The first victim of disabled prosecutors

“Enrollment” could jeopardize the future career of Bankova’s former favorite

The corruption story, impressive even by Ukrainian standards, with dozens of prosecutors with disability certificates who administered justice in the Khmelnitsky region for years, cost Prosecutor General Andrei Kostin his chair. Although in the case of Kostin it would be more correct to say that he had long been in the status of “on suitcases”, and the sad Khmelnytsky “anecdote” with disabled people only accelerated the resignation of the Prosecutor General. And only because this story greatly outraged the “deep people”, who often have to go through all the circles of hell in order to receive the status of a disabled person, having every reason for this.

“I consider the position of the President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky to be absolutely correct: not only should all unlawful decisions on granting disability, corresponding pension and other accruals be cancelled, there should not only be clear legislative and organizational changes, but also personal responsibility. Including political responsibility,” Kostin said at parting and thanked the president for his trust. Although a few days ago he did not mention his resignation amid the scandal, but announced a large-scale investigation and the creation of a working group of international experts. Subsequently, Zelensky himself announced the political responsibility of the Prosecutor General for the situation in the prosecutor’s office.

Kostin headed the Office of the Prosecutor General for more than two years (since July 28, 2022). There have been talks for a long time that he will be transferred to a new job - either to the Constitutional Court, or to the International Criminal Court, or sent somewhere as an ambassador. But, like all personnel changes in power, these plans were constantly postponed.

Therefore, it is not clear how long Kostin would have continued to be in the building on Reznitskaya Street if such “fuck-ups” by his subordinates had not surfaced. Already the former regional prosecutor of Khmelnytskyi region, Alexey Oleinik, quite seriously stated that he received an industrial injury while studying the case materials. But the fact that many of Kostin’s subordinates registered for themselves fictitious disabilities during the previous government did not become an indulgence for the leader.

Before joining the Prosecutor General’s Office, Kostin was a people’s deputy from the second hundred of the Servant of the People list, who rose to chair the legal policy committee. He did not hide the fact that he was brought into the power team by the head of the Presidential Office, Andrei Ermak, with whom he had been communicating for many years. It is interesting that before becoming Prosecutor General, Kostin failed to pass the competition for the head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office. Although he was nominated to the SAPO as an unspoken “candidate from the government,” his candidacy was “cut down” by public organizations due to suspicions of dishonesty. But the parliamentary hall had no complaints about the new prosecutor general: Kostin’s candidacy was supported by 299 people’s deputies on July 27, 2022.

The previous Prosecutor General Irina Venediktova was then dismissed with not very nice wording. President Vladimir Zelensky simultaneously replaced the Prosecutor General and the head of the SBU (Ivan Bakanov), citing the fact that too many collaborators and traitors to the Motherland were discovered in these two bodies. The real reason for Venediktova’s resignation, according to rumors, was her conflict with the head of the Presidential Office, who was dissatisfied with her excessive media activity, in particular on the prisoner exchange track.

Scandals and troubles

If Bankova expected that Kostin would be more modest than Venediktova in his public appearances, then in this regard he apparently did not disappoint his patrons. But the “invisible” prosecutor general was not without scandals.

Thus, journalists learned that last year Kostin spent more than a hundred days on business trips abroad, half of which were in the United States, where his wife lives. The Office of the Prosecutor General assured that in fact the time he spends abroad, minus the round trip, is half as much, and Kostin did not travel to the States for family matters, but as a member of the official delegation from Ukraine to the UN General Assembly.

Defending the chief, the Office of the Prosecutor General also listed his achievements in office: in particular, obtaining arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court of Vladimir Putin and the Russian Ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova; signing of an agreement and opening of the office of the International Criminal Court in Kyiv; promoting at the international level the issue of creating a Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression; confiscation of assets of Russian oligarchs in the United States; creation of an Advisory Group on International Crimes, and so on. Like, it’s not in vain that so many people travel abroad.

But Kostin’s daughter Anastasia did not hide the fact that she was abroad on a permanent basis. Of course, it was impossible to make a complaint to her on this matter, but Anastasia somewhat shocked the war-exhausted Ukrainians with her “suffering” in European countries far from her home - Monaco. At the same time, Kostin’s daughter, even when he headed the legal policy committee, was an assistant to the deputy from the Servant of the People Andrei Zadorozhny.

Realizing that such revelations raised questions for her high-ranking dad, Anastasia was forced to make excuses for the joke “for friends” and assure that she did not have a “luxurious and carefree life.”

This summer, the Office of the Prosecutor General was rocked by a scandal that concerned not Kostin directly, but one of his deputies, a fellow countryman from Odessa, Dmitry Verbitsky. An investigation into the “Schemes” project showed that Verbitsky’s girlfriend Kristina Ilnitskaya leads a luxurious lifestyle - she was found to have an elite Porsche car and a three-story cottage in Kyiv worth a total of 52 million UAH.

Ilnitskaya’s official income (360 thousand UAH over the last ten years) clearly did not allow her to make such purchases, and Verbitsky denied involvement in their financing.

Kostin was summoned to the Verkhovna Rada to give explanations regarding the origin of his deputy’s fortune (where he did not appear), and NABU opened criminal proceedings regarding the possible illegal enrichment of Verbitsky. Kostin initially refused to remove his controversial deputy, but as a result he was forced to fire him. After this, the NACP identified signs of a corruption criminal offense in the actions of Verbitsky for almost 29 million UAH.

This is not the only case when Kostin was in no hurry to hand over “his own”. So in 2022, he refused to open a case regarding the possible illegal enrichment of his former colleague, People’s Deputy Irina Allahverdieva, regarding her possible illegal enrichment. And he did this only after the Supreme Anti-Corruption Court ordered him to do this (the other day the people’s deputy was served with suspicion).

The story of the celebration of the Day of Prosecutor's Office Workers on December 1 last year ended in nothing. Journalists filmed a caravan of visitors to the Prosecutor General's Office with an endless wave of packages and gifts. Kostin promised to conduct an official investigation into this matter and take appropriate measures, but nothing is still known about its results.

A more recent episode concerns a former “servant” and another deputy from the Odessa region - a lover of the Moscow Church Artem Dmitruk. The Prosecutor General's Office had been planning to serve him with suspicion for so long that they waited until he fled abroad. Kostin’s reaction to this trouble has become almost a meme. “My outrage is even greater than that of society!” — the Prosecutor General demonstrated his feelings.

Now the successors will take care of closing this and other “tails” - a behind-the-scenes struggle is already unfolding for the vacant seat. As for Kostin himself, despite his long-standing friendship with Ermak, his future career in power is in question. Although just recently the number of places where Kostin was wooed made my eyes wide open.

For example, the current Ambassador of Ukraine to the Netherlands, Alexander Karasevich, is being considered for the position of deputy in the team of the new Minister of Foreign Affairs, Andriy Sibiga. Kostin’s candidacy for this potentially vacant position, as a person who does not need to be brought up to date with the trial against the aggressor in The Hague, would be logical. However, everything is spoiled by the stigma with which he was fired from his previous job - “political responsibility.” Will it be possible to turn a blind eye to him in future employment? At least Venediktova, who after the Prosecutor General’s Office was appointed ambassador to Switzerland, did not have such a “labor record”...