Former head of the State Geology and Subsoil Service Roman Opimakh traded in state land

A month ago, the controversial Roman Opimakh, who held this position since 2019, was finally dismissed from the post of head of the State Geology and Subsoil Service.

This is reported by "Fraza.ua".

Opimakh himself explained his dismissal by the completion of his five-year term and noted that during his leadership he succeeded in digitizing key State Geology and Subsoil Service services and significantly improving the agency’s efficiency and transparency.

However, Ukraine’s law enforcement agencies might be interested in examining other "achievements" of the head Opimakh.

According to the scheme presented below, it has long been known in Ukraine about the opaque manipulations of the State Geology and Subsoil Service and its leader.

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It is worth starting with the fact that Opimakh is a protégé of oligarch Viktor Pinchuk. According to the official version, Opimakh won the competition for the position of head of the State Geology and Subsoil Service in a fair fight. However, he was backed by a serious and influential lobby in the form of the Ukrainian billionaire.

Before his appointment to the State Geology and Subsoil Service, Opimakh was the executive director of the "Association of Gas Producing Companies", which primarily includes business structures from Pinchuk’s pool of assets. The connection between Pinchuk and Opimakh is also traced through Oleksandr Kamenchuk (the husband of Opimakh’s sister), who was Pinchuk’s business partner in gas producing companies "East Geological Union", "Intek Geo", and "Natural Resources".

After assuming the new position, Opimakh started off with a bang. Already in his first year of leadership, revenues to the state budget from the State Geology and Subsoil Service decreased 20 times — from 200 million UAH in 2019 to 10 million UAH in 2020. At the same time, the state budget plan for 2020 was 750 million UAH.

Over five years at the helm of the State Geology and Subsoil Service, Opimakh became a very wealthy man. This is evidenced by his 2024 declaration. The Opimakh family owns 4 apartments in Kyiv, a non-residential premise, and a parking space. In addition, since 2023, during the war, Opimakh has been renting an apartment in Spain, where his wife and daughter now reside.

Under Opimakh, the State Geology and Subsoil Service was repeatedly accused of opaque procedures for allocating special permits for exploring Ukraine’s subsoil. For instance, in 2019, the State Geology and Subsoil Service transferred a license for mineral resources use of the Western Tokarsko-Krasnyansk oil and gas area (Luhansk region) for an underpriced 1.6 million UAH to the firm "Nadra Carbon". The price is considered underpriced because the prospective reserves of the oil and gas area are estimated at 900 million cubic meters of gas. According to experts, this amounts to more than 5 billion UAH in revenue.

The opposite situation occurred when issuing permits for amber extraction at the Olshan site (Rivne region). The starting price was 323,000 UAH, and the auction winner was the company "Potential-Polissya" with an authorized capital of 5,000 UAH, which offered 521,000 UAH. Meanwhile, the company "Zakhidzemresurs", which offered 3.2 million UAH, was for unclear reasons deprived of the right to obtain the permit, according to order No. 486 of the State Geology and Subsoil Service dated November 4, 2020.

During the five years Opimakh led the State Geology and Subsoil Service, there were many similar stories. Meanwhile, according to the presented scheme, Ukrainian law enforcement knew about the corruption risks the leadership of the State Geology and Subsoil Service posed to the state budget of Ukraine, but turned a blind eye as not all "dark" stories ultimately came to light.

At the end of his term, Opimakh also found himself at the center of a corruption scandal that flared around the issuance of a permit for state land exploration. To remind the reader briefly, in 1997 JSC "Malin Stone Crushing Plant", which is part of the "Unigran" group, received a special permit from the State Geology and Subsoil Service for subsoil use of the Pyniazovytske field in Zhytomyr region. In 2023, sanctions were imposed by the NSDC against the owner of "Unigran", Ihor Naumets, for ties with the Russian Federation, and his assets were supposed to be transferred to the state. The sanctions also provided for the suspension of permits issued earlier. However, in March 2024, despite the sanctions, the State Geology and Subsoil Service restored the permits. The Kyiv Economic Court blocked this decision, but Opimakh’s department disagreed with the court’s ruling and filed an appeal. And on the same day, without waiting for the results of the reconsideration, the previous decision was approved contrary to the law and Ukraine’s state interests.

By the way, this happened already on November 14, i.e., after Opimakh’s official dismissal. At the same time, the procedure for reissuing a special permit, which usually takes weeks, was completed in one day with the personal presence of the already former head of the State Geology and Subsoil Service Roman Opimakh. This may indicate the official’s personal interest in this case and receiving personal dividends from its outcome.

What is the outcome of Opimakh’s five years of leading the State Geology and Subsoil Service of Ukraine? As we see from the above examples, there is no "transparency" as claimed by Opimakh. Instead, one can definitively state that yet another oligarchy-backed official has ensured his retirement and can retire peacefully and sip wine in Spain. This, in turn, affirms another long-known postulate: the war against oligarchs in Ukraine is very selective.