Ukrainian police have removed the former CEO of state-owned oil pipeline operator Ukrtransnafta, Oleksandr Lazorko, from their wanted list.
The former CEO was suspected of large-scale embezzlement.
Lazorko, 47, has been on the Interior Ministry’s wanted list since 2015. He was first removed from it in 2018. After the media reported his disappearance from the list, he reappeared there several days later.
At press time, Lazorko could not be reached for comment.
Lazorko served as CEO of Ukrtransnafta in 2009-2015 until the company’s supervisory board dismissed him over alleged embezzlement in March 2015. Ukrtransnafta is owned by Ukraine’s state natural gas and oil company Naftogaz.
The Interior Ministry charged Lazorko with embezzlement in September 2015, opening several cases against him. According to the Ukrainska Pravda news site, the former Ukrtransnafta CEO was accused of illegally pumping crude oil from pipelines, illegally incurring excessive insurance costs, making unlawful and anti-state agreements on oil storage with companies connected to the business group Privat, and reserving the Kremenchuk-Odesa oil pipeline for the Syntez Oil company, which is associated with the Privat group.
The Privat business group is controlled by Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky and his business partner Gennadiy Boholyubov. Lazorko had previously worked for Kolomoisky’s companies, including the Drohobychskyi and Nadvornyanskiy oil refineries.
For the embezzlement charges, Lazorko faced from 7 to 12 years in prison. It is not clear whether the cases against the former CEO are still open. The Kyiv Post could not reach the press service of the Prosecutor General’s Office for comment.
Soon after the charges were brought against Lazorko, he fled the country and settled in London. The Interior Ministry said it appealed to Interpol to add Lazorko to the international wanted list in 2015. However, it soon admitted that the Ukrainian bureau of Interpol, part of the Interior Ministry, had declined to add Lazorko to the wanted list after receiving a letter from the former CEO’s lawyer claiming that the case was politically motivated. That would make Lazorko’s inclusion on the Interpol list a violation of his human rights.
The Interior Ministry told the Kyiv Post it could not immediately comment on the matter.
Kolomoisky connection
Lazorko’s removal from the Interior Ministry wanted list comes at a suspicious time.
On May 20, Ukraine inaugurated comedic actor-turned-politician Volodymyr Zelenskiy as president.
Zelenskiy had previously been Kolomoisky’s business partner. The president’s production company made films and television shows for the oligarch’s 1+1 TV channel.
Kolomoisky has faced accusations of secretly backing the presidential campaign of Zelenskiy, although both of them deny being political allies.
Previously, Kolomoisky spent two years living in self-imposed exile in Israel and Switzerland.
After Zelenskiy won the presidential runoff election on April 21, Kolomoisky returned to Ukraine. He has recently given multiple interviews to Ukrainian media. The oligarch has also spoken favorably of Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, whom he assumes will keep his post after snap parliamentary elections scheduled for July 21.
