In a meeting Friday, a group of opposition MPs urged the chief prosecutor to address the recent Pandora Papers and Slidstvo Info reports that exposed the Ukrainian president and his aides’ involvement in Privatbank money-laundering dealings.
With NABU, state anti-corruption agency, investigation underway, the MPs demand their official report on the alleged involvement of the Ukrainian president in the story should be made part of general Privatbank criminal case that saw the bank owners siphoning over $5 billion out of the country, said Artur Gerasymov.
The chief prosecutor was also pressed for answers on stalling investigation into failed Wagner mercenaries capture. The MPs asked Venediktova about the status of a ‘criminal complaint’ filed with the SBU by their fellow party member and former SBU general Viktor Konenko’ in relation to alleged disclosure of classified information by Zelensky and his to aides.
The sting operation staged by Ukrainian intelligence last year in Minsk fell through due to alleged information leak.
Gerasymov argued that Ukrainian law-enforcement agencies and a ‘quasi’ investigation by special parliamentary commission are ‘regretfully’ covering-up the scandal.
Another issue addressed in the meeting was the latest ‘anti-oligarchs’ law passed by the Verkhovna Rada.
Gerasymov said the law initiated by Zelensky was about ‘snatching up TV channels and fighting political rivals’, adding the MPs lodged an official complaint seeking to overturn the decision over alleged ‘fabrications’ that make the policy illegitimate.