People’s Servant MP husband arrested on Russian search warrant

The Prosecutor’s General Office of Ukraine announced
on Nov. 14 that it has detained that day Russian citizen Aleksei Aliakin, the
husband of a People’s Servant MP, who was placed on international search in
2017 on a Russian notice of suspicion for his involvement in a large-scale
fraud case. Aliakin’s extradition will be decided in a court of law, an office
spokeswoman said, as reported by the pravda.com.ua news site. Aliakin twice
applied for Ukrainian citizenship since 2013, which had been denied by the
State Migration Service, she said. An appellate court last rejected Aliakin’s
appeal on Nov. 7 in his citizenship case. The search for Aliakin was renewed on
Nov. 11, she said.

Aliakin is the owner of the Progres construction firm
with business ties to Russian oligarch Pavel Fuks. In 2013, Aliakin declared
bankruptcy with a debt of RUR 500 mln.

In response to her husband’s detention, People’s
Servant MP Anna Skorokhod took the parliamentary tribune on Nov. 14 to accuse
the President’s Office of politically persecuting her and her husband for her
refusal to vote in favor of the bill creating the farmland market. She called
upon the president, the State Bureau of Investigations and law enforcement to
halt their abuse of authority.

The People’s Servant parliamentary faction duly voted
today to exclude Skorokhod from its membership. She was elected as a member of
The People’s Servant party to represent a single-mandate district in the Kyiv
region. In response to her accusations, Parliamentary Faction Head David
Arakhamia accused her of attempting to bribe MPs on several occasions and
lobbying the interests of “certain oligarch groups.”

Zenon Zawada: Skorokhod is at the center of a her second soap opera drama in
parliament in recent weeks after breaking down sobbing at the Oct. 31 session,
complaining that her amendments were overlooked in drafting a bill on natural
gas transit. It seems to us that Aliakin’s arrest is more related to the appellate
court’s Nov. 7 ruling than any voting that she engaged in. The Zelensky
administration has numerous political tactics, but primitive revenge maneuvers
against MPs who aren’t influential don’t seem to be among them. So we don’t see
this as any threat to democracy and rule of law in Ukraine, as Skorokhod has
alleged.