Nazar Kholodnitsky. Chief for corruption or the fight against it?

Not long ago, a competition was held for the position of head of the specialized anti-corruption prosecutor’s office. Two people reached the finals. One of them, Maxim Grischuk, is a former “cyborg”, volunteer, ATO participant. He is ready to fight and risk his life for his country and has proven this with action. The career of the second contender, Nazar Kholodnitsky, was built in the quiet of prosecutor’s offices, far from hostilities, in very “grain” positions. Moreover, its growth occurred during the times of Yanukovych when, as we were told from the stands of the Maidan, the entire prosecutor’s office was thoroughly corrupt. In addition, he is involved in a very bad story with the beating of journalist Viktor Minyailo, which we wrote about. And now attention, question! Which of these two candidates do you think was chosen by President Petro Poroshenko and Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who came to power as a result of the above-mentioned Euromaidan? Of course… the second, Nazar Kholodnitsky, which we also wrote about. Apparently, he is “one of their own” for them, predictable, and knows where to “put things in.” But the heroes of the ATO are not our own, God knows what you can expect from them. Apparently, the country’s top leadership was guided by this logic when they appointed to this position a person who, judging by his experience and track record, can turn the fight against corruption into an established corruption business. And so that the public “doesn’t stink,” the “cyborg” Maxim Grischuk was appointed his deputy with not very clear powers. Yes, Grischuk is also a prosecutor from the times of Yanukovych, but he showed his love for his homeland in practice, but what is Nazar Ivanovich Kholodnitsky famous for? Let’s try to figure it out.

Whose will you be?

It is clear that they will not appoint someone “from the street” to the position of anti-corruption prosecutor. So who is behind Kholodnitsky, or, in other words, who will receive money for the fight against corruption? Nazar Kholodnitsky was given a start in life by the well-known former prosecutor of Kyiv and the Kyiv region, Yuri Gaisinsky. It was he who was the first chief of the newly appointed anti-corruption prosecutor. Yes, this is the same Gaisinsky who in his time could solve almost any case. It was thanks to him that the criminal authority Avdyshev escaped. He “reclassified” the necessary article, which allowed the “Volkov case” to be put under the brakes. He is also a business partner of Surkis and Gubsky, as well as the father-in-law of Gennady Kernes. In addition, there is another interesting detail. According to his official duties, Kholodnitsky must control the head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau Artem Sytnik, the same one who, in the very first days of working in the bureau, “burned himself” by including his wife and his personal assistant in the official delegation to travel to the UK at public expense. The Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine regarded this as an abuse of power and official position, and a pre-trial investigation has been launched in this case.

And what a coincidence, this same Sytnik is also a partner of Yuri Gaisinsky. He was a managing partner in the Legal Guarantees company, owned by Gaysinsky. In a word, it somehow “coincidentally” that the entire newly created anti-corruption bloc is in one way or another connected with one of the most famous and most arrogant corrupt officials of the Kuchma era, a representative of the so-called “Kiev oligarchic clan.” However, these are general arguments that do not prove or show that Nazar Kholodnitsky is really a corrupt official. Moreover, he himself denies his connection with Yuri Gaisinsky. Well, let’s move from general reasoning to specifics.

Kiev-Svyatoshinsky district

In 2006, young Nazar Kholodnitsky, who was 21 years old at that time, went to work at the prosecutor’s office of the Kiev-Svyatoshinsky district. And it was Yuri Gaisinsky who hired him. At that time, the prosecutor of the Kyiv region. This area is considered very prestigious – it is all built up with mansions of rich people, and the land in this area has always been simply “golden”. In this area there is the village of Sofievskaya Borshchagovka in which, precisely during the time Nazar Ivanovich worked there, that is, in 2011, the village council illegally issued plots for the construction of apartment buildings. This scheme was protected by the prosecutor of the Kiev-Svyatoshinsky district Vasily Fedorenko, and Nazar Kholodnitsky in those years was his guarantor. When the indignant villagers decided to change the village council, its head simply locked himself in the village council premises along with Kholodnitsky. They called the titushki, local residents called the police. Berkut arrived, took the side of the head of the village council, and the local residents were simply sent home. Residents filed a lawsuit against the raiders, but Nazar Ivanovich closed all the cases against them, and did it personally. Apparently, then he did not know that he would be an anti-corruption prosecutor, so from a young age he tried to fit into the corruption system of the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office. The then actions of the raiders, which he covered up, caused damage to the country in the amount of 120 million hryvnia.

The homeless man is in power again

If you look at Nazar Ivanovich’s declaration, you can conclude that we have before us the purest person. He has no bills or income. The total income is about 140,000 hryvnia per year, that is, about 12,000 hryvnia per month (a person lives on salary alone). He also does not have a bank account. No houses, no apartments, only plots of 1000 and 1200 square meters and some “other real estate” of 18 square meters. And also a 2007 Mitsubishi car. Probably, even the drivers and cleaners in the Prosecutor General’s Office will be richer. It is very interesting, but he also did not indicate rented real estate in the declaration. Where does the anti-corruption prosecutor live? Is he really homeless? However, no one should be surprised by such “homeless” declarations. “Diamond” prosecutors also did not indicate their stones in their declarations. That is, theoretically everything is correct – the person was in public service all his life, which means, again, theoretically he could not become a wealthy person. However, we should not forget that he held at least two very “grain” positions: senior prosecutor of the Kiev-Svyatoshinsky district, we wrote about this above, and senior assistant to the First Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolai Golomshi. The same one who is involved in organizing the early release of the scandalous ex-deputy Viktor Lozinsky. This was in May-July 2014, just when Nazar Kholodnitsky was working in the Prosecutor General’s Office. Could the senior assistant not know what kind of business his boss was doing? Be that as it may, a serious scandal erupted around this case, Golomsha was eventually removed, and Nazar Ivanovich was appointed deputy prosecutor of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

Prosecutor of Crimea, but without Crimea

By that time, Crimea had already been annexed by Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), and the prosecutor’s office of the autonomous republic was located in Kyiv. What this strange department did and what Kholodnitsky did in it is not very clear. In theory, he should have opened criminal proceedings against the deputies of the autonomy, as well as against the new “leaders” of this occupied part of Ukraine. And, accordingly, at least in absentia, but condemn them. Moreover, their crimes against the state, as they say, are obvious and it would not be difficult to collect the evidence base.

More than a year has passed, and nothing has been heard about such criminal proceedings. And, as it turns out, citizens Sergei Aksenov and Vladimir Konstantinov are not guilty of anything, even though the whole world saw how they signed an agreement with Putin (*criminal) live on the entry of Crimea into the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism), since their guilt can be established only a trial based on the accusations of the prosecutor’s office. In the meantime, they are simply wanted. Instead, Nazar Ivanovich took care of the Ukrainian singer Irina Bilyk, who flew to Crimea, apparently to work for some corporate event. He saw in her interview that she flew there by plane, and this, according to the then deputy prosecutor of Crimea, was an offense; she had to walk through the checkpoint. Bilyk, apparently, did not suffer much from this, but this story perfectly illustrates the priorities of the new anti-corruption prosecutor.

The new anti-corruption prosecutor will serve in his position for the next five years. His salary will be about 30,000 hryvnia. Is it a lot or a little? As for the average Ukrainian, it’s not bad at all. But throughout the years of independence, prosecutors did not receive anything, but they had thousands of times more. The biography of Nazar Kholodnitsky described above does not mean that he will necessarily begin to “protect” corruption, but it does give reason to doubt the purity of his intentions and take a closer look at him. Perhaps very soon we will be talking about how it would be better to hire a “cyborg” for this position. Time will show.

Denis Ivanov, for SKELET-info