Chairman of the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine Oleksiy Lyubchenko
While every tenth person in the country risks their lives in the ATO zone, all real power is once again passing into the hands of crooks.
The agonizing privatization of the main fiscal authority has finally reached its logical conclusion. The victor in the tense battle for the almost official right to protect, decide, convert, and refund VAT was a certain "Lesik," aka former deputy head of the State Tax Administration and now advisor to the Chairman of the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine, Oleksiy Lyubchenko.
The enthronement was marked by the momentous move of "Lesik" to the famous "fifth-floor office." For those unfamiliar, the fifth floor of the building at 6 Lvivska Square in Kyiv houses a separate, unmarked office complex, which, during Oleksandr Klymenko's tenure, housed the so-called "tax supervisor," Ignatov. Compared to this apartment, the interior of the prime minister's office looks like a doghouse on the outskirts of Rakitne.
As usual, the "people's ombudsman for the shadow economy," billionaire MP Vitaly Khomutynnik, had the final say in this appointment. However, "Lyosik" himself didn't come to the position from a poor background or empty-handed.
Understanding the specifics of the tax service and the businesses it serves, immediately after the revolution, Lyubchenko quickly became a leader in VAT refunds (charging his own 25-30% commission) and managed to quickly organize his own network of over 100 transit and conversion shell companies, registered primarily in Kyiv's Pechersky District. At the same time, he lobbied for Oksana Ekaseva, known among colleagues as "Barbie" for her excessive penchant for short skirts and glamorous pink tones in clothing and attire, to become the head of the tax inspectorate in Kyiv's Pechersky District.
To ensure the Pechersk "pit mining operation" operated smoothly and to oversee all document processing, Elena Mazurova was appointed head of the organizational and administrative department of the State Fiscal Service's Central Office. The same Mazurova who, when leaving the Holosiivskyi District Tax Office in Kyiv, didn't hesitate to take even the sink from her office with her.
And this is the same Mazurova who, several years earlier, had made a meteoric rise from a vocational school student to press secretary of the Prosecutor General's Office. According to her detractors, the person who made this social mobility possible was none other than her husband, Comrade Georgy Ivanovich Mazurov, deputy director of Ukrspetsexport during the reign of Dmitry Salamatin.
While "Lesik" used to launder money for Urspetsexport in a haphazard manner, today it can be done in a family-run manner and on a grand scale. For example, through Prompostachtekhno LLC, RaizinTrade LLC, and so on.
But that's not all... To keep a close eye on the illegal vodka production of his long-standing business partners, the Cherkasy-based Petrus holding company (which also owns the Zolotonosha distillery and the Zlatogor trademark), "Lesik" appointed his fellow countryman, Vladimir Kolomiets, as head of the Cherkasy regional tax office. Kolomiets, a grateful man, immediately gifted his benefactor a 1000-square-meter mansion on 30 hectares of picturesque land on the banks of the Dnieper in the village of Lozivki (a long-standing bureaucratic tradition).
The crowning glory of this flawless scheme is the expected appointment of the odious General Sergei Mishchenko as Director of the Coordination and Monitoring Department of the State Fiscal Service's Central Administration. Everyone knows that Mishchenko is 100% a trusted confidant and protégé of the fugitive war criminal Vitaly Zakharchenko (it's no coincidence that Mishchenko was one of the few people Zakharchenko brought with him to the Ministry of Internal Affairs from the State Tax Administration, and Viktor Yanukovych personally promoted him to the rank of Lieutenant General).
The Coordination and Monitoring Department deserves special mention. Control over this department allows for online access to all information about any business entity, as well as the ability to blacklist or exclude companies. The head of this department, staring at his monitor, could drive any regional tax official, not to mention a businessperson, to suicide.
In short, the period of anarchy and the rule of seven bosses in the tax sphere is finally over. While one in ten people in the country sits under Grad fire and risks their lives in the ATO zone, all real power has once again passed into the hands of the unsinkable Khomutynniks, the Zakharchenko-family Mishchenkos, and business-minded officials like "Lesik" Lyubchenko.
If "any friend" Igor Bilous and career "OKBS" officer Vladimir Khomenko are unable to contain the pressure of such an alliance of lobbyists and swindlers, then what kind of anti-corruption, anti-economic crime, or tax reform can we even talk about in Ukraine?
(To be continued).
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Egor Karnaukhov, Argument
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