Recently, the NAPC drew up a protocol on a possible conflict of interest of the Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Rostislav Shurma.
In addition, it became known that energy companies under occupation that do not supply electricity to government-controlled territories of Ukraine received more than 320 million hryvnia from the state enterprise Guaranteed Buyer. Analysts investigated where there might be interest from the OP official in this case.
The National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption has drawn up a protocol on administrative offenses against Rostislav Shurma, deputy head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, who allegedly violated requirements regarding the prevention and resolution of conflicts of interest.
People's Deputy Nikolai Tishchenko reported this on his Facebook page.
A message of similar content appeared on the official NAPC page in telegrams.
This protocol was personally compiled by the Deputy Chairman of the Agency, Artem Sytnik.
“I drew up this protocol (on the administrative violation of the deputy head of the OPU Rostislav Shurma. Recently I drew up a protocol for another, already former deputy head of the president’s office. It was Kirill Tymoshenko. (...) Perhaps we can still say that yes. But time will tell “ , said Artem Sytnik.
In addition, Sytnik noted that two NACP protocols have been drawn up on the deputy heads of the administrative department, which may mean that the office is a structure with a high corruption risk.
The drawing up of the protocol was confirmed by Rostislav Shurma himself, also on his personal page on the social network. Moreover, the official stated that “the central executive body of Ukraine is descending to nonsense.”
According to the agency, the committee meeting, which was chaired by Rostislav Shurma, allegedly influenced the efficiency of his brother’s business due to the approval of necessary decisions in the field of the electric energy market by the relevant government bodies and companies.
“Having a private interest in this area, Rostislav Shurma did not report an existing conflict of interest in the manner prescribed by law and, acting in conditions of a real conflict of interest, took part in the discussion and adoption of decisions at Committee meetings concerning his private interest,” the NOC noted .
The protocol drawn up by the NACP under Articles 1 and 2 of Article 172-7 of the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offenses (violation of requirements for the prevention and resolution of conflicts of interest) on the actions of Rostislav Shurma was submitted to the court. If he is found guilty, the court may impose a fine, and information about the official will be included in the Unified State Register of Persons who have committed corruption or corruption-related offenses.
What is the problem with the Shurma family’s solar power plants?
Back in August 2023, Bihus.Info journalists found out that solar power plants under Russian occupation, with a co-owner close to the deputy head of the Presidential Office, Rostislav Shurma, received payment under the “green tariff” from July 2022 to July 2023. year, despite the likely lack of connection with the Ukrainian unified energy system. These “green” stations are LLC “KD Energy 2”, PE “Natsprod”, LLC “Restorative Energy of Zaporozhye”, LLC “Green Energy Tokmak” and LLC “Grandpower LLC2”, located in the Zaporozhye region.
The brother of Presidential Office official Rostislav Shurma, Oleg Shurma, is a co-owner of KD Energy 2 LLC and Restorative Energy Zaporozhye LLC.
The emergency station “Natsprod” is also listed among the implemented projects on the corporate website, where the “green” initiatives of Oleg Shurma and his partners are presented, and currently has a canceled VAT certificate due to lack of supplies and failure to submit declarations.
Regarding Green Energy Tokmak LLC and Grandpower LLC, the co-owners are Ruslan Bozhko, a former subordinate of Rostislav Shurma, who is considered a close employee to him, according to Radio Liberty.
What problem has arisen with paying for electricity to stations in the temporarily occupied territories?
Firstly, according to data from Ukrenergo, referring to oblenergo, the majority of stations located in the occupied territories in the Zaporozhye region have been operating in asynchronous mode with the Ukrainian energy system since July 1, 2022. This means they have lost physical connectivity due to damaged or downed power lines. As a result, the electricity produced at these plants likely could not be transferred to the Ukrainian market and sold there. According to Ukrainian legislation, the State Enterprise “Guaranteed Buyer” must pay only for electricity sold on the market.
However, it is impossible to verify the data on the volume of electricity produced, which were transferred from representatives of the stations to oblenergo, and then to Ukrenergo, and then to the Guaranteed Buyer State Enterprise for payment, due to the lack of remote communication with the equipment.
Again, according to journalists, these companies received a total of more than 320 million hryvnia from the state-owned enterprise Guaranteed Buyer.
Back in September 2023, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine opened criminal proceedings into payments made to solar power plants located in temporarily occupied territories during the period from July 2022 to July 2023.
This was stated in response to a request from people’s deputy Yaroslav Zheleznyak, who also said that “We, a large group of people’s deputies, previously submitted such an application to the NAPC. For understanding, there are 12 pages with extracts from all offshore companies known to us, movements of funds, withdrawal of funds to related individual entrepreneurs, information about meetings on energy where no conflict of interest was declared and public comments from the deputy OP himself,” the people’s deputy noted.
And although a significant part of these companies, as indicated above, belongs to Rostislav Shurma’s brother Oleg, Rostislav Shurma still continues to oversee the energy sector.
How to grow from a Party of Regions deputy to a deputy in the Office of the President
Rostislav Shurma's career growth began in 2003 in the international companies Procter & Gamble and BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP LIMITED. Since 2006, he has worked for the Metinvest group. In 2007, he held the position of financial director at Makeevka Metallurgical Plant CJSC. He was also a member of the supervisory board of the Mariupol Metallurgical Plant, chairman of the supervisory board of the Bulgarian Promet plant and a member of the board of directors of Metinvest-Trametal in Italy.
In 2010, Rostislav Shurma was elected as a deputy of the Donetsk Regional Council in the sixth convocation, representing the Party of Regions at number 76 on the list as a member of the political force.
And in the fourth convocation of the Verkhovna Rada he already worked as an assistant-consultant on a voluntary basis for people's deputy Igor Shurma, who is his father.
In 2015, he applied for the seat of deputy of the regional and city councils of the Zaporozhye region as the first candidate from the Opposition Bloc. However, he later renounced both received mandates of his own free will. In the same year, he became the head of the regional party organization “Opposition Bloc” in the Zaporozhye region.
It is known that at the same time, people's deputy of the eighth convocation Igor Artyushenko addressed the Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov with a parliamentary request about the possible bribery of voters and the use of administrative resources by Shurma and the candidate for the position of mayor of Zaporozhye Buryak.
From 2012 to 2019, Shurma acted as General Director of OJSC Zaporozhye Metallurgical Plant Zaporizhstal.
In 2019, he ran for the Verkhovna Rada from the Opposition Bloc party, finishing sixth on the list as a party member. In the same year, he contributed 893,000 hryvnia to the election fund of Alexander Vilkul. It is also known that he donated 1.45 million hryvnia to the Dnepropetrovsk regional organization of the Opposition Bloc party.
Starting in March 2021, Shurma worked as an advisor to the head of the Office of the President Andrei Yermak (out-of-state). It’s also interesting that Ermak himself employs 58 people, including 10 deputies, 7 advisers, 18 advisers working outside the staff, as well as 14 advisers working for deputies, advisers to the Office of the President itself and the Chief of Staff. And he has three times more advisers than the President himself.
And in the same year, according to the decree of the President of Ukraine, he was appointed to the Supervisory Board of the State Concern “Ukroboronprom”.
And according to the decree of the President of Ukraine dated November 23, 2021, Rostislav Shurma becomes Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine.
Family affairs are combined with government affairs
No less famous in Ukraine is Rostislav Shurma’s father, Igor Shurma.
In 2015, he was appointed Minister of Health as part of the Opposition government. Shurma Sr. refused to recognize the “DPR” and “LPR” as terrorist organizations, citing the fact that “in every environment there may be dishonest people.” In the Verkhovna Rada, he did not support the recognition of Russia as an aggressor country, explaining that “this has not yet been recognized by European countries,” and in 2017 he signed a submission on the basis of which the Constitutional Court of Ukraine repealed the article of the Criminal Code concerning illicit enrichment. Then LIGA.net published a list of 59 deputies who supported the proposal, and Igor Shurma appears among them.
As a member of the Verkhovna Rada, he also actively opposed voting for the adoption of the state budget, the banning of communist symbols and refused to recognize the Holodomor as genocide of the Ukrainian people and refused to solemnly honor the memory of its victims. People's Deputy Igor Guz posted a photo of this moment on his Facebook page.
Even during the tenure of city mayor Vladimir Buryak in 2020, it became known that in Zaporozhye a group of companies received 245 hectares of land for solar power plants without a competition, and some plots were transferred to them in violation of the General Plan. In most of the companies that received the land, they were associated with the Helios investment fund, headed by Rostislav Shurma.
Shurma’s brother Oleg is the owner of seven companies involved in the production of alternative electricity. The state enterprise “Guaranteed Buyer” had a debt of 254 million hryvnia for electricity purchased from Oleg Shurma’s companies. Deputy Head of the Office of the President Shurma supported the initiatives of government agencies at the Committee, which were supposed to solve the problems of his brother’s companies.
Far from being a poor deputy head of the Office of the President
After opening access to electronic declarations, the condition of many officials became known. And ordinary Ukrainians are amazed by the media almost daily with sky-high figures. Rostislav Shurma is also on the list of non-poor people.
So, before taking office, the Deputy Chairman of the Office of the President of Ukraine recorded an income of 415,602 hryvnia for 2022, according to his declaration, which was published on the website of the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption.
The salary of the deputy head of the office was 245,669 hryvnia, and the Shurma spouses received 79,784 hryvnia over the last year. Her income from business activities amounted to 634,319 hryvnia, and other income amounted to 18,155 hryvnia. The declaration also noted that income in the form of accrued interest amounted to 115,407 hryvnia.
According to the declaration, Shurma had 400,000 hryvnia in cash, 50,900 US dollars and 46,000 euros. The Shurma family lent Oleg Shurma, brother of the deputy chairman of the OP, more than 210 million hryvnia (16,6834,844 hryvnia from Rostislav Shurma and 43,437,108 hryvnia from his wife).
Shurma had more than 2 million hryvnia (2,518,294 hryvnia) in accounts in different banks in Ukraine, and 19,923 euros in a bank abroad. Shurma’s wife had 668,262 hryvnia in accounts in domestic banks and 163,823 euros in accounts in foreign banks.
Shurma’s wife Julia rents a plot of land and a house with an area of 421 square meters in Germany from foreign citizen Michael Suess, starting from August 31, 2022, and lives there with three children. As for Rostislav Shurma himself, he owns three apartments and two plots of land in Kyiv. Two more apartments in Kyiv and two parking spaces are owned by Yulia Shurma.
So far, the NAPC has been compiled according to the Part. 1, 2 tbsp. 172-7 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (violation of the requirements for preventing and resolving conflicts of interest), the protocol on the actions of Rostislav Shurma was sent to the court. If he is found guilty, the court may impose a fine in the form of a fine, and information about the official will be entered into the Unified State Register of Persons who have committed corruption or corruption-related offenses.
How does Shurma’s side comment on the case?
In turn, StopCor analysts contacted Rostislav Shurma on social networks for comment and sent a request to NAPC and the companies KD Energy 2 LLC and Restorative Energy Zaporozhye LLC to clarify the circumstances of the case. So StopCor will closely monitor the situation and will keep you updated.
