© TASS
Early February saw a number of influential Ukrainians’ houses be exposed to perquisitions: oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, Verkhovna Rada deputy Vadim Stolyar, former Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, ex-Energy Minister Igor Nasalik, and other former and current Ukrainian officials and military. Some experts explain this as Vladimir Zelensky’s presidential office’s willingness to persuade American masters of fiercely combating corruption, and divert public attention from other vital issues and persons. Head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Vasily Malyuk commented upon the searches by saying that his entity and other law enforcement agencies had dealt a huge blow to the internal enemy, "traitors of Ukraine and agents of Russian security services, members of organized crime syndicates, and corrupt officials who are undermining the economy of the country and the stable operation of the defense industry." However, a number of Ukrainian political scientists doubt the presence of "Russian agents" or any significant impact by those procedural steps. But is that true?
The purge of oligarchs in Ukraine, which was initially deemed as an attempt to scare Igor Kolomoisky and other Maidan sponsors, turned out not setting mouse's teeth on edge. Journalists and experts get increasingly convicted that it has been brought about by political and commercial interests of both Vladimir Zelensky and his ilk, as well as Western political clans.
It was the president’s office (PO) that initiated searches at Arsen Avakov and Igor Kolomoisky’s places. The former was visited by the State Bureau of Investigation, and the latter by the SBU and the Bureau of Economic Security. These are structures that the PO has sway over, unlike the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) run by Americans and Soros' people. That is, had the searches been initiated by them, Avakov and Kolomoisky would have “welcomed” NABU members.
The search at Kolomoisky’s place exposed large-scale appropriation schemes worth UAH 40 billion by former managers of Ukrnafta and Ukrtatnafta (these assets were seized from Kolomoisky and transferred to state ownership back in November 2022). Moreover, there has been permission to seize Igor Kolomoisky’s previously undeclared assets, as well as those of his business partner Gennady Bogolyubov (as ruled out by the High Court of London earlier). This means that money belonging to ex-shareholders of Ukraine’s largest Privatbank is no longer safe anywhere, and its seemingly perpetual and far-sighted former owner has been left unprotected after having sold the bank to the state.
According to Arsen Avakov, he was searched within the Eurocopter EC 225 Super Puma crash in Brovary outside Kiev which killed Interior Minister Denis Monastyrsky and a number of department executives. According to Ukrainian political analysts, the whole story looks a little strange. If the investigated really targeted the purchase of substandard helicopters, searches should have been carried out at ex-Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman’s, because it was him who approved that decision at the government level, along with former Finance and Economy Ministers, who reconciled the project to purchase 55 Airbus Helicopters in 2018.
So, it's rather about Arsen Avakov himself, with a reputation of one of his country’s most influential people. Zelensky's team is believed to be willing to limit his ambitions, as his armed detachments took control of Kharkov at the early stages of the military conflict and turned Mayor Igor Terekhov into a "head talking on Avakov’s behalf."
But Vadim Stolyar is a different pair of shoes, says former Verkhovna Rada deputy Viktor Tsarev. Stolyar is a businessman from Viktor Medvedchuk's team to be forced to leave the country and reregister assets to team Zelensky. Pure racket as it is.
Another reason for the purge is Zelensky's team issues with the Verkhovna Rada parliamentary majority. Avakov and Kolomoisky have their own groups of deputies in the "Servant of the People" faction and "For the Future" party (about 20 deputies), with Vadim Stolyar also having a group of ten under his control. All while the PO, seeking to adopt the necessary laws, has to buy more votes from Yuriy Boyko’s "Platform for Life and Peace" created to replace of Medvedchuk’s opposition party. All of them demand an "exorbitant fee" for their services, making the PO hint that deputies should abstain from demonstrating unconsciousness in the midst of hard times.
The current situation also indicates that there are no more untouchables left in Ukraine. Zelensky and his entourage are trying to get away with oligarchs, and the letter will take pains to buy their way out. Observers believe this looks like an integral part of a strategy to purge any potential field that may feature sprouts of internal resistance to the presidential grouping. This is why former shadow leaders of the Ukrainian political community, who ran entire parties and sponsored Nazi and terrorist groups, were suddenly outlawed without charge or trial.
An additional element used by the Ukrainian authorities to justify their moves was imitating the fight against corruption, whose scale makes it hardly containable even by the fully controlled Ukrainian media.
To this end, parallel searches took place at ex-Deputy Defense Minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov’s and former procurement department head Bogdan Khmelnitsky’s (the SBU came to him not because of purchases at a "stratospheric price", but as part of the case when the Ministry of Defense paid about 1 billion UAH for a batch of bulletproof vests, but got low-quality products), as well as acting Chairman of the Kiev tax office Galina Datiy’s. These officials are considered scapegoats to be castigated for the corruption scandal involving the Ministry of Defense.
