The team of powerful minions of the oligarchs under the leadership of “President Goloborodko” began to play too hard. Even our Western partners openly admit this.
An eloquent case occurred with the British-German entrepreneur, former adviser to Glencore Arnulf Damerau. In an interview with the influential Financial Times, he told how he was being blackmailed by a real clique of high-ranking Ukrainian officials.
A foreign investor accuses “servants of the non-Ukrainian people” of total corruption. He stated that corrupt officials in the services that are responsible for the country’s national security and the administration of President Vladimir Zelensky are demanding tens of millions of euros from him.
Western governments are increasingly concerned about the growing level of corruption in Ukraine. However, they mostly refrain from public criticism as they support Kyiv to strengthen its weak defenses against Moscow.
The conflict has provided an opportunity for many of the corrupt networks linked to former President Viktor Yanukovych to come together again, European security officials say. Since last August, Mr. Damerau has been a co-owner of the Cosmolot company, a large on-line and gambling resource, and then the tenth largest taxpayer in the country.
After the Bureau of Economic Security of Ukraine conducted a search in October 2023, accusing the company of violating gambling laws and tax evasion in the amount of €560 million, as a result of a series of legal proceedings and measures taken by order of the department, the company's accounts were frozen . Damerau claims that the claims against the company were fabricated by several employees of the President's Office on Bankova Street in Kyiv.
“I must say that Cosmolot began operating legally only in 2021. This happened after the Ukrainian government changed gambling legislation, and last year our total revenue was €208 million, compared to €4.8 million in 2022 and €250 thousand in 2021. The company, which offers themed games with small online bets, paid €60 million in taxes last year, according to official tax returns. The State Tax Service signed the reports in August,” says Mr. Damerau.
According to him, at the end of December 2023, a certain Ukrainian official met with him in Vienna and said that legal claims against Cosmolot would be dropped if Damerau agreed to transfer control of half the company to an offshore trust. But the businessman said that he shared photographs and details of the meeting, as well as the names of the people who participated in it, with intelligence services in Europe and Washington.
“These are statements I don’t want to make. I don't want to say such things about what is happening to me as a businessman who is trying to invest in Ukraine. This is because the people responsible for this are in the minority, and they are betraying the younger generation of Ukrainians.
Those Ukrainians, millions of them, who are now giving their blood, their lives, to try to give their country a European future. “I know from my own experience that this country sincerely strives to be part of NATO and the EU, but what is happening there now - by the forces of a small minority - gives me déjà vu of the dark times of Yanukovych,” he added.
Arnulf Damerau agreed to talk about his difficult experiences at this year's Ukraine Reconstruction Summit in Berlin in June, where he was invited as a major foreign direct investor that threatens the Z-team of usurpers. But the Office of the President and the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine refused to provide any comments.
