On New Year’s Eve from 2018 to 2019, channel 1+1, instead of the speech of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, broadcast the announcement of actor Volodymyr Zelensky that he would run for president. The star of the series Servant of the People, broadcast on the channel of Ihor Kolomoisky, put an end to doubts. The businessman, who had lost his bank and been dismissed as governor of the Dnipropetrovsk (now Dnipro) region, plotted revenge against Poroshenko, a candidate for re-election. As Kolomoisky is accused of fraud and money laundering, he finds himself further and further away from his goal of reclaiming PrivatBank and the power it held.
It was the task of the Ukrainian security services (SBU) to formally present the allegations of fraud and money laundering to Ihor Kolomoisky, one of the country’s most controversial oligarchs. “It was found that Kolomoisky legalized more than 500 billion hryvnias between 2013 and 2020. [cerca de 12,5 milhões de euros]by transferring them abroad using the infrastructure of banking institutions it controlled,” the SBU said, adding that it was continuing an investigation ahead of the verdict.
Kolomoisky, founder of the largest private bank, saw the government nationalize PrivatBank in 2016 after the regulator discovered a $5 billion gap. Last year there was unconfirmed news that Zelensky had revoked the billionaire’s nationality because he has Israeli and Cypriot nationality. Months earlier, the US had imposed sanctions on Kolomoisky and his immediate family.
Parallel to the investigation into the oligarch, anti-corruption agencies have opened 300 cases this year, resulting in 58 allegations.
In obtaining candidate country status for accession to the European Union, Ukraine received seven recommendations from Brussels. Three of them are interrelated: an effective anti-corruption program, legislation to end the power of oligarchs and the fight against money laundering. In January, Deputy Infrastructure Minister Vasyl Lozynski was arrested and fired on charges of corruption, and several senior officials, including Deputy Defense Minister Viacheslav Shapovalov, followed suit.
In March, 40-year-old lawyer Semen Kryvonos takes over as head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), an independent body established in 2015. Two months later, the president of the Supreme Court, Vsevolod Knyazev, was charged with receiving 2.5 million euros. euros in bribes. This year alone, NABU, working with the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office, has filed about 300 cases and sent 58 charges to court, Kryvonos told Reuters.
On the war front, the Ukrainian president assured that the army is succeeding in the counter-offensive. “Ukrainian forces are advancing. Despite everything, and regardless of what they say, we are advancing, and that is the most important thing. We are moving,” Zelensky wrote in Telegram.
Moscow also claimed successes in the Donetsk region, near Klishchiivka, southwest of Bakhmut, when it said it destroyed three naval drones headed for the bridge connecting occupied Crimea to Russia in the Kerch Strait.
Source: DN
