“The facts of the largest corruption scheme in the history of Ukraine, exposed during the “Midas” or “Mindichgate” special operation, were discussed at a meeting of the Temporary Investigative Commission of the Verkhovna Rada. Heads of ministries, law enforcement agencies, SBU, Finmonitoring, NBU and state bank “Sens” were invited to the parliament. The following did not come to the meeting: Prime Minister Yulia Svyridenko, who headed the Ministry of Economy at the time of the scale-up of Mindich’s scheme, as well as”, — write on: ua.news
The facts of the largest corruption scheme in the history of Ukraine, exposed during the “Midas” or “Mindichgate” special operation, were discussed at a meeting of the Temporary Investigative Commission of the Verkhovna Rada. Heads of ministries, law enforcement agencies, SBU, Finmonitoring, NBU and state bank “Sens” were invited to the parliament. The following did not come to the meeting: Prime Minister Yuliya Svyridenko, who headed the Ministry of Economy at the time of scaling up Mindich’s scheme, as well as suspended heads of the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Energy Herman Galushchenko and Svitlana Grynchuk.
People’s deputies tried to find out to what extent the highest officials of the state facilitated or “turned a blind eye” to embezzlement in the energy sector, and potentially in the defense sector. Topchinovniks were asked specific and uncomfortable questions.
Why did the Ministry of Economy and the Ministry of Energy not notice large-scale embezzlement at the agency-controlled “Energoatom”? Are the SBI, NAKC and the Prosecutor General’s Office investigating the facts about the “leaking” of internal information to corrupt officials? How does Finmonitoring explain the situation when the money laundering back office made transactions worth millions of dollars and was “unnoticed” in the center of Kyiv? And what is the role of the state Sens Bank in this scheme?
About the key moments of the epic meeting, which “highlighted” the scale of the corruption “closed circle” in the country, as well as opposition to the NABU and SAP investigation – in the UA.News report.
Which deters further investigation
NABU director Semyon Krivonos explained that the recordings of individual episodes of “Mindych’s films” were shown in parts, because there is a large mass of documented and ongoing investigation into the circumstances of all the crimes of this group, including where and from which industries the money came to this “sink”.
“We see that the funds that were laundered through this office were transferred to many foreign jurisdictions. Valuable property and assets were bought for them. Funds were washed away in the accounts of various banks. All this must be established.” Kryvonos explained.
According to the director of NABU, the disclosure of the scheme is being slowed down by several factors, in particular, due to insufficient information from the State Financial Monitoring Service.
“Their role now should be leadership and determining. Regarding responses to our inquiries. We are already seeing certain problems with the tracking of funds related precisely to defense purchases. These problems have been around for quite some time since February 2025.
As soon as we started actively working specifically in the direction of defense, we sent several requests one after another to the Financial Monitoring Service to obtain relevant data on the movement of funds and suspicious transactions. Now we will send many more such requests.
They will concern individual figures, the Carlsons, the Sugars and other members of this criminal organization. Not all of them have been identified yet. We hope to identify everyone. The next aspect is the referral of requests for international legal assistance. For this, first of all, it is necessary to interact with the Financial Monitoring Service.” Kryvonos stated.
Another important aspect he called the duration of economic and criminal examinations by the Ministry of Justice, the Security Service of Ukraine and other institutions. Assistance from the NBU in tracking the movement of funds in state-owned banks is also expected. At the same time, the head of NABU confirmed that pressure on detectives continues, their actions are monitored and information is passed on to corrupt officials. Representatives of law enforcement structures are suspected of this.
“Of course, the pressure is on, you see everything. I have no words, under the “Safe City” system, the movement of employees of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, who carried out certain activities around this office, was provided.” Kryvonos complained.
Investigations are also sabotaged by using information from state registries to which law enforcement officers have free access. They monitor the progress of court cases and decisions, anticipating the next actions of NABU detectives.
Government officials did not see corruption in Energoatom
Minister of Economy, Environment and Agriculture Oleksiy Sobolev tried to answer why the formation of the Energoatom Supervisory Board, which was supposed to prevent corruption, was delayed for two years. His speech was reduced to a formal report on all stages of selection and contracting of Council members. He also assured that the department did not know about the large-scale corruption scheme of kickbacks that operated in the company. “Regarding “Slagbaum”. We didn’t know anything about Shlagbaum. Sobolev said briefly. The official did not answer the question about the direct influence of Herman Galushchenko on the formation of supervision.
Instead, according to People’s Deputy Nina Yuzhanina, the blocking of the effective Supervisory Board of “Energoatom” became the starting point for the rooting of the corruption scheme.
“It is absolutely obvious that there was a direct influence of other people here. But I am now worried about Ms. Svyridenko’s responsibility. Which is absolutely responsible for all activities of “Energoatom” to this day. Do our law enforcement agencies even consider this beginning and Ms. Svyridenko’s role in this whole mess?”, Yuzhanina asked a rhetorical question.
The role of the state Sens Bank
“How was the Supervisory Board of Sens Bank formed, and why are there “observers” from the head of the President’s Office, in particular Vasyl Vesely?”, – went into specifics, the head of TSK, People’s Deputy Yaroslav Zheleznyak, referring to the so-called advisor who “coordinates” the work of the Supervisory Board of the state bank.
Like most of the officials present, representatives of the NBU and Sens Bank were “uninformed” about the presence of “onlookers” from the OP and manifestations of corruption. Dmytro Oliynyk, Deputy Chairman of the National Bank, limited himself to official data and reminded those present how the financial institution was nationalized, and also assured that an independent Supervisory Board has already been selected from Sense Bank in June 2025, in accordance with the established procedure.
People’s deputy Zheleznyak stated that outsiders controlled the situation at the state bank, but the NBU knew nothing about it.
“As far as I understood from your speech, the Ministry of Finance initially formed a temporary board, to which Rostyslav Shurma had nothing to do? …Accordingly, two or three weeks after this formation, the head of the board, referring to his health, said that he would leave his post. And in the mass media they simply “say” that some not very decent behavior was demanded from him…
Next, we have several events happening at the same time. Event one: Oleksandr Muzhel distributes positions in Mindich’s back office. Friend event a: in the same back office, they are calmly discussing how to give a $20 million loan from Sens Bank to Muzhel and Prysiazhniuk. Prysiazhniuk is also a well-known person in the NABU case. The third event: journalist Mykhailo Tkach, and then our TSC capture a certain Vasyl Vesely, whom our sources call a “watcher” of Sens Bank. Are we sure everything is fine with the management of state banks?”, asked Zheleznyak.
The role of Vesely in management processes was briefly confirmed by the Chairman of the Board of Sens Bank Oleksiy Stupak.
“Vasyl Vesely was an advisor to the previous Supervisory Board. With the compilation of the powers of the Supervisory Board, the powers of Vasyl Vesely became invalid.” – admitted the official.
When asked what Vasyl Vesely is currently doing at the bank, Stupak replied that the appearance of this figure in the office of the institution is “some kind of personal initiative.”
The next question related to the cash collection in the state bank, or more precisely, the company “CIT Security”, which transports cash.
The deputies asked whether the bank had checked the origin of this company and whether Stupak knew that it “strangely is located on the street. Ivan Dzyuba, in the same building as the “Izumrud” factory, which was designed for Timur Mindich.”
“For me personally, this registration address is news. We did not investigate the “Izumrud” plant in the context of choosing “CIT Security”, Stupak responded.
How millions of cash dollars were imported
In continuation of the topic of encashment, the deputies tried to publicly discuss the issue of the appearance of “marked” American dollars in Ukraine, whether the state-owned Sense Bank is involved in the import of such bills. As expected, the Chairman of the Board, Oleksiy Stupak, denied these suspicions: “We don’t think it’s our money. Because according to what we import, we import only a new issue – this is the so-called blue dollar. We do not import the white dollar.”
NABU noted that the Federal Reserve Service in the United States records to whom it sells funds, but such a procedure does not apply in Europe and Ukraine. However, at the initiative of the regulatory authorities, the path of money can be traced. People’s deputies also supported this thesis, emphasizing that “there would be a desire for the National Bank of Ukraine to cooperate with the National Anti-Corruption Bureau in order to establish at least a circle of banks that could at this time receive funds from this party when they entered Ukraine through bank correspondence.”
In turn, the head of TSK Zheleznyak assumed that such a supply could have been made by a bank connected to Timur Mindich.
“On the photo are approximately 4 million packaged dollars, brought, as the detective said, from the US Federal Reserve. During the war, when our planes don’t fly, it could somehow be done by someone from the banks. We have few banks. You can’t bring in such bundles of dollars with a “double bass”… There is a certain coincidence. The collection, which is literally registered at the address of Mr. Mindych, and has always worked with Mindych… According to the sources of our TSK, there are certain assumptions about these connections and the presence of these dollars. I am in no way claiming now that this connection is confirmed, at least I can’t prove it.” Zheleznyak noted.
The People’s Deputy also asked the deputy chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine whether it is possible to conduct an inspection of state-owned banks on this issue. To which Dmytro Oliynyk remarked that “I would like to answer affirmatively that it is possible, but billions of dollars are imported into Ukraine.”
“It seems to me that it is impossible to carve out a single million without a registration system. Plus, imports do not happen only during the war, they happened all the time. Old cultures are exported, new ones are imported. And it is absolutely impossible to find out exactly where this million was: it was in a bank, on the gray market, in investment companies or exchanges.” – answered the NBU official.
And once again People’s Deputy Zheleznyak had to inform those present about suspicions regarding the movement of cash involving the collection services of the state bank.
“I questioned the sources several times and, again, in no way confirm. But they say that this collection, as they say, works in such a way that you serve everything from illegal exchange points to various other areas, for example, illegal gambling. I am in no way claiming this. But such information exists. Therefore, based on the availability of such information as the people’s deputy and the head of the TSK, respectively, I ask you to pay attention to it and check it.” Zheleznyak addressed the present bankers.
Finmonitoring does not provide answers
The State Financial Monitoring Service had two blocks of questions. In addition to claims regarding the delay in cooperation with NABU, the issue of inaction regarding the detection of corrupt financial flows also became obvious. In response, the head of Finmonitoring, Philip Pronin, complained about excessive loading: “For 10 months of the 25th year, the Financial Monitoring Service transferred materials in the total amount of UAH 230 billion. For comparison, this is four times more than last year… We are breaking all records.”
Yaroslav Zheleznyak drew attention to the fact that the corruption scheme actually had several back-offices that circulated cash and made suspicious transactions, but for some reason Finmonitoring did not notice them.
“For serious “reforms”, they twisted it into a crypt and took the extension accounts abroad. Including buying 6 million, remember, on records, for Mindich’s sister? According to my information, she has a Canadian passport. Somehow the same transaction went through Ukraine?” asked the deputy.
In response, Pronin said: “I can answer without a surname. And in general, there is no suspicious transaction with the individuals involved in the case.”
The state financial monitoring service could have played a key role in concealing millions of corrupt transactions, the deputies concluded.
“I would like the Security Service of Ukraine to answer how this person (the head of Finmonitoring) can continue to lead the financial intelligence of Ukraine. Because any withdrawal of funds, especially the transfer to the Russian Federation, are funds that are not taken out of thin air. This is all a consequence of financial transactions. And if your system does not work and does not monitor such operations… then it is not built at all.” People’s deputy Nina Yuzhanina was indignant.
At the meeting, they repeatedly mentioned the Russian background of corrupt officials and the fact that exposed crimes in strategic sectors should be assessed as treason, and should be taken into account by the Security Service of Ukraine.
Another important point is the possible sabotage of the investigation by the SBI, NAZK and the Prosecutor General’s Office. It is in these departments that the leak of information is traced, but so far there have been no official inspections, no suspects have been identified and they have not been removed from their positions. Perhaps now these persons are destroying evidence, people’s deputies suggested. However, the facts of sabotage will be actively monitored. At the next meeting of the parliamentary TSC, they plan to analyze in detail the involvement of law enforcement agencies in the exposed criminal group.
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