Reformer of the week – Hanna Solomatina
The Kyiv Administrative District Court on Dec. 7 rejected whistleblower Hanna Solomatina’s lawsuit to be reinstated at the National Agency for Preventing Corruption (NAPC). Solomatina submitted her resignation in October 2017 due to her frustration with the situation at the NAPC, but later withdrew her resignation request. However, the NAPC fired her nonetheless after she criticized the agency in a comment to the Kyiv Post.
Solomatina and Denys Shynkarenko, head of the Stop Mangul non-governmental organization, on Dec. 12 held a press conference exposing the NAPC and its head Oleksandr Mangul. Solomatina and Shynkarenko said that the NAPC is blocking cases against Andriy Pavelko, head of the Ukrainian Football Federation and a lawmaker from President Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc.
In 2016 Mangul, then head of the Melitopol regional administration, flew to France for a football match, and the 1,400-euro trip was financed by the federation, according to Shynkarenko. The money for the trip, which effectively constituted a gift, was not included in Mangul’s asset declaration, Shynkarenko said.
Mangul has also spent more than Hr 1 million on the foreign studies of his stepson Marko Ptashynsky and daughter Viktoria Mangul, and the expenses were not included in Mangul’s declaration, Shynkarenko and Solomatina said. The expenses exceed Mangul’s declared income, they added.
The NAPC told the Kyiv Post that the accusations should be investigated by law enforcement agencies. The agency also accused Solomatina and Shynkarenko of incompetence and bias.
Solomatina said in November that the NAPC was involved in large-scale corruption and was completely controlled by the Presidential Administration. The NAPC and the Presidential Administration denied the accusations.
Solomatina published what she says is correspondence in which Oleksiy Horashchenkov, a Presidential Administration official, tries to give her orders. In July Horashchenkov was fired from the Presidential Administration.
Anti-reformer of the week – Serhiy Semochko
The counterintelligence unit of the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, has confirmed that Tetiana Lysenko, the common-law wife of Serhiy Semochko, the first deputy chief of the Foreign Intelligence Service, and her daughter Anastasia Koton are Russian citizens, Kyiv’s Shevchenkivsky District Court said in a ruling published on Dec. 10.
This means Semochko lied in October when he claimed that Lysenko did not have a Russian passport. Semochko did not respond to a request for comment.
The Bihus.info journalism project on Oct. 1 published copies of the Russian passports of Lysenko, her daughter Anastasia Koton, and her son-in-law Volodymyr Koton. The authenticity of the passports of Lysenko and Volodymyr Koton was confirmed by Bihus.info through the site of Russia’s Federal Tax Service, which also means they are registered as Russian taxpayers.
Semochko is being investigated by the SBU in a treason case. Despite this, he has not been fired or suspended.
The Russian citizenship of Serhiy Semochko’s wife Tetiana Lysenko, according to Russia’s Federal Tax Service.
Semochko’s family members have regularly visited Crimea after its annexation by Russia in 2014, Bihus.info said.
Lysenko also owns one luxury house in Kyiv’s high-end suburb of Kozyn, while Anastasia Koton owns two high-end houses there, according to Bihus.info. The houses have an estimated combined value of $8 million. Semochko admitted on Oct. 16 that Lysenko owns one of the luxury houses, arguing that she had used income from her tourism business in Crimea to fund the purchase. Semochko declined to comment on the assets of Koton and other relatives.
His explanations on the sources of funding contradict the findings of the journalists, according to which the income of his family was hardly sufficient to fund the assets. According to Bihus.info, Lysenko’s income amounted to $135,000 in 2010 through 2018, while Koton’s income totaled $59,000 during the period, and the income of other relatives was negligible. Semochko has never been a businessman, and an intelligence officer’s salary is not sufficient to buy such assets.
