Former Party of Regions officials draw legal action in recent weeks

Several members of
the defunct Party of Regions, led by former President Viktor Yanukovych, have
drawn legal actions in recent weeks. Most recently, search warrants were issued
on Sept. 5 for Oleksandr Vilkul, the ño-head of the Opposition Bloc party, and
Dmytro Kolesnikov, a member of the party’s political council, who were also
named suspects the same day in alleged abuse of authority committed in 2011 and
2012, former Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko alleged on Facebook on Sept. 6.
At the time, they were serving in the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Administration,
during which Vilkul – having been the administration head – is alleged to have
engaged in illegal land rezoning and Kolesnikov is alleged to have illegally
privatized a state enterprise. In response to the Facebook post, the Opposition
Bloc party issued a Sept. 6 statement dismissing the claims as a political
farce, having not received notice of their being named suspects and not being
in hiding.

Meanwhile, the
former first deputy prosecutor general Renat Kuzmin, who is currently an MP
with the Opposition Platform For Life party, has ceased to be on the search
list of Ukraine’s Internal Affairs Ministry as of Sept. 5, the bihus.info news
site reported. In October 2017, Kuzmin was named a suspect in criminal charges
of misappropriating state property and illegal construction. In an Aug. 21
statement, Kuzmin admitted to have been in hiding – on Ukrainian territory –
since the collapse of the Yanukovych administration in winter 2014, but denied any
criminal activity. The Prosecutor General’s Office said he had been in
illegally occupied Crimea for a certain period during this time.

Raisa Bohatyriova,
the former secretary of the National Security and Defense Council and former
vice prime minister under former President Yanukovych, was arrested on Aug. 27
upon her arrival in Ukraine from Belarus and released on UAH 6 mln bail the
next day, the pravda.com.ua news site reported. The Prosecutor General’s Office
named her a criminal suspect in October 2014 on charges of misappropriating
large sums of budget funds in medical procurements. Bohatyriova is widely
recognized for representing the interests of Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine’s largest
oligarch who controls a large portion of Ukraine’s electricity production and
steelmaking, among other industries.

In a rare interview
published on Sept. 2, Rinat Akhmetov, the Donetsk-based oligarchs who was the
main sponsor of the Party of Regions, denied any criminal activity in his
business and political activity, particularly any involvement with the
terrorist forces in the Donetsk and Luhank regions. He laid full blame for the
warfare in Donbas on Russian President Putin, over which he and other oligarchs
(including former President Poroshenko and Ihor Kolomoisky) have had little
ability to influence. “I am talking about the collective Putin,” Akhmetov said.
“If we are to lay out all the situations by points and cells, all the threads
will lead to the top, to Putin. Everything else is details and small change.
All those activists, the arriving tractor drivers and miners without knowledge
of our region, are tactical decisions that came from Russia.”

Akhmetov also
claimed to have 73 loyal MPs in the current convocation of parliament, though
the Opposition Bloc party that he backed failed to qualify in the July
elections. “It possible there will be more soon,” he said, declining to name
any of them. “We are talking with many. We will explain the situation, how
everything is working, and what needs to be done in order for everything to
keep working.”