Vitaly Yarema
— And who of our new appointments is unverified?
— We haven't looked at the Prosecutor General's Office yet.
— There won't be anything new about Yarema anyway, let's look at the deputies.
Approximately a quarter of the investigations on the "Nashi Groshi" program begin with a dialogue like this. Any investigation that isn't based on "mysterious sources" (and we almost never do that) can start with either an action or a person. Specific actions are taken from news reports or the government procurement bulletin. People are investigated for all high-ranking appointments. It's simple: a department is selected, a list of employees is compiled, up to the level of, say, the head of department, and then all these people and their immediate families are checked for involvement in business, government procurement, or suspicious connections. This is a fairly superficial investigation, which can be conducted using open sources.
It was during such an investigation that program journalist Alina Strizhak discovered that the son of Deputy Prosecutor General Anatoly Danilenko was a co-owner of the company "Soltanovka Cascade." This company had seized 140 hectares of lakes from state ownership. Furthermore, the prosecutor's office failed to exercise due diligence during the trial: after its intervention, the state effectively lost the opportunity to reclaim the lost land and water.
This is enough to attract attention. A more detailed investigation revealed the following scheme: a cascade of lakes, artificially created from the river, previously belonged to the state-owned enterprise "Zaborye." During the transformation, the state-owned enterprise became a joint-stock company, which included several legal entities. And after its exit, it "took" part of the property—those very same lakes—along with it. The total surface area of the lakes was approximately 270 hectares. The prosecutor's office recovered some of this. But the lakes that had been acquired by the company "Soltanovka Cascade" remained with the new owner.
The company's owners and management included the son of the current Deputy Prosecutor General, Anatoliy Danilenko; the son of UDAR Kyiv City Council member and member of the Anti-Corruption Commission, Gennady Ilyin; and Communist MP Ruslan Skarboviychuk, a member of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Agricultural Policy. The founders subsequently changed slightly, and the company was transferred to relatives, but it always remained under the control of these three individuals.
Document analysis, collection, and verification of information take several days. The journalist conducted her first on-site visit approximately a week after beginning work on the story. The registered address of "Soltanovka Cascade" is a landfill, and the caretaker identified the owner as Danilenko. He then pointed to his house. Although the complex of several buildings on a vast property would more accurately be called an estate.
A day after she began working openly on the topic, Alina Strizhak was met at the entrance to her building by a man who persistently recommended she take a "break" from investigative journalism. He also made a series of threats against her relatives.
This visit can only be linked to Danilenko, as the journalist wasn't working on any other topics. Nothing like this has happened in the entire history of the program—and that's been going on for almost a year. During investigations into Klyuev, Yanukovych, and Tabachnyk (Read more about it in the article Dmitry and Mikhail Tabachnik. Brother for brother), Zakharchenko, Ivanyushchenko—many officials and shadowy figures from the Yanukovych era—never once had anyone come to a journalist's home with threats. In my entire career as an investigative journalist, this is the second such instance.
However, even the threats aren't as dismal as Prosecutor General Vitaliy Yarema's response. The threats are understandable. The fear of publicity is boundless for an official who has spent his entire life grazing in lucrative positions while remaining in the shadows. Especially if this official made his career in the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
But what could justify the Prosecutor General covering for his subordinate? It is the Prosecutor General's responsibility to investigate the crimes of the "old regime." In response to a well-founded and detailed report exposing the problem within his own department, Yarema effectively accused the NG program of "ordering" the report.
"I think this [Danilenko's accusations] is a bit overblown. There's a targeted campaign targeting one person, and as soon as we start preparing charges against influential figures in the oil and gas industries, they start raising such questions," Yarema told UP. He added that, while he has no complaints about Danilenko's work, he has nevertheless ordered an investigation, which the Prosecutor General's Office will conduct itself.
If I understand the Prosecutor General of Ukraine's logic correctly, eight months after the revolutionary events, the Prosecutor General's Office finally decided to serve someone with a notice of suspicion. And to prevent this, a certain Kurchenko financed a plot to have the Deputy Prosecutor General's family seize 140 hectares of lakes from state ownership.
The loss of the lakes is not disputed; it is documented in detail in court documents. However, Yarema believes it's impossible to raise this issue, as the prosecutor's office is preparing to file charges.
It would be logical to assume that Anatoliy Danilenko is the one preparing these allegations. But no. Danilenko is responsible for personnel matters and the logistical support of the Prosecutor General's Office. Simply put, he's the chief HR officer and quartermaster. But he's also a longtime associate of Vitaliy Yarema himself. Since 2005, Anatoliy Danilenko has worked with Yarema, usually as his deputy. When Yarema briefly became deputy prime minister after the revolution, Danilenko served as his chief of staff.
This sadly suggests that Ukraine's Prosecutor General is shielding an old acquaintance and partner caught in corruption. And it would be strange to expect him to make progress in the far more corruption-intensive "oil and gas production" cases. That's why the case hasn't yet reached the point of serving notices of suspicion.
Denis Bigus, Mirror of the week
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