Head of President's Office tells Zelenskyy that oligarch Kolomoiskyi may be behind corruption scandals in Ukraine – UP sources

Sources have told Ukrainska Pravda that Andrii Yermak, Head of the President's Office, has been trying to convince Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Ihor Kolomoiskyi may have been behind the corruption issues that have beset the authorities since the Operation Midas revelations.

Source: Ukrainska Pravda article Mindichgate: one week on from the corruption scandal, what's going on in the government? (English translation coming soon)

Details: Several sources in the government and the President's Office said that Yermak has been telling Zelenskyy that Kolomoiskyi, an oligarch who has been held in a Security Service pre-trial detention centre for three years now, may be behind the problems that have hit the authorities over the past week.

"Find an enemy so you don't have to take the blame – that's one of the Office's favourite tactics," sources close to the President's Office have said.

Meanwhile, Kolomoiskyi himself has been weighing in on Mindichgate during court hearings, calling Mindich a "scapegoat" who "isn't cut out to be a mafia boss".

Numerous political insiders have told Ukrainska Pravda that the leadership's main concern is whether Yermak might be charged in the course of the investigation into Mindich's criminal organisation.

Quote from a source in Zelenskyy's team: "Everyone inside the system understands exactly who was behind the attack on NABU [the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine] in July.

If they hadn't started that, if they hadn't made a mess of things, if they hadn't then gone after Klymenko [Head of the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office] instead of calming down, this whole Midas story wouldn't have come out for a year or so – and not like this.

It would have been business as usual: some people would have been quietly dismissed, some quietly charged, and that would have been it.

But because of that attack, NABU had no choice but to make this scandal public. So everyone understands who really created this mess."

Background:

• On 10 November, NABU reported that it had uncovered a large-scale corruption scheme in the energy sector and posted audio recordings of conversations between the people involved. Prior to this, Ukrainska Pravda sources said that NABU had conducted searches at the homes of Tymur Mindich and then Justice Minister Herman Halushchenko. Ukrainska Pravda sources also stated that Mindich left Ukraine hours before the searches.
• On 11 November, journalists identified all the individuals implicated in the large-scale investigation into corruption at Energoatom who have been formally notified of suspicion by NABU. An investigative reporting project by Skhemy found that notices of suspicion have been served on Tymur Mindich (referred to as "Karlsson" on the NABU tapes), former adviser to the energy minister Ihor Myroniuk ("Rocket"), Energoatom's executive director for security Dmytro Basov ("Tenor"), Oleksandr Tsukerman ("Sugarman"), Ihor Fursenko ("Roshyk"), Lesia Ustymenko and Liudmyla Zorina.
• Five of the suspects have been detained. Two – Mindich and Tsukerman – have left Ukraine.
• Basov, Myroniuk, Fursenko, Ustymenko and Zorina have been assigned pre-trial restrictions with the option of bail. It later emerged that the High Anti-Corruption Court has received bail payments for Lesia Ustymenko and Liudmyla Zorina, the two back-office employees involved in laundering funds linked to Energoatom.
• On the morning of 12 November, Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko announced that Herman Halushchenko had been suspended as justice minister following NABU's high-profile investigation into corruption at Energoatom.
• On 13 November, Zelenskyy enacted a decision by the National Security and Defence Council (NSDC) to impose sanctions against businessman Tymur Mindich – co-owner of Kvartal 95 Studio and an associate of the president – and businessman Oleksandr Tsukerman.

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