You're reading: Zelensky appoints new acting Anti-Monopoly Committee head after Terentyev fired

President Volodymyr Zelensky has appointed Olga Pishchanska as acting head of Ukraine’s Anti-Monopoly Committee, or AMCU, the press service of the state body reported on July 7.

The nomination took place less than a week after the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian parliament accepted the voluntary resignation of the former AMCU head, Yuriy Terentyev, on July 3. Terentyev, 43, had led the organization for more than five years. Pishchanska had previously served as his deputy.

Like Terentyev, 44-year-old Pishchanska used to work for steelmaker ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih from 2004 to 2015. She served the company as head of the department of external design, service procurement manager and strategic and investment projects manager, when Terentyev was general legal adviser there.

A source, who requested to stay anonymous due to the sensitivity of the matter, told the Kyiv Post on July 7 that Pishchanska will likely work closely with the President’s Office and that she has skills to be a state commissioner.

The source also said her efficacy on the job and whether parliament will support her candidacy remain open questions. “Only time will show,” the source said.

Pishchanska has been reported to have personal connections to Zelensky, who has faced criticism in recent months for appointing friends to top government posts.

Business background

The asset declaration Pishchanska filed in 2019 shows that she owns securities at ArcelorMittal, as well as in Procurement Solutions, a business consultancy agency. She also has a 45% stake in STEM Engineering and controls 94% of Promprojectservice — both specialized in geological engineering.

In January through April 2016, Pishchanska also worked as the head of the procurement department at Metinvest, Ukraine’s largest private steel and mining company, owned by Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov.

Pishchanska’s family is reportedly from Zelensky’s hometown Kryvyi Rih, a city of 600,000 people located 400 kilometers southeast of Kyiv.

A June 12 investigation by the Ukrainian Pryamyi TV channel — which is believed to support the interests of ex-President Petro Poroshenko — revealed close ties between Pishchanska’s sister, Svitlana Pishchanska, and Zelensky.

Svitlana Pishchanska reportedly runs the Italian company San Tomasso that registered Zelensky’s villa in Italy. She also allegedly donated Hr 145,000 ($5,300) from her personal income to Zelensky’s Servant of the People party in 2019 and claimed to have known him since childhood.

“I have known Volodymyr (Zelensky) for a long time,” she told Pryamyi. “We are from the same city, we grew up in the same yard.”

Before the resignation of Terentyev, Pishchanska had served as the first deputy head of the AMCU since September 2019.

Two days prior to Terentyev’s resignation, Yuri Butusov, chief editor at Ukrainian news site Censor.net, alleged in a Facebook post that Zelensy had pressured the ex-AMCU chief to resign. Terentyev did not reply to the Kyiv Post’s request for comment on the alleged pressure.

Butusov said Terentyev was pushed out over a Hr 6.5 billion (about $265 million) fine he imposed in October 2019 on tobacco companies — including affiliated companies of Philip Morris, JTI, Imperial Tobacco and British American Tobacco, as well as on TEDIS Ukraine — for abusing their position on the market.

Terentyev’s resignation came after another high-ranking dismissal. Yakiv Smolii, the former governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), resigned on July 1 due to what he claimed was “systematic political pressure” that prevented him from fulfilling his duties until his seven-year term expired in 2025.

The double resignations of Terentyev and Smolii caused alarm in the business community. The day after Smolii announced his resignation, the Ukrainian hryvnia dropped 1.3% (to nearly Hr 27 per $1) and Ukraine postponed a $1.75 billion eurobond sale.

Ever since the NBU nationalized PrivatBank in December 2016, its former owner, controversial oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, has waged a campaign of intimidation and lawsuits against the central bank.

“I want my resignation to be a warning against further attempts to undermine the institutional grounds of the central bank in Ukraine,” Smolii said.