The political landscape has changed, and so have law enforcement's responses to the same situation. This isn't a paradox, but a reality. The recent unexpected turn in the case of Mykolaiv agro-industrial businessman Arkady Kornatsky confirms this.
Arkadiy Kornatsky is widely known not only in the Mykolaiv region but also beyond. Having achieved some success in the agro-industrial business, the owner of the Kornatskykh Agrofirm entered politics in 2006, when he became a deputy of the Kryvoozersky District Council representing the Our Ukraine party. In 2009, he served as the campaign manager for presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko in territorial electoral district No. 133 (Pervomaysky). In 2010, he was elected to the Pervomaysky District Council in a single-mandate constituency.
As a member of the Pervomaisky District Council of Mykolaiv Oblast in 2012, he decided to try to secure a seat as a People's Deputy of Ukraine. However, Arkadiy Oleksiyovych's opponent in the 132nd single-mandate constituency was none other than the then-governor of Mykolaiv Oblast, Mykola Kruglov. Ultimately, thanks in no small part to Kruglov's administrative resources, Kornatsky lost the election.
However, the election campaign under the banner of the then-united opposition became the pretext for the Mykolaiv Regional Prosecutor's Office to launch a series of criminal cases against the management of the Kornatsky Agrofirm. Kornatsky's subordinates were accused of illegally receiving budget subsidies, illegally seizing land, and tax evasion. Specifically, criminal proceedings were opened under Part 1 of Article 197-1 ("Unauthorized occupation of a land plot that caused significant harm") and Part 1 of Article 364 ("Abuse of power or official position that caused significant harm to the interests of the state") of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
Of course, Kornatsky then called all the accusations against himself an attempt by the authorities to deal with him personally and his business.
However, according to the residents of Arkadiy Kornatsky's home village of Chausovo-2, instances of land seizure by the agrobaron, as the locals aptly called him, did indeed occur. For example, land totaling almost two thousand hectares was, as it turns out, illegally transferred to Kornatsky's parents. Article 52 of the Land Code of Ukraine states: the size of a land plot for a peasant (farmer) enterprise, which may be transferred to private ownership, must not exceed 50 hectares of agricultural land and 100 hectares of all land.
Meanwhile, based on the village council's decision, Arkady Kornatsky's parents registered ownership of a land plot totaling 1,753.97 hectares and also received a state title deed for the land. It is known that, according to paragraph 6 of the Decree of the President of Ukraine of August 8, 1995, after the issuance of the state title deed, the certificate must be returned to the district state administration. According to prosecutorial investigators, the Kornatskys' land title deeds were not returned.
Back in 2001, the prosecutor's office appealed the Leninsky Village Council's decision to transfer land to the Kornatsky family. Then, the Pervomaisky District Court invalidated the state deed granting the Kornatsky family private ownership of the land. The Mykolaiv Regional Court dismissed their cassation appeal and upheld the Pervomaisky District Court's decision. It entered into force on January 11, 2001.
The state deed registration in the Kornatsky family's name was cancelled on February 2, 2012. So, Arkady Alekseevich essentially had no documents for the Chausovskaya land, meaning his parents acquired the land illegally.
Officials of the Kornatsky Agrofirm, specifically its financial director and chief accountant, Lyudmila Nikitina, were accused of processing subsidies totaling approximately 150,000 hryvnias for the sale of livestock to companies with their own processing facilities. Officially, she was charged with large-scale illegal appropriation of state budget funds under Part 4 of Article 191 (embezzlement, misappropriation of property, or appropriation thereof through abuse of office) and Part 2 of Article 366 (forgery by an official) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. Nikitina was sentenced to three years' imprisonment and disqualified from holding positions involving organizational, managerial, or administrative duties for two years.
In June 2013, the "Kornatsky case" took an unexpected turn. This time, it was not without bloodshed. One day, tractors and combines from the state agricultural service arrived at the agricultural firm's fields, ostensibly to harvest crops on illegally seized land. Upon learning of this, the firm's employees headed to the field, where, according to Arkady Kornatsky, they were met by over a hundred armed individuals escorting the state-owned agricultural machinery. As a result, an attempt to stop the combines escalated into a mass brawl, in which five people were injured. According to Kornatsky himself, the "assault" on the Mykolaiv businessman was carried out by entities controlled by Artem Pshonka, the son of the former Prosecutor General, in particular the firm "Partner Agro," which was essentially a shell company that didn't even have a shovel.
Moreover, with the help of local authorities, who had issued state land titles, this company was granted a leasehold interest in 775 village shares—the very same shares on which Kornatsky's enterprise had previously operated. The fact that the company was truly a shell company was indicated by the fact that it was not engaged in any economic activity and had neither its own nor borrowed funds to pay the land rent. The owner of the company turned out to be a certain Oksana Valeshinskaya, at whose home address the enterprise was registered. She is a lawyer who represented the interests of people close to Viktor Pshonka in the region.
The events of that time gave Kornatsky the opportunity to declare that this lawlessness was directed by Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka, and at the local level by the head of the Mykolaiv Regional State Administration, Mykola Kruglov.
In turn, the press service of the Prosecutor General's Office then completely rejected accusations of its chief's involvement in the activities of the Kornatsky Agrofirm.
It's not hard to guess that Kruglov was behind the attack on Kornatsky. Besides the fact that they were bitter rivals in the 2012 parliamentary elections, there's another fact. Prior to Mykola Kruglov's appointment as head of the Mykolaiv Regional State Administration, Arkadiy Kornatsky held the position of deputy governor, a position he was forced to resign from precisely after Yanukovych's protégé took over as governor. They didn't work out, so to speak.
It's worth noting that Kornatsky himself was not involved in any criminal proceedings, as in 2012 he successfully transferred his stake to a legal entity in the United States. He did not name the overseas company.
However, after the change of power this year, Arkady Alekseevich's company has seen much brighter times. On June 5, the Supreme Specialized Court for Civil and Criminal Cases upheld the cassation appeal of the prosecutor and defense against the aforementioned CFO and chief accountant of Agrofirma Kornatskikh, Nikitkina, and overturned the rulings of other courts against her.
A new twist, turning the Kornatsky case around, occurred recently. The Prosecutor General's Office has launched an investigation against former Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka for allegedly attempting to seize control of Kornatskykh Agrofirma LLC and embezzle 50 million hryvnias. This was announced at a briefing by Prosecutor General's Office spokesman Yuriy Boychenko.
It was established that, together with his son, Party of Regions deputy Artem Pshonka, he organized, through the Prosecutor General's Office and other government agencies, a series of criminal proceedings and lawsuits against employees and the director of the Kornatskikh Agrofirm.
Thus, according to prosecutors, their former boss attempted to seize the enterprise's lands worth $200 million.
The investigation was initiated under Part 2 of Article 364 (abuse of official position or power).
As we can see, the Prosecutor General's Office's position on the "Kornatsky case" is changing like the weather. However, after the change in the Prosecutor General's Office leadership, it's not hard to assume that the Mykolaiv agro-baron was the one who found a way to approach prosecutors, given his connections to many of the current authorities, especially since current Prosecutor General Vitaliy Yarema and Arkady Kornatsky were party members.
In this regard, Prosecutor's Truth has a number of questions:
What's behind the unexpected turnaround in the Kornatsky case? What or who has forced investigators to dig in a completely different direction today?
— Do investigators intend to find out who was really behind the accusations against the owner of Agrofirma Kornatskikh?
— Will former Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka's involvement in the "division" of an agricultural company be proven, or is this another attempt to pin the blame on Pshonka?
Prosecutor's Truth
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