Corruption accusations swirling around Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and his allies have been steadily gaining momentum ahead of Dec. 11, the anniversary date of his government. From now on, Yatsenyuk can be fired by parliament's 423 members.
Some of the strongest accusations come from Mikheil Saakashvili, governor of Odesa Oblast and ex-Georgian president, and his ally Davit Sakvarelidze, chief prosecutor of the oblast and a deputy prosecutor general.
Saakashvili, however, is seen as angling for Yatsenyuk’s job, casting doubt on the veracity of some of his claims. He has denied intentions to become prime minister.
Yatsenyuk says he’s a victim of a political smear campaign.
“This is a coordinated information campaign against the prime minister whose aim is to destabilize the situation in Ukraine,” Yatsenyuk’s spokeswoman Olga Lappo told the Kyiv Post. “There is no evidence or documents whatsoever.”
Saakashvili and investigative journalists say they have amassed evidence implicating Yatsenyuk allies in corruption.
At the Dec. 6 Odesa Anti-Corruption Initiative forum, Saakashvili unveiled accusations against Yatsenyuk and his allies, complete with flow chart.
He said the Ukrainian government was losing $5 billion per year as a result of corruption schemes and accused Yatsenyuk of being responsible for that.
One of the accusations includes alleged links among Yatsenyuk, Mykola Martynenko, a lawmaker of the prime minister’s People Front party, and the Odesa Port Plant.
Martynenko asked the Verkhovna Rada to strip him of his mandate amid the corruption scandal last month, but he has denied any wrongdoing.
In an interview with journalist Max Tucker published by the Times of London on Dec. 8, Sakvarelidze said Odesa Oblast prosecutors’ criminal case against the Odesa Port Plant was linked to Yatsenyuk. But Sakvarelidze later denied saying that Yatsenyuk was a suspect.
In a recording of the interview provided by Tucker to the Kyiv Post, Sakvarelidze does not explicitly say Yatsenyuk is a suspect but talks about links to the prime minister.
“The first links that we found are to the prime minister’s office and to the government because the (documents) were signed by the prime minister, the appointments were made by the prime minister and (the plant’s) first deputy was directly appointed by the team of prime minister,” he said.
The case involves a contract concluded in October between the Odesa Port Plant and Antra, a little-known Austrian company.
Under the deal, Antra supplies natural gas to the plant in exchange for ammonia and other fertilizers that are produced from the gas. Investigators say that the plant effectively supplies fertilizers to Antra at below-market prices, which deprives it of revenues.
Antra was founded by Ukrainian citizen Leonid Marchuk. He is linked to Martynenko, according to a Nov. 10 investigation by Ukrainska Pravda.
Marchuk is a business partner of Mikhail Vergeles, who used to run KSK TA KO, a firm controlled by Martynenko and his business partner David Zhvania, Ukrainska Pravda reported, citing registers.
Zhvania told Ukrainska Pravda that Serhiy Pereloma, chairman of the Odesa Port Plant’s board of directors, had been running their joint business with Martynenko before they parted ways.
Saakashvili also accused Martynenko of taking advantage of state-owned nuclear power firm Energoatom.
Swiss and Czech prosecutors are investigating Martynenko on suspicion of accepting 30 million Swiss francs from Czech engineering firm Skoda for giving it a contract to supply equipment to Energoatom.
Last month Serhiy Leshchenko, a lawmaker from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, published a letter from Swiss prosecutors detailing corruption accusations against Martynenko and bank documents showing that Bradcrest Investment, a company that received a commission fee from Energoatom, is controlled by the lawmaker.
Ukrainska Pravda reported last month that Martynenko was also allegedly linked to a uranium supply scheme at Energoatom.
The newspaper said it had obtained documents according to which Austria’s Steuermann Investitions was selling Kazakh uranium ore at a huge profit to the state-owned Eastern Ore Dressing Plant, which sells uranium to Energoatom. The Eastern Ore Dressing Plant denies the contract’s existence.
Ukrainska Pravda published documents showing that Steuermann’s owner Wolfgang Eiberger was a shareholder of Diamant Bank, which is co-owned by Martynenko’s business partner Zhvania. The documents also demonstrate other links between Steuermann and the Martynenko-Zhvania business.
Zhvania confirmed in a Dec. 7 interview with Ukrainska Pravda that Steuermann was de facto controlled by Martynenko.
Martynenko also stands behind state oil and gas monopoly Naftogaz and United Mining and Chemical Company, Saakashvili claimed.
The government loses about $700 million per year at state firms allegedly linked to Martynenko, Saakashvili said.
Saakashvili also alleged that Yatsenyuk’s Cabinet was enabling several tycoons to profiteer at the expense of Ukraine’s budget.
Saakashvili and Sakvarelidze have been accused of having a selective approach when emphasizing the alleged corruption of Yatsenyuk allies while paying little attention to Poroshenko associates.
Specifically, Saakashvili did not name Ihor Kononenko, a Petro Poroshenko Bloc heavyweight, and Konstantin Grigorishin, Poroshenko’s business partner.
However, Saakashvili has previously accused Petro Poroshenko Bloc lawmakers, including Dmytro Holubov, of corruption and clashed with Oleksiy Honcharenko, a Poroshenko ally.
The Poroshenko allies deny the accusations.
Sasha Borovik, an acting deputy of Saakashvili, argued that their team had no documents on the alleged corruption of Kononenko and Grigoshin but said journalists were welcome to present evidence against them at an upcoming forum in Odesa.
“It’s a dragon that has seven heads,” Borovik told the Kyiv Post. “We demonstrated one of them and will show each of them… We don’t have any taboos.”
He admitted that Poroshenko sometimes had “poor judgment” while appointing people with bad reputation but said Saakashvili’s team still treated him as an ally and “guarantor of reforms.”
Borovik said that, unlike Poroshenko, Yatsenyuk had been sabotaging Saakashvili’s reform efforts in Odesa.
“We’re fighting for the survival of our ideas,” he said. “If Yatsenyuk remains prime minister, I don’t know what we’ll do here. When I think of this, I just want to buy a Lufthansa ticket and fly away.”
Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov can be reached at [email protected].
