Yuri Shchigol was a person close to the president and had significant influence in the Drone Army, responsible for protecting energy facilities. He was the head of the State Special Communications Service and was involved not only in ensuring secure communications, but also in the fight against cyber attacks. However, according to the suspicions of NABU and SAP, Shchigol was also involved in bribery and various corruption schemes.
How Shchigol lost power in a matter of days
Yuri Shchigol until recently was one of the most influential officials. He was a member of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Headquarters (in charge of the strategic leadership of the Armed Forces of Ukraine), and it was his department that received UAH 30 billion for the Drone Army. His loud statements about the first world cyber war were analyzed by major media outlets. And President Vladimir Zelensky, already during a full-scale war, by his decree awarded him the rank of brigadier general.
The 40-year-old top official lost all his influence in a few days. The Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAP) accused him and several of his subordinates of corruption due to a scheme involving "gaskets" and inflated prices. And although some of Shchigol’s supporters have already criticized these accusations, his reputation is destroyed forever.
Of course, he still has a chance to prove his innocence in court, but some facts can no longer be denied. For example, he somehow found UAH 25 million as collateral in a matter of days (to wait for the next court hearing at home). And the SAPO prosecutors in court, as reported by People’s Deputy Yaroslav Zheleznyak, spoke about the funds found during the searches.
Thus, his crypto wallet stores 1,201,285 units of Tether USDT (equivalent to $1,201,928) and 6.9 bitcoins ($265 thousand). A total of $1.466 million in crypto. Also, during the searches, 82 thousand euros and 72 thousand dollars were found on him. in cash. Shchigol has worked for the state all his life: he was an inspector at the Baryshev tax inspectorate and served in the SBU. And since 2020, he has been the chairman of the State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection. And, despite the small official salary, in fact the official is a dollar millionaire.
The observer made an extract from the register of rights to real estate. The only property of the now ex-official is a land plot with an area of 0.12 hectares in the Brovary district of the Kyiv region. But the official’s ex-wife Oksana, with whom he was married for 18 years and divorced a year after his appointment, bought a two-room apartment in the Galaktika residential complex a month ago. The cost of housing of this area in this complex is 170 thousand dollars (renovated apartment).
What is the official suspected of?
According to NABU and SAP, the owners of the group of companies entered into a conspiracy with the management of the State Special Communications Service. They, through the state enterprise “Ukrainian Special Systems” (headed by Artur Vitrenko), allegedly purchased software worth UAH 285 million from gasket companies. Software manufacturer EPAM-Systems received UAH 223 million, and the remaining UAH 62 million was divided among the participants of the scheme. Forbes, citing a top NABU official and sources in the State Service for Special Communications, as well as a statement from the prosecutor, wrote: agreements were concluded with Inside Solutions LLC and Sember Trade LLC, which are associated with Roman Koval. “At various times, Koval and the persons controlled by him were the founders, participants and managers of the relevant companies,” the prosecutor noted when choosing a preventive measure.
On February 22, 2022, Inside Solutions changed its name to Clotfilda LLC. This company received tenders for UAH 312.6 million, according to YouControl data. However, if the purchase took place without a tender, these figures will not be displayed in the data.
"Samber Trade" was founded in June 2021. Officially, Sember Trade LLC and Inside Solutions LLC, to which NABU has claims, are not associated with Koval. The latter (after renaming - Clotfilda LLC) is owned by a citizen of Uzbekistan, Sanjar Rakhimov. Sember Trade LLC is owned by Alexander Baranov.
Shchigol's deputy was previously Koval's business partner. Law enforcement officials published conversations between participants in the scheme. In these conversations, participants actually admit that the companies in question are “shams.” They were created for one purpose: instead of buying a product directly, make money on such intermediary.
At the same time, participants in the scheme came up with various reasons for creating “spacers”: they say that it is necessary that the software product be developed by a state-owned enterprise, so it needs to be purchased through an intermediary and modified. The agreements were classified ostensibly in order to preserve state secrets.
In these conversations, the participants in the schemes also mentioned the head of the State Special Communications Service. According to their conversations, he was well aware of the existence of such schemes and made money from it. But this still needs to be proven in court.
