The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) on Sept. 15 said it had drafted bribery charges against Oleksandr Yurchenko, a lawmaker from President Volodymyr Zelenskyās Servant of the People party, and published evidence of the alleged bribery.
According to law, charges against Verkhovna Rada members must be approved by the prosecutor general. However, Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova said on the same day that there were no grounds for authorizing the charges because she had not seen evidence of bribery in the case materials she had been given.
Venediktova and the Prosecutor Generalās Office did not respond to requests for comment.
Vitaly Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Centerās executive board, said on Facebook that the passage of a law formally abolishing Verkhovna Rada membersā immunity from prosecution in 2019 was a meaningless ploy because a loyalist prosecutor general would always be able to block charges against lawmakers.
āZelensky and Servant of the People deceived us when they shouted about the abolition of lawmakersā immunity,ā Shabunin said. āThis is a lie. They made the situation worse than before. Now NABU canāt even investigate a lawmaker without the prosecutor generalās signature. Venediktova not only failed to authorize charges against Yurchenko, but even refused to open a criminal case against him.ā
Yurchenko said on Sept. 15 that he had left the Servant of the People faction. He did not respond to a request for comment.
āWe believe this decision is appropriate and hope that Mr. Yurchenko will fully cooperate with NABU and the Prosecutor Generalās Office to determine all the objective circumstances,ā the Presidentās Office said in a statement. āZelensky does not tolerate any manifestation of corruption.ā
NABU charges
NABU said that one of its undercover agents had taken part in an operation that revealed the bribery.
As part of the operation, the NABU agent claimed to represent an investor who wanted to build a solid waste processing factory to produce biomass that can be used as an alternative fuel in Ukraine.
Yurchenko, a member of the Radaās energy committee, and his intermediary, Ivan Fishchenko, proposed that the agent give them a bribe to introduce an amendment that would apply the āgreen tariffā ā a higher-than-average tariff for alternative energy bought by the state ā to biomass, according to NABU. The bureau published video and audio footage of conversations between the agent, Yurchenko and Fishchenko in July-September 2020.
Fishchenko was officially charged as an accomplice to bribery and arrested. His bail was set at Hr 1.5 million ($53,370). He denies the accusations of wrongdoing.
He told the NABU detective that he must give $3,000 to him and $10,000 to Yurchenko for submitting the amendment to the Rada, according to Whatsapp correspondence published by the bureau. Later the amendment was submitted.
NABU published video footage of the agent giving Fishchenko $13,000.
Afterwards, the agent, Fishchenko and Yurchenko also discussed a further bribe for ensuring that the committee and the Rada vote for the amendments. They referred to the monetary sum as ābunsā ā a term that Fishchenko explained in the recordings.
āWhat should I tell investors: I need to bake a certain number of buns with a certain filling for Sept. 10?ā the NABU agent asked.
āI think there will be a general banquet,ā Yurchenko said. āThis will be approximately more than 200 kilograms (an apparent reference to $200,000).ā
Fishchenko also said that Yurchenko was interested in receiving 3% of the biomass factoryās shares.
āI told you that Iām not interested in anything without this story,ā Yurchenko said. āI want a piece of this big pie.ā
Fishchenko also said that Andriy Gerus, head of the Radaās energy committee, had put Yurchenko in charge of the dealings that he discussed with the NABU agent.
Gerus denied this, telling the Kyiv Post that he had blocked Yurchenkoās amendments.
āThey were not supported by the committee,ā he said. āHence, a logical conclusion: Allegations that I delegated some dealings to him are complete nonsense.ā
Fishchenko also said that members of the energy committee had been given bribes worth $50,000 each for amendments involving wind energy. Yurchenko corrected him and said each committee member was supposed to be given an $80,000 bribe.
Fishchenko said it was better to ācorrupt 10ā committee members out of 18. Yurchenko added that two more members should be bribed in case of a force majeure ā for example, if commission members fail to attend the session.
Previous scandal
The Yurchenko case is not the fist corruption scandal in Zelenskyās administration.
In March, Geo Leros, then a lawmaker with the Servant of the People party, published videos that showed Zelenskyās chief of staff Andriy Yermakās brother Denys discussingĀ the sale of government jobs.
In April, Dmytro Shtanko and Serhii Shumsky, who claimed to be Denys Yermakās partners in the alleged scheme,Ā said in an interviewĀ with the Bihus.Info investigative journalism project that both Yermak brothers hadĀ received paymentsĀ from candidates for state jobs.
Previously, the Yermak brothers did not deny the authenticity of the videos, but Denys Yermak claimed they were taken out of context. Andriy Yermak also dismissed the accusations and lashed out at Leros, promising to sue him.
The Yermak brothersĀ have not been chargedĀ for alleged corruption, and Andriy Yermak remains on the job.
Zelensky supported Yermak and called Leros a fraud. On Sept. 1, Leros, who faces a criminal case for allegedly revealing a āstate secretā, was expelled from Servant of the People, while Shtanko wasĀ arrested in JulyĀ in a separate fraud case.