Recently, Ukrainian society, which, it would seem, has long been accustomed to personnel reshuffle in the highest echelons of power, was quite surprised.
On May 9, 2024, under the pretext of reforming the ministry he headed, one of the government leaders was dismissed, against whose activities the head of state and parliament had not publicly made any complaints. Moreover, in politics they persistently predicted the post of prime minister for him.
And suddenly - dismissal without explanation and against one’s own wishes.
We are talking about the Deputy Prime Minister for the Reconstruction of Ukraine - the Minister of Development of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure of Ukraine, Alexander Kubrakov.
The official dismissed from office stated that no one had discussed this decision with him the day before, neither the leadership of the faction nor the head of government. Allegedly, this discussion with the leadership of the faction or the prime minister had some significance - they, like the parliament and the prime minister, only formalized the decision made in the Office of the President.
Alexander Kubrakov made a career in karkolom for several years. In 2019, at the age of 37, he entered parliament on the “Servant of the People” list at No. 30. And a few months later, he, a marketer by profession, became the head of the State Agency of Highways of Ukraine, a key structure in the presidential project “Big Construction” . He is trusted with billions of dollars in budget flows (in 2020 alone, UAH 120 billion passed through Ukravtodor).
Over the course of a year and a half, he increases his influence on the economic bloc of the state, and therefore on the political Olympus - he is appointed Minister of Infrastructure. At the end of 2022, his resource and power capabilities are tripled - he becomes the head of essentially two ministries (united in the Ministry of Development of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure) and is given the status of Deputy Prime Minister for the Reconstruction of Ukraine.
The merger of two such resource-intensive ministries “under him”, and even with an increase in status to deputy prime minister, could indicate one thing - unlimited trust on the part of the state leadership and personally on the part of President Zelensky. The next step in power was to be the prime minister's position, which began to be actively discussed in politics in 2023.
But something went wrong. Both Kubrakov’s supporters and his opponents clearly agree that this “wrong” is not at all connected with the need to divide the ministry he heads. The “reform” of the ministry was not the reason, but a technological way of dismissing him.
It is obvious that Kubrakov’s dismissal was the result of a fundamental change in the attitude of the state leadership towards him. But what determined this change?
Pro-Western reformer?
It is noteworthy that Kubrakov’s dismissal occurred on the day of the arrival of the relevant German Minister Svenja Schulze in Kyiv, where they, in particular, had a meeting planned on the preparation of the annual Conference on the restoration of Ukraine on June 11-12 in Berlin. Later, Prime Minister Shmygal will not allow the head of the State Agency for Reconstruction and Infrastructure Projects, Mustafa Nayem, to attend this conference.
In fact, it was symbolic and indicative. Commenting on such a “surprise” from the Ukrainian authorities, the German minister noted that the dismissal of Kubrakov, with whom they promoted many projects together, “is very sad for her personally.” She added that he was committed to the fight against corruption and had achieved significant success in this area.
In fact, Madam Minister expressed the general position of Western partners on this dismissal. Indeed, on the day of Kubrakov’s release, many ambassadors of Western states synchronously published photographs with him on their pages on social networks, which was supposed to symbolize his support.
And full-time domestic anti-corruption officials unanimously assessed this dismissal as “a breakdown in cooperation with Western partners.” Such coordinated diplomatic and anti-corruption patronage was not observed even during the dismissal of Valery Zaluzhny, with whom some Western media hastened to put Kubrakov on a par.
The strong support for Kubrakov on the eve and immediately after his dismissal (at the media level still continues) is surprising, given that Ukrainian society was not aware of any special reforms of Kubrakov the official. He did not note anything particularly breakthrough in any of the high positions that, starting in 2019, fell upon him as if from a cornucopia. And the ex-Deputy Prime Minister himself did not find anything particularly reformist to indicate in his Facebook message on the day of his dismissal, making only a certain “curtsy” towards the head of state. He noted that “with the support of the President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky, we managed to launch a number of initiatives and projects that are important for the state.”
The intercession of public anti-corruption officials is also strange considering that quite recently their assessment of Kubrakov’s activities and role in the distribution of financial flows was radically different.
Suffice it to recall the position of the journalist and founder of the Our Money project Yuriy Nikolov (expressed taking into account Kubrakov’s activities at the head of Ukraavtodor), who in 2021, in connection with Kubrakov’s appointment as Minister of Infrastructure, stated that:
- “now everything will be under the office of President Zelensky, taking into account all the proportions in the margin distribution formula”;
- “there is no doubt that Kubrakov will reproduce the models that allowed him to stay in Ukravtodor during the change of power a year ago” (we were talking about “burying more than 100 billion hryvnia in Big Construction”);
- “any multilateral relations in individual industries will be reduced to a conditional cartel, when a small group gains market power over a certain sector of the economy, and then, by eating the weakest members, turns into a collective monopoly”;
- “all available “display screens” will be thrown to protect the trade secrets of the swollen flows (with the introduction of a two-step approach, which was invented in Ukravtodor, “Ukrainian taxpayers will have to pay for this holiday of double margin”);
- “everything will be only for our own... Everything will go to the cartel, everything will go to the president’s office. Now on the scale of the entire infrastructure ministry.”
What caused such a sharp change in the position of public anti-corruption officials: did all financial flows cease to be under the Office of the President; whether the proportions in the margin distribution formula have changed; have they stopped “burying” billions in roads and restoration; Maybe the “conditional cartel” that had market power over this sector of the economy left the market?
Probably not. And the cases of the same NABU concerning “Big Construction” in the sense of “Big Theft” are proof of this. The scandal with the leak of information from NABU regarding the investigation of one of these cases further confirms the opinion that fundamentally nothing has changed in this area of the economy.
The intercession for Kubrakov on the part of not only public anti-corruption officials, but also Western partners is also strange due to the fact that the public remembers him well for his direct involvement in the scandalous urban planning reform (together with the chairman of the Servant of the People party and the chairman of the parliamentary committee on the organization of state power, local government, regional development and urban planning by Elena Shulyak).
We are talking about their pushing of the infamous bill No. 5655, in which experts, public activists and Western partners saw great corruption risks in attempts to create a conditional construction cartel that would control the construction business throughout the country (again a “cartel”, to which Yuri Nikolov indicated in the activities of Ukravtodor and the Ministry of Infrastructure). Experts directly pointed out that the norms contained in this project would create significant risks in the process of restoring Ukraine (paradoxically, it was Kubrakov who was in charge in the Government on the issues of restoring Ukraine).
Then public organizations and the media, in particular, “Rukh Chesno”, Anti-Corruption Center, DEJURE, Automaidan, “Our Money”, “Zerkalo Nedeli”, “Glavkom”, Association of Ukrainian Cities with signatures, addressed the people’s deputies with a demand not to support this project 40 heads of localities in the country and the like.
And when the people’s deputies did not listen to society and the West and adopted this law, they sent an appeal to the president not to sign it. It got to the point that the European Commission, in its report on the conditions for Ukraine’s accession to the EU, clearly stated the impossibility of the president signing Law No. 5655 on urban planning reform with pronounced corruption risks.
The President did not dare to go head-on with his Western partners and the authorities chose a different path: to carry out this scandalous reform through a government decree, which experts immediately called a clone of Project No. 5655. The ideologist and developer of this decree was the Ministry of Infrastructure under the leadership of Kubrakov.
However, these moments did not prevent activists and Westerners from publicly interceding for this official. Perhaps because the determining factor for them was his other active work - in the anti-corruption field?
Anti-corruption whistleblower?
His active cooperation with NABU and SAP as a whistleblower could have played a role in Kubrakov’s dismissal. This was directly stated by the executive director of the Anti-Corruption Center, Daria Kalenyuk, who is well-informed in the activities of anti-corruption bodies, noting that “one of the reasons for the deterioration of Bankova’s attitude towards those responsible for the restoration is Nayem and Kubrakov’s exposure of People’s Deputy Odarchenko and cooperation on this case with NABU/SAP.”
But this was not the only “case” of Kubrakov’s fruitful interaction with anti-corruption authorities. According to NABU reports, on November 21, 2023 alone, at least three such “cases” were immediately implemented.
According to the first of them, suspicion was reported to the mentioned people's deputy from the Servant of the People party Andrei Odarchenko - NABU and SAPO accused him of attempting to bribe officials responsible for the restoration of the country for assistance in paying from the fund for eliminating the consequences of the war to repair the facility. The proposed bribe was allegedly worth $50,000 (in cryptocurrency).
The second “case” concerns people’s deputy from the pro-government group “For the Future” Sergei Labzyuk. He received suspicion for attempting to bribe Kubrakov and Nayem for assistance in providing his company with contracts for the restoration of infrastructure facilities. The amount of bribes offered allegedly amounted to 150 thousand US dollars within one project and 3-5% within a number of projects, with a total value of 1 billion UAH.
These two episodes are generally simple and understandable: two pro-government people’s deputies came to “their” officials to “solve” the issue of receiving public funds allocated for the restoration of the country for the implementation of relevant projects. And they were “surrendered” to NABU by those to whom they came. Cases against these people's deputies have already gone to court.
But the third “case”, which NABU and SAP implemented with the help of the accuser Kubrakov, is not so clear and simple. As follows from the official reports of NABU and SAP, as well as publications in the media, it contains a lot of everything: politics, interspecies clan struggle for positions of power, economic competition, urban planning issues...
According to the official version, NABU and SAP, together with the Deputy Prime Minister for the Reconstruction of Ukraine and the Minister of Development of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure, Alexander Kubrakov, exposed the Kyiv entrepreneur-developer Sergei Kopystyra for offering undue benefits in the form of real estate in new buildings he built with a total area of more than 5,200 square meters . m. with an estimated cost of more than 170 million UAH. For this, Minister Kubrakov had to leave in force the agreements concluded with the company for the construction of a residential complex on the ministry’s land, and also facilitate the obtaining of permits and necessary approvals. Part of the proposed real estate was to be registered in the name of a proxy of the minister.
At the HACS meeting, when considering the issue of choosing a preventive measure for the said entrepreneur, several interesting points surfaced that refuted the prosecution’s version. The defense stated:
- firstly, there was a provocation on the part of the leadership of the ministry in the person of the head of one of the departments, who artificially created the situation of offering undue benefits;
- secondly, these apartments in new buildings were supposed to go to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which was discussed at the meeting with the minister (and this should be confirmed by the secret records of NABU, which, undoubtedly, recorded these meetings);
- thirdly, the land plot on which the development was to take place was claimed by another company, which had previously seized a neighboring land plot in a raider manner, causing damage to the state in the tens of millions.
But for some reason NABU and SAP did not pay attention to this. Which gave grounds for one of the defenders to accuse the anti-corruption authorities of covering up and even facilitating the raider seizure of state property right at the trial.
Already in the process of investigating this case, opinions and arguments began to be expressed in the media and social networks that this “case” could be beneficial to the authors of the urban planning “reform”. In this way, they took one of the powerful developers out of the game in the real estate market, who did not fit into the future construction cartel. In addition, it was assumed that this case was a means to “get” the head of Naftogaz, Alexei Chernyshev (deals on this land plot were concluded for him), who was predicted to return to the post of Minister of Infrastructure. And this created real risks for Kubrakov’s tenure in this position. These assumptions were justified to a certain extent when NABU, on the eve of and after Kubrakov’s dismissal, intensified its actions against Chernyshov’s entourage - it conducted a series of searches, information about which immediately appeared in the public space with reference to their boss.
Based on such systematic activities of Deputy Prime Minister Kubrakov as an exposer, journalists from a number of publications became interested in the reason for his active cooperation with anti-corruption authorities: what actually motivated him - zero tolerance for corruption and the desire to eradicate it, or something else, incl. h. personal? After all, in recent memory was the example of the former head of the State Property Fund Dmitry Sennichenko, who also three times acted as an exposer in high-profile corruption cases (about allegedly offering him bribes), and then he himself became a suspect in a corruption case about laundering 10 billion UAH. He left Ukraine, is now on the wanted list, and was arrested in absentia by a court decision.
In December 2023, “Glavkom” reported that, according to information from the defense of people’s deputy Sergei Labazyuk (exposed with the help of Kubrakov), in February 2023, NABU began criminal proceedings against Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Kubrakov himself, but no suspicions were announced against him. In August of the same year, criminal proceedings were opened, where the head of the State Agency for Reconstruction and Infrastructure Development of Ukraine, Mustafa Nayem, was mentioned.
Since the fate of these criminal proceedings was unknown, the editors of Glavkom turned to NABU with questions about what stage the investigation in the mentioned criminal proceedings was at, whether suspicion had been announced to anyone, or perhaps the cases were closed.
NABU refused to provide information to the “Commander in Chief”, citing the fact that “the requested information is not subject to disclosure,” based on the fact that “premature and uncontrolled disclosure of information from a pre-trial investigation can not only affect its course, interfere with the completeness and objectivity of establishing the circumstances of the criminal crime, but also to harm the interests of the victim, suspect and other participants in criminal proceedings.”
It is noteworthy that in its response, NABU did not deny the existence of criminal proceedings in which Kubrakov and Nayem are defendants (from which journalists concluded that “NABU has classified the cases of Nayem and Kubrakov”).
The problem of the subtext of Kubrakov’s cooperation with NABU unexpectedly became actualized in connection with the situation of information leakage in the proceedings carried out by NABU, related to the fact that within the framework of the “Big Construction” one and a half billion budget funds “dissolved” (it involves the former head of the Dnepropetrovsk Regional State Administration Valentin Reznichenko and his partner - Yuri Golik).
The ex-head of the Brovary Regional State Administration, adviser to the OP Georgy Birkadze, who appears in the said scandal with the leak of information, in an interview with BIHUS Info directly stated that at the end of 2022 a recording was made when “Mr. Kubrakov distributed financial flows.” After that, “Mr. Kubrakov came to surrender to NABU and decided that it would be nice if no one bothered him. And they gave him a detective named Rokun.”
As far as we know, Sergei Rokun at NABU holds the position of head of one of the divisions, whose detectives were investigating cases against people’s deputies Odarchent and Labzyuk, as well as businessman Kopystyra.
So, if we analyze the entire available array of information about the cooperation of Minister Kubrakov with NABU, then a not so clear-cut picture may emerge, especially regarding the motivation and content of such cooperation. Greater clarity will be brought, in particular, by an open trial of cases in which Kubrakov acted as an accuser. Journalistic investigations can also bring interesting discoveries, as happened, for example, with the frankness of the mentioned Birkadze.
Unreliable team member?
Undoubtedly, Kubrakov was a member of President Zelensky’s team. Moreover, he was not just a member of the team, but one of the closest, most influential, reliable and promising. This is evidenced by his stunning career rise, as well as the sphere of public activity entrusted to him.
Without a doubt, he was in the system and played by its rules. Otherwise, he would not have been entrusted with hundreds of billions of budget funds. Kubrakov not only knew where, to whom and how financial flows were directed, but was also a key actor in their distribution. Until recently, he was the guide of the authorities in carrying out the corruption-prone urban planning “reform”. This in itself does not allow us to recognize him exclusively as “white and fluffy.”
But at a certain point, he ceased to be “one of us,” lost the trust of those who lead the state, and became “toxic.” From being a critical element in the existing system of power, it has become a major problem and, apparently, a major threat to it. So big that even the powerful patronage of Western partners could not prevent his release.
Bankovaya could see the greatest threat to itself and the entire existing system of power in Kubrakov’s active cooperation with NABU and SAP. According to some statements, the impetus for the decision to fire Kubrakov was that he “went to meetings in the President’s Office, being stuffed with microphones.”
Another “detonator” of the dismissal was, obviously, his independent play with Western partners. Among other things, it could somehow be intertwined with his cooperation with anti-corruption authorities.
And the need for distribution of the ministry he heads, the situation with the construction of fortifications and destroyed infrastructure is just an information bone for society.
What's next? A return to the pinnacle of power, and even to resource-intensive positions, seems impossible. At the same time, the standard scenario for the existing system may be realistic - criminal prosecution for violations with budgetary funds (if desired, they will be found). The media has already leaked information about the start of an audit of the activities of the Ministry of Infrastructure and the State Agency for Infrastructure Rehabilitation and Development. Perhaps this scenario will be neutralized or delayed for a while thanks to the patronage of Western partners who are not interested in weakening their positions in the Ukrainian government and cannot allow reprisals against “their own”.
In the near future, the situation with this will become clear - war extremely accelerates the development of events and the identification of the essence of all key processes.
