The President of Ukraine is an ordinary corrupt official and an accomplice of embezzlers.
Today, there is no longer any doubt that Petro Poroshenko has set a course to curtailing any reforms in Ukraine. This clearly occurred after Poroshenko signed the so-called "Minsk agreements," which included verbal agreements between the Ukrainian president and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
It was after this deal was concluded that any active investigative measures to effectively investigate the crimes committed by Yanukovych and his inner circle were frozen. They also targeted senior Ukrainian officials in the Customs Service, the Ministry of Defense, the Security Service of Ukraine, the Main Intelligence Directorate, the Prosecutor General's Office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Education, the former Ministry of Transport, Naftogaz, the Ministry of Finance, the State Tax Administration, and others, who are essentially Kremlin stooges and agents of the Russian Federation's special services.
The haphazard, sluggish criminal investigations against individual, second-rate officials from the Yanukovych era, which have yet to reach trial or conviction, are merely intended to simulate the work of the investigative units of the Prosecutor General's Office and the Ministry of Internal Affairs against people like Boyko, Lyovochkin, Kaskiv, and hundreds like them. This serves as a disguise for the indulgence granted to scoundrels by the administration of President Petro Poroshenko, likely in exchange for a share of the assets of corrupt officials and embezzlers "released in peace."
The mechanism for "whitewashing" scoundrels and even murderers is simple. All criminal investigations of any significance are concentrated in the Main Investigative Department of the Prosecutor General's Office, under the personal control of Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin. Shokin, along with several of his deputies, is effectively sabotaging and falsifying the investigation, while simultaneously undermining reform of the thoroughly rotten prosecutor's office and Ukraine's rapprochement with the EU.
All this is done with the full support (and therefore, on the instructions) of President Petro Poroshenko.
All of this is entirely in line with the interests of the Russian Federation and the wishes of Vladimir Putin.
Moreover, the trend in recent months has been blatant, cynical lies from Petro Poroshenko personally, his inner circle, and a number of senior Ukrainian officials to our Western allies. The US and EU are being misled about the actual steps Poroshenko and his entourage are taking in the "fight against corruption," legislative activity, and budgetary processes.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk hasn't even commented on the scandalous situation, focusing on his protection racket for a pool of Cabinet-level businessmen involved in the embezzlement of the state budget. Meanwhile, several individuals in Yatsenyuk's circle are directly dependent on the favor of Russian intelligence agencies for their businesses and collaborate with their representatives. For example, Yatsenyuk's right-hand man, Mykola Martynenko, whose income comes solely from lobbying in the country's energy sector, and specifically from the National Joint-Stock Company Energoatom. All of Martynenko's profits are funneled offshore as a result of criminal manipulation, while Ukraine's nuclear energy sector remains dependent on Russia.
In the Verkhovna Rada, it is the president's trusted confidants from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction in parliament who are sabotaging the adoption of anti-corruption legislation and falsifying bills. And Poroshenko's "appointee," Verkhovna Rada Speaker Volodymyr Groysman, is committing a criminal offense by falsifying Rada sessions and repeatedly violating the Verkhovna Rada's Rules of Procedure. The violations of Ukrainian law that Groysman's protégé is committing today were unthinkable even during Viktor Yanukovych's presidency.
Embezzlement, the "protection" of hardened criminals by the "new government," the sabotage of reforms, the cynical deception of voters, parasitism on the state budget, the trade between the bastard Ukrainian "elites" and Russia, which is killing Ukrainian citizens, have created an atmosphere of decay in state institutions.
With their actions, Petro Poroshenko and Arseniy Yatsenyuk are effectively destroying the Ukrainian state. This obvious fact has already been noted by Western allies, who are publicly calling out Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk for corruption in their inner circles. They are also beginning to cut funding for certain projects vital to the development of a modern state. And Poroshenko is no longer a welcome guest in EU countries.
All of this literally buries Ukraine's European, civilizational prospects. It buries the prospects for a decent life not only for Ukraine's current citizens, but also for their children.
With his actions, pathological greed, primitivism in understanding personal responsibility to millions of fellow citizens, and the baseness of his actions in a country at war, Petro Poroshenko managed to distinguish himself even against the backdrop of Viktor Yanukovych.
And therefore, whoever replaces Poroshenko's "family," the successor's first duty must be a hard "landing" of both Petro Poroshenko himself and his corrupt inner circle, and the seizure of all assets of this gang with complete confiscation.
And the trial of Petro Poroshenko can and should be prepared today, by carefully gathering more and more evidence of this man and his "team" betraying Ukraine's national interests.
Below are two recent examples.
Concealing a crime: Shokin has been blocking investigators' appeal for Boyko's arrest for three months.
Serhiy Leshchenko, a Ukrainian MP, published the following blog entry on the Ukrainian Pravda website:
Viktor Shokin is protecting Opposition Bloc faction leader Yuriy Boyko from unpleasant news. And in the current prosecutor general's inner circle is a man who was supposed to protect Boyko from corruption when they worked together in government during Viktor Yanukovych's reign.
In July 2015, according to my sources, investigators from the Prosecutor General's Office prepared a submission to the Verkhovna Rada requesting approval to lift immunity, detain, and arrest Yuriy Boyko. The case concerns Serhiy Kurchenko's liquefied gas scam, in which the investigators directly refer to Boyko as a "member of a criminal organization." The submission, with a full account of the former minister's actions, was submitted to Prosecutor General Shokin for signature and forwarding to the Verkhovna Rada. However, the document has been sitting idle for three months, and Boyko feels unpunished.
The fact is that one of Shokin's most trusted aides in the Prosecutor General's Office is a certain Vasyl Dragan. He holds a position with the curious title of "Senior Assistant to the Prosecutor General for Special Assignments." On Constitution Day 2015, Dragan, along with Shokin's other close associates—Stoliarchuk and Sevruk—received a promotion from President Poroshenko to the rank of Justice Advisor of the Third Rank.
Dragan has been a lifelong companion of the current Prosecutor General. When Shokin served as his deputy during Yarema's tenure, Dragan held the title of "senior assistant to the deputy prosecutor general." In 2005, Dragan worked in the Prosecutor General's Office's Main Investigative Department, which Shokin then supervised. Even earlier, in the 1990s, Dragan investigated the case against Igor Didenko, which formed the basis of the German case and led to his acquittal and compensation.
Another detail is interesting. During Yanukovych's tenure, from August 18, 2010, to April 22, 2013, Dragan worked under the Minister of Fuel and Energy, Yuriy Boyko. Dragan's title was... "Head of the Sector for Corruption Prevention and Detection." Tellingly, while Dragan was supposed to be fighting thieves at the Ministry of Energy, the largest scam of the last five years, known as "Boyko's rigs," took place there. These rigs were purchased from Riga homeless people at twice the inflated price.
But, beyond the "Boyko towers," the Ministry of Energy's anti-corruption commissioner failed to respond to another scam that now forms the basis of a criminal case against Boyko—a scam on the basis of which investigators from the Prosecutor General's Office prepared a submission to parliament for Shokin, which he still hasn't submitted.
What are we talking about?
The issue concerns Kurchenko's scheme for selling liquefied gas, which was purchased at reduced prices, supposedly for the needs of the population, but in reality was sold at market value to commercial enterprises.
For these purposes, Kurchenko created a "criminal organization," as investigators qualified it. It included Boyko, who served under Yanukovych as Minister of Energy from March 11, 2010, to December 24, 2012, and from that date until the fall of the regime, he held the position of Deputy Prime Minister for Energy until February 27, 2014.
"While serving as Minister of Fuel and Energy, and later as Deputy Prime Minister, Boyko used the powers granted to him contrary to the interests of the state and, having become a member of a criminal organization controlled by Kurchenko, (...) committed a deliberate crime against property," the motion, blocked by Shokin, states.
According to the case file, Kurchenko created 12 fictitious companies "to falsify documents to create the appearance of legitimate activity in the liquefied natural gas market." These companies include: Cherkassy-Gazsnab, Krymbutangaz, Kyivoblpropangaz, Luganskpropangaz, Lugansksnabgaz, Ukrharkovgazpostavka-2009, Donetsk-Pobutskrapgaz, Modus-Vivendi, Chernivtsi-SPBT, Zaporizhgaz-2000, Kharkiv-SPBT, and Kharkivspetsgazsnab.
To obtain liquefied gas, Kurchenko and Boyko inflated the population's demand for this fuel. Kurchenko's enterprises did not sell gas to the public and did not even intend to do so. According to the criminal plan, they prepared reports on the volume and destination of gas sales "with deliberately false information."
Kurchenko began implementing his scheme back in 2009, which was revealed to Boyko, then deputy chairman of the Verkhovna Rada's Energy Committee, in March 2010. On March 9, 2010, two days before Boyko's appointment as minister, he even submitted a parliamentary petition to the Prosecutor General's Office requesting an inspection of Kurchenko's enterprises.
But as soon as Boyko became a member of the government, he colluded with Kurchenko. "During the first half of 2010, Kurchenko recruited then-Minister of Energy Yuriy Boyko and First Deputy Director of the State Enterprise Gaz Ukrainy, Oksana Mass, to join the criminal organization. Despite the obvious illogicality of the significant increase in liquefied gas sales for household needs in seven regions (Kharkiv, Donetsk, Kyiv, Luhansk, Cherkasy, Chernihiv, and Zaporizhia), they acknowledged the credibility of these inflated figures."
According to the investigation, in some periods, the population's needs for liquefied gas were overestimated by 25-30 times, something to which Boyko, who had experience in this field, turned a blind eye without any verification.
These volumes of gas were purchased by Kurchenko at auctions at low prices, allegedly for the needs of the population.
"Boyko was aware of the nature of the crime committed, and his role in the criminal activity was determined. Thus, Boyko should not only have remained inactive as minister, but also have facilitated the commission of the crime through the Ministry of Energy and its subsidiaries," states the investigators' report to Shokin, which was shelved. Specifically, Boyko failed to submit a report to the tax authorities to audit the purchasers of liquefied gas.
In 2011, First Deputy Prime Minister Andriy Klyuyev, representing another faction within Yanukovych's government, intervened. On August 30, 2011, he held a conference call and instructed the Ministry of Energy to provide regional information on the volume of liquefied natural gas sold at auctions for household needs within one day. This order was not fulfilled. Moreover, Boyko didn't even bother signing responses to Klyuyev's inquiries. On September 1, his deputy, Makukha, announced that the tax service was overseeing the targeted use of liquefied natural gas—even though this contradicted a government decree from 2000.
After this, Klyuev instructed Boyko and tax chief Zakharchenko to provide the Cabinet of Ministers with information on the volume of liquefied gas sold to the public within one day. In a letter dated September 13, 2011, Makukha again claimed that all the information had been contained in the previous letter, which was incorrect.
Klyuev then instructed Boyko, under his personal responsibility, to provide the government with comprehensive information on these matters and to submit a request to the tax authorities to verify the intended use of liquefied gas intended for the population. Boyko did so on September 22, submitting a request to the tax authorities regarding companies that sold less than a third (!) of all liquefied gas. And none of the companies Boyko initiated the audit belonged to Kurchenko.
At the same time, Boyko, in violation of government regulations, submitted a draft resolution on exchange auctions for the sale of liquefied natural gas to the Cabinet of Ministers. Prime Minister Azarov accepted the resolution without proper discussion and then signed it as Government Resolution No. 1064. "Therefore, Boyko ensured a weakening of controls over the intended use of liquefied natural gas," the investigators' report to Shokin states.
Boyko continued to cover up Kurchenko's scheme, which involved purchasing huge volumes of gas, ostensibly for the public, at a price that was only 20% of the market price. Twelve of Kurchenko's companies sold the liquefied gas illegally acquired at special auctions to commercial enterprises.
"As a result of the joint criminal actions of Boyko and members of Kurchenko's criminal organization, the property of Ukrgazvydobuvannya and Ukrnafta—liquefied gas extracted by them at reduced prices—was illegally seized, the difference between the actual market value of the corresponding volumes amounting to 5,784 billion hryvnia (more than $700 million)," states the document, which Shokin never submitted to parliament.
In this criminal case, notices of suspicion were issued to Kurchenko and one of his subordinates, Salo, as well as to the deputy governors of Kharkiv Oblast, Dulub, Cherkasy Oblast, Ryabtsev, and Kyiv Oblast, Maksimenko. Boyko failed to appear at the prosecutor's office when summoned by the investigator, which became grounds for demanding his detention.
"The case file contains sufficient evidence to suspect Boyko of participating in a criminal organization and appropriating someone else's property on an especially large scale (Part 1 of Article 255, Part 5 of Article 191)—up to 12 years with confiscation of property, and therefore, arrest may be applied to him," states the submission, which Shokin hid in the prosecutor's office.
In the end, the fully prepared document that would have allowed Boyko's immunity to be lifted and he to be arrested was lost somewhere on the high floors of Reznitskaya Street.
Boyko's sabotage and cover-up were the last straw for me. I've lost confidence in Shokin as Prosecutor General, so I've signed the resolution calling for his dismissal. I hope this dismissal, which must take place as quickly as possible, will pave the way for investigations, regardless of names or political expediency, against both Yanukovych's allies and corrupt officials within the current government.
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Arrest and confiscation - in a coma
Vitaliy Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center and an expert in the anti-corruption group of the Reanimation Package of Reforms, writes in a blog post on the Ukrainska Pravda website:
Vote for draft laws N2540a and N2541a as amended by the law enforcement committee = bury confiscation and arrest in Ukraine.
The texts of the bills, after review by the committee, do not correspond to the government version (for the first reading): they differ strikingly in logic and structure, and have an entirely different goal: to significantly weaken the current regime of seizure and confiscation of proceeds from corruption.
With just a few amendments passed by the law enforcement committee, the people's deputies have broken the backbone of government bills on the arrest and special confiscation of the property of corrupt officials, acquired through criminal means.
The regime of arrest and confiscation is in a coma. Meanwhile, deputies, terrified of the possibility of losing their property, are making excellent progress in rehabilitation—deputies from the law enforcement committee are making their lives easier and providing them with a concrete and legal opportunity to protect their assets from arrest.
The remnants of the Ukrainian government, currently hiding from justice, will begin actively exploiting the laws of the law enforcement committee as soon as European sanctions are lifted. Because the bills soften penalties, and once adopted, experienced lawyers like Vlasenko will help Yanukovych's cronies lift the arrest warrants on everything currently under arrest in Ukraine.
Why?
The draft laws proposed by the Law Enforcement Committee tighten evidentiary standards and require that investigators have a complete evidentiary base—a sufficient, proper, admissible, and reliable body of evidence—at the outset of an investigation. At the initial stage of an investigation, when the corrupt official's loot is still "warm" and can be found and seized, such an evidentiary base cannot exist a priori.
Every gilded vase in Honka, every ostrich in the Museum of Corruption's zoo, as well as hundreds of thousands of luxury items left behind by the fugitive ex-president—prosecutors will now have to prove the illegal origin of all of this in court to confirm the legality of the seizure imposed on Mezhyhirya.
Judges are allowed to creatively and inventively interpret the provisions of the draft laws as amended by the Law Enforcement Committee, as they do not clearly define the grounds and types of arrest, nor do they specify what must be proven in a specific type of arrest. This allows "Themis" to dismiss grounds for seizing the property of corrupt officials while simultaneously confiscating illegally obtained money or other assets from mid-level bribe-takers.
The draft laws proposed by the Law Enforcement Committee effectively remove the fear of corrupt officials that their property, money, and companies could be seized during an investigation. Regardless of the purpose of the seizure, damage caused and a connection between the property and the crime must be demonstrated. Furthermore, only assets equal to the damage caused can be seized.
But in a corruption case, such damage may not be possible! The judge accepted a bribe—there is video evidence of this—but was unable to deliver the decision he was paid for. The judge was detained. The bribe was seized as evidence. According to laws adopted by the law enforcement committee, the bribe must be seized within a day of the person's arrest. But to do this, it would be necessary to prove the harm caused by the bribe, which does not exist. Therefore, the bribe will have to be returned to the judge.
A bribe can also be given for legitimate actions—for example, for extending a green tariff. Moreover, all parties are satisfied, and no harm is caused to anyone.
That is, the bills as drafted by the committees completely remove corruption proceeds from the possibility of seizure.
In complex corruption cases, pre-trial investigations can last for years. While detectives from the Anti-Corruption Bureau, who since December have been tasked with investigating all corruption cases in the country, are proving the suspect's guilt in court, calculating the extent of the damages they have caused, assessing their assets, and establishing the illegality of their origin, the suspect will quietly copy, hide, move, bury, or hand over everything they own to third parties for safekeeping. And by the time the detective goes to court to seek an arrest warrant, the corrupt official will be wearing nothing but a white shirt.
The draft laws, as amended by the Law Enforcement Committee, would return Ukraine to the "gray list" of countries, in accordance with the recommendations of the FATF (Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering), which do not combat money laundering.
Anything blocked by the State Financial Monitoring Service for compliance with FATF international standards will be unblocked, as the laws as amended by the law enforcement committee do not allow for seizure when there is no harm done and when there is little evidence of a person's guilt—and this, if investigated impartially, is only possible at the end of the case.
Over the past 1,5 years alone, the State Financial Monitoring Service has discovered and blocked $1,5 billion in the accounts of former high-ranking officials—a total of financial transactions that may be linked to the laundering of criminally obtained income.
Financial intelligence will cease to be useful to the country and a nightmare for corrupt officials.
This is the price of passing the draft laws on arrest and confiscation as amended by the law enforcement committee.
Are such laws beneficial to the businessman-deputies and fixers? Of course! Especially since they can be passed now under the guise of fulfilling the visa-free liberalization plan.
However, the MPs are likely to be disappointed here. Because the texts of the bills, distorted by the law enforcement committee, distort the EU Directive, contradict IMF requirements previously incorporated into the laws, and fail to comply with FATF standards—all the necessary elements to prevent Europeans from considering the adoption of this indefinite insurance against corruption proceeds as fulfilling the visa-free liberalization plan.
The amendments adopted by the law enforcement committee deputies can be found at the link.
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