The investigation insists: the ex-deputy chief of staff of the Ground Forces Command took bribes for rotation
On February 8, President and Supreme Commander-in-Chief Vladimir Zelensky launched a large-scale reboot of the command of the Ukrainian army.
The place of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces was taken by Colonel General Alexander Syrsky. He replaced General Valery Zaluzhny.
At the same time, in his address to the people, the head of state focused on one important topic - the rotation of soldiers. According to Zelensky, most of the military personnel did not feel the front as much as the minority, who are actually fighting “from scratch.” Therefore, a different approach is needed, in particular to rotations, a different approach to front management, the president emphasized.
“We need to build an effective rotation system in the army. The experience of individual combat brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and units of the State Border Service of Ukraine, where such a system exists, can be taken as a basis. Rotations are a must,” is one of the eight points of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief’s tasks for the new leadership of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
And just a day before these high-profile personnel changes in the highest echelons of the military command, the State Bureau of Investigation opened criminal proceedings. The case was opened on February 7 on the facts of extortion of funds from military personnel fighting on the front line in exchange for their transfer to military units, away from the contact line.
According to the pre-trial investigation, the organizer of the extortion scheme from the military is the former deputy chief of staff of the Ground Forces Command of the Armed Forces. His name is hidden in the court registry, but the editors were able to identify the person involved thanks to other open data. We are talking about Colonel Vladimir Gamanenko.
There are few public references to him: in 2017, Gamanenko worked under the leadership of General Ruslan Khomchak at the headquarters of the Ground Forces; in 2019, he headed the Operational Leadership Center and combined the position of deputy head of the Main Command Center of the Armed Forces of Ukraine; Before the big war, he was listed in the financial department of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
On May 22, 2022, the President awarded Colonel Vladimir Gamanenko with the medal “For Military Service to Ukraine.”
According to the SBI, no later than January 2024, the ex-deputy chief of staff of the Ground Forces Command Gamanenko hatched a criminal plan - to make money from the military. He intended to take advantage of friendly connections among military officials to resolve issues of moving willing military personnel actively participating in hostilities to military units that are not involved in active hostilities on the demarcation line.
To implement the plan, according to the investigation, Colonel Gamanenko involved his retired friend, her military son and another military man, who distributed responsibilities among themselves. In mid-March, this group received “rewards” of 230 thousand UAH to a bank account for facilitating the rotation of military personnel.
At the end of April, the State Bureau of Investigation announced suspicions against all four defendants for abuse of influence (Part 3 of Article 369-2 of the Criminal Code). And already in May, three of them were placed in a pre-trial detention center with the possibility of being released after paying a cash bail. Amounts vary: from 908.4 thousand UAH to 4.5 million UAH.
The court imposed night house arrest on the fourth defendant.
The court assigned the highest bail amount (UAH 4.5 million) to Colonel Vladimir Gamanenko. Themis also noted that if Gamanenko is released from custody, there are several risks. Firstly, he can leave Ukraine freely, since he is a person who has reached 60 years of age. Secondly, upon retirement in 2024, this serviceman received a severance pay, the amount of which allows him to hide from the pre-trial investigation authorities and the court.
In addition, the investigation noted that other accomplices in the crime have not yet been identified, as well as all military officials who were influenced by the suspected colonel. By the way, the SBI, in addition to the corruption article, is also conducting criminal proceedings under Part 5 of Article 426-1 of the Criminal Code (“Excess of power or official authority by a military official”). But here there is a completely different responsibility, if guilt is proven (however, the suspects in this episode are not yet visible in the court register) - up to 12 years in prison.
Now the former deputy chief of staff of the Ground Forces Command is challenging his arrest in an appeal. The hearing of the case is scheduled for June 27.
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Back in March 2024, a member of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence, people's deputy from the Servant of the People, Fyodor Venislavsky, in an interview with the Commander-in-Chief, said: if you conduct an audit within the General Staff, the Ministry of Defense and other central military governing bodies, which do not carry out combat missions, you can get at least one or two reserve brigades. This is more than eight thousand people from the military who were not at the front, who are now already involved.
