The head of the OVA, who issued personal “passes” to Gladkovsky, is already dead
On March 20, 2024, the Kiev District Administrative Court quietly got rid of the case with the well-known toxic plaintiff. First Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council in 2015-2019 Oleg Gladkovsky himself asked Themis to leave his application without consideration. He sued the Western Regional Directorate of the State Border Service for more than a year over a ban on leaving Ukraine. And suddenly he changed his mind about defending his rights.
Why an influential top official from the Poroshenko era changed his mind about defending his rights, one can only guess. The most obvious assumption is that he solved his problem in other ways. However, Gladkovsky’s story is a vivid illustration of how officials and people close to power left the country without problems at a time when ordinary citizens had restrictions imposed by martial law.
Over the past two years, “Glavkom” has released a series of publications about how dodgers used the “Shlyakh” system as a “loophole.” It allows men of military age to cross the state border for volunteer or humanitarian purposes.
But there is one “but”... A year ago, parliament admitted: almost 20 thousand men who left Ukraine as volunteers and did not return. True, these statistics could be underestimated, since government institutions hide complete information. The Temporary Investigative Commission of the Verkhovna Rada, which verified the use of humanitarian and other aid for its intended purpose, and the “Commander in Chief” himself, who sent inquiries to the regional military administrations, were convinced of this.
“The efficiency of the Shlyakh system is 50/50. A volunteer sits abroad for a month, resolves his own issues, including health and recreation, and then brings a small amount of humanitarian aid,” an official from one of the military administrations noted to “Commander-in-Chief.”
This is exactly how, at the beginning of the invasion, Oleg Gladkovsky, an outstanding figure from the time of Poroshenko, a business partner of the fifth president and the first deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council during his reign, fell into the “traveling” caste.
Oleg Gladkovsky (in 2014 he changed his surname from Svinarchuk to his mother’s surname – Gladkovsky) on the eve of the 2019 presidential elections got into a mega-corruption scandal that could have cost Petro Poroshenko a second presidential term. According to a journalistic investigation by Bihus.info, in the defense industry, which was supervised by First Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Oleg Gladkovsky, there was a scheme for the supply of smuggled Russian parts at inflated prices, where the organizer was Gladkovsky’s 22-year-old son Igor. And the top official of the National Security and Defense Council allegedly at least once received $30 thousand in kickbacks from this scheme.
Since 2021, Oleg Gladkovsky has been in the dock. He is accused of abusing his position in the defense procurement of off-road trucks at inflated prices. The amount of losses to the state is UAH 17.4 million.
In July 2022, journalists spotted Gladkovsky in Warsaw leaving the five-star Radisson hotel. The reason for the man’s travel was precisely a humanitarian mission, the media wrote, citing their sources in the State Border Service.
However, towards the end of the summer of 2022, Oleg Gladkovsky clearly broke the pot with influential people who issued him “foreign passes.” Because at the end of July - beginning of August of the same year, trouble happened to him: border guards forbade him to leave Ukraine. For more than a year, the former top official proved his case in court. And suddenly, in March 2024, he changed his mind and asked Themis to leave his own statement of claim without consideration.
The “Commander in Chief” tried to directly ask the plaintiff himself why he changed his mind about defending his rights. Gladkovsky's assistant said that the chief is not currently giving comments to the media. She also refused to disclose Gladkovsky's whereabouts. At the same time, according to the editorial sources, a month ago Oleg Gladkovsky was in Kyiv.
The defendant’s lawyer, Vasily Vityuk, in a conversation with “Glavkom” also noted that he was not authorized to give any comments on this matter.
Meanwhile, the editors have obtained documents that not only confirm Gladkovsky’s unhindered travels in the first half of 2022 and explain the reasons for such trips, but also indicate that during the war the famous figure was generally declared unfit for military service. This decision was made by the Obukhovsky District TsK of the Kyiv Region.
Volunteered and... home. The story of one order
On May 30, 2022, the then head of the Kherson regional military administration, Gennady Laguta (died in September 2023 from drug poisoning - “Commander in Chief”) issued an order granting permission to travel outside Ukraine. The document contained only one last name – Oleg Gladkovsky.
“For the purpose of transporting medical cargo and humanitarian aid across the state border of Ukraine by road vehicles for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the needs of the humanitarian headquarters of the Kherson region,” this was the official reason for the former top official’s departure from Ukraine.
The permit was valid until June 30. Separately, Laguta ordered that information about Gladkovsky’s departure be entered into the Shlyakh system.
12 days before his resignation, the head of the Kherson regional military administration issued Oleg Gladkovsky a new permit to leave Ukraine. This time until July 31, 2022.
As “Glavkom” found out, it was according to this document that Gladkovsky wanted to leave on July 21. But at the Tisa checkpoint in Chop, he was turned away by border guards. And they confiscated from the ex-official a temporary certificate of a person liable for military service and a certificate from the military medical commission. At the same time, a border guard worker noticed that he was handing over Gladkovsky’s documents to an employee of the State Bureau of Investigation. The investigation even conducted a forensic technical examination of the military ID and the certificate of the military medical commission issued to Gladkovsky, the results of which are unknown.
“Gennady Laguta (July 9, 2022 – “Commander in Chief”) was just fired, and a call came from the President’s Office: “Why is Svinarchuk skating?” When Laguta’s order was raised, it was confirmed: Gladkovsky-Svinarchuk traveled abroad through the “Shlyakh” system,” an interlocutor in the Kherson Regional Military Administration told “Commander-in-Chief.”
After an unsuccessful attempt to leave Ukraine, Oleg Gladkovsky did not lose hope and took another risk. But he suffered another setback. On August 9, 2022, the head of the group of border control inspectors, Senior Lieutenant Ivan Tisovsky, refused in writing to Gladkovsky to cross the state border.
As it turned out later, the SBI also seized from Gladkovsky a certificate from the military medical commission of the Obukhovsky regional territorial center for recruitment and social support, which declared him unfit for military service. The document is dated August 3, 2022. In addition, Gladkovsky was excluded from military registration.
Gladkovsky's son is in Spain?
Like Gladkovsky Sr., his son Igor is also involved in a high-profile corruption story, and he also left the country without any problems. According to media reports, on June 2, 2022, a hearing in the case of Igor Gladkovsky was supposed to take place in the Solomensky District Court of Kyiv, but the young man did not attend it. The defendant informed Themis in writing that it was impossible for him to be in the capital, since he was abroad “due to official needs.”
On June 28 of the same year, Gladkovsky Jr. again failed to appear in court. In the petition, he asked for a videoconference “in connection with the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine and the martial law.”
Already on October 31, 2023, the investigation put Igor Gladkovsky on the wanted list, and the criminal case in which he is a suspect is being considered without his participation.
As the “Commander in Chief” learned, in January 2024, when the court arrested Gladkovsky Jr. in absentia, his defense lawyer said at the hearing: on March 16, 2022, Igor Gladkovsky left Ukraine. Now he is under consular registration abroad. At the same time, the defense argued that their client was ready to participate in investigative actions via video conference. And then he informed: during the full-scale invasion, Igor Gladkovsky supported the Ukrainian Armed Forces by transferring a number of cars, as well as 10 million UAH, which he had previously paid as bail for his father.
According to media reports, Igor Gladkovsky may live in Marbella (Spain). As investigative journalists previously found out, Igor’s father Oleg Gladkovsky had a villa in this municipality.
Let us remind you that in Ukraine Igor Gladkovsky is suspected of a number of corruption articles of the Criminal Code. In particular, under Part 5 of Article 191 of the Criminal Code, Gladkovsky Jr. is charged with participation in an organized group involving officials of the Ministry of Defense, which in 2015-2018 seized funds from the state budget and state enterprises in the amount of approximately 250 million UAH.
