Khimprom criminal network could not operate for years without government protection

9 November, 01:38 PM

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The "Khimprom" criminal group operated for years (Photo: Screenshot from a video by NABU and SAPO)

— This week will be a plenary week in the Verkhovna Rada, and, as I understand it, lawmakers may consider bills that would represent the country's political leadership's response to the Carthage scandal, which has revealed how closely the criminal underworld and Ukraine's law enforcement system may have become intertwined. What proposals, including legislative initiatives, might the opposition put forward? What would you be willing to support, and what would you oppose? For example, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has announced the reinstatement of asset declarations for Security Service of Ukraine employees. What is the opposition's position on this? And what additional measures might you propose?

— Obviously, we will support asset declarations, as we have insisted on them before. There is nothing surprising about that.

The problem is not legislation.

To a large extent, the problem lies in personnel policy, the lack of competitive selection procedures, professional competence and accountability. We cannot say we did not know this was happening within the Security Service of Ukraine or the National Police. Politicians know, journalists know. Those who are called the political elite, so to speak — I don't like that term — major business owners, everyone knows this is happening.

Everyone knows corruption exists. And everyone knew about Khimprom. Obviously, none of this would have been possible without protection from those in power.

Are we really supposed to believe that President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy did not know that people from Korostyshiv were apparently connected to former Security Service of Ukraine chief [Vasyl] Maliuk, as mentioned in the recordings? Everyone knew that, too.

That does not mean I want to make Maliuk the scapegoat. He truly played a heroic role in defending Ukraine and overseeing its defense. Under his leadership, the Security Service carried out many effective operations on Russian territory that served Ukraine's defense interests.

But at the same time, all this criminal activity was flourishing and continues to flourish.

So this is not about laws. The question is how we approach the situation our country is in and how responsibly we manage personnel appointments. Are we playing political games, preparing for elections and raising money for future campaigns, or are we actually thinking about what Ukraine needs to survive, establish credible institutions and join the European Union?

That, I think, is the main issue.

— You mentioned competitive selection procedures. I believe there is a bill in parliament proposing a competitive selection process for appointing the prosecutor general. As for reforming the State Bureau of Investigation, I think there have only been promises, and no bill has been introduced. In any case, even shortcomings in personnel policy can be addressed through legislation. And these laws could be passed if there is political will or perhaps pressure from the opposition. I'm not sure that would be the decisive factor, but they could be adopted as early as this week.

— Obviously, we, as the opposition, will support that.

Who introduces legislation? The government introduces bills. Parliament, of course, also has the right of legislative initiative. But we have a parliamentary majority. Even decisions about which bills are brought to the floor through the Conciliation Council are made by just one parliamentary faction. That is how Ukrainians voted.

Obviously, public pressure sometimes forces the majority to bring forward bills it does not want to consider. And the opposition generally supports those bills. But the opposition has too few seats to change the situation in parliament.

Nothing prevents competitive selection procedures from being held right now. I'm not talking specifically about the prosecutor general's office. We obviously support competitive selection for positions there, as well as for any positions in public administration.

But those in power are taking advantage of martial law. Under martial law, they have the right not to hold competitive selection procedures. And as soon as they have that right, they simply don't hold them. They don't care.

That is why our shared position should be to do everything possible to establish a dialogue with the authorities and make those in power feel responsible for what is happening now.

— You said that Khimprom's existence and continued operations in Ukraine were no secret to anyone, if I understood you correctly. When did you first become aware of it?

— For the past several years, I have known that a criminal organization called Khimprom existed and was terrorizing a significant part of Ukraine.

I did not know exactly how it operated or what its members were doing because my work focuses primarily on humanitarian policy. I certainly never noticed any Khimprom presence in the book publishing industry. I'm joking, of course.

But I have heard that name many times over the past several years.

— It's a thankless task to bring him up, but I wasn't the one who started it. I opened social media and saw a huge number of people sharing posts from 2020 or 2021 by the late pro-Russian politician Illia Kyva, who was killed by the SBU somewhere in Russia. He claimed that it was no secret that the Khimprom organization had been gaining momentum in Ukraine since 2019. Taking Kyva at his word is a questionable proposition. On the other hand, we can no longer ask him about it. But frankly, I was surprised. In this context, are there any additional explanations, reports or other information that you, as a member of parliament, would like to hear from law enforcement agencies?

— Obviously, we would like law enforcement agencies to be honest with us. But what we see is that only NABU and SAPO are actually doing their jobs among our law enforcement agencies. The others are part of an enormous mafia structure.

Obviously, not everyone is involved, because we also saw that head of an anti-drug trafficking unit who was fighting the U420 store network and whom this mafia wanted to kill...

— Dmytro Torhalo.

— They wanted to order his murder and have acid thrown at his wife. So obviously, there are decent law enforcement officers who do their jobs.

But they should come forward and speak honestly about this. The [Interior] Minister [Ivan Vyhivskyi] and the acting head of the Security Service of Ukraine [Oleksandr Poklad] should address it. Have we heard from him even once? Have we seen anything from him other than his announcement that he had dismissed those two officials?

How many scandals involving the Security Service have there already been? Obviously, Ukrainian society, especially now, and the international community need an honest conversation. We need to draw a line under this and start doing things differently.

But that depends on political will. Who is responsible for this during wartime? The commander in chief [Volodymyr Zelenskyy]. Because the president's powers expand during wartime. All these agencies and institutions are subordinate to him during the war. Not to [Serhii] Koretskyi, the prime minister, although Cabinet members also have a degree of authority over them.

But we are at war. The president, the head of the Security Service, the interior minister, perhaps the former minister, National Security and Defense Council Secretary [Ihor Klymenko], should come forward and say: "This ends now. This is destroying our ability to survive. It is weakening us. It is discrediting us in the eyes of our European partners."

And I believe that is where the greatest damage from everything happening lies.

"And we guarantee that from now on, we are changing the system. Everything will be transparent. This will never happen again."

But we are not seeing that step being taken.

— You saw the reaction of National Security and Defense Council Secretary Ihor Klymenko, who said he was stunned when he heard what the suspects were saying about him. By the way, the media, including us at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, repeatedly approached Ihor Klymenko for comment. But it turned out that he quietly gathered about 15 or 20 journalists for an off-the-record briefing, where he shared his thoughts, including saying that he was stunned. There was no open communication, however. Did you see that communication? What did you think of it? Can we simply take the interior minister's word that he did not know the scale of all these schemes? We now know there were people who resisted these activities within the Interior Ministry. Perhaps he was among those who resisted but, for various reasons, including the balance of power within the law enforcement system, could not resist them completely.

— First, in Ihor Klymenko's defense, I want to say that he genuinely could have been stunned, as he says. We've heard that phrase before from [former Ukrainian Chief Military Prosecutor Anatolii] Matios, remember?

— Also on Radio NV.

— But Klymenko might not have known. Someone could have used his name, saying, "I'll go and make arrangements." There is no evidence whatsoever that Klymenko knew anything about this or accepted any bribes. The same applies to [former lawmaker Oleh] Liashko. I see many accusations against them, but I am not accusing them of that.

However, he clearly bears direct responsibility for the existence of stores selling drugs across the country.

I went around and looked into it myself. I'm not an ordinary citizen; I'm a member of parliament. I tried to investigate this. In fact, I did investigate it. I won't go into how or by what means right now.

But when I saw these stores selling things, I didn't even go inside. I asked young people, "What do they sell there?" They said, "What do you mean? You legalized cannabis. That's what they sell there."

And obviously, the minister could not have been unaware of all this. That does not mean he took bribes. But Klymenko certainly should come forward now because this is a matter of national security.

And not just him. The head of the SBU and the current minister bear the same responsibility. Each of them should come forward and explain what is happening.

How is this possible? If the heads of their internal security units, who were supposed to ensure that such things did not happen within their agencies, were themselves running these operations, can you imagine how much leverage they had?

They can exert influence over every police officer or SBU employee who could lose their job.

If these people are involved themselves, it means they are leading these operations. It means everyone else also has the green light, and there is some kind of vertical corruption system linked to the mafia. These are not isolated individuals. And that is what needs to be addressed.

The president should also address this publicly, in words. Not by saying that new legislation will be introduced, and not simply by dismissing one or two people, but by providing an explanation.

Because the impression is that those damned NABU and SAPO investigators, whom they failed to finish off, have caught one criminal group, and the attitude is, "Well, we were unlucky this time, but we'll just carry on doing the same thing because that's how things work, and we'll keep fighting them."

Is that what it comes down to? That dialogue with society is missing.

— I also want to return to Maliuk. When he was dismissed earlier this year, the opposition was critical of the president's decision. If I remember correctly, European Solidarity, your political party, did not cast a single vote in favor of Maliuk's dismissal. Do you think it is possible that one of the reasons the president decided to dismiss Maliuk at the time was information he may already have had, perhaps not in full, about Maliuk's involvement in the activities of this criminal organization?

— We supported Maliuk because he heroically organized resistance and attacks. We remember all those operations, the attacks on the Crimean Bridge, Operation Spiderweb and the elimination of anti-Ukrainian criminals. Vasyl Maliuk deserves credit for that. And obviously, we respect him for it.

I don't know why Zelenskyy decided to dismiss him specifically. You would have to ask Zelenskyy.

The fact that this organization existed during Maliuk's tenure obviously suggests that he could not have been unaware of it, especially since he personally knew those people.

Some people said at the time, and are still saying now — I've read such speculation — that under Maliuk, the corrupt payments being delivered were used to support certain anti-Russian operations.

As you know, similar claims were made about the call centers. There were these "heroes," defenders of the call centers, who argued that they were scamming those Russian scoundrels.

Those call centers obviously scammed Russians, too. But they didn't care whom they scammed — Ukrainians or citizens of countries that are our allies, countries we ask for money. That was particularly outrageous to those countries.

And everyone turned a blind eye to it. Listen, I received repeated phone calls from scammers. I could barely keep up with blocking their numbers. And I imagine the same happened to you.

— Of course, it did.

— And why are they calling? I even filed police reports several times when this first started. I never received a response. Who allows them to do this? Surely there must be some way to stop them.

Obviously, law enforcement agencies supported this entire system. And these are the same people who are still in office today, and, forgive me, the same president. We cannot replace them because there is a war, and we cannot hold elections.

Everywhere I go in the West and other countries, I support President Zelenskyy as the leader of a country that is fighting a war. Well, he should support this society, too. Let's support one another.

Let's not brush aside the issue of mobilization or turn a blind eye to crime. Let's finally change this country together, even if everyone has serious sins in their past. Otherwise, we will have no future.

You know, I work on relations with Poland, and there is a phrase we often use: "We forgive and ask for forgiveness."

I am prepared to overlook everything. Not to grant legal forgiveness, because whether the law allows forgiveness is a matter of applying the law.

But as a citizen, I am prepared to forgive everything if the president and all these security agency chiefs come forward and say: "That's it. We are drawing a line under this. We are making everything transparent, introducing competitive selection procedures and working for our defense. Let's do this together. Let's unite parliament and society."

That is what we need. Otherwise, we are heading toward catastrophe.

— Perhaps some methods can be justified by the ends they achieve, but when we hear on these recordings that people are being beaten with hammers and plans are being discussed to throw acid at those who stand in their way, while on the other side of the scale we have Operation Spiderweb and other heroic operations...

— I want to clarify one thing. Those who beat people with hammers and discuss acid attacks must face the harshest possible punishment during wartime.

If the involvement of anyone in such acts is proven, even if that person is a hero three times over, they must be severely punished during wartime.

I was referring to negligence, carelessness and irresponsibility on the part of certain officials whose agencies allowed these things to happen, and who either did not know about them or paid no attention, provided they were not personally involved.

If they were involved, then obviously they must face severe punishment.

— You said this entire scandal would cause serious damage to Ukraine. What exactly do you mean? What kind of damage? How could it affect the attitude of Ukraine's international partners?

— Simply by giving them an excuse. You know, while our army is heroically defending us, there are people who, under Russia's influence, do not want to provide us with assistance. Some members of the U.S. administration, for example. They often say, "Why should we give money to this corrupt Zelenskyy?"

Obviously, they use such incidents as an excuse. The same thing happens in Europe. When Zelenskyy's former press secretary [Yuliia Mendel] attends a gathering of a far-right party that has a large voter base, their argument is, "Why should we support such a corrupt and terrible Ukraine?"

And how are we supposed to counter that? When I travel abroad, I say, "Wait a minute. Corruption exists in every country, but we have NABU and SAPO. We are fighting it ourselves, even without your help. Here are examples of successful investigations." But that argument cannot work forever.

Because when corruption operates at such a high level, when Prosecutor General [Ruslan Kravchenko] flees to Austria, it means these people do not care about the war or the future of this country.

Why, then, should foreigners or foreign societies, whom we ask for money, care about it? And obviously, our enemies around the world exploit this.

— How exactly could they use this particular scandal, Operation Carthage, now?

— Just like any other terrible scandal. I don't know whether the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council or the head of the Security Service travels for negotiations, but obviously, they should have contacts with their foreign counterparts, at least in Europe.

If we are saying that we may no longer receive intelligence from [the United States] and that we need to prepare to obtain intelligence from European sources, who is responsible for that?

Obviously, not only the Defense Ministry but also the National Security and Defense Council and the Security Service.

And how are responsible politicians from other European countries supposed to communicate with these people when they may be dealing with someone who personally leaked information to FSB agents?

And we have heard that these [suspects] collaborated with the FSB, haven't we?

What intelligence will they share with Ukraine if our Security Service, as is now being alleged, protects people who have ties to the FSB and work with it?

What trust can there be in Ukraine if we do not root this out and our leaders do not guarantee that it will never happen again?

Obviously, this damages our defense capabilities. There is no question about that.

And that is not even mentioning the societies whose citizens were defrauded by all these call centers. They, too, expect fair punishment and expect the authorities to change and acknowledge what happened.

Zelenskyy must demonstrate determination in combating such practices. Otherwise, he will lose their trust as well.

— Let me remind you of a particularly revealing moment in the recordings, when Western law enforcement officers shared information with their Ukrainian counterparts, and those Ukrainian officers then passed the same information to members of the criminal underworld. I think that episode will not go unnoticed by Western law enforcement agencies.

I want to return once again to National Security and Defense Council Secretary Ihor Klymenko. During that closed-door meeting with journalists, he also acknowledged that the state had effectively failed in its public communication efforts concerning mobilization. This is despite the fact that Klymenko himself, when he was interior minister, faced criticism over allegations that the police had distanced themselves from mobilization efforts. To what extent do you agree with him, and is there anything you would like to say to him in response?

— I agree. Mobilization has been derailed.

Because our politicians have constantly been counting on elections taking place at some point. Perhaps not anymore, or at least to a lesser extent now, although the subject still comes up from time to time.

And there are more people who are not serving than those who are.

I agree with many of those who have written about this.

In particular, Pavlo Kazarin, who wrote that we have two societies.

There is the military society, where there is a shortage of personnel, where people do not know when they will be demobilized and remain in service without any prospect of leaving.

And then there are people who are out there living their best lives.

Obviously, from the very beginning, mobilization was an unpopular subject. And because the authorities, for reasons I do not understand, expected the war to end quickly, an effective mobilization system was never established.

I have never once heard the president of Ukraine regularly call on young people to enlist and tell them that it is their duty.

What I see is soldiers having to find recruits themselves.

It is absurd when military personnel have to go out onto the streets and catch people who are trying to evade service. And then those same soldiers are cursed at and subjected to the worst insults.

Obviously, I would also like everything to be done according to the law. Those who detain people who are not serving should detain only those who are breaking the law.

And properly trained police officers should accompany them for that purpose. You cannot simply grab someone off the street and take them somewhere.

But on the other hand, someone has to defend the country.

Because when the army does not have enough personnel, those who are serving die sooner.

Unfortunately, I know this from the experiences of many people I know.

When soldiers cannot be rotated out of their positions because there are not enough personnel, they become exhausted.

Instead of spending two weeks at a position, they remain there for one, two, three or four months. Then an enemy sabotage and reconnaissance group arrives, and those soldiers are killed because they are no longer even capable of defending themselves. Do you understand?

Meanwhile, other people are out partying.

Who is supposed to address this?

Obviously, the state. Obviously, the commander in chief and the government must introduce the relevant legislation, advocate for it themselves and publicly explain why it is necessary.

At the same time, there must be an effective system of exemptions from mobilization.

Of course, when our entire energy infrastructure is being destroyed, we should not be sending police to round up energy workers, as the president once said.

Instead, we should ensure that they receive proper exemptions and adequate pay so that these heroic people can repair our energy infrastructure under drone attacks and maintain our sewage and water supply systems.

The same applies to people working in the defense industry. It is perfectly reasonable for them to be exempt from mobilization.

Anyone who has a legitimate exemption should be allowed to do their job.

Anyone who is ill has the right to a fair military medical examination, but they must actually undergo it rather than simply having a box checked.

And when irresponsibility comes from the very top...

Senior leaders are irresponsible when they fail to explain how important mobilization is.

A doctor who declares a sick person healthy is irresponsible, because that person then suffers in the army and cannot contribute effectively.

But those who constantly speak out against mobilization are also irresponsible.

They stand at the parliamentary rostrum and shout about how terrible the people at the Territorial Recruitment Centers are, without saying a single word about the need to serve.

Those people completely demotivate society.

And that is precisely why Russian media broadcast their speeches.

They are the very people cited by those who want Ukraine to lose.

That's the situation we are living in.

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