A land conflict is flaring up near Kyiv, and Vitaliy Yarema's deputy may be behind it.
The ugly story of Soltanovka-Kaskad LLC, one of whose founders is Vyacheslav Danilenko, the son of the current Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Anatoly Danilenko, continues to unravel. A journalistic investigation revealed that in the Vasylkiv district near Kyiv, local security forces, using their high-ranking handlers as cover, continue to seize other people's businesses, flouting the law and disregarding the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO), the declared fight against corruption and corporate raiding, and the opinions of the taxpayers who ultimately pay their salaries.
Attack on Phoenix
On June 13, 2014, an investigator from Vasylkiv, police lieutenant Yuriy Sokur, and senior prosecutor Sergei Serov, along with a dozen assistants, arrived in the village of Malaya Soltanivka to "dispense justice." The target was the private enterprise "Phoenix," owned by Alexander Kolomiets, which legally leases a lake from the village community for fishing. At the same time, to clean and maintain the reservoir, the company cleans and deepens the bottom using a dredger and at its own expense. This is essential to prevent spring and fall flooding. "Phoenix" has all the necessary permits for this activity, from an approved project to an environmental assessment.
But for some reason, this seemed of little interest to Serov's prosecutor. He refused to look at the documents and, without a court order, illegally attempted to seize both the dredger and the specialized excavator. However, that day, the security forces left empty-handed.
On June 26, Serov and Sokur returned again. This time, they had in hand a permit from the Vasylkivskyi City and District Court of the Kyiv Oblast, issued on June 23, to seize (excavate) the dredger. A certain Judge Kornienko signed the document.
Having brought up a 90-ton crane, the rental of which costs a considerable amount of money, the “administrators of justice” loaded the dredger onto a truck platform.
However, here too, the security forces failed. The court ruling only mentions the dredger, but Mr. Serov, exceeding his authority, orders his henchmen to break into the excavator's cabin and take it with them. As an added bonus, so to speak.
Furthermore, according to the law, the "law enforcement officers" were required to petition the court within 24 hours to recognize the dredger and excavator as material evidence. However, they didn't consider it necessary to comply with the law and simply ignored this procedure. And if there was no corresponding court order, the seized property should have been returned to Alexander Kolomiets. However, even here, the businessman's rights were grossly violated. The equipment was taken away to an unknown location.
Phoenix decided to conduct its own investigation into the storage conditions of the seized excavator and dredger. The equipment was found near the village of Khodosiivka in the Obukhiv district. The dredger was abandoned in an open field, unguarded, and the excavator was being mercilessly used for illegal sand extraction. It turned out that the free excavator had been used by Boris Aronovich Groysman, the director of Delta LLC, who had personally participated in the seizure of the equipment and was responsible for its storage. The director of Phoenix filed a complaint regarding this incident with the Kyiv-Svyatoshinsky District Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine in the Kyiv region.
On July 8, the Kyiv Regional Court of Appeals overturned the ruling of Investigative Judge Kornienko of the Vasylkiv City and District Court of June 23. Consequently, the dredger and excavator must be returned to their owners. But Prosecutor Serov remains unfazed, brazenly demonstrating that he has no regard for the law. The Phoenix private enterprise's equipment is not being returned.
On July 18, in order to protect its rights, Phoenix filed a petition with Vasylkivskyi Prosecutor Oleksandr Chernat. He pleaded, "Please, give the right people a slap on the wrist and comply with the Kyiv Regional Court of Appeal's ruling—return the stolen property."
On July 21, Chernat responded: "Your petition has been forwarded to the Vasylkiv police. But the experienced prosecutor somehow forgets to enter the relevant case into the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations (ERDR). Without this mandatory procedure, the police won't budge."
Phoenix is not losing heart and is now filing a lawsuit against the prosecutor, Alexander Chernat, demanding that he fulfill his direct responsibility—to file Alexander Kolomiets' petition with the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations.
On July 30, the Vasylkiv Inter-District Court issued an extremely strange ruling: Yes, on July 8, the Kyiv Regional Court of Appeals overturned the June 23 ruling of Investigative Judge Kornienko of the Vasylkiv City-District Court, which ruled that Messrs. Sokur and Serov had illegally seized a dredger and an excavator. But the court didn't specify who exactly was responsible for enforcing this ruling, meaning that Prosecutor Chernat is not at fault for failing to enter Phoenix's petition into the Unified Register.
And in general, Judge Medvedev follows a strange logic, considering that, on Chernat's instructions, his deputy, Marushchak, was supposed to submit the petition to the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations, but for some reason he didn't do so, which means Chernat is not guilty of anything.
It's worth noting that throughout the entire period of illegal harassment of Alexander Kolomiets and his business, neither the prosecutor's office, nor the police, nor the court requested any business permits or a copy of the land lease from Phoenix. We dare to assume that restoring justice is not on the agenda of the security forces or the judiciary.
This is the kind of legal gobbledygook that begs the question: what merits did Chernat achieve in being appointed prosecutor if he's incapable of supervising his subordinates in carrying out even the most basic tasks? Who benefits from hobbling the Phoenix private enterprise?
All threads lead to the Prosecutor General's Office
And we return once again to Deputy Prosecutor General Anatoly Danilenko, his son Vyacheslav, and Soltanovka-Kaskad LLC, which annexed 40 hectares of lake land from the residents of the village of Malaya Soltanovka, fenced it in, and hasn't paid a penny into the village budget since 2009.
We managed to reach Vyacheslav Danilenko by phone. He confirmed that he works at Soltanovka-Kaskad LLC. When asked why the lease agreement had not yet been signed and the 5 million hryvnias outstanding, the official's son hung up. Further attempts to reach him by phone were unsuccessful.
Let's turn to the all-seeing Google. The photo shows bodies of water managed by the deputy prosecutor general's son and "Phoenix." Clearly, the owners of the LLC need only take control of the lake leased by Kolomiets to be "completely happy."
According to local residents, the current Deputy Prosecutor General has repeatedly stated that all the Malosoltanovsky lakes will be his. Rumor has it that he plans to privatize the land beneath the lakes, even though this is illegal, and build another Mezhyhirya there.
And the only bone stuck in his throat was Alexander Kolomiets with his Phoenix.
Off the record, both the local prosecutor's office and the police admit that it was Yarema's deputy who "ordered" Kolomiets's hit. They claim they'd be happy to leave Phoenix alone, but they're afraid of losing their jobs.
While the Phoenix private enterprise is blocked and suffering significant losses, Danilenko's subordinates have rigged a criminal case against Alexander Kolomiets. It's probably easier to harass the businessman this way. The people are new, but the methods are old.
And how can one not recall here that the Verkhovna Rada adopted the lustration bill "On the Purification of Power" in its first reading? So there's plenty to start with...
Sergey Garkusha, Ukraine News – From-UA
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