Disgraced former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and his entourage, whose criminal regime was toppled on Feb. 22 after the three-month EuroMaidan revolution, took $32 billion in cash to Russia, said Ukraine’s Acting Prosecutor General Oleg Makhnitsky in an interview with the Financial Times on April 28.
He believes
Yanukovych is using this money to finance the pro-Russian separatist movement in
the eastern regions of Ukraine. Russia continues to harbor the ex-president who
authorities have implicated in murder and grand corruption. Makhnitsky added
that Russia refuses to cooperate with Ukraine to extradite the wanted former
head of state who fled overnight on February 21-22.
Russian
President Vladimir Putin has maintained that Yanukovych is still the legitimate
president of Ukraine and doesn’t recognize the interim government in Kyiv.
Russia invaded and annexed the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in March-April,
which is a part of Ukraine, after Yanukovych’s get away.
Interestingly,
Ukraine’s state budget for 2014 is only $31.5 billion, according to the April
29 hryvnia rate on the interbank exchange market. The country urgently needs
financial assistance to cover the $24.4 billion fiscal gap, Prime Minister ArseniyYatsenyuk
earlier stated. Recovering the money with which Yanukovych and his inner circle
allegedly absconded to Russia may contribute greatly to solving this problem.
Meanwhile,
Yanukovych’s official tax declaration for 2012 mentioned he earned just some
$2.5 million, ostensibly comprised mostly of book sales that few Ukrainians
have actually seen.
“Today the Russian
Federation is officially harboring criminals, such as Yanukovych, (former
Prosecutor General Viktor) Pshonka, (ex-Interior Minister Vitaliy) Zakharchenko,
and does not recognize them as guilty,” said Makhnitsky.
Russia’s
Prosecutor General Yuriy Chayka publicly stated that Russia will not extradite
them because they are considered legitimate
Ukrainian government officials.
In mid-April, the U.S. State Department announced that
the U.S. had sent a group of FBI agents and financial and legal officials to
Kyiv to facilitate the return of Ukrainian assets from abroad. An asset
recovery team from Great Britain is also participating in the project. Londond hosts a two-day meeting this week devoted to recovering Ukrainian assets. The U.S., UK and Ukrainian representatives are participating.
Makhnitsky said the country has already identified some $3 billion of stolen assets and expects to find billions more. He said the former regime acted as an organized crime gang that left the country’s treasury bare.
Austria,
Lichtenstein and Switzerland have already agreed to help Ukraine recover assets
which had been illegally acquired by the previous regime and are currently kept
in these countries.
As of Jan. 1,
2013, Swiss banks had $2 billion of capital that came from Ukraine on their
accounts. Maknitsky believes that a substantial amount of this money, if not
all of it, is of illegal origin.
The Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine in turn has
launched a number of criminal cases. Besides, it has arrested personal property
of Viktor Yanukovych and his older son Oleksandr Yanukovych, former
presidential chief of staff Andriy Klyuyev and ex-Agriculture Minister Mykola Prysyazhnyuk.
Their accounts in Ukrainian banks, containing some Hr 1.3 billion, $9.6 million
and 214,000 euros, have been arrested as well.
Maknitsky believes some of this money was spent on suppressing
the EuroMaidan protests.
In March, Russian news website Sobesednik reported
that Yanukovych paid $52 million for a luxurious residence in Rublyovka, a posh
suburb of Moscow. This may come as a consolation for losing Mezhyhirya, Yanukovych’s
palatial residence north of Kyiv. Its estimated value is $1 billion, though the
former president says he paid only $3.2 million for it.
On Feb. 23, when Yanukovych’s regime was ousted, some central
bank officials tried to take a substantial amount of cash and gold out of the
NBU’s headquarters in Kyiv in a car, but they were caught.
Editor’s note: the story has been updated to include Makhnitsky’s statement on identifying $3 billion of stolen assets.
Kyiv Post associate
business editor Ivan Verstyuk can be reached at [email protected].
