The Verkhovna Rada’s law enforcement committee on July 1 approved delegating controversial members to a commission for choosing a new chief anti-corruption prosecutor, prompting a backlash from civil society.
The committee and the President’s Office did not respond to requests for comment.
Incumbent Chief Anti-Corruption Prosecutor Nazar Kholodnytsky’s five-year term expires in November, when he will be replaced by a new chief anti-corruption prosecutor.
The candidates for the commission have yet to be approved by the Rada. In addition to the Rada’s seven representatives, the Council of Prosecutors has already delegated four representatives to the commission.
The Anti-Corruption Action Center argued that the selection of half of the Rada’s candidates for the commission violates the law because it requires them to have an impeccable reputation and moral qualities. The center also said they have little genuine experience in the anti-corruption sphere.
The candidates denied the watchdog’s accusations at the committee hearing, arguing that they had enough anti-corruption experience.
Vitaly Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Center’s Executive Board, said that some of the candidates were controlled by Interior Minister Arsen Avakov. The minister’s spokeswoman Natalia Stativko declined to comment.
“As expected, Avakov’s committee chose Avakov’s people,” Shabunin wrote on Facebook.
Some of the commission members have links to the Interior Ministry. They represent the police and prosecutorial “old guard” rather than reformist forces, according to civic activists.
Shabunin said the Anti-Corruption Action Center would dispute the selection of the members in court.
Controversial members
One of the candidates is Larysa Udalova, head of the Interior Ministry’s Postgraduate Education Institute and head of a unit at the ministry’s National Interior Affairs Academy.
Udalova’s candidacy was supported by Grigory Mamka, who used to be a top police official under Avakov and is currently a lawmaker from the pro-Russian Opposition Platform-For Life faction.
She also claimed during the July 1 committee hearing that there is no corruption at the National Interior Affairs Academy – a view plainly contradicted by civil society.
Another candidate, Bohdan Romanyuk, was a top official at Ukraine’s Interior Ministry in 1977 to 1997.
According to Lviv-based news site Zahid.net, Romanyuk had to resign as head of Lviv Oblast’s police in 1997 after being accused of cracking down on nationalist protesters in the region.
Vitaly Kuts, who was also delegated to the commission, used to be a deputy president of the Prosecutorial Academy of Ukraine, which has now been transformed into a training center at the ministry.
Kuts’ wife Yana Trynyova has failed to include in her asset declaration an apartment in Kyiv Oblast that can be found in Ukraine’s real estate register, according to the Anti-Corruption Action Center. She filed the declaration when she applied for a government job in 2016.
Dmytro Zhuravlyov used to be an aide to Yuriy Buglak, a former lawmaker from ex-President Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc. Currently Zhuravlyov works at a Justice Ministry research institute and advises the Rada’s anti-corruption committee.
According to his asset declaration for 2019, he has four apartments in Kyiv, one apartment in Zaporizzhia, land plots and a house in Kyiv Oblast, two Mercedes cars, Hr 3 million on bank accounts, as well as $750,000 and Hr 600,000 in cash.
Yevhen Sobol, a legal scholar, bought an apartment with an estimated value of $100,000 in 2019, according to the Anti-Corruption Action Center.
Commission members Andriy Meleshevych and Vyacheslav Navrotsky, who are legal scholars, did not trigger complaints from civil society.
Kholodnytsky controversy
Kholodnytsky’s office has been involved in many controversies.
In April the office transferred a corruption case linked to President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine to the police, prompting accusations that it had thus buried and blocked the case.
In March, Geo Leros, a member of Zelensky’s Servant of the People party, published videos implicating Andriy Yermak’s brother Denys in corruption.
They showed the chief of staff’s brother considering candidates for government jobs and discussing receiving money from some of them. The Yermak brothers denied the accusations of wrongdoing.
In 2018, Kholodnytsky’s office also closed an Hr 14 million embezzlement case against Avakov’s son Oleksandr. The decision was made despite the fact that the NABU investigated video footage in which Oleksandr Avakov can be seen and heard negotiating the corrupt deal.
Oleksandr Avakov denies the accusations of wrongdoing.
In 2018, the NABU also released audio recordings in which Kholodnytsky is heard pressuring anti-corruption prosecutors and courts to stall cases, urging a witness to give false testimony and tipping off suspects about future searches. Kholodnytsky confirmed that the tapes were authentic but said they had been taken out of context.
