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Artem Sytnyk, head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, and President Petro Poroshenko secretly met on April 27 in the president’s residence in Kyiv’s high-end suburb of Kozyn, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Schemes investigative show reported late on July 12.
The journalists filmed Sytnyk’s car and the car of Poroshenko’s top ally and lawmaker Oleksandr Hranovsky entering Poroshenko’s residence and then both cars leaving it at the same time.
The Presidential Administration and Hranovsky did not respond to requests for comment.
Sytnyk told Schemes that he and Poroshenko had discussed the creation of the anti-corruption court at the meeting. He said he had insisted that proposals on the court by Ukraine’s Western partners be accepted.
He also said that the meeting had been initiated by Poroshenko.
“I did not believe this to be a secret meeting,” Sytnyk said.
He said that he had met Poroshenko 12 to 15 times since he was appointed as head of the NABU in April 2015.
“Even in wartime the opposite sides negotiate with each other,” Sytnyk added.
Sytnyk denied meeting Hranovsky at Poroshenko’s residence, but said he had met Hranovsky at the NABU office to discuss the anti-corruption court.
Hranovsky is widely seen as a person overseeing courts and prosecutors for Poroshenko, which he denies. When asked in what capacity he discussed the anti-corruption court with Sytnyk, Sytnyk said he was “a lawmaker, a leader of the faction.”
He denied the accusations that meetings with Poroshenko and Hranovsky compromised the NABU’s independence.
“The events that have been going on over the past two years show that a lot of people are unhappy with the NABU,” Sytnyk said.
The NABU, which has taken on top-level corruption, has effectively been at war with Poroshenko’s inner circle and his People’s Front allies.
Chief Anti-Corruption Prosecutor Nazar Kholodnytsky, who has been accused of being a puppet of Poroshenko and denies the accusations, has blocked all NABU cases since early 2018, according to Vitaly Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center’s executive board, and a source at the NABU who was not authorized to speak to the press.
Kholodnytsky has denied the accusations of sabotaging NABU cases.
The Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, headed by Kholodnytsky, said on July 12 it had closed the embezzlement case against Interior Minister Arsen Avakov’s son Oleksandr Avakov and the minister’s ex-deputy Serhiy Chebotar.
The NABU source told the Kyiv Post Kholodnytsky had reached a deal with Avakov and other top officials that he would stay on his job in exchange for closing the Avakov case. The source had also told the Kyiv Post in June that Kholodnytsky had been planning to close the Avakov case.
Interior Ministry spokesman Artem Shevchenko declined to comment. Kholodnytsky’s deputy Volodymyr Kryvenko on July 12 denied the accusations of conspiracy, saying that the decision in the Avakov case had been made independently from Kholodnytsky.
The authorities can also potentially fire Sytnyk if three recently appointed NABU auditors prepare a negative report on his performance.
On June 19, Poroshenko appointed his long-time associate Pavlo Zhebrivsky as an auditor of the NABU.
Previously, the Verkhovna Rada and the Cabinet of Ministers had selected their auditors for the NABU, Ukrainian human rights lawyer Volodymyr Vasylenko and legal scholar Mykhailo Buromensky.
Both are former members of the Constitutional Commission, an advisory body for legal issues for the president’s administration.
Both were appointed to the commission by Poroshenko. Vasylenko was nominated as an auditor by Radical Party Leader Oleh Lyashko, who is himself being investigated by the NABU in a corruption case.
