After a pause, he added, “We see that the government of China is fighting corruption, but in the case of Ukraine, there is no such impression.”
The problem with the current prosecutor is his complete and utter loyalty to the president of Ukraine. Petro Poroshenko first became a lawmaker in 1998 and he took shape as a politician from the years of Leonid Kuchma’s rule. He saw firsthand how the prosecutor general was a tool of the president for achieving his own aims, both in politics and in business.
In Ukraine, there is no such thing as an independent head of the Prosecutor General’s Office. We are living in a 20-year-old matrix.
The current prosecutor is the most convenient one for Poroshenko: if he is dismissed, Poroshenko would not be able to get parliament’s permission to appoint someone who is as close to him as Shokin.
After the EuroMaidan Revolutin that drove President Viktor Yanukovych from power on Feb. 22, 2014, Ukraine didn’t have much luck with prosecutors.
Oleg Makhnitsky “forgot” to ask to include energy mogul Dmytro Firtash, former Yanukovych chief of staff Sergey Lyovochkin and former Yanukovych-era deputy prime minister Yuriy Boiko in the European Union’s blacklist. The fact of the matter is that sanctions were imposed on precisely those people whose surnames were given to EU High Representative Catherina Ashton by Ukraine itself.
The reason behind this selectivity can be found in the fact that Igor Krivetsky, the former lawmaker from the Svoboda Party and the enforcer standing behind Makhnitsky, was a partner with Firtash in the real estate sphere.
Vitaly Yarema gained fame after the case against former ecology minister Nikolai Zlochevsky tanked under his leadership. The letter about how the former official was innocent before the law was given to his lawyer three weeks before he was even declared a suspect. As a result, a court in London removed the arrest of $23 million, and Zlochevsky quietly left to conduct business in Turkey.
The beginning of Shokin’s time as prosecutor general was promising: Alexander Efremov and Mikhail Chechetov were detained, a criminal case was opened against Sergei Klyuyev, and all sanctions against Yanukovych’s inner circle were saved.
But the first red flag appeared with Klyuyev’s fleeing, and then Shokin’s reputation experienced a catastrophe with the “diamond prosecutor.”
The arrests of Ihor Mosiichuk and Gennady Korban failed to convince the public of Shokin’s courage, having only strengthened suspicions of selective justice.
Lawmaker Mykola Martynenko, whose activities are under investigation in Switzerland and the Czech Republic, continues to bask in his freedom, and Ihor Kononenko and Boris Lozhkin from the Presidential Administration are appointing their people in droves.
Yet the most shocking things are coming out only now.
For instance, in July, as my sources inform me, investigators from the Prosecutor General’s Office prepared an appeal to parliament to arrest the nefarious lawmaker Boiko. The incident concerns fraud with the liquefied gas of Sergiy Kurchenko (a fugitive and former Yanukovych front man).
The companies of Kurchenko have been buying up raw materials at knock-down prices and selling them to his own enterprises at market prices. The difference amounts to Hr 5.8 billion ($2.5 million).
Investigators suspect Boiko of participating in a criminal organization and acquiring someone else’s property on a large scale.
Notice of this was passed over to Shokin for his signature and was meant to be sent to parliament, in order to get consent for Boiko’s arrest.
But the situation went nowhere.
For three months now, the paperwork has just been sitting there.
Equally strange things are happening with Yury Ivanyushchenko.
Yanukovych’s ally lives in Moscow and is on an international wanted list, while his family has made their way to Monaco – his son, after an unsuccessful career with Dynamo Kyiv, became the owner of a fashionable bar.
To reunite with his relatives, Ivanyushchenko is trying to make a deal with current authorities.
Last month, there was an attempt to circumvent Interpol’s manhunt for him, but thanks to a major outcry, the warrant for his arrest was prolonged.
Similar attempts to block manhunts were made in regards to Vera Ulyanchenko. This ally of Viktor Yushchenko, as the head of the Kyiv Oblast, organized a scheme to privatize the land of Yanukovych on the Sukholuche hunting farm: The land was divided into plots and distributed among individuals in the inner circle of the ousted president, supposedly for agricultural purposes.
As a result, all of the land ended up under the control of Yanukovych.
Shokin’s mission is much larger than it would seem.
He answers not only for the reputation of the Prosecutor General’s Office, but also for the public’s trust in the president, in parliament, and ultimately, in Maidan as a manifestation.
And the credit of trust given to him in February has already run out.
If decisive reforms are not made within the coming weeks, authorities may enter into a spiral of irreversible processes. Those who want revenge through destabilization will have their chance. Hipsters and leftists will stand shoulder to shoulder with volunteers and battalions. And where such a protest would lead, no one can say.
