You're reading: Yatsenyuk and allies of Poroshenko, Avakov targeted by corruption investigations

Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, President Petro Poroshenko’s chief of staff Borys Lozhkin and an ally of Interior Minister Arsen Avakov have been targeted by investigators and whistleblowers in Ukraine and abroad this week.

The reports come as Poroshenko, Yatsenyuk and Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin are accused of failing to investigate corruption among incumbent and former top officials and applying selective justice.

Geoffrey Pyatt, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, went so far on Sept. 24 as to say that “corrupt actors within the Prosecutor General’s Office are making things worse by openly and aggressively undermining reform.”

Kyiv’s Pechersky District Court has ordered the
Prosecutor General’s Office to start an investigation against Yatsenyuk on
suspicion of getting a $3 million bribe for appointing Volodymyr Ishchuk as
chief executive of state-owned Radio Broadcasting, Radio Communications and
Television Company, Serhiy Kaplin, a member of the Verkhovna Rada, wrote on
Sept. 26. He posted a scanned copy of the court order.

The Pechersky District Court was not available for
comment.

Olga Lappo, a spokeswoman for Yatsenyuk, said by phone she could not
immediately comment on the issue.

Kaplin had earlier filed a complaint against the
Prosecutor General’s Office for refusing to start the investigation.

Yatsenyuk’s allies have also come under fire.

Earlier this year Ihor Kotvytsky, a lawmaker from Yatsenyuk’s
People’s Front party, transferred $40 million to an offshore company based in
Panama through Ukraine’s state-owned Oshchadbank, Serhiy Leshchenko, a lawmaker
from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, wrote on his blog on Sept. 25.

Kotvytsky was not available by phone or e-mail, while
the People’s Front’s press office could not be reached by phone.

Kotvytsky did not initially include this amount in his
2014 declaration but changed his mind and included it half a year after the deadline
for declarations expired, Leshchenko said, posting scanned copies of what he
said were the original and corrected declarations.

Leshchenko said, citing unnamed “high-ranking”
sources, that the money could belong to Avakov. He claimed that Kotvytsky was
Avakov’s “wallet” and business partner.

Avakov dismissed the accusations on Sept. 26.

“Leshchenko
is a sophisticated manipulator who serves (Russian businessman Konstantin
Grigorishin),” Avakov claimed.

This is not the first time Yatsenyuk and his associates
are accused of graft.

In April Mykola Hordienko, head of the State Financial
Inspection Service, was fired after accusing Yatsenyuk of corruption, while Ihor
Shevchenko was dismissed as ecology and natural resources minister in July
after claiming that the prime minister was derailing his anti-corruption
efforts.

Yatsenyuk allies Mykola
Martynenko, Serhiy Chebotar and Serhiy Pashynsky have also become targets of
corruption accusations.

Another scandal has erupted over Lozhkin, Poroshenko’s
chief of staff.

Austria’s anti-corruption prosecutors are
investigating a suspected money laundering scheme linked to Lozhkin, the Austrian
News Agency reported on Sept. 24, citing a spokesman for the country’s
anti-corruption prosecution office.

“Neither Ukraine nor Austrian law enforcement agencies
have asked me for information on investigations regarding myself,” Lozhkin
told the news agency. He also told the Liga.net news site that he was prepared
to testify in the case.

The Austrian investigation targets three Ukrainian
nationals, the spokesman said without naming them.

The spokesman did not say whether Lozhkin would be
called as a witness or a suspect and did not specify the period of suspected
money laundering.

Serhiy Leshchenko wrote on his blog on Sept. 24,
citing sources at the presidential administration, that the case was linked to
Lozhkin’s sale of his UMH media group to Serhiy Kurchenko, an ally of disgraced
former President Viktor Yanukovych, in 2013. Kurzhenko, a major suspect in
corruption investigations, fled Ukraine after the 2013-2014 EuroMaidan
Revolution.

The sale was carried out using offshore firms and
accounts at Austrian banks, the sources said.

Austrian prosecutors sent a request for assistance in
the investigation to Ukraine Prosecutor General’s Office several weeks ago but
Shokin “has kept it secret,” Leshchenko wrote.

Andriy Demartino, a spokesman for the Prosecutor
General’s Office, was not available for comment.

Poroshenko’s allies have also been targeted by
anti-corruption activists and investigative journalists before.

Grigorishin, a business partner of Poroshenko, has
come under fire for allegedly winning a procurement tender in an allegedly
illegal way and supplying transformers at below-market prices, according to a
Radio Svoboda investigation.

In another case, Konstyantyn
Likarchuk, deputy head of the State Fiscal Service,
accused Roman
Nasirov, who had been a lawmaker from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc before becoming
head of the agency, of restoring Yanukovych-era corruption schemes. Likarchuk
was fired earlier this month.

Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov
can be reached at [email protected]