BY
There are times when perspective, and therefore who frames issues first,
colour public perceptions in hues that mask the picture.
The Security Services of Ukraine (SBU) have hit the headlines in Ukraine
after the arrest of Gennady Korban, party leader of Ihor Kolomoisky’s Ukrop
Party and a man long associated with criminal gangs.
Mr Korban has been arrested and is being investigated under Article 349
of the Criminal Code: “capture or holding as a hostage of the representative
authorities (…) with the aim of encouraging State or another institution (…) to
commit or refrain from committing any action as a condition of release of the
hostage.
He has also been detained and is under investigation under Part 1
of Art. 255 (Establishment of a Criminal Group) and Article 191 Part 5
(Embezzlement). Whether these two latter charges have any merit remains
to be seen, although the investigation under Article 349 is not new.
The investigation into hostage taking/kidnapping related to an incident
from February 2014, whereby a receptionist was allegedly held hostage by Mr
Korban in an attempt to make the then Acting Mayor (Romanenko) of
Dnepropetrovsk resign. Ergo this particular charge relates to the
kidnapping of a State employee from Dnepropetrovsk City Hall almost 2 years
ago.
By 3rd March 2015 the investigation into this incident became known (or
at least widely rumoured), just prior to Ihor Kolomoisky’s removal as
Dnepropetrovsk Governor and the removal of Gennady Korban as Deputy Governor on
24th March 2015.
On 18th June 2015, Ihor Kolomoisky created the Ukrainian nationalist
orientated political party Ukrop, which Gennady Korban then became leader of.
The upshot being, whether the alleged offences under Articles 255 and
191 occurred prior to, or after the creation of the Ukrop and Mr Korban’s
assuming of the party leader role, the Article 349 incident and investigation
occurred long before the Ukrop Party was created to act as a political shield
for dubious activities of some then appointed officials within – no differently
in its “political” intent than the Hromada Party created by former-Prime
Minister and convicted money launderer Pavlo Lazarenko at the time.
Under his recently financed, more pro-Kremlin facaded “Renaissance
Party”, Ihor Kolomoisky has Mayor Kernes in Kharkiv. Mr Kernes, long
associated with organised crime in Kharkiv, is already under investigation, and
indeed is involved in currently on-going court hearings in Kharkiv relating to
kidnapping, torture and beating of “EuroMaidan” protesters in Kharkiv,
toegether with the alleged funding and organisation of those that carried out
such acts. He became a Renaissance candidate on 9th September 2015, long
after the investigations into his alleged involvement in such activities.
The deliberately glacial court verdict relating to Mr Kernes is due
sometime in early 2016. (Renaissance is led by Viktor Bondar, native of
Mr Kolomoisky’s Dnepropetrovsk.)
Next upon the list, if this be a purposeful and wide-ranging targeting
of the “political Kolomoisky” by Kyiv, would seem to be Mayor Gennady Trukhanov
in Odessa, another well known organised criminal whose associations are well
documented in this blog. (Indeed
only mentioned once again (in passing) a few days ago.)
Mayor Trukhanov presents a slightly different problem if he is next on
the “body Kolomoisky politic” hit list.
Unlike Korban and Kernes, he made
no public politically exceptionally poor judgments in 2014, perhaps due to the
fact he had already negotiated Kolomoisky funding for his campaign for Odessa
Mayor that May. No post-Maidan kidnapping or attributable financing of
anti-Maidan violence will be convincingly laid at his door – despite his
anti-EuroMaidan stance. Whilst he is certainly not the sharpest tool in
the toolbox – indeed he is a blunt instrument indeed – some of those he has
placed around him are far sharper. He is smart enough to know he is not
that smart. Directly hanging the rampant fraud and embezzlement within
City Hall upon him personally will be problematic – negligence would be far
easier but nowhere near as convincing as a method of removal for a recently
(probably) reelected Mayor.
To take down Mr Turkhanov with regard to his direct criminality would
probably require going back in history for anything serious and yet far simpler
to inextricably implicate him in. It would possibly be a matter of
raising the applicable bodies from the historical dead (although perhaps not
literally, despite there literally being bodies there that may be associated
either directly or via fellow organised criminals such as Mr Zhukov and his
company “Synthesis Oil of Ukraine” (UK registered) that operates (and more or
less controls) Odessa port. “Synthesis” is associated with Transcargo (also UK
registered) of Alexander “Angel” Angert – both of whom are directly associated
with Mayor Trukhanov, and it is of the Odessa Port mafia that Mayor Trukhanov
can be attributed.
Dodgy land deals in Arkadia involving “Lampochka” Galadilnik and
associated public funds misuse perhaps?
Mr Angert’s uncanny ability to win any and every City Hall tender his
ROST Group enter maybe?
Perhaps via Ruslan Bodelan who knows much of Mayor Trukhanov (and Mr
Angert from days of old and Captain Security, to the present day) and who will
be hoping nobody looks at his relationship with the City budget and Marine
Transport Bank transactions, off-shore companies, grubby and nefarious deals
(including BOW-Sintez Oil Ltd – BVI) and many more.
This is naturally the tip of the Trukhanov iceberg, there is so much to
go at, but how much would stand up in a court of law, how much is already
statute barred time-wise, and perhaps a key question, is there any need for
Kyiv to go after Mayor Trukhanov when quite clearly he and Governor Saakashvili
will inevitably go head to head without any encouragement from the centre
anyway?
Now that the local political landscape is set for the next 2 years
(discounting any early Verkhovna Rada elections), the Governor will undoubtedly
visibly and noisily go after the corrupt, so both Mayor Trukhanov and Sergei
Kivalov sit firmly in his sights – regardless of other intentions and grubby
deals made Kyiv.
With this pursuit of Kivalov and Trukhanov being almost a certainty
whether with, or perhaps importantly without Kyiv’s consent, the question
arises – How long before “Team Saakashvili” becomes a political
movement/faction and a party in its own right? – (Albeit one “aligned” with the
President.) How long before the continued obstructionism within Kyiv
forces the issue?
“Team Saakshvili”, if it materialises as a legitimate and lawful entity
consists now of the Governor of Odessa, the police chief, customs chief,
and prosecutor – but it will soon include the Oblast Rada Chairwoman (in
Maria Gaidar) and leader of the opposition in City Hall (Sasha Borovik).
Taking down Kivalov frees the courts, and leaves Trukhanov with “an offer
he can’t refuse” – be it resign, become nothing more than a figurehead
retaining the title of Mayor but otherwise powerless, or be pursued for his
organised criminality. “Coming on board” is unlikely to be an option for
the Saakashvili power play as trust and loyalty rank highly.
Questions there will be over the timing of the Korban arrest and
charges, particularly as the “anybody but Filatov” for Mayor of Dnepropetrovsk
campaign meant no known Solidarity candidate was placed to give the Opposition
Block a lift. The second round is now perhaps intended to smell of a
discredited Ukrop and by inference effect Mr Filatov. Unless matters
relating to statute-barred time lines forced the arrest of Koban now, there may
be some mileage in any inference of political expediency.
Mayor Kernes is already subject to judicial due process and may well be
in jail by Easter.
But does Kyiv need to go after Mayor Trukhanov when Governor Saakashvili
undoubtedly will (even if told to back off)?
Yet all of this politicking and expedient timing aside, the rule of law
requires action when criminality presents itself – and criminality there has
long been directly associated with those that Ihor Kolomoisky funds or creates
in politics – as Messrs Korban, Trukhanov and Kernes personify. Is there
ever a time when going after these people would not be seen as politically
expedient?
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