Notorious Odysseys

At last Wednesday’s Kyiv briefing, Deputy Prosecutor General Oleksandr Atamaniuk, within the limits of his authority, informed those present on the state of investigation on the most publicized criminal cases. Most attention was paid to the Leninska Kuznia [Lenin’s Smithy] case, the proceedings on which were instituted by the results of a prosecutor’s examination of the observance of legal requirements in the sales of the Horlovka and Ivan Bohun amphibious personnel carrier. It appears that, after the division of the Black Sea Navy, “Greece’s Defense Ministry became interested in these ships,” and it signed a contract with Ukrspetseksport on January 24, 2000, “amounting over $80 million.” Then, in Mr. Atamaniuk’s words, “most of the money went to the Ukrspetseksport’s factory and was earmarked for completing the ships’ construction, and the remainder to the state budget.”

In this connection, the Deputy Prosecutor General stressed that “On June 5, 2000, resolution No. 906-16 was signed by then Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko, with Paragraph 1 reading that the Leninska Kuznia factory was included on the list of enterprises taking part in the ships’ sale.” What motivated this decision is still under investigation. The Prosecutor General’s Office believes that Paragraph 1 of the aforesaid resolution was illegal, since “Leninska Kuznia was not the ships’ owner,” and states that on November 21, 2000, (“when major works on the ships’ construction were completed”), “a contract was signed between the Ukrspetseksport state enterprise and Leninska Kuznia according to which the latter would sell the ships to the former for no more than 44 million hryvnias. Thus, somebody has got the budget hryvnias, while on January 31, 2000, Ivan Bohun safely went to the Greeks.

However, this was not the end of the Odyssey. According to Mr. Atamaniuk, part of the money received by Leninska Kuznia was intended for the completion of another amphibious personnel carrier, 013 (UAH 4.3 million), another part for the state budget, etc. Instead, “on the basis of the Cabinet of Ministers’ decision No. 906-16, 44.5 million hryvnias were transferred to a special account.” The investigation has ascertained that “over 41 million hryvnias of the sum intended for the state budget were allotted for dubious operations.” Mr. Atamaniuk claims that they were assigned for “the Torhovy Dim [Trading house] enterprise (almost 2 million hryvnias), Sklo-Moldova [Glass-Moldova] society (10 million hryvnias), etc.,” as well as for enterprises having, in the opinion of the Prosecutor General’s Office, all the signs of being bogus.

In sum, recall that a criminal case was instituted against Leninska Kuznia General Director Petro Blyndar. December 19, 2002, the Prosecutor General’s Office received sanction for his arrest from the Pechersk court of law. Mr. Atamaniuk remarked that “for his services to the country” and “because of the state of his health,” Mr. Blyndar is now free and also that a tax audit is now being conducted at Leninska Kuznia. Answering a follow-up question after the press conference, Mr. Atamaniuk explained that, although no proceedings have been instituted against the Ukrspetseksport officials allowing the illegal transaction, their role in this case remains under investigation.

Mr. Atamaniuk’s comments on the so-called Streshynsky case, which attracted even more attention and was used inside Ukraine in an attempt to discredit NSDC Secretary Yevhen Marchuk, were no less interesting. The prosecutor said that, in March 2003, a complete information exchange took place in Italy between the prosecutor’s offices of Kyiv and Turin. As a result, it was proven once again that “the Italian prosecutor’s office did not bring any action against Mr. Marchuk in connection with the case under investigation on arms trading.” Kievskie vedomosti has recently published detailed information on the joint operation by Ukrainian (Mr. Marchuk headed the Security Service of Ukraine at that time) and British Secret Service. This fact was corroborated last Wednesday by the Prosecutor General’s Office: “The Jadran Express ship (on which Streshynsky transported the arms — Author) was impounded with the assistance of the Ukrainian and British special services.” However, it is not quite clear why the Western special services did not “accompany” the vessel, which passed through Ukraine’s territory and was loaded with arms in Belarus, to quote Mr. Atamaniuk’s information, for the customer. The Deputy Prosecutor General said that the Italians “know who the customer is,” but many details of the Streshynsky case are still described as Italian state secrets.