Two anti-corruption activists and a reformist lawmaker have claimed over the past month that they are being followed by people allegedly hired by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).
They argue that this is part of a massive campaign by the authorities to discredit and intimidate them and others engaged in the fight against graft. The SBU has denied involvement in these developments.
Leshchenko affair
Sergii Leshchenko, an anti-corruption lawmaker from President Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc, wrote on Facebook on May 13 that on the previous day he had been approached near his apartment building by a person claiming to be a journalist. “Surprisingly, he knew not only when I would be near my house but also where I had flown in from an hour ago,” Leshchenko said.
The person asked Leshchenko whether he had met ex-President Viktor Yanukovych’s Deputy Chief of Staff Andriy Portnov in Istanbul, how he had funded his trip to Istanbul and how much rent he was paying for his apartment.
“This is yet another case when information on the movement of people who are fighting against the authorities is given by intelligence agencies to the government’s media servants who later organize cheap provocations by catching us near our apartments, picketing, or calling our neighbors, ” Leshchenko said.
Ustinova case
Meanwhile, Alexandra Ustinova, an expert at the Anti-Corruption Action Center, wrote on Facebook on May 7 that upon returning to Kyiv from a recent holiday to Sri Lanka she was met at the airport by people claiming to be journalists.
Ustinova said they asked her about the money she had spent on her trip. She also noted that some of the people were the same as those who last month filmed the house of Vitaly Shabunin, head of the anti-graft center’s executive board.
On May 11, Ustinova said “SBU clowns” had come to her house and told the concierge that they were law enforcement officials investigating a prosecutor suspected of wrongdoing. Ustinova said this happened right after a court hearing where the Anti-Corruption Action Center had sought to have the SBU prosecuted for hiding its income declarations.
The SBU has so far refused to give access to its declarations either to the public or to the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption, citing a state secret, in what critics believe to be an effort to hide corrupt wealth.
Anti-Shabunin rally
On April 9, a group of protesters held a rally against Shabunin near his house in Kyiv.
Radio Liberty on April 20 published possible evidence of the SBU’s involvement in organizing the protest.
Oleh Bushak and Oleksiy Hrytsenko, activists of the AutoMaidan civic group, told Radio Liberty that Roman Matkovsky, an SBU employee, had asked AutoMaidan to provide a drone to film a rally, claiming it was related to anti-separatist activities.
Bushak said that he, SBU employees and several other people had gone to Shabunin’s house in two buses. The latter group then held a protest against Shabunin. Radio Liberty published video footage of the two buses.
The protesters held posters accusing Shabunin of having luxury property. Some of them could not coherently explain the purpose of their protest and the meaning of their posters.
SBU spokeswoman Olena Hitlyanska denied the SBU’s involvement in the protest. However, Matkovsky contradicted her, claiming that he had gone to the protest in order to identify the organizer.
Other scandals
Meanwhile, the SBU has faced accusations that it could be linked to the murder of Belarusian-Ukrainian journalist Pavel Sheremet in Kyiv on July 20.
The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and the Slidstvo.info investigative show on May 10 published evidence that Ihor Ustymenko, who was an SBU officer as of 2014, had visited Sheremet’s future murder site several times and came out of the car there on the eve of the assassination. The SBU has denied involvement, saying that Ustymenko quit the agency in 2014.
The SBU has also initiated investigations against opponents of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The agency has sought to prosecute anti-corruption investigator Kateryna Vezeleva-Borisova over allegedly illegal anti-graft lectures, ex-customs official Yulia Marushevska over an $18 bonus and investment bank Dragon Capital over alleged spyware.
One of the agency’s top executives is SBU Deputy Chief Pavlo Demchyna, an ally of President Petro Poroshenko’s gray cardinals and lawmakers Ihor Kononenko and Oleksandr Hranovsky.
