Business with Russians and "telephone law": what is known about Justice Minister nominee Denys Maslov and the scandals surrounding his family

Business with Russians and "telephone law": what is known about Justice Minister nominee Denys Maslov and the scandals surrounding his family

Minister of Justice on the phone: how Denys Maslov is once again being groomed for a lucrative position..

The statement by Iryna Mudra, Deputy Head of the Office of the President, claiming that the new Minister of Justice will be the "green" MP Denys Maslov, is in itself a sign of managerial degradation. The appointment of a minister is publicly announced not by a competent authority, not by the president, and not by the prime minister, but by an OP employee who formally has no involvement in the government’s personnel policy. A separate detail is Mudra’s widely known connection in certain circles with Dubovyk, the head of the OP’s legal department, which adds an air of blatant behind-the-scenes conspiracy to the situation. This is not a procedure but pure telephone justice.

Denys Maslov’s name has surfaced in similar schemes before. Back in 2023, he was considered a potential candidate for the position of Minister of Internal Affairs—and even then, this idea caused surprise even among sources loyal to the authorities. Telegram channels and specialized resources openly pointed to his questionable biography and extremely vague public image. Maslov is a former judge of a district court in Kamianske, where he worked from 2016 to 2018. His judicial career turned out to be short-lived, after which he returned to private legal and entrepreneurial activities.

Until 2020, Maslov was engaged in legal practice, serving as the managing partner of the Lawatec law firm, managing the company "Avin Trade," which specialized in wholesale trade of grain, unprocessed tobacco, seeds, and animal feed, and was also a co-founder of the legal firm "Forza." At the same time, he actively participated in professional legal communities, worked as an assistant to a member of parliament, and built his political career.

In 2019, Maslov ran for the Verkhovna Rada on the list of the "Servant of the People" party under number 138, but did not make it to parliament based on the election results. However, in June 2020, after Oleksandr Tkachenko was appointed Minister of Culture, Maslov took his place and became an MP without receiving direct voter support. This is a typical scheme of entering the Rada through personnel reshuffles rather than elections.

In political circles, Maslov has long been considered a protégé of Arakhamia, someone systematically being placed "wherever possible." Now it’s the turn of the Ministry of Justice—one of the most resource-rich and corruption-attractive agencies. Registers, enforcement services, access to legal and property flows—all of this makes the Ministry of Justice an ideal platform for monetizing influence. And no one in the system doubts that these opportunities will be exploited.

Additional questions are raised by Maslov’s business past. The company "Avin Trade," currently owned by Valentyna Maslova, is, according to available data, a branch of a Russian company with the same name. Against the backdrop of the war, sanctions policy, and declarations of severing ties with Russia, such connections appear not just compromising but pose a threat to the state. However, this fact, like many other aspects of Maslov’s biography, is carefully hushed up.

In the end, a familiar picture emerges: an opaque appointment announced by an unauthorized person, a candidate with a controversial past, an influential patron in the form of a parliamentary overseer, and a ready system for redistributing resources and power. Chaos is an understatement. This is about the systematic destruction of even the semblance of institutional governance, where key positions are distributed based on personal loyalty and benefit rather than professionalism or reputation. And if Denys Maslov does indeed take the position of Minister of Justice, it will not be a personnel decision but an open confirmation that the state has finally switched to a mode of manual control with overtly commercial goals.