Elections to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine are coming up at the end of the year, the current parliamentary majority – Servants of the People – remembered that they came to power on a wave of promises of an uncompromising fight against corruption. And the offensive against the oligarchs began briskly with the adoption of anti-corruption laws, but then somehow slowed down due to other, more pressing events. And in recent days, shameless oligarchs have been remembered, the topic has surfaced in a new perspective: the country is at war, but they continue to steal …
In addition, if approached in a businesslike way, you can revive the devastated treasury. Ukraine began to look for internal reserves to replenish the budget. Once again we walked through their rich houses, dachas and plots. Topics sounded cheerful..
Beauty Oksana
Successes, failures and the general approach to the state fight against corruption are especially prominent in the fluctuations in the approach to the case of Viktor Medvedchuk.
Wealthy Ukrainian politician Viktor Medvedchuk was arrested, deprived of Ukrainian citizenship and the mandate of the deputy of the Verkhovna Rala, deprived of property. Then he ended up in Russia, but it turned out that significant assets formally belong to his wife, TV presenter Oksana Marchenko. Reached the hands of the competent authorities to these possessions.
Recently, the UK has expanded anti-Russian sanctions. 11 new positions have been added to the list, including Medvedchuk’s wife. At the same time, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) put her on the wanted list, which follows from the search base on the website of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine.
Marchenko is accused of financing actions aimed at a violent change, the overthrow of the constitutional order or the seizure of state power. The wanted card states that she has been hiding from the pre-trial investigation since March 24,
A day earlier, the SBU announced the arrest of Oksana Marchenko’s assets in the amount of more than UAH 5.6 billion ($153 million). Among them – 14% of shares in two energy supply companies (including Zaporizhzhyaoblenergo) and more than 4% in the third. According to the SBU, she owns them through five offshore companies. The court seized 6.8% of the shares of the electrometallurgical plant “Dneprospetsstal” named after. A. M. Kuzmina in Zaporozhye
The SBU is convinced that the seizure of assets “will protect them from being re-registered as nominees” and will later allow them to be transferred in favor of Ukraine. It is specified that, according to the SBU, Marchenko financed the National Guard and the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs in Crimea. Kyiv companies “Terra-Invest”, “Ukrkapital” and “Sport-Tour”, according to the SBU, she used to carry out subversive activities in Ukraine.
In addition, three land plots in the Lviv region, four residential buildings, ten cars and Marchenko’s assets in 18 investment, agro-industrial, telecommunications and other enterprises were arrested.
It turns out that’s not all. Already in April in the same Lviv region, in one of the most prestigious tourist areas. two more land plots of Oksana Marchenko were arrested. The total value of this seized property is about UAH 17.5 million ($466,000).
Journalists saw the Medvedchuk couple in Moscow and in a Yalta restaurant – in the Crimean Simeiz they have a legal dacha on the territory (about 5 hectares) of the former Baranov children’s anti-tuberculosis sanatorium.
Good parishioner
The name of the Ukrainian oligarch Vadim Novinsky was mentioned in the Russian media in early April, in connection with the incident at the Obukhovskaya mine in the Rostov region. Smoke occurred there, 229 miners were safely evacuated from the horizon at a depth of 199 m, no one was injured. The owners of the mine are the richest Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov and his partner Novinsky. Although formally the shares of Obukhovskaya Mine Administration JSC. Belong to the Cypriot offshore Valleyton Investments Ltd,
On April 13, the SBU reported on the arrest of the property of the sanctioned Russian oligarch Vadim Novinsky. The list of blocked assets includes 40 Ukrainian enterprises and 30 gas wells where gas is produced on an industrial scale. Their total cost is more than 3.5 billion hryvnia ($92 million).
The biography of Vadim Novinsky is non-trivial. He was born in Staraya Russa, Novgorod Region, and bore the surname Malkhasyan. Moved to Ukraine, where he became a junior partner of Rinat Akhmetov, accepted citizenship, In October 1999, he founded the Smart Group company in Dnepropetrovsk (now Smart Holding, which has become one of the largest industrial and investment groups in Ukraine, has a patent for explosive “Ukrainite”.
From 2010 to 2014 he was the honorary president of the Sevastopol football club.
According to Forbes, since the beginning of the SVO, Novinsky’s fortune has decreased by $2.2 billion, to $1.3 billion (by a court decision, Vadim Novinsky has already been taken away 29% of the shares in Kharkovoblenergo JSC), but now it has increased to $1.4 billion, and he ranks third in the list of the richest Ukrainians. He was elected to the Verkhovna Rada from the same party as Medvedchuk.
Since April 2020, Novinsky has become a deacon of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate). By the way, the ex-president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko is also a deacon in the UOC-MP.
The blocking of Novinsky’s accounts, according to the assumption of the Ukrainian authorities, will prevent him from supporting the UOC financially.
Novinsky lost his mandate in the Verkhovna Rada in July 2022. Interestingly, this happened against the backdrop of a confrontation between the Ukrainian authorities and the UOC, which Kyiv associates with Moscow,
Earlier, Novinsky was sanctioned for his connection with the UOC, and now the SBU claims that he wanted to re-register his business to other people. Novinsky said that they managed to transfer assets to foreign companies.
Vadim Novinsky and his family left Ukraine, according to some reports, they live in Germany. But on his website, among the news, there is also a counter: “Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the Charitable Foundation has provided assistance to Ukraine in the amount of more than UAH 430 million. Help is still available.”
By the way, on April 12, the Crimean authorities also reminded: they did not forgive the Ukrainian oligarchs here either, and once again called for them to be punished. Chairman. Vladimir Konstantinov, the State Council of the Republic, wrote in his Telegram channel: “I believe that we need to name by name those responsible for the events of those years that have become a truly national tragedy: those who are guilty of killing Crimeans in criminal wars, of mass impoverishment of people and illegal redistribution of property , in many other atrocities.”
Konstantinov has been heading the Crimean parliament since 2010, and the perpetrators have not been identified, and the apartment of the family of Vladimir Zelensky in Yalta, despite repeated promises by the head of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, to this effect, did not transfer to the treasury of the republic.