Few people doubt that the architect of the mass death of the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine on January 18 in Brovary is the once omnipotent, almost “doer of presidents” Arsen Avakov. It was on one of the Airbus H225 Super Puma helicopters he purchased from France, the unreliability of which was often warned at the time of purchase in 2018, that this stupid tragedy occurred, reports Ukrrudprom.
Prior to the incident in Ukraine, one high-profile plane crash was associated with H225. In 2016, an H225LP crashed off the coast of Norway with two pilots and 11 passengers on board. None of them survived. Then it turned out that the helicopter crashed due to the destruction of the gear in the main rotor gearbox.
During the investigation, civilian H225s were temporarily banned from flying, changes were made to the design of this element of helicopters, new standards for checks and operating modes were adopted, but several countries still abandoned these models.
Arsen Borisovich’s unhealthy attraction to everything French at some point became a byword in the political scene in Ukraine. After acquiring a batch of defective helicopters from Paris (then, by the way, Avakov defiantly put a bolt on the fact that rotorcraft are also made in Ukraine – this, of course, did not make Boguslaev, the owner of Motor Sich, a quilted jacket, but once again showed his grandfather that he was a stranger at this holiday life) the turn has come French patrol boats and even fire hoists. By the summer of 2020 thanks to Borisyach France sucked in Ukraine of any low-liquid junk worth 1.5 billion euros. Moreover, the Minister of Internal Affairs managed to have a hand not only in the purchases of his department.
Two days before the start of a full-scale war, on February 22, 2022, the mayor of Mariupol, Vadim Boychenko, instead of strengthening the defense of the city, met with the French ambassador in order to discuss the status of the project for the construction of a water treatment plant, which was launched precisely with the mediation of Avakov, who, for the sake of such a case “ate the brain” of the actual owner of the “city by the sea” Rinat Akhmetov.
At some point, it became clear that Avakov, as a traveling salesman of everything French, was getting crowded in Ukraine. So, during the presentation of the Ukrainian An-170 aircraft to the Turkish colleague, Arsen Borisovich unexpectedly led the thread of the conversation in the direction of the need to hold a presentation of French helicopters for him, which Airbus supplies to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine.
It is obvious that such an obsession of the ex-minister had a completely commercial basis, popularly referred to as “kickback”. And if by the end of the “tenths” no one expected some highly moral behavior from Avakov, then France undoubtedly unpleasantly surprised the Euro-optimists. It turned out that outright corruption is an important part of the political culture not only of Ukraine, but also of one of the sponsors of the Normandy format and the Minsk agreements.
Corruption kills: Avakov and the French
In the case of France, Avakov was also affected by the fact that this country has the most powerful Armenian community in the world (in terms of political influence), which obviously allowed Arsen Borisovich to quickly and efficiently build informal trusting relationships with Paris.
When today Avakov writes that “The Ukrainian-French contract for the supply of Airbus helicopters to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine was concluded within the framework of an intergovernmental agreement ratified by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in 2018. In addition, the contract was audited by the French government and the treasury.“- this is actually a confession. The suspect knew that sooner or later the contract would raise questions and therefore tried to protect himself as much as possible in the future (by the way, it is very reminiscent of Andrei Kobolev’s nod to the decisions of the Naftogaz Supervisory Board and the reasoning of his lawyers about the collective responsibility of this corporate body).
But even this is not the main feature of the defense system built by the likes of Avakov and Kobolev. Their main hope is Western partners. After all, corruption is a dance that two dance. If the ex-head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs took, then there should have been one who gave. And this is obviously quite specific French officials.
The same is with Kobolev, who, right before the decision of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Court, publicly announced for a reason that he had started a joint business with the former head of the energy department of the US Embassy in Ukraine, Suriya Jayanti. Conflict of interest? Fight back, you haven’t heard!
It’s time to launch an investigation into how bad uncles and aunts from developed democracies seduced innocent natives in a country of unafraid democracy with a frank demonstration of the possibilities of how to jointly legally steal millions and not even sweat in court.
Nikita Afanasiev