Lozhkin Spotted Celebrating with Yanukovych’s ‘Mob Accountant’

Borys Lozhkin, the Head of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine, came to the birthday celebration of Yevhen Heller, a former leading member of Ukraine’s now outlawed Party of the Regions and a close political ally of former President Yanukovych. Mr. Heller continues to be an MP, now as a member of the ‘Vidrodzhennya’ [Eng.: ‘Renaissance’] group in the Verkhovna Rada. He is one of the key subjects of the investigation into the shady accounting books of the Party of the Regions, which Ukrayinska Pravda published this week [ed.: the text of this hyperlink is in the Russian language].

Mr. Lozhkin was spotted on a video by the ‘Skhemy’ [Eng.: ‘Schemes’] investigative show on Radio Svoboda [ed.: Ukrainian branch of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty]. Skhemy published video footage, which they shot during the VIP-celebration in the classy Lipsky Osobnyak [Eng: ‘The Lypsky Mansion’] restaurant on May 12, 2016.

The event attracted many Ukrainian politicians and business moguls, including Ihor Kolomoyskyi and Gennadiy Bogolyubov of Privat Group and Vadim Novinsky of Smart Holding — the main financial sponsor of the Opposition Bloc in the Verkhovna Rada.

According to the investigation of the shady accounting books of the Party of the Regions, in 2012, while Heller was the head of the party’s Budget Committee, a man with the last name ‘Heller’ and the same initials got $400,000 ‘for a business trip’, $160,000 for ‘getting new MPs for the coalition’ [ed.: the Party of the Regions was known to procure new members to its coalition via bribery and intimidation. The MPs, who left their original political platforms in the Verkhovna Rada to join the pro-Yanukovych coalition were known as ‘tushki’ [Eng.: ‘raw meat’] until 2014], $395,000 marked ‘Nasha Ukraina’ [Eng.: ‘Our Ukraine’], $500,000 marked ‘Central Elections Committee’, and $70,000 for ‘Zanevsky A.P.’ [‘Zanevsky’ is the last name of the former head of personal security of Victor Yanukhovych].

The largest sum: $1.42 million is marked ‘Apostol (Coalition)’. According to an investigation by Ukrayinska Pravda a total of $66 million was spent in the second half of 2012 via the shady accounting schemes of the Party of the Regions.

On May 30, 2016 the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine launched an official investigation based on the allegations of the former Deputy Chief of the SBU Victor Trepak. According to Mr. Trepak, the total amount of payments via the shady accounting schemes is close to $2 billion.