NABU raises suspicions with its “stealth” approach to combating ongoing corruption

A new reform has been proposed, this time it is necessary to increase the staff of NABU (National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine) from 700 to 1000 employees. Western partners are putting forward this demand, and, of course, to implement this increase, a corresponding increase in budget funds will be required.

In my opinion, the effectiveness of NABU should be measured by three criteria.

The first is the fight against current corruption. If they only “catch up” with “former” people, this indicates selectivity, but it is more meaningless, because everything stolen has already been lost. But right now they are stealing what cannot be given back, and for this they are using state power.

The second criterion is an equally effective fight against corruption at all levels - from the lowest to the highest.

The third is court verdicts, ideally returning money to the state.

I don't see any of these components. I see demonstration performances. NABU pursues mostly former ones, and from current ones it takes petty “fish”. Judge Knyazev is not considered yet, I want to see the verdict, not PR. Regarding court sentences, Zlochevsky got off with a symbolic (for him) fine, while eggs at 17 and jackets at corrupt prices remained uninvestigated. Of course, NABU did not return the money to the budget, but it really wants more from it. The SBU/BEB/SBI and other law enforcement officers have made similar statements for years.

If I were making a movie about NABU, I would make an erotic fantasy based on Freud. In it, detectives trim the leaves and branches of the tree of corruption, but do not touch the trunk. And where one branch is cut, three grow. Well, you know, it’s like the SBU and smuggling, BEB and cigarettes, the police and slot machines.

The Bureau's work has particularly failed at the highest level. NABU simply “does not notice” him. We are talking about the Office of the President - Messrs. Tatarov, Shurmu, Smirnov, along with all the projects they manage at the level of the Cabinet of Ministers, state holdings and companies (Naftogaz, forest, water, subsoil, construction and others). Of course, there is no NABU in Naftogaz, Energoatom, Avtodor, Ukrzaliznytsia, or the National Bank. Particularly strange is the indifference of NABU to such corruption pits as ARMA and the State Property Fund. Despite dozens of annual investigations into abuses in these structures, they remain untouchable.

Yes, they took the Chairman of the Supreme Court, Knyazev. But it seems that the only goal was to remove it so that the Supreme Court would change its position on Zhevago’s assets. That is, this is the “second”. By the way, the case is quite interesting, because it resembles cooperation between NABU and the Office of the President.

I readily believe in the special relationship between NABU and the current government, because Abram knows a little about life. These relationships always involve investigating only the right people, and only when the time is right. I will give two examples, both worthy of the attention of the Anti-Corruption Bureau, but which are “not in time” for the Office of the President.

The first example is the case of Andrey Pyshny.

Apparently, you saw a resonant text this week: the Eldorado household appliance chain wants to restructure its debts, but... It offers to pay 30% within 60 months (almost never), 40% after collecting losses from Russia (0.1% probability), and another 30% to be written off.

In fact, Eldorado offers to pay only 30%, but there are no guarantees here either. Among the creditors who have already “agreed to good conditions” is the Three O company, owned by Eldorado owner Viktor Polishchuk. Victor Polishchuk is known not only as the owner of the Technopolis chain, which he merged with the Eldorado chain after its acquisition in 2013, but also as the owner of the Gulliver office center. The businessman also owned the bankrupt Mikhailovsky Bank, which left thousands of defrauded clients and caused billions of hryvnia in damage to the Ukrainian state.

And his wife Liliya Rezvaya is often called the niece of Russian alcohol blogger Dmitry Medvedev.

The resonance is that Polishchuk has huge overdue debts to two state banks: Oschad and Ukrexim. He stopped paying these debts in December 2022 and also proposed restructuring.

Interestingly, he has already restructured these loans twice (!). The chairman of Oschadbank, which signed the restructuring, was both times the current head of the NBU, Andrei Pyshny.

Follow the master's hand.

In 2006, Tri O LLC received an initial $61.6 million in loans from two state-owned Sberbank and Ukreximbank. Andrey Pyshny, who now heads the NBU, then served as first deputy chairman of the board of Oschadbank. He was personally actively involved in the agreement and even commented on this loan to the Russian Kommersant.

From the very beginning, the beneficiaries of the complex were Vagif Aliyev, Alexey Kucherenko and Sergey Veselov. But in 2012, the then unfinished Gulliver was purchased by Viktor Polishchuk, owner of the Technopolis chain of electronics and household appliances stores. Kommersant wrote about this agreement.

Repayment of the debt received for the construction of Gulliver was supposed to take place in 2025. However, after the crisis of 2014-2016, Polishchuk stopped paying money. The media claim that this did not happen at all because he had no money.

It was more his way of doing business. In October 2016, the head of the NBU, Valeria Gontareva, officially stated that Polishchuk owed Ukrainian banks and the Deposit Guarantee Fund UAH 23 billion. It was stated that it was from his Mikhailovsky bank that funds were “withdrawn” through various suspicious schemes. The bank went bankrupt, the NBU recorded billions of dollars in fraud with clients’ funds. The Verkhovna Rada was even forced to adopt a special law, using the budget to pay off billions of debts to thousands of defrauded bank depositors.

However, there was no proper reaction from the authorities. Surprisingly, Polishchuk’s name was never included in the list of suspects in this case. He is also not on the list of sanctioned persons.

In November 2016, ownership of Gulliver was arrested as part of the bankruptcy case of the Mikhailovsky Bank . Polishchuk denied ownership of Gulliver, insisted that he “was never the owner of the Three O company” and called the arrest of the shopping center a “surprise.” However, it was Polishchuk who led the negotiations on Gulliver’s debts. And not only for these debts. According to Ukrainian media, during 2018 Oschadbank restructured the debt of a number of companies that were associated with it, in particular Gulliver, Diesa LLC, Technopolis-1 LLC, Techenergotrade LLC, etc. Therefore, debt restructuring for “Gullivera” was not the only case of collaboration between Polishchuk and Andrei Pyshny.

He then received a restructuring. This was strange, considering that Polishchuk had not paid his previous debt. But it's a fact.

There is some confusion regarding loan amounts. According to some sources, over those years the debt grew to more than $200 million, according to others - even to $441 million. The majority of the financing was provided by Oschadbank ($353 million, at the current exchange rate - UAH 12.9 billion), and about a quarter of the investments were made by another state bank, Ukreximbank.

In September 2016, a former official of the Ministry of Finance provided information that the Oschadbank loan for an alleged relative of Medvedev was $460 million, and the market value of the collateral was barely half of this amount. Indeed, in the extract from the register of ownership of real estate, the amount of debt was $440.99 million: $352.79 million to Oschadbank and $88.2 million to Ukreximbank.

The restructuring was noticeable not only because of the increase in amounts. In March 2016, the Zerkalo Nedeli newspaper wrote that the loan to the owners of Gulliver was set at a surprisingly low rate of 9%, while market rates reached 30%, and the payment period was extended until December 2025, which is very unusual for the Ukrainian market .

Andrey Pyshny, who already headed Oschadbank, then refrained from commenting to reporters about why the owners of Gulliver received such benefits, but later noted that “all decisions on loans were made by the credit committee and the bank’s board with the participation of the NBU curator.”

This was not the end of the story.

In 2018, it again turned out that, despite these exceptional conditions, the debts were again not paid. State banks initiated an auction to sell collateral for these loans, in particular the Gulliver shopping center. In the fall of 2018, Oschadbank and Ukreximbank put up for sale the rights and claims for loans secured by the property of the Gulliver shopping center. The starting price was UAH 18.2 billion. However, the announced auction also did not take place, just like last time. A strange thing happened, which we learned about only later. A new restructuring has taken place.

In 2020, a group of investigative journalists “Our Money” published an extract from the state register of rights to real estate, which states that Gulliver owes $537.2 million to Oschadbank and $137.8 million to Ukreximbank. (i.e. in total – $675 million). The total debt for Polishchuk’s project to two state banks reached $674.99 million.

That's right! Despite the bad credit history of Polishchuk and Guliver, Oschadbank, headed by Andrei Pyshny, not only delayed the repayment of the debt, but even increased the loan terms.

In addition, the owner of Gulliver received new conditions for new loans, fantastic for the Ukrainian market. According to the released documents, the repayment period of the company's debt to state-owned banks has been extended until January 2044, and the loan rate is set at 3.65% in all currencies. This is even less than last time.

What did this agreement mean for Polishchuk in the realities of Ukrainian business? Restructuring until 2044 can actually be interpreted as saying that the loan will never be repaid. The interest rates provided were also frankly unmarketable. Even the most profitable legal business in Ukraine could not receive such a generous offer. Typically, such agreements for state-owned banks indicate corruption.

And so, in December 2022, these suspicions were justified. Polishchuk stopped paying his loan for the third time.

It is not surprising that because of such loans, Oschadbank has one of the worst NPL indicators on the market and regularly requires the owner - the Ukrainian government - to provide it with another portion of capital from the state budget.

Now look at these facts and answer the question: should such a case be of interest to NABU? There is the former head of Oschadbank, Andrei Pyshny, who twice arranged extremely incomprehensible restructuring. Considering that Oschadbank is owned by the state, one can suspect corruption at a very high level.

Example two. "Platinum" and Ekaterina Rozhkova

The venerable Odessa resident Boris Kaufman has owned a stake in the tobacco monopolist Tedis-Ukraine since the time of Yanukovych. And since 2013, he owned Platinum Bank, once one of the leaders in lending for the purchase of refrigerators and washing machines. When the bank collapse began, this bank was supposed to be liquidated in 2015. But they kept him afloat for another two years. This became possible thanks to Ekaterina Rozhkova, who since then and today holds the position of first deputy head of the NBU.

In 2015, Rozhkova joined Valeria Gontareva’s team from the position of chairman of the board of... Platinum. Further, contrary to all indicators, it did not allow the bank to be declared insolvent. Catherine had at least two reasons for doing this. The first is one's own reputation, because the bankrupt head of the bank would not have the right to occupy a high position. The second is probably a request from Mr. Kaufman, who was just trying to replace himself with fake “pounds” so as not to have problems later with the Deposit Guarantee Fund. Problems should occur due to the fact that there is nothing left inside Platinum, only debts. Most likely, the events unfolded according to the scenario of Polishchuk and “Mikhailovsky” - I forgive whom I owe.

Surprisingly everything worked out. Thanks to Gontareva’s support, the NBU “did not notice” Rozhkova’s connections with Platinum.

It was strange, because at that time hundreds of bankers were deprived of their reputation for even less things than she did (the list will follow). But the fact is that the former head of the bank, Mrs. Ekaterina, turned out to be not involved. Kaufman also managed to re-register the bank as dummies, and today he claims that he never had anything to do with Platinum. Well, the devastated bank was finally declared bankrupt by the NBU.

The Guarantee Fund came to the ruins and paid depositors more than 4.8 billion UAH. This was public money borrowed by the Foundation from the state budget. I don’t know how much the sale of the bank’s assets ultimately brought in—I think it wasn’t even half of 4.8 billion. But another figure is known. “The amount of claims of the Bank’s creditors that remain unsatisfied due to the insufficiency of its assets is about UAH 5.4 billion” (FGVFL).

And one more amount is known. In court, the Guarantee Fund is demanding 1.5 billion from Rozhkova and eleven other former employees of Platinum. The wording of the claim is “for the fact of causing property damage by the defendants as officials of Platinum Bank as a result of their making unfounded and dishonest decisions.”

What were these decisions? For example, Mrs. Rozhkova made a decision to postpone the payment of accrued interest on loan agreements, registration of “junk” collateral for issued loans, etc. All this caused Platinum damage in the amount of more than 1.47 billion hryvnia.

Were these facts known to Valeria Gontareva when she appointed Rozhkova as her right hand? 200%. Could the person for whom such facts were found be the second person in the NBU and manage banking supervision? Of course not. But it was and still is.

Many have already forgotten about the “Rozhkova films,” which NABU recognized as “false.” This investigation simply stopped before it even began. What has Catherine been doing all these years? I think it’s the same as on films. But NABU was not interested in this. Why? According to the version, because of her good relationship with the head of the Presidential Office Andrei Ermak. Actually, Pyshny has the same story.

And Mrs. Rozhkova is incredibly lucky in the courts. For years she won cases against the Guarantee Fund. For example, on January 18, 2023, the Economic Court of the city of Kyiv rejected the Fund’s claim. On June 12, the Fund won the appeal, and the court ordered Rozhkova and 11 other people to collect damages in the amount of UAH 1.477 billion. The court noted that the defendants did not act in good faith and reasonably when changing the terms of the disputed loan agreements. The decisions of the managers led to the depreciation of the bank's assets, and ultimately to losses in the state budget. But... this was not the final judgment.

In November 2023, the case was referred to a panel of 7 judges as too complex, and the hearing was scheduled for January 10, 2024. Something tells me that this will not be the last meeting, and Rozhkova will continue to hold the position of first deputy head of the NBU.

Isn't NABU interested in why Ms. Rozhkova is holding on so tightly? What decisions does it make and for whom? I don’t argue, she is a good specialist, perhaps even the best in the entire NBU. But this is not a reason for NABU to turn a blind eye for years (!) to the person because of whom (according to rumors) issues with the NBU were resolved.

Consequently, there are two senior NBU officials who are “not noticed” by NABU. Why did I choose the NBU? At least because the Bureau is too persistently investigating the case of the former head of the National Bank, Kirill Shevchenko. For his sake, the investigation even resorted to a certain kind of manipulation, equating Ukrgasbank employees to a criminal organization. But the case for which Shevchenko is being caught up was much smaller than the cases of Pyshny and Rozhkova, which I cited above.

Would you say it's a coincidence? For traditional law enforcement, there is a fairly easy explanation for this coincidence - because there is no such team. If a person belongs to power, then usually the security forces do not bother him, although they certainly document him so that at the right moment, if they receive a command...

By the way, there are also certain kinds of rumors about NABU. They say that NABU really does not take money. From the defendants, at least. However, it seems possible to reach an agreement in one of two ways. The first is to contact Bankova, and there a certain person will solve your problems.

Of course, you should not just be grateful, but very grateful. The second way is that you can donate to drones through UNITED24. This is what, for example, Zlochevsky did in the Burizma case and Ignatenko in the Ukrgaz case. But something tells me that just listing them is not enough.

Once again, these are rumors. But if they are at least partially true, then what will the increase in NABU personnel change? In terms of big things and results, I’m sure nothing. Those who go to the Office of the President and have good relations continue to work. Those who do not leave either leave the country or are in jail. That’s why neither Pyshny nor Rozhkova have problems with NABU. And not a single donation on UNITED24 will help the one who sent Ermak Shevchenko.

How can all this be prevented by an increase in personnel if the deputy chairman of the anti-corruption body regularly meets with the leadership of the advisory body (which has long become the executive body)?