Reformer of the week: Kateryna Vezeleva-Borisova
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has opened an investigation into Kateryna Vezeleva-Borisova, a deputy department head at the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU).
The SBU accused her of violating anti-corruption law by lecturing at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, in what critics saw as a political vendetta by SBU First Deputy Chief Pavlo Demchyna, a protégé of President Petro Poroshenko’s grey cardinals Ihor Kononenko and Oleksandr Hranovsky. But the Kyiv Court of Appeals on Feb. 10 ruled in favor of Vezeleva-Borisova, nicknamed “the NABU Lady,” saying that she had not violated the law.
Earlier this month Demchyna also initiated a case against reformist former customs official Yulia Marushevska over an $18 bonus.
Meanwhile, Kyiv’s Pechersk Court on Feb. 15 rejected the National Agency for Preventing Corruption’s attempt to fine reformist lawmaker Sergii Leshchenko, finding him not guilty of violating the anti-corruption law by purchasing a $281,000 apartment.
The investigations are seen as part of a broader conflict between old corrupt agencies controlled by Poroshenko and reformers, including the relatively independent anti-corruption bureau.
The National Anti-Corruption Bureau on Feb. 14 published a list of the 46 graft cases it had submitted to trial since its operations were fully launched in late 2015.
Anti-reformer of the week: Vasyl Hrytsak
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), headed by Vasyl Hrytsak, is still blocking access to its employees’ electronic asset declarations, claiming they are state secrets.
The declarations are unavailable not only to the public, but also to the National Agency for Preventing Corruption. The agency, which has so far failed to check a single government official’s declaration since the system was launched in September, is also lacking access to many state agencies’ databases as part of alleged sabotage of the declaration system.
Critics argue that SBU officials are trying to hide their wealth.
Hrytsak’s wife Olga owns Olvia, a firm that supplies meat to state agencies, according to Radio Liberty. Meanwhile, Hrytsak’s deputies Vitaly Malikov and Oleg Frolov had acquired premium land plots from the state for free, Radio Liberty reported in December.
Malikov’s wife owns several businesses, including in Russian-occupied Crimea.
In 2014 Malikov urged then-President Viktor Yanukovych to crack down on EuroMaidan protesters. Meanwhile, Malikov’s daughter welcomed Russian dictator Vladimir Putin when he visited Crimea after the annexation, according to her social networks. EuroMaidan activist Oleksiy Kiselyov has accused Malikov of supporting pro-Russian separatist Aleksei Chaly and a fake referendum on Crimea’s annexation in 2014, which Malikov denied.
Meanwhile, the Justice Ministry said in December that the SBU had violated the lustration law on the dismissal of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych’s top officials by failing to fire its chief investigator, Grigory Ostafiychuk. Previously the agency had also been accused of refusing to fire ex-employees and former agents of the KGB, the Soviet secret police.
Pavlo Demchyna, first deputy chief of the SBU and an ally of Poroshenko’s grey cardinals Ihor Kononenko and Oleksandr Hranovsky, has reportedly become the power behind the throne at the agency.
