Roman Zabarchuk
Pshonka's protégé and relative of a high-ranking Russian official, Roman Zabarchuk, runs the Mykolaiv region prosecutor's office.
When the lustration law was just a matter of days away, Ukraine's Prosecutor General, Vitaliy Yarema, announced that the dismissals would affect around 100 employees. However, he hastened to assure that the prosecutor's office had already gotten rid of the previous regime's cronies: "We got rid of the prosecutors involved in political repression first, simultaneously carrying out a complete replacement of the leadership and laying off over 1,500 employees in the regions."
However, it is not without reason that lustration ideologists place a special emphasis on security forces and prosecutors – these spheres, according to activists, are the “dirtiest” and at the same time the most resistant to cleansing.
Indeed, the leadership of the Prosecutor General's Office stubbornly refuses to part with some characters.
For example, in July of this year, Mykolaiv Oblast Prosecutor Roman Zabarchuk resigned (like his colleagues in all regions, at the request of Prosecutor General Yarema), but the very next day received another position – First Deputy Prosecutor of Mykolaiv Oblast. Moreover, in the absence of a candidate for the regional prosecutor position at the time, he assumed his duties. Zabarchuk had experience – he held this position, and intermittently served as acting prosecutor, in Mykolaiv from June 2013 to April 2014, until he assumed the chief's seat, albeit briefly.
He was promoted up the career ladder by the former Prosecutor General MakhnitskyAlthough even then, the Mykolaiv public was actively demanding the opposite—Zabarchuk's dismissal. In early April, Right Sector activists picketed the Mykolaiv regional offices of the SBU, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the prosecutor's office, and personally handed Zabarchuk a "black mark."
And there are more than enough reasons to demand his lustration.
First, starting with Zabarchuk's earlier "achievements," it can be said that he has been involved in corruption, a popular pastime among prosecutors, for years. Roman Vladimirovich's reputation as a bribe-taker began during his tenure as prosecutor of the Borodyansky district of Kyiv Oblast from 2007 to 2011. In scathing articles about the behavior of the Borodyansky police, local activists also paid tribute to the prosecutor's office's contribution: "In turn, district prosecutor Zabarchuk and his assistant, R. Skazko, provide cover for the illegal actions of the local police. Today, the situation remains the same: the Borodyansky district police, with their illegal and unprofessional actions, facilitate the development of organized crime in the Kyiv Oblast. The prosecutor's office and the local police leadership have contributed to the creation of a corrupt and bureaucratic system." According to sources, Zabarchuk's bribery led to the opening of a criminal case against him, but judging by the lack of follow-up to this story, one can be sure that the issue was peacefully resolved among "their own."
Secondly, because Roman Zabarchuk was brought to the Mykolaiv region prosecutor's office by a protégé of the disgraced Pshonka. Andriy Kurys, having become the regional prosecutor, took his deputy with him from his previous job. Prior to this, the tandem of Kurys's boss and Zabarchuk's subordinate had worked in the investigative department of the Prosecutor General's Office, which was the one that fabricated the cases against Tymoshenko and Lutsenko. (Furthermore, it was Kurys who later became a confidant of presidential candidate Renat Kuzmin—another "titan" of the Yanukovych regime.) Read more about it in the article Renat Kuzmin: The Family Business of Outlaw Prosecutors)
After the revolutionary events, heads rolled across Ukraine, but numerous of their deputy comrades remained in place. And, naturally, they began to climb into the chairs of their superiors. This is what happened with Zabarchuk: after Kurys's dismissal, he assumed the duties and powers of his superior and firmly entrenched himself in the Mykolaiv region prosecutor's office, essentially becoming Pshonka's protégé, an element of the fallen criminal regime.
Third, immediately after the events on the Maidan, Zabarchuk was accused of covering for pro-Russian activists who had instigated unrest in several Ukrainian cities, including Mykolaiv. On April 7, 2014, separatist protesters attempted to seize the regional state administration building, leading to numerous clashes with other activists and police. Subsequently, the head of the Department of Internal Affairs, Sednev, who was in the regional state administration building at the time of the "storming," as was acting prosecutor Zabarchuk, stated that not a single Russian was among those detained. However, a Russian citizen, an FSB agent, was later detained in Kherson, allegedly leading the infamous seizure of the administration building. Meanwhile, police sources leaked information that, in fact, Russians were among the detained separatists of the regional state administration building, but, on Zabarchuk's orders, they were released without any registration. At the same time, messages along the following lines began appearing on social media: "Mykolaiv residents report that regional prosecutor Roman Zabarchuk has released Russian saboteurs, including five machine gunners who were recently detained." Incidentally, this comment still appears under one of Avakov's Facebook posts.
Expanding on the "pro-Russian" theme of the Mykolaiv prosecutor, activists discovered that a close relative of Roman Zabarchuk is a fairly high-ranking figure in the Russian government. Yevgeny Zabarchuk has served as Deputy Chief of Staff of the Russian Government since 2011, having previously served as Deputy Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation from 2006 to 2011. According to the official Russian government website, Yevgeny Leonidovich Zabarchuk was born in the Zhytomyr region (like Roman Zabarchuk) and graduated from the Higher School of the KGB of the USSR. Inquisitive activists discovered that the father of Russian official Yevgeny Zabarchuk and the grandfather of Ukrainian prosecutor Roman Zabarchuk are brothers, and that the village of Horbulyov in the Zhytomyr region is listed as their birthplace. Now, as the media notes, Yevgeny Leonidovich Zabarchuk, a native of a Ukrainian village, is a person very close to Russian President Putin, as evidenced by his appointment to the Russian Central Election Commission during the last Russian presidential elections.
The question arises: why didn't all this information prevent either Makhnitsky or Yarema from further promoting Roman Zabarchuk's prosecutorial career?
According to local journalists, Zabarchuk's interests are currently being lobbied by several major Mykolaiv entrepreneurs, and he also has support from regional and city officials.
Despite all this, the public, calling on the authorities to lustrate Pshonka's protégé Zabarchuk, still hopes that officials will keep their promises to Ukrainians and not follow the path of their ill-fated "predecessors."
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