Lawyer Pavlo Kuftyryev, under the guise of eco-protection, continues raider seizures of assets, - investigation

The Political Game Called “Ecological Protection”

In Ukraine, a number of public organizations have recently been established, whose main goal on paper is the protection of ecology. However, in Ukrainian realities, the issue of harmful emissions and deforestation increasingly becomes a tool in corporate and political games. Under the guise of various “green” slogans, “eco-activists,” the vast majority of whom have not even received any environmental education, flood officials’ offices with complaints and collect signatures from the local population, promising substantial sums “for compensation of the damage caused” by the enterprise.

As a result, instead of developing business and generating profit from which significant taxes are paid to budgets, the enterprise receives monthly “bonuses” in the form of numerous inspections during which activities are suspended or completely stopped. As a result, hundreds and thousands of workers are left without salaries or jobs at all.

Today, the victims of “ecological raider attacks” by eco-raiders are a number of enterprises cooperating with the “BRSN-Nafta” brand, which have attracted the attention of notorious officials at various levels. Among those involved is Pavlo Kuftyryev, head of the All-Ukrainian CBO “Ukrainian League of Lawyers.”

What Pavlo Kuftyryev is Known For

The name Kuftyryev has been appearing in various media since 2006. Several publications, including “Obkom,” reported attempts at raider takeovers of pharmaceutical company “Darnytsia” and the “Kyiv Technical Paper Factory”, “Ukragrozhilyebudstroy”, among others. Each time, Pavlo Kuftyryev participates in negotiations on the raiders’ side, with the media associating him with the Pryvat group and Mykhaylo Kiperman.

Last year, Kuftyryev tried to enter the Verkhovna Rada with the “Servant of the People” team list along with several of his people. Although he did not make it into the list, members of his “team” Oleh Bondarenko and Oleksandr Kopylenko were elected, receiving leadership positions in profile committees. Moreover, according to information posted on the official web portal of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Pavlo Kuftyryev is an aide-consultant to the People’s Deputy from the “Servant of the People” party, head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Foreign Policy and Inter-Parliamentary Cooperation, Oleksandr Merezhko.

At the beginning of this year, according to unofficial data, Mr. Kuftyryev became an adviser to the head of the SSU Ivan Bakanov. People who have the opportunity to communicate with Pavlo Kuftyryev claim that he bragged about his adviser certificate for the head of the SSU. However, confirming this information was not possible, as the SSU refused to provide data on the head of the service’s advisors. No other official confirmations of this information could be found in open sources.

However, in the program “Nashi Hroshi”, they managed to capture how SSU counterintelligence officer Yevhen Sytnyk was visiting the “famous” restaurant of Mykola Tyschenko “Velur”, where almost every day, despite the quarantine, government representatives and oligarchs met, as well as Kuftyryev himself. The publication Liga.net also provides similar data.

As reported by Strana.ua, after these meetings, Mr. Kuftyryev went to a meeting at the business center “Millennium,” where the offices of Kolomoiskyi’s structures are located.

Who Facilitates Kuftyryev’s Plans in the Verkhovna Rada?

Kuftyryev tries to get close to various diametrically opposed financial-political groups. To gain the favor of people close to the President’s Office, Kuftyryev positions himself as a representative of the interests of the Pryvat group. At the same time, he attempts to become closer to Serhiy Lyovochkin.

In addition, Kuftyryev has connections with the Vice Speaker of the VR - Ruslan Stefanchuk. They often meet within and outside the walls of the VR. According to the Holos Narodu portal, they are united by the participation of the "citizen" Kuftyryev in preparing a bill on people’s rule and direct democracy.

What Ecological Raid Looks Like

An organized criminal group of fraudsters under the guise of a public ecological organization “works” with residents (mostly pensioners) of a settlement, promising them large payments from an enterprise located nearby for significant harm allegedly caused to the local environment. Then the will of the outraged people is easily transformed into million or billion-dollar lawsuits against this enterprise.

To organize the scheme of raider pressure on enterprises cooperating with the “BRSN-Nafta” brand, Kuftyryev specifically created the public organization “Fund for the Liquidation of Consequences of the Vasylkiv Tragedy,” chaired by Oleh Vernyk.

The reason for the scam that Kuftyryev chose was the fire at the oil depot in the village of Kryachky, Vasylkiv district in 2015. As reported by Capital.ua, local residents were promised large sums of money, which could be obtained by lawsuits for moral harm. Kuftyryev obtained an unprecedented court ruling to arrest all assets of enterprises cooperating with the “BRSN-Nafta” brand. Some enterprises with similar names, but unrelated to the famous gas station network, were also seized.

Two years ago, Judge Halas of Desnianskyi District Court of Kyiv opened proceedings on a claim by the “Fund for the Liquidation of Consequences of the Vasylkiv Tragedy” against several enterprises, believed by the plaintiff to be related to the Vasylkiv oil depot fire. The initial claim’s subject was compensation for damages in a record amount for Ukrainian judicial practice - almost 1.3 billion hryvnias, with a court fee of only 1,762 hryvnias, when payable by law - 616,700 hryvnias. In September 2018, the judge imposed arrest on all movable and immovable property of the defendants and funds.

However, the story did not end there. On June 16, 2020, Judge Halas satisfied the public organization’s petitions, involving several enterprises as co-defendants, which have no relation to the events in Vasylkiv in 2015, and agreed with the increase of claims to an astronomical sum of 2,677,058,400 hryvnias, this time without any court fee payment (meanwhile, courts across Ukraine complain about a lack of funding even for purchasing paper and postal stamps).

The next day, with lightning speed, Halas, without summoning the parties, imposed arrests on all the real estate and movable property, as well as the funds of already new co-defendants, thus effectively blocking their business activities. This arrest immediately gained legal force, allowing Kuftyryev to finally realize his raiding aspirations.

As a result of the overtly characterless arrest, Judge Halas has made it so that the newly involved enterprises, unrelated to the five-year-old events in Vasylkiv, are currently suffering from lawlessness and may simply stop their business activities. For them, this means losing competitiveness in the market, being unable to meet their obligations to contractors, and failing to pay salaries and other compulsory payments to the budget, which is essentially driving an enterprise to bankruptcy.

This helps raiders achieve their goal - to extract funds from enterprises cornered, with the only way out to make concessions to extortionists and buy out in exchange for stopping pressure and lifting arrests from property and accounts.

A New Tool in the Hands of Environmental Raiding - the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights

According to the statement of the Fund’s head Oleh Vernyk, addressed to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Commissioner for Human Rights, Lyudmyla Denysova, representatives of the Ombudsman’s Secretariat, began conducting monitoring visits to a completely different oil depot owned by LLC “BRSN-Nafta” (which, by the way, is located 100 km away from Vasylkiv), to allegedly establish human rights violations. Moreover, Denysova repeatedly wrote groundless and unproven appeals to the Prime Minister of Ukraine, based on which orders were issued for unplanned inspections by the State Emergency Service and ecological inspection agencies.

For the past half-year, Denysova and her staff have been conducting various monthly inspections of “BRSN-Nafta.”

“Having studied the documents, we found that all inspections, initiated solely by the Commissioner for Human Rights, Lyudmyla Denysova, took place at the request of citizen Oleh Vernyk,” says lawyer Maryna Sakhoshko, who defends the “BRSN-Nafta” company. “Unfortunately, Denysova responds promptly to Vernyk’s requests, continuing the baseless attacks on business.”

Lawyer Sakhoshko notes that there are over five hundred oil depots across Ukraine in operation, but “Vernyk, who does not reside in the specified area, is only interested in the depot belonging to LLC “BRSN-Nafta.”

According to her, Vernyk uses every possible method to create obstacles for real-sector enterprises that provide thousands of jobs and pay large taxes to the state budget of Ukraine. “Thus, in his activities, we see completely different personal goals not associated with the protection of the population’s rights,” notes Maryna Sakhoshko.

Who is Next?

In the Mykolaiv region, a public organization “Stop Sludge” was registered, whose founders, according to journalists’ investigation of “Stop Corruption,” are closely associated with our hero. Most likely, one of the region’s major enterprises is facing a wave of now-familiar methods: lawsuits for large amounts, business operation problems, and more.

Therefore, Ukrainian enterprises that provide thousands of jobs, regularly pay taxes to budgets, help develop local infrastructure, and more, need to be prepared for the possibility that one “fine” day, they might face unplanned inspections. Then, another one. And yet another. And so will go on until “loyal” judges make decisions to arrest property, obliging to pay astronomical damages... And guilty of this may be an activist through whom government masters implement schemes of extortion and corporate takeover, exploiting the theme of environmental protection.

So, do all environmental defenders genuinely aim to preserve the environment? Or is it another exploitation of a worrying issue for simple pressure on enterprises and the “stealing” of business? Is it actually possible to change these schemes in our country? Answers to these questions remain open...