Combating corruption

A case against Serhiy Golovatiy in February 2016 became one of the two that were mentioned by the President Petro Poroshenko in his letters to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, Prosecutor General’s Office and the Cabinet of Ministers calling to actively engage against corruption. Since April 2016 – the case has been in Podil District Court of Kyiv city. Since then there have been around 40 hearings. On the one hand, compared to other cases – this one shows good dynamics. On the other hand – taking into account how creative the defense is in dragging the process, it will take long to come to an end. In Spring of this year the court finished researching the evidence provided by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office. In particular, the court was provided with videos showing how former Head of the Unit of State Expertise of Dual-Use Goods of the Department for State Expertise of the State Service of Exports...

Indeed, Kolomoisky invested in Cyprus, specifically by establishing there a PrivatBank branch, which was heavily used for laundering funds from Ukraine. To avoid collapse of the financial sector, the government of Ukraine nationalized PrivatBank, the largest bank of the country, in December.  This cost Ukrainian taxpayers at least $5 billion — more than 10 percent of the entire annual state budget, equivalent to what the nation spends each year now on defense and security. The bank went insolvent merely because its management was regularly issuing huge loans to its beneficiaries, who would never return them. Prior to nationalization, the National Bank of Ukraine gave to PrivatBank about Hr 30 billion in refinancing loans, which bank’s management was obliged to use for restructuring debts of the bank. However, just in 2014, Kolomoisky, immediately after receiving the NBU money, issued multimillion-dollar loans to a set of affiliated companies, which in turn transferred ...

The Kremlin’s political-military campaign in Eastern Ukraine threatens both Kyiv and the rest of Europe three years after Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea. The Kremlin – in violation of its obligations under the ‘Minsk II’ ceasefire agreements – has fueled the conflict in pursuit of its grand strategic objective to assert dominance over the former Soviet Union. Russian President Vladimir Putin has shown no desire to withdraw his forces despite his failure to develop proxy forces capable of independently extending his campaign of subversion across Ukraine. Putin will continue to extend and exploit the war to destabilize Ukraine and prevent its further integration with the West until faced with costs that change his calculus. This paper demonstrates that Russia’s proxy forces operating in Eastern Ukraine - the Donetsk (DNR) and Luhansk (LNR) Peoples’ Republics - continue to pose a threat to the security of Ukraine and Europe. These proxies only retain the capability to fight th...