Reformer of the week – Oleh Mykhailyk
Oleh Mykhailyk, an anti-corruption activist, has been one of the most prominent crusaders against the alleged corruption of Odesa Mayor Gennady Trukahnov and his allies.
Odesa’s Malinovsky District Court on July 9 acquitted Trukhanov in an Hr 185 million embezzlement case.
Trukhanov is accused of organizing a city council vote to buy the old Krayan factory administrative building for Hr 185 million ($7.04 million) in September 2016, when it had at the beginning of the year been bought by another firm for only Hr 4 million ($152,000), suggesting the deal was a scheme to embezzle money from the city. Trukhanov denies the accusations of wrongdoing.
Mykhailyk said on Odesa’s Kruk channel on July 13 that “this was not a trial and not even a kangaroo court but a clown show.”
He said that the court had failed to provide sufficient access to media and civil society representatives. Mykhailyk also argued the trial had been sped up to get Trukhanov off the hook before the July 21 parliamentary election.
Mykhailyk, known for organizing protests against illegal construction in Odesa, was shot near his house in Odesa on Sept. 22 and was for a time clinically dead, until doctors resuscitated him in hospital.
“I’ve never had and don’t have any conflicts besides those with groups directly linked to the city authorities of Odesa, including its mayor,” Mykhailyk said in October.
He believes someone wanted to kill him because of his activism against illegal construction in Odesa. He also believes that local authorities either ordered the shooting or know who did. The authorities denied the accusations.
Trukhanov is also controversial because he and his ally Alexander Angert were members of a mafia gang in the 1990s, according to an Italian police dossier. Moreover, documents published by Slidstvo.info show that Trukhanov owns a hidden network of offshore firms controlling companies that have received city contracts.
Meanwhile, the site of Russia’s Federal Tax Service shows that Trukhanov used to be a Russian citizen despite the ban on dual citizenship for Ukrainian officials. Trukhanov continuously denies having had Russian citizenship. However, Trukhanov had two Russian passports until 2017, according to a decision by Russia’s Sergiyev Posad Court to annul his citizenship due to alleged procedural violations.
Anti-reformer of the week – Vitaly Komarnitsky
President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 5 appointed Vitaly Komarnitsky as the governor of Luhansk Oblast.
In the two weeks following his appointment, evidence has been piling up that Komarnitsky has pro-Russian views, and accusations have emerged that he is linked to Russian proxies in the Donbas. He denies them.
Komarnitsky was a member of Luhansk Oblast’s legislature from ex-President Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions in 2010 to 2014. He has also been the rector of the Luhansk Police Academy since 2007. Komarnitsky moved the academy from Russian-occupied Luhansk to Ukrainian-controlled territory in the summer of 2014.
“There are no serious arguments against the unity of Slavic cultures,” Komarnitsky said in 2012, according to the Party of Regions’ site. “But there’s a provincial, rural mentality. (The Ukrainian people) wanted independence in 1991. They thought they would be better off. But there’s a big difference between what they thought and what actually happened.”
He went on to say that “Belarus, Russia and Ukraine are destined to unite” and that “If we want the tree to grow, we shouldn’t cut off its roots.”
On March 2, 2014, Luhansk Oblast’s legislature, of which Komarnitsky was a member, adopted a resolution recognizing the central government as illegitimate. Several activists and journalists, including Denys Kazansky, accused Komarnitsky of supporting the resolution but he denied doing that.
The resolution also called for a referendum on Ukraine’s federalization – a common theme for Russian proxies – and said the legislature would call on the “brotherly people of Russia” for assistance if necessary.
In December 2014 the site of the so-called “interior ministry” of Russian proxies in Luhansk published a story that claimed that Komarnitsky used to support Russian-backed troops and then betrayed them. Komarnitsky denied the accusations and argued he had pro-Ukrainian views.
Meanwhile, the brother and parents of Pavlo Kyrylenko, who was appointed by Zelensky as the governor of Donetsk Oblast, live in Russian-occupied territories. The Myrotvorets website, a questionable and often politicized database of people who are alleged to pose a threat to Ukraine’s national security, lists a man named Yevhen Kyrylenko as a fighter for Russian proxies.
Zelensky has said that Kyrylenko is not communicating with his brother due to political disagreements.
Another controversial appointment is that of Anatoly Kalyuzhnyak as a deputy head of the Security Service of Ukraine’s anti-corruption unit in June. He has no right to hold any state jobs under the 2014 lustration law, and wealth of Kalyuzhnyak, who had not worked in the private sector before 2015, has also raised questions.
