How VIP Corrupt Officials Hide in the Army from Justice

How VIP Corrupt Officials Hide in the Army from Justice

On October 29, 2024, the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) finally delivered a verdict in the case concerning the infliction of losses amounting to UAH 92 million to JSC "Ukrzaliznytsia" due to the procurement of diesel fuel at inflated prices. This case has been ongoing since 2017.

The court found guilty the former manager of the company "WOG Aero Jet" (part of the gas station network group) Anatoliy Savych, who is hiding from the investigation, and the former head of the accounting department of oil products and warehouse management of the branch "Production Supply Center" (PSC) of Valeriy Nikiforov’s "Ukrzaliznytsia".

The third accused, the former head of the PSC branch "Ukrzaliznytsia" Vitaliy Tsvihun, has so far avoided punishment. The judicial proceedings against him were suspended because two months before the verdict was announced, he was mobilized into the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

This was done on the basis of Article 335 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC): if the accused "was called up for military service during mobilization, in a special period, the court suspends the judicial proceedings against such an accused until release from military service."

The publication NLG.Media analyzed the Register of Court Decisions in May to examine the avoidance of responsibility through the application of the mentioned CPC article.

According to their data, since the beginning of 2022, more than 11 thousand cases have been suspended in this way. Most of them are thefts, road traffic accidents with injuries, and drug trafficking.

Economic Pravda focused its analysis on corruption proceedings. Criminal Code (CC) articles were considered only in the field of official activity (Articles 364-369). Since the beginning of 2022, the editorial office accounted for about 900 cases that were suspended due to the mobilization of defendants, with more than one hundred in the third quarter of 2024.

These are often quite high-profile cases. In addition to the former chief procurement officer of "Ukrzaliznytsia," a case was also suspended in this way against the former director of PJSC "United Mining and Chemical Company" Ruslan Zhurylo, who became famous for the phrase "less than five criminal cases do not interest me." He is suspected of causing losses of nearly UAH 300 million to the state company at that time.

The case concerning the former head of the Kirovohrad Regional State Administration Andriy Balon, accused of receiving a bribe, is also on hold. Due to mobilization, the case against the director of "Financial Company Zhytlo-Capital" Yehor Smilyi — a figure in the construction of the Central Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Facility for "Energoatom" by the company of former MP Maksym Mykytas — has also been suspended.

A year ago, the head of the All-Ukrainian Association "Automaidan" Kateryna Butko wrote about a group of judges accused of bribery who similarly avoid punishment. Both judicial and disciplinary from the High Council of Justice, which can be grounds for depriving them of their judicial pension and dismissal.

In Butko’s opinion, most of such mobilizations are a way to buy time and avoid punishment. According to Article 49 of the CC, a person is exempted from criminal liability if a certain period, depending on the gravity of the offense, has passed from the day of the offense to the day the verdict comes into legal force.

These suspicions are supported by the statistics collected by Economic Pravda over the past two years in terms of specific code articles. If for the "light" Article 367 CC ("negligence"), which does not provide for imprisonment and is guaranteed to end with fines, only 1% of suspended cases were counted due to the mobilization of defendants, then for the "serious" Article 368 CC ("receiving a bribe"), which provides for real imprisonment, 6% of the defendants decided to mobilize.

Meanwhile, the judges whose cases Butko analyzed serve in units that guard state facilities, training platoons, and territorial recruitment centers.

Source: Economic Pravda, WEEKLY CHART project