Atroshenko's important case. Why was the mayor of Chernigov dismissed and what does Bankova want to say to the local elites
In the long-standing conflict between the mayor of Chernigov, Vladislav Atroshenko, and the Office of the President, a new round has begun.
As Strana reported, the Yavorovsky District Court of Lviv found the mayor guilty on charges of involvement in a conflict of interest. The punishment for this administrative offense was a fine of UAH 6.8 thousand and, more importantly, removal from office for a year. Atroshenko said that the court made a decision under pressure from the OP, which he accused of infringing on the rights of local self-government and democracy in general in Ukraine.
It seems that the mayor blames a certain high-ranking official in the OP for his troubles (namely, in charge of the regional policy of the Deputy Head of the Office of the President Kyrylo Tymoshenko), which he, in principle, transparently alludes to in his statement.
The additional importance of this story is given by the fact that Atroshenko is close to the mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, who also has a conflict with the OP. And the decision regarding the Chernihiv mayor alarms both the mayor of the capital and, in general, many mayors of large cities in Ukraine.
For details, see the material of the Strana.
The Atroshenko case. Lviv court reached out to Chernihiv
The conflict between Atroshenko and the OP, which has been dragging on since pre-war times and by no means subsided during the war, reminded of itself with loud news. On December 7, the Yavorovsky District Court of Lviv found the Chernihiv Mayor guilty under Article 172-7 “Violation of the requirement to prevent and resolve conflicts of interest” of the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offenses.
According to the decision made by Judge Igor Matveev, the mayor was fined 6.8 thousand hryvnias (400 tax-free minimum incomes of citizens) and suspended for a year from his position.
According to the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI), their employees discovered that Atroshenko had instructed his driver to take the car belonging to his wife abroad. This was of his private interest (that is, according to the RBI, this is a conflict of interest). At the same time, the mayor’s driver was issued a business trip for this and allocated funds from the budget, including for gasoline, according to the bureau’s telegram channel.
In addition, the SBI claims that prior to this incident, the city chairman allegedly ordered driver to take his wife abroad in a company car, which can also be considered a conflict of interest.
“It is known that for three months the wife of a high-ranking official used the vehicle for other than its intended purpose at a time when the Chernigov budget was paying lease payments for the same car. Thus, the mayor of Chernihiv, Atroshenko, violated the requirements of Article 28 of the Law of Ukraine “On the Prevention of Corruption”, groundlessly handed over the official car to the use of a loved one and instructed his subordinate to pursue private personal interests,” the SBI said in a statement.
But the decision so far is only about a conflict of interest.
Atroshenko categorically disagreed with him, promising to file an appeal. If the mayor appeals against the decision before it comes into force, he will continue to lead the city.
The decision itself, according to Atroshenko, was the result of pressure from the President's Office on the court.
“Today, by the decision of one person, the will of almost 80% of Chernihiv residents was crossed out. Is there at least one person in the country who believes that the judge of the Yavorivsky District Court of Lviv, without pressure from the Office of the President, decided to deprive the mayor of Chernihiv of the right to hold the position of mayor for a period of 1 year? — said the mayor in a video message published on his Facebook page.
Addressing the president, Atroshenko said that some of his subordinates “clearly demonstrated what they think about local self-government and what place they give to democracy and the people of Ukraine” .
“I understand, Mr. President, that it is difficult for your subordinates to see the law from the window of the new Porsche, it is difficult to understand people, residents of dilapidated Chernihiv and realize the main thing: there is a war going on in the country. And during the war, local self-government became another front, which, while our soldiers are on the front line, protects the families of Ukrainians here… How will the authorities look into the eyes of the people of Chernigov, who, at the cost of the lives of their relatives, stopped the invasion of Kyiv? How to explain to people that officials from the President's Office are engaged in a destructive political war while our guys are dying in a real war? Atroshenko asked questions.
The mention of “Porsche”, apparently, is not accidental, we will return to it.
On December 8, a statement in support of Atroshenko was accepted by the Chernihiv City Council, in which, however, the majority belongs to the mayor's party “Rodnoy Dom” (RD ). According to the deputies, the removal of Atroshenko from office is “without a doubt an attack on local self-government and its further destruction.”
In a comment to Strana, City Council Secretary Alexander Lomako (elected from RD) stated that the facts presented at the trial are “definitely not a reason to remove the mayor, for whom 80% of the townspeople voted.” He called the decision regarding the mayor “insignificant from a legal point of view” and political.
they are all legal, we won’t go far,” Lomako told Strana.
In his opinion, during the war in the border city of Chernigov, the central and local authorities should demonstrate unity. The situation with Atroshenko is “definitely not unity.”
The Association of Cities of Ukraine, headed by Vitaliy Klitschko, also condemned the removal of the mayor.
The Association calls this case “unprecedented in history ”.
“We hope that the appellate court will take into account all the circumstances of the case and consider them objectively, avoiding political pressure during the consideration,” the statement says.
The Association also noted that the court decision on Atroshenko was made on December 7, the Day of Local Self-Government.
“For the first time in Ukraine, the mayor of a city, a regional center, was deprived of the right to hold his position. Moreover, this was done by a judge of the district court of another region, on the Day of Local Self-Government, ”says the board of the Association of Ukrainian Cities, headed by the capital’s mayor Klitschko, in a statement.
Why is this an important court decision
The conflict between the Chernihiv mayor and the President's Office began even before the war. And the reason for it was the clash of interests between Atroshenko and the president's team in Chernihiv. The former managed to reinforce his yet another landslide victory in the mayoral election with the success of his party in campaigns for city and regional councils. The mayor of the city became a serious force that the OP had to reckon with. They failed to find a common language.
Moreover, the mayor openly supported his colleague from Kiev, Klitschko, whom Bankova considered (and still consider) a possible competitor in the future presidential elections to Zelensky.
Before the war, Oleksandr Lomako headed the regional cell of the UDAR mayor-boxer party and was supposed to run for it in the by-elections to the Verkhovna Rada in the majoritarian district No. 206 in Chernihiv. And he, with Atroshenko behind him, would have had good chances of winning (the elections were canceled due to the start of a full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation).
Even then, sources said that the generally difficult relationship with Bankova was superimposed by a personal conflict with the deputy head of the Presidential Office, Kirill Tymoshenko, who oversees work with the regions. Numerous inspections of the activities of city structures in Chernihiv by law enforcement agencies were associated with this.
Atroshenko's important work. Why was the mayor of Chernihiv dismissed and what does Bankova want to say to the local elites
As soon as the war rolled back from the regional center, the conflict resumed. Its striking manifestation was the incident when the mayor was not allowed to go abroad, although he was invited to official events. After the mayor's public indignation at one of these cases, Kyrylo Tymoshenko made a statement in which he called on some mayors not to be indignant, but “to take care of their communities.”
“For those for whom the signal is not clear, there are other ways to help communities and cities. Without you,” Tymoshenko wrote.
Thus, he intensified the talk about the possible introduction of a military administration (VA) in Chernihiv, which will replace the current city leadership. That these are not empty rumors, Atroshenko made it clear. In July, he also publicly addressed the president, stating that some of Zelensky's subordinates were “trying to remove the mayor from running the city” by appointing the VA. He asked Zelensky “to intervene in the situation and stop the political attack.”
Perhaps it was no coincidence that Atroshenko mentioned in his current address to the president an official in a Porsche. Recently, the media published materials that the deputy head of the OP Tymoshenko drives a new car of this brand, moreover, owned by a non-public businessman, and rents a huge mansion. Therefore, it is quite clear who Atroshenko was hinting at this time.
According to an interlocutor close to Atroshenko, the scenario with the military administration remains at hand with the central government. If the mayor loses the lawsuits (although the source is sure that “common sense will prevail”), the leadership of the city by law will pass to the secretary of the City Council Lomako, who is Atroshenko’s ally. That is, the power in Chernihiv will remain with the team of the removed mayor. Consider – Atroshenko himself, who would try to be as visible as possible and most likely criticize the OP even more strongly.
Therefore, the likelihood that Kiev, even if Atroshenko loses the appeal and remains suspended, will introduce military administration anyway, remains very high.
“It is one thing to introduce a military administration when there is a city head for whom so many people voted. It will bring negativity. Another is when the mayor seems to be gone,” the source says.
He also talks about “a moment of personal revenge.”
“This could be revenge on the mayor, who said something that they (Bankova – Ed.) did not like. Either about a memorandum on tariffs, or about Klitschko. For this, we will punish you, Atroshenko, and give a lesson to other mayors. And there was no need to be indignant that you were not allowed to go to Lugano (the Swiss city where the Ukraine Recovery Conference was held in July on the ways of the post-war restoration of Ukraine – Ed.) That's how the mayor of Nikolaev, who also could not leave, kept silent, and everything good,” says the source of the publication.
Meanwhile, support for Atroshenko was expressed in the environment of the mayor Vitali Klitschko. In particular, the head of the UDAR executive committee, a long-term friend of Klitschko and his godfather Artur Palatny called the decision of the court political.
“By this decision of officials and one judge, local self-government in Ukraine is being destroyed,” Palatny wrote on his Facebook page, expressing his conviction that “truth will definitely win.”
Another interlocutor in the Klitschko team in conversation with “Country” was more frank: “Vitaly should tighten up after this story (with Atroshenko – Ed.)”.
According to political analyst Ruslan Bortnik, Atroshenko's case fits into the outline of the growing power offensive against the regional elites, who want to accustom them to the new rules of the game, according to which everything is decided by the Office of the President.
“Recently in Kyiv, Zelensky and Bankovaya publicly criticized Klitschko about invincibility points, and later searches were carried out in two departments of the Kyiv City State Administration as part of an investigation into spending on landscaping in one of the parks. Even earlier, there was a case with Gennady Korban, influential in the Dnieper, who was not allowed into the country, having been deprived of Ukrainian citizenship. The court decision on Atroshenko fits into this line in relation to the regional elites. Presumably, the OP thus makes it clear that their political competition with Bankova is over. And whoever does not understand will receive a sentence, like Atroshenko, or a decree, like Korban. The incident of the Chernihiv mayor draws on a new-old technology for the removal of recalcitrant elected leaders. They thought that if they were elected by the people, they could feel confident in their cities. This is not so, they made it clear in the OP. And Vitali Klitschko needs to think about this as well. Because if he or his brother Vladimir retain their presidential ambitions, they are in for a lot of trouble. And the mayor of Kiev risks becoming the last act in the play “The Taming of the Shrew”, although there will still be roles for oligarchs and opposition politicians. At Bankova, apparently, they decided that the immediate threat to Ukraine as a state was removed, and it was possible to deal with their own domestic political tasks. The country is returning to a state of internal political struggle — of course, in the form that Zelensky’s team understands it,” the expert comments.
Denis Rafalsky
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