Members of parliament who submitted a bill to the Verkhovna Rada to nationalize the ATB retail chain were offered $500 to withdraw their signatures from the document. Member of parliament Andriy Lozovoy stated this on Channel 5's "Special View" program.
The bill was introduced in parliament in the spring. Its authors were 15 members of parliament—members of all coalition factions, as well as independents. The bill provides for the nationalization of the assets of the ATB retail chain for reasons of public necessity—to prevent the financing of terrorism and illegal armed groups and to create a national retail chain with a social focus.
"They're offering $500 to withdraw the signature. It could be less or more for someone else," Lozovoy said. MP Dmytro Linko echoed him : "We immediately heard threats: to bring someone to court, to strip them of their immunity. But resistance and bribery attempts will not work."
Parliament members and experts accuse ATB of supporting terrorism through its operations in the occupied territories. According to intelligence agencies, through the owners of offshore companies, the supermarket chain is co-owned by the well-known Russian oligarch Konstantin Malafeev, founder of the investment fund Marshall Capital Partners, which, according to media reports, provides large-scale financial support to terrorist organizations in the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR).
"Regarding businesses operating in the Donbas territory occupied by Putin's terrorists: as of today, we recommend that all firms, enterprises, and state-owned companies operating there re-register in Ukraine, open accounts in Ukrainian banks, and operate, paying taxes in Ukraine. If they fail to do so, they will be subject to various sanctions," noted MP Anton Gerashchenko.
"As a member of parliament of Ukraine, I submitted a request to the Prosecutor General's Office on February 13, 2015. The Prosecutor General's Office responded by initiating criminal proceedings for terrorist financing and tax evasion directly by the ATB corporation, amounting to 2,5 billion hryvnias," said MP Artem Vitko.
The chain's owners are considered practically friends of former President Yanukovych. For example, Gennady Butkevych, one of the founders of the ATB corporation, began his career in Soviet law enforcement. In the 90s, he headed the security service of the UESU corporation and served as Pavlo Lazarenko's right-hand man in law enforcement matters. After Lazarenko's escape and imprisonment, Butkevych became close to Yuriy Samoylenko, a future leader of the Security Service of Ukraine. Samoylenko later introduced Gennady Butkevych to Oleksandr Yakimenko, the head of the SBU under Yanukovych. He is currently accused of organizing the shooting of the Heavenly Hundred and treason for working for the Russian secret services. Successful connections are the secret to ATB's success, says political expert Volodymyr Tsybulko. "ATB is not entirely clean. You need to look at the brand's growth dynamics during the last two years of Yanukovych's rule. These are hothouse conditions, a corrupt scheme," he asserts.
"Yanukovych has been gone for a year and a half, but ATB continues to post fantastic results," the MPs marvel. Trade turnover has doubled over the past year. How this can happen amid war and economic crisis is a mystery, the parliamentarians continue. "Some kind of 'dealing' again," the program's authors note.
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