Law enforcement officers previously established that the contractor, North Ukrainian Construction Alliance LLC, transferred 67.9 million hryvnia received in June 2023 to the accounts of “fictitious” and “transit” enterprises.
These funds were officially intended, in particular, to pay for materials, but their recipients, according to the investigation, did not have the opportunity “to carry out declared business transactions.” At the same time, the capital's prosecutor's office is trying to obtain in court the termination of the contract for this work and the recovery of 1.1 billion hryvnia from the above-mentioned LLC - due to the fact that its competitor was associated with a company that violated the conditions of economic competition.
Obviously, even darker times are coming for the odious ex-People's Deputy Maxim Mikitas (in the collage on the right), with whom these business entities are associated and who is now under the hood of law enforcement agencies.
As it became known, the capital’s law enforcement officers, within the framework of criminal proceedings No. 42023102070000269, are studying facts of theft of budget funds during the reconstruction of the Shulyavsky overpass.
This investigation was opened by the police department in the metro of the Kyiv National Police on September 1, 2023. Preliminary legal qualification of crimes committed by the defendants in this case - Part 3 of Art. 191 of the Criminal Code (CC) of Ukraine, that is, misappropriation or embezzlement of property through abuse of official position, committed repeatedly or by prior conspiracy by a group of persons.
What is the probable crime
On June 26, 2018, a contract agreement was concluded between the CP “Directorate for the Construction of Road Transport Facilities” (“DBSHTS”) and the LLC “Northern Ukrainian Construction Alliance” to carry out work on the reconstruction of the traffic intersection at the intersection of Ave. Pobeda on the street Hetman in the Solomensky and Shevchenkovsky districts of the capital (popularly known as the Shulyavsky overpass or the Shulyavsky bridge). The cost of work under this agreement should be 598.49 million hryvnia. However, later, after the parties concluded several additional agreements to this agreement, this amount was increased more than twice – to 1.4 billion hryvnia.
According to the investigation, on June 17, 2023, KP “DBShTS” made one of the “payments” for the implementation of the specified agreement - in the amount of 67.9 million hryvnia. In turn, the general contractor company, from June 19 to June 21 of the same year, transferred these funds to five business entities, the names of which were not specified in the court decisions on this proceeding - one private enterprise (PE) and four LLCs.
The largest amount of funds – 59.64 million hryvnia – was received by private enterprises and one of the LLCs. These financial resources were sent to these business entities, including “as payment for materials.” At the same time, according to law enforcement officials, these business entities are connected by common contractors, which may indicate a likely connection between these legal entities and North-Ukrainian Construction Alliance LLC. After this, as investigators established, the funds received from the budget were “dissipated” into the accounts of almost one and a half dozen OOOs (i.e., obviously, we are talking about the transfer of funds from the accounts of the five above-mentioned business entities to the accounts of a number of other companies).
The pre-trial investigation established that after the receipt of funds from the CP "DBSHTS" to the accounts of North Ukrainian Construction Alliance LLC, the latter are subsequently transferred to the accounts of enterprises with signs of "fictitiousness" and "transit" enterprises that lack physical, technical and technological opportunities to carry out declared business transactions, but the range of purchased goods (works and services) does not correspond to those sold. [Also, the latter] lack fixed assets and qualified personnel,” law enforcement officers note.
The pre-trial investigation established that after the receipt of funds from the CP "DBSHTS" to the accounts of North Ukrainian Construction Alliance LLC, the latter are subsequently transferred to the accounts of enterprises with signs of "fictitiousness" and "transit" enterprises that lack physical, technical and technological opportunities to carry out declared business transactions, but the range of purchased goods (works and services) does not correspond to those sold. [Also, the latter] lack fixed assets and qualified personnel,” law enforcement officers note.
In July 2024, the Podolsk District Prosecutor's Office sent a petition to the local district court to provide access to documents under this contract, which are stored in the office of the enterprise "DBShTS". We were talking about the agreement itself concluded with North Ukrainian Construction Alliance LLC, annexes and additional agreements to it, local estimates for construction work, equipment cost certificates, defective certificates, acceptance certificates for completed construction work, etc. All these “pieces of paper” are necessary for law enforcement officers “to conduct expert research, identify persons involved in a criminal offense, as well as establish the circumstances of the criminal offense committed.”
On July 23, 2024, the Podolsky District Court of Kyiv granted the above-mentioned petition. At the same time, at the request of law enforcement officers, it was considered without the participation of representatives of the CP “DBShTS” - they were not even summoned to court, because there is a real threat of alteration or destruction of documents to which access must be obtained.”
Background
The Shuliavsky overpass is one of the most scandalous capital infrastructure objects. The capital’s officials “thought about” its reconstruction about a decade ago—in fact, they were talking about the demolition of the “old” bridge, which by that time was already collapsing, and the construction of a new one in its place. In mid-2017, the project for this reconstruction was already ready: it was selected from seven options, and then it was assumed that the cost of the work, which would last about a year and a half, would be 400 million hryvnia. However, there has been controversy surrounding this project for a long time - a number of architects, transport experts, public figures and deputies of the Kyiv City Council have repeatedly drawn the attention of the capital’s leadership to its imperfections. In particular, it was said that the project approved by the authorities required the demolition of individual objects of the Bolshevik plant, which required additional time, investments of large amounts of money, bureaucratic “disputes” with the State Property Fund, which at that time was the owner of the above-mentioned plant, etc. .d. .
Construction work on the construction of the “new” overpass began in March 2019 - as noted above, the contractor company “undertook” to carry it out for 598.49 million hryvnia. But already in October of the same year, the Kyiv City State Administration re-approved the reconstruction project, increasing the work estimate to 1.05 billion hryvnia. Vitali Klitschko then explained the increase in the cost of reconstruction by saying that “work has been added that was not expected - for example, it will be necessary to move the heating network collector near the bridge.”
Already in December 2019, part of this overpass was open to traffic. This was preceded by tests - the object was “tested” for both dynamic and static loads, and during these processes, Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko stood under the overpass. At the same time, some experts pointed out that the capital’s authorities “hurried” with the tests - they say “it is impossible to test a new overpass that still stands on temporary support structures,” because this poses a threat to the safety of Kiev residents. At the same time, already in January 2020, the Kyiv City State Administration announced that the “finishing” cost of reconstruction work is unknown - due to a number of additional costs, the need to reconstruct adjacent streets, rising costs of building materials, etc. And finally, in July 2021, the capital’s mayor’s office again re-approved the project, increasing the reconstruction estimate to almost 2 billion hryvnia.
Even before that, in December 2020, an emergency event occurred at this site - then three lighting poles fell there, resulting in damage to several cars. The National Police then became interested in this incident, but it seems that this did not yield any results.
At the same time, law enforcement officers have repeatedly drawn attention to how budget funds are used in carrying out this reconstruction. For example, in the fall of 2019, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) began an investigation into the fact that the mayor of Kyiv, Vitaliy Klitschko, illegally contributed to the victory of the specified contractor in the relevant tender and that these works were being carried out at inflated prices. According to the journalistic project “Schemes”, one of the competitors of North Ukrainian Construction Alliance LLC at the corresponding tender was Spetsstroy-Plus LLC, associated with this company. Journalists attributed both business entities to the orbit of influence of Maxim Mikitas, an odious ex-politician and businessman, who will be discussed below.
At the same time, the fate of the contract itself is decided in the courts. The fact is that at the end of 2023, the capital’s prosecutor’s office filed a lawsuit with KP DBSHTS and North Ukrainian Construction Alliance LLC to invalidate the decision of the tender committee to recognize the specified company as the winner of the relevant tender, invalidate the above-mentioned agreement and collect 1.1 billion hryvnia ( funds paid as of January 1, 2023) from the contractor to the customer.
The main reasons for this, law enforcement officers cite the fact that back in June 2019, the Antimonopoly Committee qualified the joint participation of North Ukrainian Construction Alliance LLC and Spetsstroy-Plus LLC in the said tender as anti-competitive and distorting the results of the tender. In particular, the said body established that these companies have a common address, common means of communication, common features in the preparation of documents, etc.
Accordingly, according to law enforcement officers, in this case the legislation on the protection of economic competition was violated, which “led to the acquisition of works in the absence of competition and when the tender participants formally created the appearance of competition.” As a result, according to prosecutors, the goal of public procurement was neutralized - “obtaining work with maximum economy and efficiency, using a minimum amount of funds.”
On June 4, 2024, the Economic Court of Kyiv fully satisfied this claim of law enforcement officers. However, it’s too early to put an end to this: KP DBSHTS filed an appeal against the court’s decision, which was unsuccessful for itself, which may be considered in the near future.
Influential Beneficiaries
According to the Youcontrol analytical system, North Ukrainian Construction Alliance LLC was founded in Kyiv in October 2007. The founder and ultimate beneficiary of the company is Andrei Yakusevich, a resident of the capital, and the director is Alexander Dorosh.
It should be noted that on January 6, 2021, the Economic Court of Kyiv opened bankruptcy proceedings for the said company. The reason was that North Ukrainian Construction Alliance LLC could not repay the debt to USM-Group LLC in the amount of 32.5 million hryvnia. This debt arose due to the fact that North Ukrainian Construction Alliance LLC improperly fulfilled its obligations under the contract for construction and installation work during the construction of one of the capital’s residential complexes.
According to the Clarity Project public procurement analytics database, North Ukrainian Construction Alliance LLC has 11 fairly high-value construction contracts - their total value is 3.71 billion hryvnia (this amount does not include the “increased” amount of the reconstruction contract Shulyavsky overpass. The largest project of this company is the construction of the treatment and rehabilitation building of the State Institution “National Institute of Cardiovascular Surgery named after. M.M. Amosova NAMS of Ukraine" on Amosova street, 6 in the Solomensky district of the capital - an agreement was concluded with this institution in the amount of 2.56 billion hryvnia.
Among other things, North Ukrainian Construction Alliance LLC concluded 3 agreements for a total amount of 159.4 million hryvnia with the capital’s CP “Engineering Center”, the same number of contracts for a total amount of 294.2 million hryvnia with CP “Goloseevo-Stroyinvest”, etc. d. At the same time, the cooperation of this company with the latter enterprise has repeatedly interested law enforcement officers.
The national police, in the framework of at least two criminal proceedings, studied the facts of possible “budget cuts” during the construction of the second launch complex for the expansion of school No. 151 on the street. Lesnichy, 3 and reconstruction of the gymnasium named after Alexander Boychenko on the street. Bolshaya Kitaevskaya, 85, the customer of which was Goloseevo-Stroyinvest. In particular, according to the investigation, when determining the cost of procurement of work in the gymnasium, officials of the above-mentioned CP deliberately overestimated the volume and cost of work, which led to the fact that the work completion certificates “registered” work that was not actually performed, and the cost of reconstruction materials was significantly higher than the market average. However, apparently, none of the possible defendants in these cases were ever brought to justice.
The above-mentioned Andrei Yakusevich is an assistant to the above-mentioned MP Maxim Mikitas in the 8th convocation of the Verkhovna Rada. The latter is best known as the chairman of the state corporation “Ukrbud” (2010-2016, “under the flags” of which dozens of residential complexes were built in Kyiv and the Kyiv region. But, as KV has repeatedly written, in fact, most of these objects were built by private entities. Currently Let us remind you that after a series of high-profile scandals and actual bankruptcy, a number of capital developers are engaged in completing the construction of Ukrstroy complexes.
Over the past few years, this parliamentarian and “ex-developer” has been experiencing serious problems with the law. In particular, Mikitas is now officially accused of causing damage to the National Guard in the amount of more than 81 million hryvnia. According to law enforcement officials, this happened due to the fact that Ukrbud Development LLC (a company in the orbit of Mikita) in 2016-2017 transferred to the National Guard 65 “cheaper” apartments in the Obereg residential complex (21-45 Boryspilska St., Kyiv) instead of the 50 apartments and 30 parking spaces provided for in the special agreement for the development in the Aristocrat residential complex (Evgeniy Konovalets St., 34), which was built on the land of the same National Guard.
In addition, back in January 2023, the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office sent an indictment to the Supreme Court against Maxim Mikitas in the case of possible bribery to the city chairman of the Dnieper Boris Filatov. According to preliminary data from the investigation, the odious developer offered the mayor of the said city 22 million euros for concluding a contract with companies under his control for the construction of the metro in Dnieper without competition.
It should be noted that since October 2022, KP “DBShTS” has been headed by Roman Lisnevsky. He, acting as first deputy director, led this enterprise from April to November 2020. Before the “second coming” of Lisnevsky, from November 2020, the duties of director of the enterprise “DBShTS” were performed by the deputy director of the enterprise for economics, Natalya Khomatova. Even earlier, from August 2015 to November 2018, this enterprise was headed by Maxim Kalinin, and from November 2018 to April 2020, by Mikhail Kharnam (for the first four months he led the company as acting director).
This enterprise is subordinate to the Department of Transport Infrastructure of the Kyiv City State Administration, which has been headed by Ruslan Kandibor since September 1, 2021. Before him, this structural unit changed its leaders almost every year. So, from August 4, 2017 to December 3, 2018 it was headed by Sergei Simonov, from August 12, 2019 to October 31, 2019 - by Ivan Fedorov, from February 6, 2020 to April 2021 - by Valentin Osipov, and in the “intervals” the director’s languages were traditionally performed by the now ex-deputy the head of this department, Ivan Shpileva.
