Before lustration, prosecutors decided to earn 30 million dollars

For two months now, passions have not subsided around one of the largest agricultural holdings in Ukraine, “Agrain”. The new Ukrainian government declares its aspiration for European values, but most importantly – for the European approach of the state to business. Apparently, the implementation of such good goals, if it happens, then certainly not in Ukraine itself. “Agrain” is one of the most striking examples that clearly demonstrates how “newly” the bodies from which the whole country suffered most during the time of Viktor Yanukovych – the prosecutor’s office – have begun to live.

It seems that each new leadership of the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office is trying to “not fall flat on their face” in front of their predecessors in terms of personal enrichment. Everyone has seen Pshonka’s house with Faberge eggs, his personal road, the relics of saints in his office. During his three months of “rule” in the GPU, Makhnitsky is openly credited with “earning” 300 million dollars. Of course, it seems less than Pshonka. But in three months! That’s 100 million a month or three million every day. They say that Makhnitsky decided to wait out the turbulent times in Ukraine in not the worst European capital – London.

The new top of the GPU, apparently, does not plan to graze the rear either. And how can it be? Lustration is on the threshold, soon they will have to say goodbye to their positions for a long time, if not forever, and after all, they still need to have time to provide a comfortable old age for themselves and Londons and Parises for their children.

And if it is dangerous to touch the assets of the most famous oligarchs of Ukraine, then it is best to choose as an object of enrichment some functioning enterprise from which money can be squeezed out quickly, in large quantities and with the least risks.

The fact is that today a new clan of “Lviv people” has been formed in the leadership of the Prosecutor General’s Office. Its main protagonist is the first deputy prosecutor general, Mykola Gerasimyuk, who held the post of first deputy head of the executive service during Yanukovych’s presidency. Everyone remembers very well how, under Gerasimyuk, court decisions were “honestly and fairly” executed. Gerasimyuk personally transferred the “revenue” from his activities to the then Minister of Justice To Alexander Lavrinovich.

A close “partner” of Gerasimyuk is the Kyiv prosecutor Sergey Yuldashev. Incidentally, Gerasimyuk himself worked as the capital’s prosecutor for some time, but after several waves of public indignation over Gerasimyuk’s appointment, Yarema hid his protégé. And not to some remote regional center, but closer to himself – as the first deputy.

And everything would have been fine, but then the lustration law came into force. Gerasimyuk and Yuldashev were worried, because based on their service records (Yuldashev was a district prosecutor in Dnepropetrovsk during Yanukovych’s time, and a deputy prosecutor of the Luhansk region, and a district prosecutor in Kyiv), they would be among the first to fall under lustration.

Gerasimyuk and Yuldashev needed to quickly make a decision on how to quickly “grab” more money in strong currency so that, as before, they could continue to enjoy charters and maintain their luxurious mansions.

The decision did not take long to come. The fact is that, even in Lviv, Gerasimyuk had been in close contact and had been running common affairs with the wife of one of the now deceased criminal authorities, Lesya Sofienko. Mrs. Sofienko specialized in raiding, and her most valuable talent was the ability to organize the seizure and sale of assets of even the largest enterprise quickly and so that there would be no ends later. Today, the people’s deputy of Ukraine, former active member of the Party of Regions faction Vladimir Pekhov helps his faithful wife. By the way, Pekhov is called one of the main raiders of the Zhytomyr region.

Having heard about Gerasimyuk’s problems and worries about lustration, Lesya Sofienko suggested to her old friend how to quickly make a lot of money. The agroholding “Agrain” came into the dealers’ field of vision. The scheme was simple: to arrest the assets, in particular – the agroholding’s harvest, and quickly sell it, as they say, before the onset of cold weather.

For participating in the scheme, Sofienko promised Gerasimyuk and Yuldashev a fee worthy of officials of their level – 30 million US dollars. Of course, she did not offend herself either, staking out a share of 70 million for herself.

First Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine Mykola Gerasimyuk

And in order to involve as few people as possible in the scheme, in addition to Gerasimyuk and Yuldashev, within the prosecutor’s office itself, the legal support for the raider takeover was taken over by Yuldashev and Sofienko’s trusted persons – lawyers Svetlana Grabarchuk and Alexey Ivanov. These lawyers are the ones who write all the procedural documents for the agroholding’s cases. Investigators who formally investigate the cases on “Agrain” are not allowed to participate in the process, but are only forced to sign the documents needed by the raiders.

The Kyiv prosecutor’s office is simply shocked. Yuldashev turned it into his personal firm, and even brought in his “employees”, leaving the employees as “couriers” to bring to court submissions for arrests, detentions, etc.

Prosecutor of the city of Kyiv Sergey Yuldashev

The same situation is with court decisions. Svetlana Grabarchuk brought ready-made texts of court decisions to the Goloseevsky Court of the capital, which imposed 70 arrests on the assets of the agricultural holding. She was seen more than once in the office of the court chairperson Elena Pervushina. Prosecutors and investigators even complained that they were shown only the last pages of the documents on which they had to sign before sending them to court.

Thus, the work of the agroholding “Agrain” has been blocked for 2 months now. The company’s staff addressed an open letter to Petro Poroshenko with a request to protect the holding from Gerasimyuk, Yuldashev, Sofienko and Pekhov.

The situation with “Agrain” may become a signal for Ukrainian society: have we started living “in a new way” or will we soon face a situation where people will remember Yanukovych, Azarov and Pshonka with a slight note of nostalgia? After all, even then, appetites were more modest. Although, perhaps, lustration is to blame for everything, which forces already poor prosecutors to stock up in frantic quantities.

Victor Chervonenko, SKELET-info