Do you like to take a bath? Oh, even twice a day? It’s a commendable desire for cleanliness, but are you ready to pay 700 hryvnia per person monthly for the pleasure? If not, you will have to live by European standards: they say they save every drop of hot and cold water. However, this is unlikely to affect the oligarchs: they are so unpretentious about cleanliness that they are ready to rummage through landfills in order to get a weld to their income. However, they say that even mayors have been making good money working in garbage dumps for 20 years…
Skeletons in politics
New week – new reforms. This time there is another scandal in the GPU, because no one dares to write “reform” in this structure without quotes. This time, Maxim Melnichenko, head of the General Inspectorate of Internal Investigations and Security of the GPU, and Olga Varchenko, who on June 7 was appointed head of the Department of Procedural Management, Support of State Prosecution and Representation in Court of the Department for Investigation of Particularly Important Cases in the Economic Sphere, appeared in the structure. The key positions were thus given to a bribery embezzler and a dishonest prosecutor, who not only closed the case against her own husband, but was also accused of being a swindler.
No less remarkable is another revelation from Alexei Kucherenko, the former Minister of Housing and Communal Services. The case concerns the notorious Gribovitskaya landfill, where two rescuers recently died. According to Kucherenko, the landfill could have been liquidated for many years and not become a source of problems if it had not served as a source of income for top-level officials, including Mayor Lvov.
Against this background, the news that our politicians have “slightly tweaked” their rights looks somewhat pale. Just think, on the sidelines they decided that now not only responsible persons, but also their accompanying persons (deputies and assistants) will be able to travel abroad for free. Such a broad gesture at the expense of taxpayers was organized by Vladimir Ariev, adding that only those who are very loyal to Poroshenko and personally to him, Ariev, are worthy of this. However, he did not specify how the amount of loyalty should be measured.
Considering that at meetings of the Verkhovna Rada there are often active disputes, sometimes leading to assault, Arsen Avakov’s issuance of personalized award “barrels” to 88 deputies for special merits is, in the opinion of many, a reckless step. The result is an explosive mixture: official firearms permission plus parliamentary immunity. I wonder if the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs took this into account when signing the permitting documents? However, it is possible that immunity is no longer a panacea: after the Verkhovna Rada received a request to deprive the embezzler and corrupt official Onishchenno of this status (which may well be granted), many will have to be careful in their actions.
Sometimes the fight for justice is not nearly as selfless as it might seem: the Svoboda party, which fought so fiercely against the scandalous developer Mikitas, just as suddenly began to provide him with all kinds of support. Everything was explained simply: the owner of the illegal construction gave an apartment to one of Tyagnibok’s henchmen: now he will have to pay off the gift.
Skeletons in law
The week began with another scandal, the roots of which go back to the GPU, a certain employee of which (M.P. Kravchuk) tried to sign an agreement with another person under investigation in the case of the Telsi company, through which huge sums of money were laundered during the temporary corruption of Yanukovych and Pshonka.
However, judges can do even more than that; that’s why they are experts in the laws. For example, how can you, with a total income for 15 years of 576 thousand hryvnia (an average of about 3,500 hryvnia per month), declare in your income statement a bank account of 4.66 million hryvnia? Judge of the Economic Court of Kyiv Evgeniya Kurkotova knows the answer: “Mom gave it for her birthday!” Apparently, my mother is not only wealthy, but also immensely generous: not every parent is capable of giving almost 400,000 hryvnia every year for name days! And the fact that the donation documents are not certified by a notary, and therefore cannot be evidence, does not matter, it will do just fine. Colleague after all!
And in general, this is clearly becoming a common practice: no longer a judge, but still a lawyer from the Office of Legal Expertise of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, was honored to spend more than 1.2 million hryvnia on an apartment and a car. At the same time, over 13 years of clearly blameless service, he earned “only” about 400 thousand hryvnia. Where does the money come from? The answer is already clear: “The parents gave it as a gift, here is a deed of gift not certified by a notary!” And the court’s decision, of course, is also obvious: “The State Tax Inspectorate’s claims are groundless, the suspect is clean, like a lamb! Justified!”
Sergei Taruta
What about the judges? life is not easy for businessmen! For example, Taruta owed the Azov Shipyard a couple of million, and couldn’t come up with anything better than to buy the enterprise outright, having previously presented himself as a fighter for state interests. And Governor Tkachenko cares so much about his family, relatives and friends that he decided to allocate them with land plots as soon as possible. True, at the same time he “forgot” about 33 fighters from the ATO, to whom the state allocated land plots. However, is the governor really the state? Apparently, Tkachenko thought so…
Skeletons in business
It seems that the days of racketeering of the 90s are returning, but at a fundamentally new level, otherwise how can one explain that, on the obvious orders of the famous socialist-politician Rudkovsky, the former head of Ukrneftegazvydobuvannya Oleg Seminsky was kept in prison for three years, extracting a large sum of money from him through torture and torture. But thanks to the efforts of the GPU, the prisoner, who was fairly emaciated and had lost track of time, was returned to his family, and a serious criminal case was launched based on the incident.
However, all this clearly does not bring sadness to the latter: judging by the report of suspicion that fell on the current head of Ukrnafta, Mark Rollins, Kolomoisky got his hands on him too, turning Ukrnafta into a cash cow, allowing him to transfer state money into his own pockets without a twinge of conscience.
The average resident of Ukraine can hardly bear the burden of utility bills, realizing with horror that he can no longer afford life in a metropolitan apartment. But not everyone was prepared for the fact that now they will not only have to freeze, but also walk dirty: taking a bath with water that costs 83 hryvnia per cubic meter will be completely expensive. Clean people will have to suffer or figure out how to pay for 5-8 cubic meters per month, which will result in at least 500-600 hryvnia monthly. Residents of the capital received such a “gift” by July from Rinat Akhmetov, who approved doubling the payment for heat supplied by Kievenergo. Why is the water flowing from the tap cold? Well, excuse me, at the exit from the thermal power plant it is normal!”
The fact that oligarchs regularly pull the blanket over themselves, taking advantage of their position, is no secret to anyone. So the President, Petro Poroshenko, through “unknown” levers, ensured that his pocket company Podolia was given the largest quota for sugar production. Well, what about it? You need to make sweets, and at a lower cost, so that the margin is more noticeable. You were planning to sell, you say? Of course, we’ll sell the whole business down to the last penny, but you understand, it’s not that easy or quick…
A selection of top SKELETs (13.06 – 17.06) was prepared by Semyon Gorotov