You're reading: Crash witnesses say top manager of Ukrzaliznytsia was driving drunk

A top official of a state enterprise has allegedly tried to escape prosecution after causing a car accident.

On the evening of July 3, an Audi Q7 SUV crossed into oncoming traffic on a two-lane road near Boyarka in Kyiv Oblast. It collided head-on with a Dacia Logan carrying five passengers.

Witnesses said the driver of the SUV, Ivan Fedorko, the director of cargo transportation and logistics at the state-owned Ukrzaliznytsia railway monopolist, appeared to be drunk.

Fedorko crashed into the car of Maksym Levin, 34, a prominent news photographer employed by Ukrainian news outlet LB.ua. Levin was in the car with his wife and three children. Levins’ wife, Valentyna Kuzyk, suffered a fractured shoulder, lacerations to the lefthand, and a fractured rib. One of the children received a gash on the forehead.

A video shot by a witness and uploaded online shows Fedorko offering to pay Levin to settle the incident without informing the police, and Levin refusing.


A video shot at the scene of the crash shows Ivan Fedorko (wearing white) offering money to the other driver, Maksym Levin, to settle the incident.

Ukrazaliznytsya has suspended Fedorko, 49, while the investigation into the incident continues.

After the crash, Fedorko was taken to hospital for an alcohol test. However, he escaped from the hospital with the help of two men, who appeared to be his bodyguards. The men pushed away doctors and led Fedorko out, according to the police press service.

The case quickly made it to the news. On the next day, the police found Fedorko in a Kyiv hospital belonging to Ukrzaliznytsya.

Fedorko came to the hospital at about 2 a.m. and complained of headache and heartache, according to the head doctor Lesya Drofa. Drofa confirmed that Fedorko smelled of alcohol which was also recorded in his medical history.

Fedorko is being investigated as a suspect for causing a car accident and resisting arrest.

A video by Hromadske.UA shows journalists and lawmakers arriving to the hospital to see Ivan Fedorko on July 4.

The witnesses say that after the car crash, Fedorko showed the ID of a member of the Association of Police Veterans, presumably to try to prove his influence. The organization is not officially associated with the police.

One of the witnesses, Oleksandr Kravchenko, stopped near the crash site minutes after the accident and gave first aid to Kuzyk, who had not been wearing a seat belt and who suffered the most serious injuries.


Valentyna Kuzyk gets first aid after being injured in the car accident on July 3.

Kravchenko said that Fedorko appeared to be drunk and behaved loudly, trying to convince everyone at the crash scene that he hadn’t been the one driving the SUV.

“He said that his driver was driving it, but I saw no driver,” Kravchenko recalls. “There was only a woman with him that I assumed was his wife.”

The crash happened two days before the Ukrainian parliament is expected to pass a bill to increase the penalties for driving under influence. The bill, drafted by People’s Front’s lawmaker Andriy Teteruk, proposes a one-year ban on driving a vehicle and increases the fine by three times, from Hr 2,400 to Hr 10,200. A repeated violation within the next two years results in a three-year driving ban and a Hr 24,000 fine.

In the explanatory note to his bill, Teteruk said that the death rate due to road accidents in Ukraine is more than four times higher than in other European states, at 18 persons per 100,000, compared to the European average of four persons.