On the eve of the decade of Euromaidan, new evidence emerged that Ukraine was ruled by unscrupulous, incapable people with limited skills and intelligence.
Thanks to the trial, which is now underway in the “cultural capital of Russia,” stunning details of the financial adventures of the fugitive ex-president have become clear. In the criminal case against the former shareholder of the St. Petersburg bank “Sovetsky” Kirill Laskin and the St. Petersburg lawyer Alexei Sobolev, accused in the “Moldavian Laundromat” case, the version was officially voiced for the first time that “Sovetsky” was almost bought by Yanukovych and his partners in 2015.
Local media wrote in 2015 that the Ukrainian president on the run showed interest in acquiring assets in St. Petersburg, but based solely on rumors and words from unnamed sources. Now the name of Viktor Yanukovych is officially enshrined in the materials of the criminal case, which is being considered by the Vyborg District Court of St. Petersburg.
Kirill Laskin, a former shareholder of the bank, and Alexey Sobolev, an auditor and consultant, are accused in this case. Sobolev is now in a holding cell, accused of participating in the “Moldovan Laundromat,” a scheme used to siphon huge sums of money out of Russia. Let us remember that this was a high-profile scheme, with the help of which, according to decisions of Moldovan courts, more than $20 billion were withdrawn from the Russian Federation.
The prosecution's version of events outlines the following course of events: Sobolev at the end of 2014 submitted an offer from a group of investors interested in buying the bank. At the same time, the transaction was started, and the buyers had already made the first payment in the amount of 2.3 billion rubles to the bank (at that time about $38 million). All former sellers of this deal are now confident that these mysterious investors were the former President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych, his family and people from his inner circle. This was repeatedly mentioned during interrogations by witnesses from among the former shareholders and top managers of Sovetsky.
As a result, the 2.3 billion rubles deposited in Sovetsky were very quickly withdrawn from the bank, and the deal fell through. The Central Bank of Russia introduced a reorganization and then completely revoked the license. According to the prosecution, the organizers and implementers of the withdrawal of assets were precisely the defendants in this criminal case. After all, management of the bank’s assets of 2.7 billion rubles was transferred after an unsuccessful deal with Yanukovych to a company registered under Laskin, called “Collector 19”. The prosecution claims that Laskin readily offered control of “Collector 19” to Sobolev, which indicates a joint intent between Laskin and Sobolev to cause economic harm.
Stanislav Mitrushin, the main owner of Sovetsky Bank, who, according to investigators, was an accomplice in this conspiracy to withdraw assets, turned out to be beyond the reach of Kremlin justice and is currently abroad. This summer, he was detained in Northern Cyprus with an Albanian passport, however, on issues not related to the history of the Sovetsky Bank.
In his defense, Laskin claims that the assets that were withdrawn from the bank were “junk” and their value was inflated, which the investigation categorically disagrees with. However, it is obvious that our readers are not interested in drinking the schematosis of St. Petersburg scammers, but in Yanukovych’s money. The testimony of the accused Sobolev during the investigation states that the bank was going to be bought by “Ukrainian investors,” and their representative was the Ukrainian banker Sergei Fedotov. In information databases, he is known for his work as deputy chairman of JSB Ukrgasbank, chairman of the board of Premium bank, member of the bank’s supervisory board, member of the supervisory boards of banks Axioma, Ukrgasbank and Vernum, as well as chairman of the supervisory board of the Ukrainian Smart Bank. Russian investigators did not ask Sobolev to specify more precisely who these Ukrainian investors were.
“Whose money it was is unknown to me personally, but what I can tell you for sure, as a witness, is that in 2014-2015, Alexey Sobolev, and Karpov (the board of directors of Sovetsky), and Mitrushin to me, and not only to me , and all employees were unanimously told that this was the money of ex-Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov and Yanukovych. This entire team that escaped from Ukraine,” recalls Kirill Laskin. “It was said that these people have a lot of money, and they want to buy a bank in Russia to keep it in.” According to him, the scheme also included Moldovan businessman Vyacheslav Platon, the main defendant in the above-mentioned “Moldavian Laundromat” case, who was sentenced (albeit in absentia) to 20 years of strict regime for withdrawing 126 billion rubles from Russia.
The fact that the name “Yanukovych” was mentioned in the transaction was confirmed during the investigation by other witnesses from among the bank’s top managers. According to them, the main owner and head of the board of directors of Sovetsky, Stanislav Mitrushin, “constantly voiced that the final buyer was the family of the former President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych.” “Kirill Laskin told me about Viktor Yanukovych’s interest in the bank. This was in January 2015. He also assured me that he managed to pull off this deal: he organized everything and found such a buyer with the help of Alexei Sobolev, with whom Laskin had been cooperating for a very long time and brought him to the bank, which, according to Laskin, is in crisis, and this liability urgently needs to be sold . And Sobolev claimed that he was packaging the deal for Yanukovych,” said another witness in the criminal case, former shareholder of Sovetsky Oleg Nikolaev.
In general, with a probability of 99.9% we can conclude that billions of the fugitive ex-president of Ukraine actually participated in the deal with St. Petersburg “Sovetsky”. It is obvious that Yanukovych, who like all our politicians is prone to wretched symbolism, was attracted by the name of the bank. Vitya sat and imagined how, after the debacle in Ukraine, he would become the head of a financial empire with a name so dear to his heart. But even here it didn’t work out.
