See related stories here and here.
Among several allegations by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, Nazar Kholodytsky stands accused of instructing his deputy not to deliver a notice of suspicion on embezzlement charges to Odesa Mayor Gennady Trukhanov, despite having enough evidence to do so.
The NABU bases these accusations on recordings it made with a bug placed in Kholodnytsky’s office. On Feb. 7, he and his deputy discuss who they can detain in the case.
They recount how Trukhanov has left the country with his daughter, while his wife lives in India. They also note the whereabouts of different suspects, many of whom have left the country.
“They’ve only left us…” Kholodnytsky’s deputy says, trailing off. “It perfectly fits the scheme that they gave us.”
Given the recordings, the NABU argues that Kholodnytsky has illegally negotiated with suspects in the Trukhanov case and leaked information to them.
When NABU detectives came to Odesa for searches, the suspects had left town. Trukhanov was also already abroad and was reportedly trying to reach a shady deal with the courts, NABU Chief Artem Sytnyk said.
In the recording, Kholodnytsky also notes the men in question were “drawing up a scheme” to return the money they had embezzled.
His deputy stresses that this does not alter the case at all. A week after the recorded conversation, on Feb. 13, the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office and the NABU informed Trukhanov, Deputy Odesa Mayor Pavlo Vugelman, and three Odesa city council and mayor’s office officials that they were under suspicion.
The five stand accused of involvement in purchasing the old Krayan factory administrative building for Hr 185 million ($7.04 million) in September 2016, when it had been sold for only Hr 4 million ($152,000) at the beginning of the year — strongly suggestive of a scheme to embezzle money from the city.
In contrast, the city council, which officially purchased the factory, indicated that after repairs the building could be used to house all the branches of the mayor’s office under one roof. This would actually save the city money, the council stated.
On Feb. 14, Trukhanov returned to Ukraine on a flight from Warsaw, Poland, after an extended vacation and was arrested at Kyiv’s Boryspil International Airport.
In a Facebook post the same day, he claimed to have informed NABU of his arrival time and said he chose to come back to “avoid further speculation.”
But his two-month absence led many to suspect that the Odesa mayor was attempting to avoid arrest. According to the NABU, Kholodnytsky was doing his best to ensure that Trukhanov was released by a court as soon as possible.
And, the next day, Kyiv’s Solomiansky court indeed released Trukhanov without bail after lawmaker Dmytro Holubov of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc vouched for the mayor.
Holubov has been charged by United States authorities with cybercrimes, including credit-card fraud, and has been wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigations. He denies these accusations. The combined evidence — Trukhanov’s actions, his release and the Kholodnytsky recordings — appears indicative of a plot to help Trukhanov avoid prosecution.
In the recording, Kholodnytsky even acknowledges that Trukhanov’s rule is expedient for the authorities and helps keep the city in Ukraine’s fold.
It also matches widespread opinion in Odesa. According to Pavlo Polamarchuk, a leader of the Democratic Alliance party’s Odesa branch, there are repeated rumors that Trukhanov came to an agreement with high-level officials in Kyiv.
“In Odesa, it’s nearly a unified opinion that [Trukhanov] paid someone off and now he’s totally the king,” he said. “And he raised his rating because his PR people said he didn’t just do a lot for the city, but also beat Kyiv.”
But Vitaly Ustymenko, an AutoMaidan activist who was beaten by hired thugs at Trukhanov’s Kyiv hearing, believes that the mayor’s agreement with the authorities dates back to 2014 and 2015, when the government needed to secure the loyalty of Odesa Oblast.
All of Odesa is under the control of “Trukhanov’s financial group,” he says, and the evidence can be seen in local life.
“When it comes to the activities of this group, the police and prosecutor’s office simply don’t exist,” Ustymenko says.
In November, documentary evidence emerged that Trukhanov is a Russian citizen. Russia’s Federal Tax Service’s database shows his name, date of birth, Russian passport number and Russian individual tax number.
Trukhanov denied having a Russian passport. Lawmakers Yegor Firsov and Volodymyr Aryev previously published what they said were documents from Russia’s Federal Migration Service, according to which Trukhanov has two Russian passports: one issued in Moscow Oblast and another in the Republic of Dagestan.
Trukhanov has also been accused of organizing and financing pro-Russian separatists in Odesa in 2014 — an accusation that he denies. Documents published by Slidstvo.info show that Trukhanov owns a hidden network of offshore firms that control companies that have received city contracts.
Trukhanov, as well as his associates and Odesa businessmen Alexander Angert and Vladimir Galanternik, have been accused of spearheading corruption in Odesa. According to an Italian police dossier, Trukhanov and Angert were members of a mafia gang in the 1990s.
Trukhanov, Angert and Galanternik deny accusations of wrongdoing. Besides the Krayan purchase, Trukhanov also faces NABU investigations for corrupt schemes connected to the privatization of Odesa’s airport and road construction.
However, it is difficult to prove his guilt. The Odesa city council holds collective responsibility for Krayan and the airport. Trukhanov simply signed off, thereby fulfilling his obligation at mayor and city council chair, says Polamarchuk.
With the road repairs, it’s even more complicated. “It’s very difficult to prove that Trukhanov is the end beneficiary of this corruption, because he isn’t the co-owner or the founder of the company [that did the work],” Polamarchuk added. “It’s people close to him, but you need to prove this.
