The two independent—as opposed to government-appointed—board members released a statement describing their position on Kudrytskyi’s ousting.
“On Sept. 2, the Supervisory Board held an extraordinary meeting at the initiative of CEO Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, who presented a report on protecting high-voltage transmission facilities during Russian attacks and the media situation surrounding the company,” the message reads.
“During the meeting, a majority of the Supervisory Board decided to terminate Volodymyr Kudrytskyi's powers as CEO by mutual agreement.”
"Today, Sept. 3, we submitted our written notices of early resignation as members of the company's Supervisory Board. We believe that the decision to dismiss Ukrenergo's CEO was politically motivated and, based on the report presented, has no justified grounds.”
Dobbeni and Andersen added that they “experienced political pressure” during their tenure on the board, with state officials seeking to control Ukrenergo’s managerial appointments in violation of the established “competitive process.”
“With corporate governance under OECD standards being questioned, we see no option to continue our work on the Ukrenergo Supervisory Board,” the statement continued.
“The violation of corporate governance principles and the decision to dismiss its CEO without evidence of mismanagement is unacceptable and could affect Ukrenergo's future cooperation with ENTSO-E [European unified power grid] member operators.”
Yaroslav Zheleznyak, a Ukrainian MP and Deputy Chair of the parliamentary Finance Committee, said that “this means the entire Supervisory Board is collapsing.”
“There must be a majority of independent [Supervisory Board] members; this signifies significant issues with foreign credits and donors like the EBRD [European Bank for Reconstruction and Development], which explicitly called against this [Kudrytskyi’s] dismissal,” Zheleznyak said in a Telegram post.
He concluded by saying that “a major scandal is brewing, and it’s just starting.”