the Petro Poroshenko Bloc.
Poroshenko's clan will become a little richer, Yatsenyuk's clan – a little poorer.
Ordinary Ukrainians will once again pay for the criminal brutes' feast.
Read more: Kaufman-Granovsky and their business interests: airports, vodka, cigarettes, banks, hotels
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Sergey Fedorov, "Argument"
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