Fugitive lawmaker Oleksandr Onyshchenko has claimed having been an intermediary in Verkhovna Rada vote buying and paying for parliamentary seats.
Onyshchenko’s alleged Whatsapp correspondence with allies of President Petro Poroshenko, published by Slidstvo.info investigative show on May 10, and his book, called “Peter the Fifth: A true story of a Ukrainian dictator,” detail the allegations.
Poroshenko, Poroshenko Bloc lawmakers Igor Kononenko and Serhiy Berezenko and Poroshenko’s banker Makar Paseniuk, as well as Batkivshchyna Party leader Yulia Tymoshenko, all of whom are mentioned in the alleged correspondence, have denied the accusations of corruption.
2002 election
Onyshchenko wrote in his book that Poroshenko, then campaign chief for opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko, offered him a place on Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine Party list in the 2002 parliamentary election in exchange for $5 million. However, the deal did not take place because Onyshchenko did not want to be at the bottom of the list, he said.
2014 election
Onyshchenko has also claimed that he had given $6 million to David Zhvania, a member of Poroshenko’s election headquarters in 2014, for the Poroshenko Bloc’s campaign in order to get registered as a candidate for the
Verkhovna Rada despite his violation of residency rules. Central Election Commission chief Mykhailo Okhendovsky initially refused to register Onyshchenko but did so after the payment, according to Onyshchenko.
Zhvania did not respond to a request for comment.
Artem Bidenko, an unsuccessful candidate for parliament from the Poroshenko Bloc in 2014 and now a deputy information policy minister, also told the Slidtvto.info investigative show in 2014 that Zhvania was responsible for selling parliamentary seats.
High Council of Justice
Onyshchenko also discussed with Kononenko, Paseniuk and Berezenko buying votes from Tymoshenko’s party many times in the Whatsapp correspondence. Tymoshenko is referred to as “YuVT (Yulia Volodymyrovna Tymoshenko), Yulia, aunt, madam, lady or girl.”
Onyshchenko said in his book that he had also funded Oleh Lyashko’s Radical party and claimed that Lyashko had demanded a $1 million bribe from him for lawmaker Serhiy Melnychuk’s transfer from the Radical Party to Onyshchenko’s People’s Will faction. Lyashko denied the accusations.
In May 2015 Kononenko asked Onyshchenko to talk to Tymoshenko about voting for the appointment of Oleksiy Malovatsky, a lawyer for Poroshenko’s 2014 election campaign, to the High Council of Justice in exchange for money, according to the Whatsapp messages.
“Sasha, talk to Yulia (Tymoshenko) about her support for our candidacy for the High Council of Justice,” he told Onyshchenko.
Security service
Onyshchenko also negotiated the vote for the firing of then Security Service of Ukraine Chief Valentyn Nalyvaichenko in 2015.
“Tomorrow we’re firing Nalyvaichenko,” Berezenko told Onyshchenko on June 15, 2015. “We need votes for that.”
Onyshchenko responded that he would support his dismissal and negotiated a meeting between “the boss” (Poroshenko) and YuV (Yulia Volodymyrovna Tymoshenko) on her support for Nalyvaichenko’s firing.
He told strana.ua that between $2 million and $2.5 million had been paid for the vote for the resignation of Nalyvaichenko.
Lutsenko’s appointment
Onyshchenko told the Kyiv Post in 2016 that votes for Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko’s appointment had been bought for $2 million.
Berezenko asked Onyshchenko about “Luts(enko)” on April 20, 2016, and Onyshchenko replied that Tymoshenko had “agreed (to vote for) Luts(enko).”
On May 10, 2016, when the first vote to appoint Lutsenko failed, Berezenko asked Onyshchenko: “You didn’t vote for Lutsenko out of principle?” Onyshchenko replied that he had been away, and proposed that some lawmaker use his voting card.
On May 12, 2016, when Lutsenko was appointed, Onyshchenko told Berezenko to give his voting card to Poroshenko Bloc lawmaker Serhiy Kaplin for a vote.
Chornobyl scheme
Tymoshenko has also had other dealings with Onyshchenko and Poroshenko, according to the Whatsapp messages.
Kononenko asked Onyshchenko on Aug. 5, 2015 to persuade YuVT (Yulia Volodymyrovna Tymoshenko) to authorize the appointment of a certain Dombrov to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, which was accused of large-scale corruption and overseen by Tymoshenko’s son-in-law Artur Chechyotkin.
