Vitaly Kasko
Lately, former Deputy Prosecutor General Vitaliy Viktorovych Kasko has been shaking up the media landscape with his loud statements. One moment, he's accusing the Prosecutor General's Office of extraditing businessman Vyacheslav Platon to Moldova with procedural violations. Another moment, he's accusing the same Prosecutor General's Office of reforming the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), and another moment, he's simply unable to see any improvements in the Prosecutor General's Office system. In short, all his accusations are aimed at the building on Reznitskaya Street, but they're somehow vague. Kasko is systematically attacking the Prosecutor General's Office, omitting any names. This suggests that Vitaliy Viktorovych desperately wants to return to that very building on Reznitskaya Street 13/15 and is prepared to expose criminals to do so, but in a way that doesn't offend anyone personally. Well, Ukrainians are no strangers to the pettiness of anti-corruption fighters. Take, for example, the recent scandal involving Sergei Leshchenko's apartment. Our anti-corruption activists are very fond of comfortable conditions. Vitaly Kasko, by the way, also got caught up in the "housing issue." But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Let's take things in order.
Vitaly Kasko, Sergey Leshchenko, Victor Chumak
Vitaliy Viktorovich began his career in 1998 in his native Lviv as an investigator in the local transport prosecutor's office, and then moved to the regional prosecutor's office. Around the same time, future police general and future Prosecutor General of Ukraine Vitaliy Yarema served in Lviv.Read more about it in the article Vitaly Yarema, "Honest Cop" and Sergei Dumchev's godfather). He was then a relatively young head of the Lviv Railway Department of Internal Affairs. It's unclear whether their paths crossed at that time or if it happened later, but it's a fact that Kasko served as Yarema's deputy. It's also a fact that after Vitaliy Kasko's resignation, it was Vitaliy Yarema who staunchly defended his former deputy and made public statements that the accusations against him were completely unfounded. However, prosecutor Vitaliy Viktorovich Kasko is not particularly memorable to Lviv residents. He didn't solve any high-profile crimes, but he wasn't involved in any major corruption scandals either. In 2002, he left his hometown and moved to Kyiv, where he began his career in the Prosecutor General's Office, in the very building on Reznitska Street to which he so dreams of returning.
Vitaly Kasko worked in the central office until 2005. His time in the Prosecutor General's Office mysteriously coincides with the years of work of Svyatoslav Piskun as Prosecutor General (Read more about it in the article Svyatoslav Piskun. Scandalous and unsinkable). They both came in 2002. Then Piskun was replaced for a couple of years by Gennady Vasiliev, essentially the same as Piskun, a "businessman from justice." Kasko remained in office throughout this time. Then Svyatoslav Piskun returned again and remained in the chair until 2005. And in 2005, he became Prosecutor General. Alexander Medvedko, a "justice politician," and that same year, Kasko left the office to pursue a commercial career. However, in 2007, Piskun returned to the Prosecutor General's office for a third term, and that same year, Kasko returned to the building on Reznitskaya Street. Are such coincidences even possible? Well, being on the team of someone involved in fraud, a corrupt business venture registered to his wife, and the Slavyansky Bank case is not a crime. Far more interesting is what Vitaly Kasko did after leaving the Prosecutor General's Office in 2010. He was practicing private law at the Arzinger law firm.
Arzinger is a well-known law firm with many high-profile clients. Among others, according to Tatyana Chornovol and Andriy Dzindzia, the firm's clients included firms linked to Serhiy Kurchenko, "Yanukovych's wallet." However, this remained largely undisclosed until 2014, after Euromaidan, when Kasko returned to the Prosecutor General's Office, activists caught the firm lifting the seizure of assets belonging to the fugitive oligarch's companies. Specifically, the matter involved lifting the seizure of 1180 tons of gas condensate and 65733 tons of petroleum products. This case was allegedly promoted by Vitaly Kasko, now Deputy Prosecutor General, and his former Arzinger colleague, Sergei Shklyar, now Deputy Minister of Justice. Rosneft was the plaintiff in this case, and the company won the case, which was heard in Kyiv's Pechersky District Court.
In 2015, Vitaliy Viktorovich was appointed head of the interdepartmental commission for the return of assets stolen by the "criminal regime" of Viktor Yanukovych's era. We already understand how he "returned" Kurchenko's oil assets. But Tatyana Chornovol spoke about another case in connection with this: Kurchenko's money, which had been siphoned out of Ukraine, was also found in Latvian banks. And the Republic of Latvia was ready to return this money to Ukraine. Chornovol secured a personal meeting with then-Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.Read more about it in the article Viktor Shokin. The Prosecutor "On Vacation"), and he personally handed the case over to Vitaly Kasko. After that, the deputy prosecutor general… remained silent for two months. Thus, our country lost 80 million dollars. The same applies to other assets. Have you ever heard of a single dollar stolen by the previous government being returned to Ukraine? And no one heard of it, because Nikolai Azarov (Read more about it in the article Nikolai Azarov. The Survivor), Eduard Stavytsky, Alexander Yanukovych, Sergey Klimenko (Read more about it in the article Alexander Klimenko. He flew away, but he really wants to return.) and other odious figures have kept their money and are even suing Ukraine for their assets and pensions. And now their chances of winning are much better than they were in 2015, when the working group led by Kasko was active, or rather, inactive. Why was it inactive? There's a theory about that, too. Perhaps he simply didn't have the time.
This is a photo of that very "working group"
The fact is that from Viktor Shokin's appointment as Prosecutor General in February 2015 until his resignation in April 2016, he faced an "opposition" in the form of his two deputies, Vitaliy Kasko and David Sakvaleridze. Both had served as deputies under his predecessors, and both represented powerful factions. Kasko had by then aligned himself with forces close to Igor Kolomoisky, and Sakvaleridze, naturally, was a protégé of Mikheil Saakashvili. In short, the entire time, the Prosecutor's Office, instead of working, was engaged in internal squabbles, dumping tons of dirt on Shokin, who was a protégé of Petro Poroshenko. As a result of this struggle, the president dismissed Viktor Shokin, but immediately afterward, both aforementioned deputies were fired. Their high-ranking patrons promptly forgot about them—who needs downed pilots? Moreover, by that time a certain amount of incriminating evidence had been found on them.
David Sakvarelidze and Vitaly Kasko
It turns out Vitaly Viktorovich owns quite a bit of real estate. No, he certainly can't boast the scale of Viktor Pshonka (read more about him in the article). Viktor Pshonka: The Rise and Fall of the Prosecutor's Caesar). But given the fact that he only worked for a private company for about five years, spending the rest of his time in government service, the question arises: is it possible in those five years to earn enough money to buy a three-story mansion in the Kyiv suburbs, not far from Mezhyhirya in the elite village of Novi Petrivtsi? And with enough money left over to buy a Toyota RAV4 SUV?
In short, the housing issue is ruining Vitaliy Viktorovich Kasko's life. This was also noted by Viktor Shokin, who initiated a criminal case against his former deputy for apartment fraud. The fact is that Kasko, upon transferring from the Lviv prosecutor's office to the Prosecutor General's Office, received a one-room apartment, in which he immediately registered his mother. When he left the prosecutor's office in 2005, he privatized this apartment. Then he returned to the prosecutor's office and received another apartment, apparently having successfully transferred the previous apartment to his mother, thus portraying himself as a "homeless person." And when he resigned again, he also privatized the second apartment. Perhaps there is nothing illegal in these actions. But, firstly, for what merit did the agency award Vitaliy Kasko apartments, one after another, in the very first days of his arrival at the Prosecutor General's Office? We know what public sector housing waiting lists look like; people have been waiting on them for decades. And then, all of a sudden, they gave it to me. And secondly, the pettiness with which people defend their square footage is astounding.
The Prosecutor General's Office ordered the NABU to open a case against Vitaliy Kasko. Ironically, the case was heard in the same Pechersky Court where the aforementioned case concerning Kurchenko's oil assets was heard. It's also interesting that members of parliament Mustafa Nayyem, Svitlana Zalishchuk, and... Serhiy Leshchenko came to support Vitaliy Kasko's "housing issue." This, too, can only be described as ironic. Representatives of European embassies and the crowd gathered for a rally outside the courthouse exerted pressure on the court. Kasko himself argued in court that he wasn't the only one with an apartment. He claimed that other deputy prosecutors general had also received apartments from the department and privatized them. Vitaliy Viktorovich's lawyers also claimed that apartments were being handed out to prosecutors "left and right," and they attempted to deflect the prosecutors and prove the illegality of serving their client with a subpoena. In short, not a word was said about Vitaly Kasko's innocence in court. Nevertheless, Judge Belotserkovets released Kasko without bail on his own recognizance. The case was ultimately hushed up. And in May 2016, the Court of Appeal lifted the lien on his apartment. Vitaly Viktorovich can now live there peacefully.
Today, Vitaly Kasko, according to his own statement, has decided to start a private legal practice. However, no announcements or advertisements for such services could be found. This is odd, since by "legal practice," he doesn't mean a former official using his connections to "fix" problems. In this "business," one really must maintain anonymity. Instead, he has surfaced in the leadership of some mythical political force, which has no name, but which includes fellow "shot-down pilots" David Sakvaleridze and Yegor Firsov, who was stripped of his parliamentary powers around the same time. They also include Viktor Chumak, a former member of the BPP. This entire "political force" receives PR support from Savik Shuster; they are frequent guests on his broadcasts. There was even an attempt to crowdfund Yegor Firsov for by-elections in Chernihiv. And Vitaly Kasko called on people in videos to donate money to Firsov's campaign.
Vitaly Viktorovich may run for parliament. There are even rumors that he's ready to be offered a place on the Democratic Alliance list, the very same one that includes young democrats, including the one mentioned several times. Sergei LeshchenkoWell, as practice shows, their values are very similar.
Maxim Reva, for SKELET-info
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