About 20 anti-graft activists came on July 17 to the office of Anti-Corruption Prosecutor Nazar Kholodnytsky to demand his resignation after he closed the embezzlement case against Interior Minister Arsen Avakov’s son Oleksandr.
They, however, clashed with about 200 protesters led by Avakov’s ex-advisor Ilia Kiva, a controversial former police official who since 2017 has headed the Socialist Party of Ukraine.
Kiva’s rally included middle-aged women with the Socialist Party’s pink flags and athletic young men in sports suits and military uniforms, who held signs and chanted slogans against the head of National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) Artem Sytnyk.
Sytnyk has been involved in a major conflict with Kholodnytsky in recent months. NABU investigators tapped Kholodnytsky’s office in spring and released recordings that suggest Kholodnytsky was obstructing NABU investigations.
Being separated by a police cordon, the two groups exchanged obscenities.
The standoff ended up with a scuffle when several men wearing military uniforms approached Vitaliy Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center’s executive board, and poured at him a brilliant green antiseptic used in Ukraine and other post-Soviet countries to treat the wounds.
After that Shabunin tried to catch one of his attackers and asked his supporters to call an ambulance. He received some sympathy from a senior woman from the opposite side. Kiva, who later showed up with some spots of brilliant green on his face, claimed he was also attacked by thugs. But Shabunin called him a “clown”, for which Kiva called him a “provocateur.”
Video from Facebook of Ilia Kiva, a controversial politician who came to defend Anti-Corruption Prosecutor Nazar Kholodnytsky as anti-corruption activists rallied for his resignation on July 17 in Kyiv. (Facebook)
Later Shabunin said in a video that he was admitted to a hospital with an eye burn, and claimed that Kiva paid his supporters Hr 80 (about $3) for participation in the protest.
Shabunin also claimed that Kiva organized his rally on the orders of Avakov to defend Kholodnytsky, who helped Avakov by closing the case against his son.
“It’s cool that Avakov outed his new puppet Kholodnytsky by defending him with the help of his old puppet Kiva,” Shabunin said in a video published by the Anti-Corruption Action Center.
Vitaliy Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center NGO, talks about the attack on him during the rally against Anti-Corruption Prosecutor Nazar Kholodnytsky in Kyiv on July 17. (Facebook)
Kiva tried to show that his rally was not only against Sytnyk, head of the only independent anti-graft agency in Ukraine, but also against President Petro Poroshenko.
Kiva argued that Sytnyk is an ally of Poroshenko, citing an investigation by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Schemes TV show, which revealed evidence that Sytnyk secretly met on April 27 with Poroshenko in the president’s residence near Kyiv.
Kiva also lambasted Poroshenko’s offshore companies. His supporters used several cakes produced by Poroshenko’s Roshen confectionary as a tool in the scuffle.
On the same day, a group of unknown men broke into the National Anti-Corruption Bureau’s office, throwing furniture around before police officers asked them to leave. Ukrainska Pravda reported that they were led by Ivan Grabar, a war veteran who used to work as an aide of Andriy Deidey, a lawmaker from Avakov’s People’s Front party.
A NABU source who was not authorized to speak to the press told the Kyiv Post that Kholodnytsky, who has been accused of blocking and sabotaging NABU cases, had reached a deal with Avakov and other top officials that he would stay on his job in exchange for closing the Avakov case. The same source had also told the Kyiv Post in June that Kholodnytsky had been planning to close the Avakov case.
Kholodnytsky’s deputy Volodymyr Kryvenko on July 12 denied the accusations, saying that the decision in the Avakov case had been made independently from Kholodnytsky.
Vitaliy Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center’s executive board, speaks through a loudspeaker during the rally against Anti-Corruption Prosecutor Nazar Kholodnytsky in Kyiv on July 17. Defenders of Kholodnytsky attacked him, throwing cakes and a bottle of a brilliant green antiseptic. (UNIAN)
Ilia Kiva, a controversial politician and the leader of a minor Ukrainian Socialist Party, speaks in defense of Anti-Corruption Prosecutor Nazar Kholodnytsky during the rally for Kholodnytsky’s resignation in Kyiv on July 17. (Oleg Petrasiuk)
The Qualification and Disciplinary Commission of Prosecutors will consider on July 26 whether to reprimand or fire Kholodnytsky due to audio tapes according to which he pressured prosecutors and judges to stop cases against high-profile suspects and tipping off other suspects about planned searches.
Kholodnytsky confirmed that the tapes were authentic but said they had been taken “out of context.”
Kholodnytsky has blocked all NABU cases since the tapes were released, Shabunin said. The NABU source told the Kyiv Post that Kholodnytsky is now obstructing the NABU’s activities even more than ever. Kholodnytsky has denied the accusations of sabotaging NABU investigations.
Oleksandr Avakov, the minister’s former deputy Serhiy Chebotar and IT firm Turboseo’s CEO Volodymyr Lytvyn are accused of embezzling Hr 14 million in a case related to the supply of overpriced backpacks to the Interior Ministry. The suspects deny the accusations and believe them to be a political vendetta by the NABU.
The investigation against Avakov and Chebotar had already been completed and had been expected to be sent to trial but anti-corruption prosecutor Vasyl Krychun had resumed and closed it.
The anti-corruption prosecutor’s office said on July 12 Lytvyn had pled guilty to fraud and document forgery and given testimony that Oleksandr Avakov and Chebotar had not been involved in the scheme. This version contradicts the video footage investigated by the NABU in which Chebotar and Oleksandr Avakov negotiate the corrupt deal.
