Right after the scandalous owner of Ukrbud, Maxim Mikitas, ended up in prison for an unsuccessful attempt to bribe the mayor of Dnipro, cynics said that his detention was just another show to make the electorate believe that the authorities’ permanent promises to fight corruption were at least a little correspond to reality.
The cynics, it seems, were right after all - after serving several months in a pre-trial detention center and being in the public spotlight several times, Maxim Mikitas was quietly released on bail at the end of July. Moreover, the amount of his bail was gradually reduced from the initial 100 million hryvnia to a modest twenty million, and he was brought to the last court hearing even without an escort, which everyone understood correctly - Mikitas’s fate was decided, his preventive measure would first be changed, and then the case would gradually be hushed up. The case has not yet been hushed up - too little time has passed since the attempt to give a “record bribe in the history of Ukraine,” as Mikitas’ attempt to bribe Boris Filatov for 22 million euros was dubbed. However, gradually everything is moving towards a logical conclusion.
At least this follows from the entire course of the case. On the surface lies a logically incomprehensible reduction in the size of the collateral - first it dropped to 80 million, then to forty, and then to twenty. However, under these changes, obvious to the outside eye, there is hidden a much greater intrigue and behind-the-scenes games, which we, it seems, will never know, but we can guess something.
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By the way, the amount of bribe offered by Mikitas Filatov for winning the competition for the construction of a metro in the Dnieper is not at all a record - he was ahead of him by the chairman of the Brovary Regional State Administration Nikolai Didenko, who back in 2008 “burned out” on 42 million dollars, trying to get for the allocation of land in his jurisdiction . So Mikitas, with his 22 million euros, looks a little pale compared to him. However, let us return to the case and those signs that confirm the forecasts of cynics, or more precisely, realists regarding the farce surrounding the Mikitas case.
Firstly, serving time in a pre-trial detention center is a common thing for him. The first time he got there was in 2019 for a scam involving apartments for the National Guard, which were built by Mikitas’ structures, and which ended up being owned by people who had nothing to do with the NSU. Then the story was about the same - Mikitas spent his “scheduled” time in a pre-trial detention center, then was released on bail, then the preventive measure was changed to house arrest, finally the case was actually collapsed, and Mikitas “compensated for the losses of NSU in the amount of 50 million hryvnia.” Although the damage caused in the case amounted to 81.64 million hryvnia, at the 2016 exchange rate, which in 2020, when Mikitas “compensated for losses,” was a completely different amount. The case is still being heard in the courts, but its prospects are clear to everyone.
However, Mikitas did not walk free for long - already on December 31, 2020, on charges of kidnapping lawyer Oleg Miroshnichenko, who was allegedly forced by people hired by Mikitas to write a promissory note for 800 thousand dollars and was then released. The high-profile detention ended quietly - after a few weeks the charge was reclassified to a less serious one and Mikitas was released.
Then everything went according to the usual scenario - the scandal died down, the case fell apart. However, the fact that the deputy head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Oleg Tatarov was involved in the case played a role here. Although Mikitas himself claimed that all his problems arose precisely because of his “framed” Tatarov.
The case is quite complicated, but after the person of Tatarov arose in it, Mikitas’s number of problems significantly decreased and he was reclassified under a much less serious article of the Criminal Code.
Secondly, crime and Mikitas are practically synonymous. We are talking about even such unpopular crimes among authoritative people as hooliganism. And this case in Mikitas’ biography is quite indicative in terms of how the issue should be “solved.” Mikitas fell under the “hooligan” after he beat up the head of the Lyubetsky village council during a session, bursting in as a people’s deputy and causing a scandal. However, the head contacted the police and, surprisingly, they opened a criminal case. However, Mikitas’s lawyers masterfully “dragged” it and, finally, it was closed “due to limitation.” True, the victim stated that he had no claims against Mikitas and did not file an appeal against the court decision. How the parties agreed is unknown, but the fact remains that the case was closed.
True, the victim stated that he had no claims against Mikitas and did not file an appeal against the court decision. How the parties agreed is unknown, but the fact remains that the case was closed.
Thirdly, the case itself with the most high-profile bribe in his biography has quite a lot of strange details and procedural violations, which, ultimately, will allow it to fall apart on completely legal grounds. In addition, it looks very much like Maxim Mikitas has reached an agreement with the one he calls his main enemy in power – Oleg Tatarov. And that is why procedural inconsistencies, which the court did not pay attention to before, for some reason became very important.
However, whether this is true or not is unknown. However, according to the latest data, companies from the orbit of Maxim Mikitas again began to receive significant orders from the state. Thus, on July 19, 2023, KP Kievavtodormost entered into an agreement with Komandor Company LLC to carry out emergency work to replace waterproofing on the South Bridge for 119.77 million hryvnia. Komandor Company LLC is a company from Mikitas orbit, and in recent months it has received almost 300 million orders from the capital.
The fact that Mikitas and Tatarov have reached an understanding is also evidenced by the fact that Maxim Mikitas is again regaining what he has lost in the capital’s construction market.
Details can be read here. However, all this indicates that the cynics who laughed at the loud show about the “record bribe” are quite right - the Mikitas case quite predictably turned into a farce, which only once again confirmed the depth of corruption into which our state has rapidly slipped in recent years. . And despite the fact that Maxim Mikitas personally plays a rather large role in this, he is at the same time one of the cogs in this corruption machine.
