Dmytro Kryuchkov, a suspect in a graft case involving a top ally of President Petro Poroshenko, lawmaker Igor Kononenko, testified against the president and his associates in court on April 17.
Kyiv’s Solomyansky Court arrested Kryuvhkov and set his bail at Hr 7 million.
Kryuchkov was extradited to Ukraine from Germany on April 15.
In 2016 Kryuchkov, the CEO of power company Energomerezha, was charged by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine with embezzling Hr 356 million ($13.2 million) from power company Zaporizhzhyaoblenergo.
He denied the NABU’s accusations during a court hearing on his arrest on April 17.
Kryuchkov said that Poroshenko’s people had contacted him immediately after Energomerezha concluded power supply contracts in 2014.
Kryuchkov also said that he owns only 25 percent of Energomerezha, while the remaining shares are held by an offshore company controlled by Poroshenko and Bloc of Petro Poroshenko lawmakers Igor Kononenko and Yuriy Buglak. Buglak’s office declined to comment.
Poroshenko argued on April 15 that Kryuchkov’s extradition was a “pre-election scheme” hatched by presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelenskiy and oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, who is accused of backing Zelenskiy and denies having political links to him.
Oleg Medvedev, a spokesman for Poroshenko’s campaign, and Kononenko denied having any links to Kryuvhkov’s alleged scheme.
Kryuchkov claimed that Kononenko had received instructions from Poroshenko. Kryuchkov said he had regularly met Kononenko.
Kryuchkov also claimed that he had given a $500,000 bribe to Artem Sytnyk, head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, in exchange for his help in the corruption case.
The State Investigation Bureau opened a case on the alleged bribe. The NABU said Sytnyk could not comment on the issue due to the investigation.
Kryuchkov fled Ukraine in 2016. He was arrested in Germany in 2018 and was released on bail.
In early March, Kryuchkov submitted a request to the German authorities to voluntarily return him to Ukraine, and was sent to an extradition prison.
In March Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe’s Schemes investigative show published alleged audio recordings of conversations between Kryuchkov and Kononenko, the brothers Grigory Surkis and Igor Surkis, Serhiy Storozhenko, an aide to Igor Rainin, formerly governor of Kharkiv Oblast and now Poroshenko’s chief of staff, Igor Kotvitsky, a People’s Front lawmaker and a close ally of Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, and other people. The recordings were mostly made in 2015.
The conversations concern state-controlled power companies Zaporizhzhyaoblenergo, Cherkasyoblenergo and Kharkivoblenergo. The Surkis brothers had stakes in Cherkasyoblenergo and Kharkivoblenergo and still co-own Zaporizhzhyaoblenergo. In the conversations, they discuss the distribution of income from the power companies and ways to disrupt shareholder meetings to make sure that their loyalists run the companies.
Among other things, they discuss the alleged participation of Poroshenko, Rainin, Poroshenko’s former Chief of Staff Boris Lozhkin and Dmytro Vovk, a top Poroshenko ally and ex-head of energy regulator, in the schemes.
The Surkis brothers and Rainin did not respond to requests for comment. Storozhenko, Lozhkin, Vovk and Kotvitsky denied the accusations of wrongdoing.
