“UP sources said that the head of the President’s Office, Andriy Yermak, is convincing President Volodymyr Zelenskyi that the oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky may be behind the corruption problems that have piled up on the authorities after the publication of the Midas investigation.”, — write: www.pravda.com.ua
Kolomoisky in court, screenshot from the video Source: material of UP “Mindichgate. What happens in the government a week after the anti-corruption “earthquake”
Details: Several interlocutors of the UP in the government and OP assure that Yermak is convincing Zelenskyi that Kolomoiskyi, who has been in the SBU pretrial detention center for the third year, may be behind the problems that have befallen the authorities in the last week.
Advertising:
According to sources close to Bankova, “finding an enemy in order not to admit guilt is one of OP’s favorite tactics.”
Kolomoiskyi himself began actively commenting on “Mindichgate” during court hearings, calling Mindich a “shooter” and a person who “doesn’t pull on the head of the mafia.”
According to many interlocutors of the UP from political circles, the state leadership is currently most concerned about whether Yermak may receive official suspicion during the investigation of the activities of the “Karlson” criminal organization.
Interlocutor of UP in Zelenskyi’s team: “In our system, everyone understands who exactly was the driver of the attack on NABU in July.
If they didn’t start it then, if they didn’t hang around…but, if after that, instead of calming down, they didn’t start digging under Klymenko (the head of the SAP – UP), then this whole “Midas” would have come out somewhere in a year, and not now, and not in such a form.
Everything would be as usual, someone would be quietly dismissed, someone would be quietly brought in and left.
And because of this attack, NABU had no options but to make such a scandal. Therefore, everyone understands who actually brewed this porridge.”
Read also: From the minister to the “watchers”: how the Energoatom embezzlement scheme worked and who is behind it
Prehistory:
- On November 10, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine announced that it had uncovered a large-scale corruption scheme for embezzling funds in the energy sector, as well as made public audio recordings of the negotiations of the participants in this case. Before that, UP sources reported that NABU is conducting searches of businessman Timur Mindich and Minister of Justice Herman Galushchenko. Interlocutors of the UP also noted that Mindich fled abroad a few hours before the searches.
- On November 11, journalists revealed the names of all those involved in the investigation into mass corruption at Energoatom, who received suspicion from NABU. According to the “Schemes” project, Timur Mindich (who is called “Carlson” in the NABU audio recordings – ed.), ex-adviser to the Minister of Energy Ihor Myronyuk (“Rocket”), Dmytro Basov (“Tenor”), executive director of security at “Energoatom”, Oleksandr Zukermana (“Sugarman”), Ihor Fursenko (“Ryoshik”), Lesya Ustymenko and Lyudmila Zorina received suspicions.
- Five persons from the list of suspects have been detained. Two of them – Mindich and Zukerman – left Ukraine.
- Basova, Myronyuk, Fursenko, Ustymenko and Zorinii chose precautionary measures with the possibility of bail. Later, it became known that the High Anti-Corruption Court received bail for the money-laundering “back-office” workers around Energoatom, Lesya Ustymenko and Lyudmila Zorina.
- On November 12, Minister of Justice Herman Galushchenko was removed from his post after a high-profile NABU investigation into corruption at Energoatom NAEC.
- On November 13, President Volodymyr Zelenskyi put into effect the decision of the National Security and Defense Council to impose sanctions against the businessman, co-owner of the studio “Kvartal-95” and his associate Timur Mindich and businessman Oleksandr Zukerman.