Svoboda is implicated in corruption schemes in Ukrainian medicine.

Svoboda MP Svyatoslav Khanenko and party leader Oleh Tyahnybok were involved in ensuring the functioning of corruption schemes in Ukraine's healthcare sector.

Mikhail Brodsky, former Chairman of the State Service for Regulatory Policy and Entrepreneurship Development, writes about this in his article on Obozrevatel.

In 2013, MP Khanenko hired Dmitry Podturkin, a former adviser to the Minister of Health from the "family" of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, as his assistant. Podturkin was tasked with building "the vertical and functional structures for conducting government procurement in the 'right' way."

According to the author, Podturkin "charmed" Khanenko so much that he even tried to push him into a position at the State Service for Medicines and Drugs Control—but then both pharmaceutical market players and their lobbyists in the Verkhovna Rada united against this. Khanenko then placed his protégé on the supervisory board of Okhmatdet. "And while Ukrainians are dying, driving the Family out of Ukraine, Podturkin is quietly overseeing the procurement of equipment for the new building, popularly dubbed 'Sasha Yanukovych's building.' The price tag, even at the old prices that existed before the rapid devaluation of the hryvnia, is around 800 million hryvnias," the article states.

Podturkin is handing over the supply rights to "his own people," specifically to Ukrmed, a company that has also been a perennial favorite in Ministry of Health tenders. Brodsky notes that this company is controlled by Nikolai Kuzma, one of the largest players in the domestic market. Kuzma's companies won up to 90% of Ministry of Health tenders for medical equipment purchases until 2009, including importing Opels at the price of ambulances, using funds from an Austrian loan.

"According to insider information, Oleh Tyahnybok, the leader of Svoboda, which received its quota from the Ministry of Health, also 'signed up' for Podturkin—he 'matched' Podturkin with the head of the State Service for Medicines," the author notes.

Politrada

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