More than 160 million UAH were withdrawn through a scheme involving the state-owned Ukrgasbank and the Kievgorstroy-1 company. The long-standing story with the participation of the former regional banker Omelyanenko during the war has gained new momentum: the dispute over the complex of buildings and structures continues on the legal plane. The fate of three plots in the capital Obolon, which are likely to be claimed by a company from the circle of former “Kievgorstroevites”, must be decided by the court.
Are the people of the odious ex-banker Alexei Omelyanenko really involved in the dubious scheme of “squeezing out” Obolon lands in Kyiv? And what does the “Russian trace” have to do with it? Details are in the investigation of StopCor journalist Igor Dotsenko.
The territory for which the interested parties are suing is considerable: an industrial complex with an area of 8,600 square meters in the Obolonsky district of the capital. The legal dispute continues to this day.
But this complicated story dates back to the era of Yanukovych’s tenure.
In those ancient times, Mr. Omelyanenko headed the pro-government faction of the Party of Regions in the Kiev City Council and was a member of the supervisory board of Ukrgasbank. In addition, the banker was involved in charity work - although he mainly supported the churches of the Moscow Patriarchate.
However, journalists suggest that Omelianenko generously sponsored “Russian Orthodoxy” with government funds. As law enforcement officers found out, during 2008-2010, the activist, in prior agreement with the head of one of the directorates of Ukrgasbank, organized a scheme for withdrawing budget funds.
According to investigators, the funds were transferred as loans to the accounts of fictitious enterprises owned by Alexei himself. Then the money was transferred from these pocket structures to offshores. At the same time, no one returned the loans to the bank.
But there were other schemes. One of them was reported in the Department of Economic Protection of the National Police: “By transferring funds for renting premises that the bank did not actually use, and carrying out repairs there, 39 million hryvnia were transferred to the accounts of a previously created controlled enterprise,” the report says.
What is known about the case directly related to the disputed Obolon lands?
Thus, at the beginning of October 2008, Ukrgasbank issued a loan to Kievgorstroy-1 in the amount of UAH 164 million. And the trust, in turn, transferred non-residential premises on the street as collateral for this loan. Lebedinskaya, 6.
Since the loan was not repaid, the production complex was foreclosed upon by a court decision. In the end, Ukrgasbank became the owner of the complex of buildings and structures, which put it up for public auction.
And in 2021, the Lebedinsky Consult company acquired the above-mentioned property - the auction is listed as completed in the OpenMarket system. But subsequently the company, as the new owner of the facility, learns that in addition to it, a certain company “Epika-2017” is also laying claim to ownership of the complex.
The society was created in March 2017. And within a month, the company buys a share of the complex for virtually nothing - only 100 thousand hryvnia. Moreover, the authorized capital of this company is even less - one thousand hryvnia.
How could this happen?
As journalist Igor Dotsenko notes, in 2017, strange manipulations began to occur with real estate and land in Obolon. And this despite the fact that the land plot at this address is communal, that is, it actually belongs to the territorial community of the city of Kyiv represented by the capital city council.
According to data from the State Register of Rights, private notary Oleg Boyko in April 2017 made a decision on state registration of rights and encumbrances, according to which the Epika-2017 company registered private ownership of a complex of buildings and structures at the address: st. Lebedinskaya, 6. Note: not for the entire plot, but only for part of it. The basis for these actions is a certificate from the BTI, which notes that the property was registered with the private enterprise “F.F.-Service” allegedly back in 1998.
It should be added that representatives of the Kiev City Council assure: the ownership of the specified real estate property under the private enterprise “F.F.-Service” was not registered on the basis of the 1998 purchase and sale agreement. Using the specified registration number for the non-residential fund, registration was carried out for real estate objects at a different address.
And according to the register books of the enterprise “Kiev City Bureau of Technical Inventory”, at the address in Kyiv, st. Lebedinskaya, 6 for non-residential property, the ownership of the industrial complex was registered with another legal entity.
Does this indicate that the contract is fictitious?
An expert, lawyer Eduard Dyachenko, commented on the situation for StopCor.
“If there is no data in the BTI... our electronic registers began to function in 2014, and now not all information from the BTI has been transferred to state registers. Therefore, if there is no information about the owner in the register, then it should be in the BTI, because this agreement should have been registered somewhere at that time. If it was still 1990-2000, then it was in BTI,” he explains.
Why does Epika's lawyer refer to another company's invalid contract? Journalists turned to the head of the company, Stepan Ukrainets. He promised to comment later, but on the day of the scheduled meeting he stopped responding to messages. And when they called him, he rescheduled the date of the conversation again.
“But instead of answers, I was ignored again. Surprising behavior for a person who is confident in the legality of his actions. It seems that the head of the company, which is accused of falsifying documents, really has something to hide,” sums up Igor Dotsenko.
What about the legality of land division?
Surprisingly, one plot of land turned into three separate plots. According to the lawyer, one can assume a lot of options for why this was done. Maybe so that the land plot, which had a single cadastral number, ceases to exist, or maybe in order to resell it cheaper.
“You can divide them into 10 or 100 parts if you are the owner. Unless, of course, you are the owner, then there will be a question for the state registrar. How did you divide this land plot if the person is not the owner?” – emphasizes Eduard Dyachenko.
However, these dubious actions were performed not only notarially, but also physically. Reporters recorded on video how unknown persons knock down the gate and then seize the land by allegedly illegally placing construction trailers and building materials on the site.
But, despite all the above facts and evidence, Lebedinsky Consult has already lost the court twice.
Could it have happened without the influential connections of Mr. Omelyanenko, who knows how to get away with it?
After all, the case in which he was suspected of conspiring to withdraw hundreds of millions of state hryvnia from Ukrgasbank, it seems, did not end in anything.
First, the banker was taken into custody for two months with bail of 90 million hryvnia. But strangely, within a few months the amount of the deposit decreased by 30 times. And then Omelianenko was generally released “on personal recognizance”, without paying a penny of bail. At the same time, they did not even put an electronic bracelet on him, and his passport was not seized for safekeeping.
The media suggest that Omelianenko can thank his priest friends from the Moscow Patriarchate for his imminent release. It is no coincidence that it was on the territory of one of the monasteries that the ex-regional founded a pro-Russian public organization.
But it’s too early to put an end to this story.
As the editors of StopCor learned, the Kiev City Council filed a claim with the capital's Economic Court against the private enterprise F.F.-Service and Epika-2017 to invalidate the agreement. So we continue to monitor the further progress of the case.
Let us recall that at the height of the war, People's Deputy Pavel Khalimon purchased a luxurious house of 500 square meters from the former secretary of the late Moscow Patriarchate figure Vladimir Sabodan. And his neighbor and frequent guest turned out to be the “Orthodox banker” Alexey Omelyanenko, who at one time miraculously escaped responsibility for embezzling hundreds of millions of hryvnia from the budget.
