President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Chief of Staff Andriy Bohdan has attended the wedding of Andriy Dovbenko, a controversial lawyer accused of running shady schemes at the Justice Ministry, the Bihus.info investigative journalism project reported on Aug. 25.
The investigative project published photos of Bohdan and real estate developer Andriy Vavrish, a friend of Bohdan, attending the wedding.
Bohdan and Vavrish have attended the wedding of Dovbenko in the French resort of Saint Tropez, Bihus.info reported. The celebrations lasted three days, including Ukraine’s Independence Day on Aug. 24.
The strana.ua news site also published a video of Bohdan singing Ukraine’s national anthem at a party in L’Opera, a restaurant in Saint Tropez.
Dovbenko’s newly-wedded wife Hanna Ogrenchuk was appointed to a judicial reform commission formed by Bodhan in early August. Both Dovbenko and Ogrenchuk have been accused of having links to Oleksandr Hranovsky, an ex-lawmaker from former President Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc.
Bohdan, Vavrish, Dovbenko and Ogrenchuk did not respond to requests for comment.
Dovbenko also used to be a lawyer for tycoon Serhiy Kurchenko, a top ally of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych.
Dovbenko was also an aide to Maksym Burbak from ex-Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s People’s Front party when Burbak was infrastructure minister in 2014.
According to a 2017 investigation by Bihus.info, Dobvenko has become the gray cardinal behind the Justice Ministry.
Specifically, proteges of Dovbenko have been appointed to many key jobs at the Justice Ministry, including the bailiff service.
In 2015 Petrenko acquainted his colleagues with Dovbenko and discussed appointing him as the head of the bailiff service, according to Bihus.info. Petrenko denied knowing Dovbenko.
According to experts interviewed by Bihus.info, the bailiff service is one of the institutions most prone to corruption, with bailiffs taking bribes for either enforcing or refusing to enforce courts’ decisions.
Bihus.info also described a scheme according to which bailiffs had received bonuses worth millions of hryvnias for collecting debts. They have given powers of attorney to a little-known person, Mykola Lysenko, to use their money, triggering suspicions that part of their bonuses were received by some top officials. The Justice Ministry has denied the accusations of wrongdoing.
Moreover, major private bailiffs – an institution recently introduced in Ukraine – are also closely linked to Dovbenko, according to Bihus.info. These include Toda Group.
