Gennadiy Yuryev, the ex-deputy head of Naftogaz, was found dead with a bullet wound to his chin by investigators from the General Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine on Dec. 21.
Investigators arrived at a home in Vinnytsia Oblast with an arrest warrant but heard a shot ring out before they entered the house, Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko told journalists.
Yuryev served as a deputy to former Naftogaz head Yevhen Bakulin from 2010 to 2014, during the era of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych. He was under investigation by prosecutors for the embezzlement of state funds to the tune of Hr 17 billion ($446 million), together with other former Naftogaz managers.
“He shot himself,” said Lutsenko of Yuryev’s death. Coroners have not yet confirmed the death as a suicide. According to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry and the prosecutors’ spokesperson, Yuryev spotted the investigators arriving on his surveillance cameras.
Investigators first tried to arrest Yuryev after the EuroMaidan Revolution of 2013-4, Lutsenko told 112 channel, but “there is unconfirmed information that he managed to fake his own death.” It was only recently that they discovered he was living in Vinnytsia Oblast, Lutsenko said. Yuryev’s neighbors interviewed by Channel 5’s correspondent said that they did not know him because he was not a local and that he had moved in 18 months ago.
Prosecutors say part of the investigation concerned Yuryev’s involvement of a $150 million overspend for the purchase of drilling rigs for the Chornomorneftegaz state-owned company which focuses on Black Sea gas extraction. Naftogaz is currently suing Russia at the Stockholm Court of Arbitration for billions of dollars in compensation regarding the rigs, located in annexed Crimea, as well as other issues.
Naftogaz announced net profits of Hr 25.5 billion ($669 million) on Dec. 20. This is the first time since 2011 that the state-owned company will end the year in profit, Aliona Osmolovska, spokesperson for Naftogaz, told the Kyiv Post. The profits are mostly a result of the government’s decision in May to increase gas prices to market rates, Oleksandr Paraschiy, director of Concorde Capital, told the Kyiv Post.
Further arrests involving past corruption at Naftogaz
Three others former officials were arrested in connection with the case who worked at the Energy Ministry and Naftogaz during the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych on Dec. 21, said Lutsenko without naming names.
News of Yuryev’s death came the same day as Lutsenko announced Oleksandr Katsuba, former deputy chairman of Naftogaz’s board from 2012 to 2014, agreed to a deal with the General Prosecutor’s Office. Katsuba was arrested in June as part of the same investigation, press person for Lutsenko Larysa Sagan told the Kyiv Post.
Katsuba, (whose brother Serhiy Katsuba served in the same position before him and is also under investigation) was arrested in June, nine months after he fled Ukraine in October 2015, fearing arrest. He was one of the main players in the criminal organization of Yanukovych, Sagan said of Katsuba at the time of his arrest in June.
2014 investigation stalled
A criminal investigation was initially opened into Yuryev, first deputy manager of Naftogaz Valentin Franchuk and their boss Bakulin relating to the abuse of office in September 2014, but it seems to have stalled. Since October, 2014, Bakulin has served as a parliamentary deputy for Opposition Bloc and therefore is protected by parliamentary immunity.
The General Prosecutor’s Office did not respond to request for comment as to why initial investigation was has stalled and whether or not it’s still ongoing. They also did not respond to questions concerning why an investigation was only reopened concerning Yuryev and not Franchuk and Bakulin.
Yuryev’s death follows a string of suspected suicides by former Yanukovych-era officials since the EuroMaidan Revolution, including the former governor of Zaporizhia Oblast Oleksandr Peklyushenko in March 2015 and the former deputy head of the now banned Party of Regions Mykhailo Chechetov in February, 2015.
