New head of NAPC Pavluschik, who he is: from the SBU Academy to the Knyazev case

On Sunday evening, a new head of the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption was elected. Unexpectedly for many, it was NABU detective Viktor Pavluschik, for whom all members of the commission voted unanimously. But NAPC Deputy Chairman Dmitry Kalmykov, whom many saw as the favorite, received only three votes of support.

On February 24 and 25, the commission held the last interviews, where candidates had to present their vision of the work of the NACP and their first steps.

As you know, out of 64 candidates who applied for the competition, the following made it to the finals:

Andrei Vishnevsky is a former deputy chairman of the NAPC, who was fired by Novikov due to the fact that he single-handedly withdrew one of the documents on the anti-corruption program from consideration by the Cabinet of Ministers. At the same time, opponents of bill 5655 have repeatedly accused Vishnevsky of the fact that, partly because of his inaction, this bill was not stopped.

Sergei Gupyak is known to readers as one of the finalists in the competition for director of NABU. Now he is the head of the territorial department of the State Bureau of Investigation in Khmelnitsky.

Dmitry Kalmykov is the deputy head of NAPC, who was behind his back called one of the favorites of the competition. Until February 25, head of the anti-corruption policy department of the NACP.

Ekaterina Kapluk is a former investigative journalist who worked as an adviser to the head of NAPC Alexander Novikov and chief specialist in the department for monitoring the lifestyle of officials.

Vitaly Nikulin is a representative of the Commissioner for Human Rights in places of detention, and previously worked as a lawyer.

Viktor Pavluschik - senior detective - head of the detective department of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine.

Alexander Skomarov is the head of the Second Division of NABU detectives. Participated in the competition for director of NABU and head of SAPO. His sister was involved in the case of Vadim Alperin.

Alexander Starodubtsev is the Deputy Chief of Staff of the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption.

Sergey Stepanyan is a SAPO prosecutor, now the head of the anti-corruption department of the Ministry of Defense.

Artem Khavanov is the Commissioner for Anti-Corruption Activities of Ukreximbank. Before that, from 2020 to 2022, he was the head of the anti-fraud department at METINVEST HOLDING LLC. In 2020, he was the head of the Compliance office at UkrOboronProm. And even earlier, from 2017 to 2020, he was the head of the anti-corruption program at Naftogaz.

Considering the publications in the press, Andrei Vishnevsky and Dmitry Kalmykov were considered the most likely candidates to win the competition.

Some political experts even wrote about some inside information from meetings where Vishnevsky was guaranteed victory. And the second was supposedly Kalmykov. At the same time, for some reason, both were associated with Artem Sytnik and his influence on the competition committee.

During the interviews, Vishnevsky looked quite confident and spoke to the point. In particular, at the last interview he promised to abandon sanctions work and increase the forces involved in analyzing declarations.

“According to my information, currently 11 thousand special inspections are overdue by the NACP due to a lack of human resources. There is also a problem with the call center - I don’t want to give this figure because I don’t want to damage the reputation of NAPC - there a significant number of calls go unanswered. Calls regarding declaration and financial control. And NAPC has a resource, according to my calculations, this is at least 32 staff units, which today are engaged in functions that are not characteristic of NAPC, or there is some kind of duplication,” Vishnevsky noted.

But regarding the sanctions lists, Vishnevsky noted that this work, of course, cannot be thrown into the trash, but after consultations with the government, it must be transferred to someone else, because these are not the functions of the NACP. “Because by its nature, this work involves intervening in markets. Because when an international company is included in this list, it leads to a change in the value of its shares and reputational losses,” the candidate noted.

At the same time, some noticed that Vishnevsky was not much tormented by questions about property.

Who would definitely not be happy with Vishnevsky’s appointment is his former boss, Alexander Novikov, who fired him for an unauthorized decision to withdraw one of the NACP documents from the Cabinet of Ministers.

By the way, it is possible that already on February 27, Vishnevsky will be able to be reinstated in this position through the court.

Another favorite was Dmitry Kalmykov. Moreover, this candidate had a good relationship with Novikov, and therefore some of the author’s interlocutors even assumed that then Novikov would have retained shadow influence on NAPC.

However, all the conspiracy theories began to wobble already at the beginning of the voting.

In order for a candidate to win, he had to get 3 votes from international members of the commission and one Ukrainian.

If this was not successful the first time, then the candidates who received international votes moved on to the next round.

But already from the first vote, Vishnevsky left the competition.

Not a single member of the commission supported his candidacy.

The second surprise was that three government commission members voted for Sergei Gupyak. As you know, this is the head of the State Bureau of Investigation’s territorial directorate, who last year was among the three finalists in the competition for the director of NABU. However, despite the recommendations of Denis Shmygal, Semyon Krivonos did not appoint him as his deputy.

The second surprise is that Dmitry Kalmykov received the support of only foreign members of the commission.

Also, thanks to the votes of international experts, Alexander Starodubtsev from NAPC and Alexander Skomarov got into the second final vote.

Based on the number of votes, it was obvious that the main competitors would now be Kalmykov and Pavluschik.

In the second round of voting, Gupyak received only two votes from Cabinet members of the commission. Kalmykov again received only 3 international votes.

But Pavluschik received the votes of all members of the commission.

What is known about the new head of NAPC? He was born in Vinnytsia region, graduated from the SBU Academy. In 2008-2015 he served in the SBU. In 2015, in the first wave, he became a NABU detective.

Works in the department that investigates cases of judges. He worked on the cases of the OASC and the most resonant case of last year on the detention of the Chairman of the Supreme Court Knyazev.

Last year he already participated in the competition for the position of director of NABU, but did not reach the finals.

Then the commission members became interested in the fact that the price of one of the apartments was four times lower than the market price. To this, the candidate noted that there is no way to evaluate the property, because he is not a specialist in this field.

“In 2005, I was 19 years old, I lived “in the barracks” at the National Academy of the SBU. Regarding the market or non-market price, I asked my parents this question, they said that it was the actual value,” the candidate answered then.

Most of the questions concerned his girlfriend and brother, who also worked at NABU. And will there be a conflict of interest here if he wins? The candidate replied that they had already quit.

Now Pavluschik lives with Tatyana Vodopyanova, who, according to the candidate, was a senior detective at NABU until January 2023. And then she went to work at the UN food office.

Some of the questions at the competition for the director of NABU were about the property of the Vodopyanova family, as well as why her mother went to Moscow in 2020.

Now the candidate has filed a declaration for 2022, where he indicated 1.4 million UAH of income and the right to use an apartment in Kyiv. He also owns a 2014 Toyota Camry. The candidate's sons had temporary housing in Romania under the temporary protection program.

At the same time, for 2022, the candidate did not declare any cash savings, like Tatyana Vodopyanova - neither in cash nor in a bank account.

At the same time, for 2023, Viktor Pavluschik indicated that he keeps $8,500 in cash and has 17.8 thousand UAH in his bank account, and Tatyana Vodopyanova has $7,460 in the bank, $3,000 in cash and 82 thousand UAH in bank account, recalls the Forensic Legal Newspaper.

The publication also indicated that in addition to participating in the competition for the chair of directors of NABU and NAPC, Viktor Pavluschik also submitted his candidacy as a candidate for the High Council of Justice under the quota of President Vladimir Zelensky.

In his motivation letter as a candidate for the head of NAPC, Pavluschik wrote that his “first aspiration as head of the NAPC team will be to preserve and improve the work of the agency, support and increase the economic and social impact of its activities, as well as maximize the level of public trust.”

“I consider it necessary to devote a significant part of my work as the head of such a body to working with personnel. The NAPC team must be united, strong and motivated to work towards a common goal. To do this, I see it as necessary to implement a number of tools to increase motivation and strengthen the team spirit of employees: constant training and advanced training, taking measures to prevent burnout, maintaining and developing activities for preventive, explanatory and educational work among employees, etc.” - noted the winner of the competition.

As the author’s sources say, it may be very difficult for Pavluschik to work with the team. Because, at least by former employees, the team was very united around the previous head and is unkindly called the “Novikov sect.”

Pavluschik received the first reaction to his appointment literally a couple of minutes after the vote. Deputy head of NAPC Kalmykov reported on Facebook that he submitted his resignation.