Prosecutor General Ruslan Riaboshapka said on Nov. 20 that law enforcement is checking audio recordings that allegedly implicate State Investigation Bureau Chief Roman Truba in wrongdoing.
The recordings were leaked by an unknown source on Nov. 19 through a Telegram channel called “Trubu prorvalo” – Russian for “the pipe has broken.”
In the recordings, a person alleged to be Truba receives instructions from the presidential office and the Prosecutor General’s Office.
“Let’s first understand to what extent these audio recordings are authentic because in the modern world, given the development of technologies, obviously anything can be compiled,” Riaboshapka said at a news briefing. “As far as I know, there is a criminal case into whether such wiretapping was legal. There are several aspects and nuances that are linked to each other. They should be combined, and then we can make conclusions.”
Truba denied any wrongdoing on Nov. 20.
“These publications are a fake and a provocation,” he said. “They didn’t break me. I knew that they were possible a long time ago. I won’t comment on any fakes or provocations.”
However, Truba would not say whether the voice in the recordings is his.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Nov. 20 he would look into the matter.
“First I read that this was wiretapping in Truba’s office at the State Investigation Bureau,” he said. “Then Truba refuted it and said this was a fake. Tomorrow we’ll figure it out.”
In the recordings, the alleged voices of Truba and Andriy Bohdan, Zelensky’s chief of staff, discuss investigations against ex-President Petro Poroshenko and the timing of interrogations for Poroshenko.
Bohdan and the presidential office did not respond to requests for comment.
“Andriy Iosipovich, I promise, I’ll do everything,” the person alleged to be Truba says. “To let you know, I have 25 investigators, and I can’t turn the whole country upside down with them. But this case is a priority for us.”
The purported voice of Truba and a certain “Andriy” discuss a potential notice of suspicion for ex-acting Health Minister Ulana Suprun.
Meanwhile, B.A.I. – allegedly an abbreviation for Bohdan Andriy Iosipovich – instructed the person alleged to be Truba not to conduct searches at the National Bank of Ukraine and PrivatBank on Sept. 13 during a visit of an International Monetary Fund delegation to Ukraine.
The police searched PrivatBank as part of an investigation into the allegedly illegal hiring of human resource firms by the bank after its nationalization in 2016. Meanwhile, the IMF has opposed the efforts of the bank’s former owner, billionaire tycoon Igor Kolomoisky, to reverse its nationalization.
Voices alleged to be those of Truba and Bohdan’s deputy Andriy Smirnov also discuss criminal investigations.
In another audio, Ruslan – an alleged reference to Ruslan Riaboshapka – instructed Truba to stop searches at the Dnipro city council as part of an embezzlement case. Riaboshapka denied giving such instructions.
According to the tapes, a certain “Artem” – a reference to NABU Chief Artem Sytnyk – told the person alleged to be Truba that Truba’s deputies had been recorded as part of audio recordings of top judges in the Kyiv Administrative District Court. Later in the conversation, the alleged voice of Truba also mentions the last name “Sytnyk.”
The NABU did not respond to a request for comment.
The case in the Kyiv Administrative District Court involves some of Ukraine’s most controversial and politically influential judges who are accused of obstructing justice and issuing unlawful rulings.
The five-day deadline for sending the case to trial or closing it expired on Nov. 12, and the main prosecutor in the case said it could take weeks or even months to send it to court. Moreover, a court may not accept the case at all given the expired deadline.
