Poroshenko-era official Hrymchak released under house arrest

Yuriy Hrymchak, the
former deputy minister of temporarily occupied territories and internally
displaced persons, was released from jail on Jan. 30 and placed under 24-hour
house arrest by a court, the pravda.com.ua news site reported. Hrymchak is
required to wear an electronic bracelet, not leave his residence, appear for
questioning and court hearings, and surrender his passport. A close associate
to former Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, Hrymchak was arrested on Aug. 14
as part of a string operation by law enforcement in which he allegedly accepted
a bribe of USD 480K to influence judges and culture ministry officials for
favorable decisions. Hrymchak’s lawyer has insisted the sting operation was an
illegal setup intended to intimidate officials of the Poroshenko
administration.

Zenon Zawada: Yet another high-profile state
official has been released from jail after a highly publicized arrest without
any signs of a court trial to begin. If this were one case, it wouldn’t
indicate any trends in the Ukrainian courts or policies by the Zelensky
administration. But since Hrymchak’s case is among a handful of similar
high-profile releases (including Oleksandr
Yefremov, Serhiy Pashynskiy and Yaroslav Dubnevych, we can reach
the conclusion that the courts are not especially concerned about high-profile
prosecutions. Moreover, the Zelensky administration isn’t especially concerned
about timely and successful high-profile prosecutions, nor is it submitting
legislation to ensure they occur.

At the time of
Hrymchak’s arrest, we still believed it was possible that his close associate
Lutsenko, and former President Poroshenko, would be prosecuted. Now we see
these likelihoods as close to zero, with the Zelensky administration pursuing
the same policy as its predecessors, which is using arrests and temporary
jailings to intimidate political opponents, rather than establish justice. The
lack of criminal prosecutions in Ukraine sends the signal that power and money
can gain immunity from prosecution. Initiatives like the Investment Nanny and Anti-Raid Office only apply a small band-aid to what
is otherwise a wide, gaping wound in Ukraine’s investment case.